Blog Writing Tips to Success

One of the most frustrating things about writing a blog is how slow most tend to be to take off.  You can write blog after blog post but nothing seems to happen. (Read my second post to this blog from Dec. 26, 2008) You hear about some bloggers who have followings into the thousands. So why doesn’t anyone want to read your blog? There can be several reasons.

First, let’s separate the men from the boys and the women from the girls. Big-name bloggers usually have large followings because of the controversial topics which they cover. Celebrity bloggers have their ear to the ground and follow every gossipy lead. Then there are the do-gooder bloggers who are out to change the world with their posts. There are many blogs on every conceivable subject.  So your blog may not be standing out in the crowd because there are so many others like it.

When planning your blog, set some realistic goals. Know your schedule and abilities. There’s no rule that says you have to post every day. Start out by posting weekly. Successful blogs don’t have to appear daily.

One of the biggest mistakes beginning bloggers make is that they write on and on. Your readers don’t have time to read long, involved articles. If you have something to say, say it—in 500 words or less. If a topic is too complicated to cover in that amount of words, divide it into two parts. (See my first posts on blogging of August 1 and 8, 2014.) And if you can say all you need to in less than 500 words, do so. Don’t try to pad your blog.

Another mistake beginning bloggers make is not proofreading their work. Nothing turns off readers like spelling and grammatical errors. This isn’t Facebook or Twitter. Correct any mistakes as soon as you discover them. Remember, if you’re aiming at a large audience, you need to make your blog as professional as possible.

Be positive. Don’t air your personal grievances publicly. Look at what’s happened to the presidential campaign. Negativity turns readers off. Offer your readers supportive, inspirational, and informational material.

When writing a blog, avoid using longer paragraphs. This isn’t academic writing. You should be writing in a conversational style. Break your content into shorter paragraphs. And don’t forget to use subheads when appropriate.

Do whatever you can to make your blog come alive. Always look for new angles on your subject. And don’t be afraid of writing on the same topic at different times. A new angle on it is always good. When you really get rolling, you may even consider inviting guest bloggers to post to your blog.

One of the most important things you can do to make your blog successful is to be yourself. Write as you talk. Don’t try to sound intellectual. Find your voice. While it’s your content that draws readers, it’s your personality that keeps them coming back.  Let your readers get to know you.

To get more people to read your blog, you’ll need to include links within your posts whenever possible. You can link to past posts on your blog, other blogs, and Web site that provide more information. Remember, links help to increase search engine rankings.

Every blog, even this one on writing, benefits from at least one image. Images are a part of the social media experience, so use them whenever you can.

Don’t forget to respond to blog comments. Check your comments periodically if you get a few and more frequently if your posts generate a lot of them. While not all comments deserve a response, do respond to those that do. You may even want to respond with a “Thanks for reading my blog.”

To spread the word, post your blog to as many social media outlets as possible. But don’t’ post to just any outlet. Make sure the people following those you post to are interested in your topic. Facebook and Twitter are the two best. Google Plus is a close second.

Now get blogging! Using these tips will help your efforts become a success.

Dreams of an Indie Author

With the advent of digital book publishing, many beginning writers think that all they have to do is write a book and readers will rush to Amazon to buy it. Today’s indie (independent) authors have realized the sad fact that books don’t sell themselves.

Even when writers relied on print book publishers to get their books to market, the percentage of those who earned enough from royalties to make a living at book writing was relatively low. True, though royalty percentages have increased from lows of 8-10 percent of a book’s price—sometimes the net price (the amount paid by wholesalers)— to 50 percent for ebooks, the chances that they would have earned their advances were slim. While bestselling authors can make a killing—for example the author of the Harry Potter books—most only scrape by.

When writers had books published by big-name publishers, they assumed that their publisher would help promote their books. In recent years, publishers promoted most books less and less, leaving that up to the authors. Indie authors, on the other hand, must not only write their books, but promote them as well. Some spend twice as much time on promoting their books as they did writing them.

Before getting depressed and deciding not to write that book you’ve been planning, let’s take a moment to look at what you need to do to make it a success.

Write for  your readers, not yourself. While you may be writing a book on a subject that’s near and dear to you, chances are that it won’t be near and dear to your readers. Beginning writers often ignore that the reader’s interest is the most important part of the writing process. Whatever you write about, you must relate it to your readers in order for them to react to and enjoy it.

If you’re writing a memoir, don’t assume your story is of any interest to anyone but yourself, your family and your friends. Unless you are an A-list celebrity or have done something truly extraordinary that makes a stranger’s jaw drop, readers won’t buy your book.

Be sure to have someone else edit your book. Editing a book is an important part of the process, but it’s not something you can or should do. An editor sees your book with fresh eyes, not only to pinpoint grammatical problems but also problems with content and order. Find a someone who edits books rather then giving it to a friend to look over.

Start promoting on social media at least six months before you plan to launch your book. You’ll need to spend several hours each day on social media interacting with fans, building rapport by providing interesting content. Tease them with short excerpts and little-known facts about your subject. Above all, learn all you can about marketing and promotion.

Avoid writing about trending subjects. While it’s great to write about a subject that’s trending on social media, by the time you actually get your book finished, it probably won’t be trending anymore.

Don’t plan on earning a living from indie writing anytime soon. Print publishers are paying out shrinking advances, and many are only purchasing one book a year from each writer. Agents take 15 percent of that and the IRS takes 20-30 percent. What you’re left with isn’t much. In fact, indie writers without some additional sources of income will find making a living a challenge.

Organizing for Success

You’re in the midst of a project and you need some information that you know you have in a file from a previous article. But try as you might, you just can’t put your hands on that file. After an hour or more looking for it, you become frustrated and give up. By now, the motivation you had to continue writing has passed, so you do something else. Annoying as this situation may be, it’s an all-to-common occurrence among writers. If you were better organized, perhaps this wouldn’t happen.

Even in today’s seemingly paperless world, writers usually amass a huge volume of paper files and books. Most like to have information at their fingertips. And while you can easily search for anything on the Internet, there are some offline sources that you’ve gathered that you prefer to use.

So how can you organize your writing office for the most efficiency which will eventually lead to more writing jobs. Having information at hand means that you can complete jobs faster and in the end increase your income.

To get organized, it’s best to start out with a plan. Think like a journalist. The key is the five W’s—who, what , when, where, and why—plus how. Answer these concretely to know what to keep and what to discard.

Naturally, you’ll want to keep a file on each article and story your write and several, if not a whole file box full, for each book. All those files will take up valuable space. If you don’t allow for them in your overall plan for your office, then you will be undermined later on.

Photos of home offices in magazines and on the Internet show perhaps one or two filing cabinets. That’s just unrealistic. While they may contain frequently used files, all the rest of the files must be hidden. In fact, you should consider a second storage area in your home for your archived files. These are all the ones from finished writing projects. While you may be lucky to have a basement, attic, or garage in which to store them, others living in smaller spaces may have to resort to offsite self-storage, which over time can be expensive.
                                       
You need to get organized from the start to increase productivity, but it’s never too late to start. Don’t try to do it all at once. Organize one part of your office at a time----books, files, research notes, photos, etc.

Let’s begin with files, both computer and paper. Start by finding the right containers. Filing cabinets work for files used often while cardboard filing boxes, sold at office-supply stores, work well for archived files. In the beginning, you’ll probably combine subjects in one box, but later on, you’ll need to divide boxes up by subject. Keep your system logical to make it easy to find what you want. Alphabetizing always helps.

Do the same with your computer files. Don’t follow Window’s or MAC’s plan and put all your files in one folder. Think of the folders in your computer the same way you think of those in your filing cabinets and boxes. In fact, you may want to create dividers for your paper files that match the names of the folders in your computer that contain related files.

A good way to ensure that you don’t lose any of your work is put install a second hard drive—or  have someone else do it for you. Another alternative is to use an external hard drive that connects to our computer via a USB cable. Either way, your files will be safe if your computer crashes. Unless your second hard drive, dedicated to your data, fails, your files will be safe because when a computer crashes, it’s the main drive that does so.

Next week, we’ll look at continuing the process, but before then, create a plan of organization and make an Organizing To-Do List.

Gather Ye Building Blocks

Today, people put a lot of stock into experience. You can get college credit for it when pursuing a degree. You can get a better job because of it. And as a freelance writer, experience can help you climb to the next market level.

Job applications and HR (Human Resource people—although at times they may seem more resource and less human) lead people to think that only the experiences they’ve had in a particular area related to the job are important. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. And in freelance writing, all types of experience count—not just writing experiences but life experiences as well.

Perhaps you began your career as a worker delivering prescriptions for a mom-and-pop pharmacy. Think of all the people you came in contact with. Then think of all the situations you needed to grapple with while doing your job—grumpy people, old, sickly people, angry people, strange people, and those that were just plain nuts. Think of the weather conditions you had to endure to get those prescriptions out to them. How you coped with them and the situations is your experience.

You say, “What does that have to do with freelance writing?” Believe it or not, a lot.

Every job you’ve had, every life experience leads to another. All the information gets stored in your brain for future use. Your mind uses all your experiences as resources to help cope with future ones. So the experience you gained dealing with all those people should eventually help you in dealing with editors—grumpy editors, old editors, angry editors, strange editors, and those that are just plain nuts.

Let’s look at the flow of experiences for a particular writer. Let’s call him Joe. Joe started his writing career working on the staff of his high school yearbook. When he went to college, he joined the staff of his college paper. While working on the college paper, Joe started writing reviews of movies, a favorite interest of his. An editor at the local town newspaper saw Joe’s reviews and asked him if he’d do some for her. While the pay wasn’t that great, it was a start.

Joe’s interest in movies led to a broader interest in media. After college, he wrote reviews of not only films, but of other forms of media. All the while, Joe continued to improve his writing. He eventually got a job on the staff of a small pop culture magazine. But the pay wasn’t enough to live on, so Joe pursued his studied area of expertise, business management, and eventually became the manager of a large regional office for a big corporation.

And while he enjoyed his daily work, his heart longed for the time when he could spend hours sitting at his home computer writing.

The trick to making your experiences work for you is to first identify them. Most people never really look at all the experiences they’ve had up to the present time in their lives. You’ve got to network those experiences and make them work for you.

While writing media reviews, Joe became friends with a movie producer. A few years later, the producer introduced Joe to some public relations people who promoted movies and videos. It was then that Joe learned about the movie business in depth. This led to a short gig as a movie columnist for a regional magazine.

Once he had his foot in the door, the rest, as they say, is history. Joe began to get assignments from editors of a variety of magazines. They were looking for someone who knew what went on in the movie biz. Then Joe hit the big time with an article in the Chicago Tribune. That led to more assignments.

So whether your experience is in writing, itself, or in the subject areas you write about, you need to always seek better assignments. You need to climb the ladder to freelance writing success one experience at a time.

To Specialize or Not to Specialize

In marketing today, the catch word is “niche.” Practically every new business has to develop a niche market or it won’t survive in today’s tough economy. Niche marketing is all about targeting the right customers and for non-fiction writers in particular that means the right group of readers. Few magazines today publish general content. Most specialize in a particular subject area with its own group of dedicated readers. And to a non-fiction writer, like myself, targeting a group of readers means developing a specialty.

While some writers are generalists—writing about any subject for any market—the most successful ones specialize in writing about just one or two subjects.

So how do you develop a specialty? Begin by looking over the subjects you’ve written about already and see if you’ve written about some multiple times. If one subject stands out, perhaps, with some added subject and market research, you could develop it into a specialty. If none of the subjects you’ve previously written about stand out, consider you interests. Often specialties grow out of a writer’s special interests or hobbies.

Take my path for example. I began writing articles about traveling to various destinations because I like to do that. I wrote about all sorts of places, but go nowhere. Rejections piled up faster than I could write new articles. Eventually, after an eye-opening trip to Mexico, I began writing about that country. First a little, then more and more. Opportunities opened up for me to travel down to Mexico several times a year. By that time, I realized I liked writing about Mexico and discovered a wealth of topics to write about. So I began reading everything I could on the country while continuing to write about it. I explored lots of topics, from history to beaches to culture, food, and traditions. Soon over half the articles I was writing were on Mexico. I had developed a specialty.

One of my special interests is antiques. I love to collect things and to find out more about them, I began writing about them. At first, I wrote on antiques in my collection, then I started branching out to include ones I didn’t own. I found I especially liked writing about antique furniture. Eventually, writing about antiques and collectibles developed into a second specialty.

It takes as long as two years to fully develop a specialty. It’s not just a about gathering topics to write about, but also learning in depth about the subject and finding markets for your work.

The main advantage in specialization is the amount of knowledge you amass about a particular subject over time. The more you learn, the more opportunities will come your way as you become an expert on your chosen subject. And expertise is what you need to write books on your subject.

Look Before You Leap

When writing a book, most writers begin by doing just that. They bury themselves in researching their topic or story and spend months, if not years, writing about it. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? But how many of them actually get their book published?

In general, most people feel they have something so important to say that every publisher will want to publish their book and every reader will run out to buy it. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

This attitude of self-importance originates way back in school—as far back as first grade. Most teachers don’t mean to instill this in their students, it sort of happens through a process of educational osmosis. The teachers had it instilled in them by their teachers in a never-ending educational process. So what is a book writer to do? Market research.

Whether you plan to write a non-fiction or fiction book, it pays to take a look at the market for your idea—not your book. Take a trip to a good bookstore and browse through the books on your topic. This will tell you what’s being sold. Remember, most of the books on the shop’s shelves originated at least two years prior to you seeing them. Now stroll over to the sale tables. The books on these tables are remainders—leftovers that didn’t sell during the book’s most recent run. Many may be terrific, but for some reason didn’t hit the mark. Take notes, being sure to nor publishers names.

Next surf on over to Amazon.com, the world’s greatest book depository. Search for books on your topic. Amazon has practically everything in print. Do the same at their competitor, Barnes and Noble’s Web site. Take more notes, again being careful to note the names of publishers.

After all this research, review your notes and draw some conclusions about how viable your topic really is. Generally, too many books on your topic means the market is overloaded. Too few often means not enough readers are interested or the topic hasn’t been explored to any great degree by writers.

Armed with your conclusions, you’re ready to proceed with your book, modifying the topic to reflect market trends. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t cater to your topic’s market but be driven by it. Doing so will greatly enhance your chance of publication.

Timeliness is Everything

Many beginning writers get frustrated when they get rejections from publishers for their work. While the writing skills of some may be lacking, the reason for the rejection could be one of timing. Many think they can send any article, short story, or book idea in at any time and the publisher will just love it. But it all comes down to timeliness.

To market your writing successfully, you have to think like a retailer. Department and discount stores would never think of putting out winter clothes in January. Winter is already here. Instead, they put out their winter collections in October or November, several months ahead of when the clothing might actually be worn. Ads for back-to-school clothing and other items now begin to appear in July, barely a month after most kids have just gotten out of school for summer vacation.

So to get your writing to an editor at the right time, you have to think ahead. Whatever you’re sending out now–except articles to newspapers if you can find any to take them–should  be on topics that will appeal to editors three to six months from now. This works especially well with seasonal subject matter.

However, you may write about subjects that are what I call “evergreens.” These are ones that could appeal to an editor any time of year. Even so, you still have to get things out ahead–at least 2-3 months for short stories and magazine articles, and perhaps a year ahead for a book idea. It’s not what readers are reading now, but what they will read in the future that counts.