How to blog

[Neil]

When I first started blogging I wrote about the dumbest things. I wrote egotistical articles about how cool I was to write books and have people admire me; basic self-serving crap. Then I started into the indie revolution in book publishing and my content changed. I spent a few months blogging about the nuts and bolts of writing, editing, designing a cover, and publishing an ebook from scratch. And lo and behold, I started getting followers. As I continued to blog every other day about the indie publishing world I got even more followers and my hit meter started to fly off the charts. One post got over 14,000 hits. I began to realize what posts got the most reads. Posts that incorporated a bit of my personal life, mixed with the actuality of the book publishing market, and usually sprinkled with a little universal anecdote at the close. I’ve found that using your blog strictly as a marketing tool for your works isn’t enough. Readers bore quickly of the day to day self-promotion and want to LEARN something from the blog. I try to impart a bit of my twenty-five years plus experience of publishing stories, books, and poetry into each post to save writers from making the same (sometimes costly) mistakes that I have made in getting to the level of selling books on a daily basis. So my advice to new author-blog owners is to post from the heart about your writing and publishing experiences and don’t spend every word promoting your own material. If the articles you write are good, talent will come across on your posts and you will get resultant book sales. My blog is my web presence, my introduction of myself to my readers, and my way of telling the world about my life. Keep your content interesting and followers will come. The kinds of followers you want. The kind that are interested in you.
http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com

[Terry]

Neil, sounds like you've learned the lessons the hard way and it's very nice to pass them along. Thanks,

[Anne]

Neil wrote: "When I first started blogging I wrote about the dumbest things. I wrote egotistical articles about how cool I was to write books and have people admire me; basic self-serving crap. Then I started i..."

Wise advice...thanks, and I'll take it!

[Karen]

Following you now, Neal, and very well put!!!