You’re a writer, right? After you’ve slogged away at your 1,000/2,000 words, you don’t want to sit down and generate more. It’s time for wine, to binge watch your favourite show, grab some food.
Well, I’d urge you to think again.
Blogging has many advantages for a writer
First of all, it hones your style and stretches your imagination. Most blog posts are around 500-800 words these days; longer than that readers become bored. Once you’ve chosen your topic, you have a word count to rein you in. And choosing a topic makes you think imaginatively about what could be interesting/helpful/entertaining for your readers.
Blogging allows you to fill out some of the background to your story. This is where you can talk about your research – the 90% that didn’t go in your novel. You can get a lot of posts out of this, plus reports and photos of any trips you made for research purposes.
Well-written posts about why you write and what your inspirations are let the readers glimpse behind the book to see what kind of writer you are. You can post about your writing process, your writing journey, workshops and conferences. Obviously, you must judge what you want to say about yourself. Don’t put anything in a post that you don’t want to see plastered all over the Internet. But it’s always interesting for the reader to see behind the e-reader screen or between the covers…
Blogging lets readers into your personal world, the one beyond writing. Again, it has to be carefully curated. You may be a keen gardener, or cook, or have a fascinating hobby like karate or stock-car racing. You may want to share tips about living in France, post photos of châteaux or goats or describe how cheese is made. All these things round out your personality for the reader.
Let’s be practical: it’s a splendid place to talk about your books, to show covers, let people know about special offers, events you’ll be attending and best of all, when your next book is due out. You can post reviews of your book, any awards and prizes.
Blogging steadily creates a body of work that you can tweet and post about and forms a social media platform. You may yawn audibly about that term, but it means that you have presence in the digital world. Today, it’s vital for authors, however published
It’s your home territory when you can do what you like within the bounds of the law and decency. Unlike Twitter, bound by 140 characters or Facebook with its irritating rules and lightning-like changes, your blogspace is only subject to your whims.
You’re not in competition with anybody else! You may from time to time invite guests, but most of the time what you put on the blog is yours and about what interests you.
Happy blogging!
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Just for info 😉
Alison Morton’s World of Thrillers blog
(About the Roma Nova and Mélisende series, history, Rome, France)
(Writing life, writing skills and writing guests giving their experience)
Updated 2022: Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series.Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, a new Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, is now out.
Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
An excellent post and a rare one in favour of blogging for authors. I started blogging in 2007 and haven’t really stopped. The first novel in my Nordic romance series, The Englishman, is a result of a number of posts on that first blog, so I absolutely agree that blogging can be hugely inspirational. I’ve tried to stop blogging a few times because it is time-consuming and it can rob me of the ‘proper’ writing time, but I just enjoy it too much to stop now. Besides, you never know, I might start another series on it soon. 😉
Yes, it does take time but sometimes it can be a relief away from an intensive scene in your current book. Keep going, Helena!
Great to read this – and from a fiction writer as well (most of the advice on writers blogging seems to be about non-fiction). I started a blog on the advice of my publisher. I’m pretty sure I haven’t sold any books directly off the back of it, but it is certainly building a set of pieces that remind people I exist and help me connect to readers on a topic that is tangentially related to my fiction. (I tend to blog about mental health, in a creative non-fiction style, which fits with my first novel which features a character with deep depression.) And, as you say, it’s fun.
Your blogposts about mental health will very much support your fiction as well as give you the opportunity to write in a different style.
Tangentially also, my third novel has a character who has a mental breakdown and the research I had to do was extensive. But it’s an important topic either fictionally or in real life, especially when the subject is ostensibly a very strong individual.
Back onto blogging, you’ve just given me another subject to blog about on my main books blog!
I tend to blog about themes in old books that interest me, which has grown into a series on practical world building. Some of the practical research also goes into my writing. Author interviews are also a good way to change it up a bit.
I reckon that variety is very positive as readers like different topics. i know I do when I visit other blogs!