33: Is Blogging a Waste of Time for Authors?

Do book authors need to write blog posts to? What

about doing blog tours during your book launch? Who should

blog and who shouldn't? What are the best topics to blog about

the answers to these questions and more on episode 33 of

writing pursuits? Welcome to the writing pursuits podcast where

authors like you discuss writing craft, author, life and book

marketing strategies. I'm your host Kathrese. McKee. I own

writing pursuits and write and produce the weekly newsletter

writing pursuits tips for authors. In addition, I am a

speculative fiction author, writing procedures for authors

who drink too much coffee, endure judgemental looks from

their furry writing, convenience and struggle for words. If you

are a writer seeking encouragement, information and

inspiration, this podcast is for you. Let's get to it. Hey,

writing pursuits, authors. Welcome

back to the podcast to those of you who are new. I want to

extend a special welcome. My name is Kathrese. McKee. And I'm

glad you're here, please leave a comment a star rating and follow

the show to help others find writing pursuits. Okay, you may

have read in author marketing books and heard it writing

conventions that you need to blog. But blogs are not what

they used to be. I checked the statistics just before I hit

1.9 billion websites worldwide. There are 6 million blog posts

published every day, just think about that. And more than 2.5

billion blog posts published every year, so the competition

is stiff to get attention. And it's something you need to think

about before you start blogging. Okay, the most popular blog

posts are lists and how to Articles More about that in a

moment. And so back when the internet was new, gaining a

following was easy. But times have changed. Also, in the same

article, I believe it was talking about the length of time

people spend writing blog posts, and the time has just drawn out.

The blog posts have gotten longer as time has gone by. So

it represents a significant chunk of time to write blog

posts. So let me say right up front, I do not believe blogs

are essential for fiction authors. Let me get that out

right up front. So if you're a fiction author, your time is

best spent writing your next book and building an email list.

But if you must blog, let's keep going. Keep in mind that your

personal life isn't that interesting to readers unless

you're famous, or you're sharing about a nonfiction topic you

have in common with your readers. For the most part, your

readers simply want to read your stories, or to learn something

new. Also, I don't advise publishing short stories or

chapters on your blog, build a back list of books instead. And

don't give your work away without receiving something in

return. Some blogs can be useful for nonfiction authors for sure,

if you write nonfiction, you need to be building a social

media platform with lots of followers. And I used to say

that was true for people who wanted a traditional contract.

But truthfully, it's for every nonfiction author, you can't

truly be successful without a large following. And even

better, a very large email subscriber list. So that should

be your first priority. And for nonfiction authors, a blog can

be a big part of that effort. So what about publishing chapters

on your blog for fiction authors? No way. My advice is to

never publish your fiction on a web page. If you decide to write

short stories, or distribute free chapters to attract new

readers, those are great reader magnets make it a transaction,

the readers email address in exchange for your work in the

form of a PDF. Don't give your work away for nothing. Okay, so

you can use prequels, arcs, short stories, deleted scenes,

etc. Those are great newsletter magnets, but make them count.

Use them to build and retain your email list. And oh, by the

way, it doesn't do any good to have the email list if you don't

write your reader. So make that a monthly thing that you do a

monthly discipline that you're going to send them something

that you're going to touch base that you're going to entertain

and connect with them. Lastly, avoid reviewing books by other

authors on your author blog. Book. Blogging is fine if that's

what you do for a living, but it's not the best way. It's not

the best use of your writing time. For a fiction author, you

Eat a backlist not a website full of reviews for other

authors work. You see what I mean? You don't have to agree

but in my opinion in my experience, posting reviews of

books in your genre is a good way it's a good way to connect

to other authors. But it's not the best way to a build your

brand or be connect with your readers. Much better to help

your author friends launch their books, with Instagram posts,

tweets, Facebook prompts, and best of all endorser books in

your newsletter, maybe as part of a newsletter swap. So make

that count to endorse other books similar to yours. But

don't spend precious time reading loads of books and

writing detailed reviews. Spend that time writing your next

book. I can't say this too many times, writing book reviews

feels productive, but it's not a good use of time, nonfiction

authors. Okay, this is going to sound contradictory, but by all

means, nonfiction, authors Blog, your book become the go to

source for information about your area of expertise. You can

use your blog posts as trial runs of your material to see

what gets reactions and what gets the most comments and how

many questions come up. And as a way to figure out what people

really want to know in your book, blog, your book, okay?

Don't be afraid to give your very best material away. Because

what your book is, is a condensation of your very best

material that you have broadcast to the world, on your blog and

YouTube videos on podcasts, in tweets and posts, and so forth.

So don't be afraid to give your best material way. What you're

doing in your book is you're giving them an easy way to find

the material, and they're willing to pay for it. They

don't want to have to troll through all your blog posts to

find what they need to know. So what about writing posts for

blog tours during your book launch? Well, everybody wants to

know that let's talk about that in a moment. Writing pursuits is

run by Kathrese. McKee, who has been trusted by fiction authors

excellence. Guthrie's is a three story methods certified editor

who specializes in story diagnostics, coaching, and line

editing to help you prepare your story for the journey ahead. For

more information, go to writing pursuits.com. The link is in the

show notes. And now back to the podcast. So I'm going to say

something pretty controversial. I say blog tours don't sell

books. That's a hard pill to swallow. Because blog tours are

so easy to set up. And they're relatively inexpensive to now

what a blog tour could help with is to build some buzz for your

new book. But most likely the buzz won't directly equate to

sales if you have the budget. Okay, go forward with the

knowledge that the blog tour represents a lot of work and

actually a lot of writing too. Instead, I suggest that what you

do is coordinate with your author friends, to post about

your book on social media and do newsletter swaps. Spend your

time searching for people to review your books rather than

spending money on a blog tour and I'm going to hurt feelings.

Spend your money on ads to target readers who are actively

looking for a book to buy readers don't go out of their

way to read about books except when they are actively searching

for their next book. And usually that's on Amazon, Goodreads or

BookBub. Personally, I've never searched for books to buy on

book blogger sites, and maybe just me, but that's my

experience. These days people learn about new books most of

the time through Instagram posts, Facebook posts, Facebook

and Amazon ads, tweets, BookBub, newsletters, author newsletters,

Tik Tok videos, etc. And what are those places have in common?

Four things. They're all visually oriented. We are a

visual society completely hooked on pictures, graphs, photos and

videos. Number two social media posts and ads are short on text

and easy to digest. possible exceptions are Facebook posts

and author newsletters. Number three people are already in

those spaces because they want to scroll or in the case of

author newsletters because they want to scan their emails. They

want the information fast they want it visually oriented. They

want easily digested material, people sign up to be there so

they sign up to be on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and

BookBub and tick tock even they sign up to be there and that's

important when a reader signs up for Facebook or for an author

newsletter. they kind of make a psychological commitment to be

there to show up. So what if you still want to blog? And that's

okay, I'm not saying it's wrong to blog. But if you choose to

blog do these two things. Number one, strive to connect with your

readers emotions. If you can connect with your fiction

readers on topics they find engaging, especially emotional

topics, then you're golden blog about nonfiction topics that you

will build your brand. So even if you're a fiction author,

you're still blogging about nonfiction topics. Are your

readers interested in clothes and makeup? Are they interested

in history? Do your readers love the environment? Are they

socially conscious or upwardly mobile blog about the topics

your readers care about, especially as they relate to

your fiction, and your nonfiction Of course, leverage

your writing. So whether you blog it first, or create

material for your newsletter, first, leverage your writing.

Take what you create and repurpose it for your

newsletter, your blog, your social posts, your YouTube

channel, and or your podcast. Make your writing work as many

ways as possible, always with the aim of finding new email

subscribers and followers. And remember when I mentioned lists

and how to articles, share your expertise about a subject or a

skill your readers want to learn about, or share your journey to

expertise as you master something. And I'm not talking

about writing about something your readers want to know about.

So let's consider a couple of examples. So say that you write

Regency. Are you an expert on the Regency period then blog

about that? Because your readers are reading Regency they're

interested in Regency topics. What do people wear? Discuss

what what articles of clothing the working women of the time

wore from the skin out? That's very interesting topic. Discuss

the historical context of the period. How did society work

back then do maybe biographical biographical sketches of the

famous people of the court? What did they eat? How do people make

a living? Okay, so in case I didn't make it clear, tell

personal stories, but do it in the context of the information

you're communicating. And by all means, keep it personal and

personable. It let's say you're a science fiction author. So you

could talk about aeronautical design, and space travel, you

could speculate about what might happen in the next Star Trek

movie, or Star Wars movie. In this case, share your experience

about a rock building a rocket in your backyard, you might talk

about what's going on in the International Space Station,

things like that westerns, write about horses, you know, things

that people are interested there are about that genre that are

relevant to your genre that help you build your brand, and show

off your kind of your expertise and knowledge. Okay, remember

that you're not blogging for your own sake. It isn't about

you, unless what you do is directly applicable, applicable

to what you write about. You are blogging for your audience's

sake, for their education and entertainment and emotional

involvement. If you're a fiction writer seriously, think twice

about using your precious writing time to blog. What are

your thoughts? Do you blog? Or don't you? What do you blog

about? Or what do you do instead, I would love for you to

share in the comments. And I just want to say these are my

opinions on blogging and reviewing books. These these are

based on my experiences. I would love to hear about your

experiences. So please write back. And that's all I have for

today. Until next time, keep writing.

Thank you for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode,

please leave a comment and follow the podcast. If you're

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all the links mentioned in today's episode are in the show

notes at writing pursuits.com. Please join us on Wednesdays for

new episodes and keep writing my friends. Keep writing