Trust Me, You Can Learn How to Write Great Blog Posts!

When I first started blogging, people were still asking what a blog was, so it's hard for me to remember exactly how I got my ideas, or even what they were. Suffice to say, I managed to learn a thing or two along the way and if I can, so can you.

Blogging doesn't really have any rules, but there are some things to keep in mind if you want an audience bigger than your mother and your three best friends in the world.

Keep it simple, stupid

Known as the “kiss” principle, this little gem has been guiding writers, public speakers and salesmen for generations. Even complex ideas are made up of simpler concepts and being able to boil a topic down to its essence is a good skill to have.

One exercise I did a few years back with a group of company blogs I was writing for, was found in an article on Yahoo News.  Basically, the article said to explain your service, or product to a nine year old. IT worked, a lot of people liked it, and it helped to clarify some things. 

Here's one example from one of those blogs http://warddesigngroup.com/what-we-do-as-described-to-a-9-year-old/

You probably don't want to write every post as if it were for nine year olds, but the general idea is solid. You might use it as an exercise when writing something you feel may be confusing. Strip it down to its basic elements, write in short sentences, and build small paragraphs.

Once you get the hang of it, you will find that you have more people spending more time on your pages, and leaving more comments.

Keywords are important

I won't go into detail here, there are a lot of great places to find keyword research tips. Here is what you need to know: the web is a big place. Google uses “keywords” to sort search possibilities and give you what they think are the best results. Knowing some popular search terms in your topic can help.

You want words that a lot of people are looking for, but not too many. Why? You need readers, but you don't need every reader online. You want a group that will like and agree with most of what you write, so a narrower category is more powerful.

Google Adwords is a free account,and you can learn some basics on Youtube, or just through Google searches. Here is one place to start.

Stay on topic

Yeah, I know you have a lot of interests. So does everybody, but they probably only look for information on one topic at a time. Your blog cannot appeal to everyone, and if you try, it will appeal to no one.

So, write whatever you want, and write a lot of it, but only post one topic to each blog (individual blog website, not just each post) you decide to publish. Trust me, you will thank me for this one.

Audiences are built around themes. If you doubt me, look at who has the biggest crowd every Sunday. It is the preacher who tells people what they want to hear, and sticks to his topic, come hell or high water. 

You may think you and your fans have individual rapport, but they are more likely to act as a herd, agreeing with each other, where they disagree with you.

Simple Daily Habits to Ignite Your Passion to Write

Writer's block, the creative slump, just not feeling it. If you are a true creative, you know these can be more than simple excuses. While being “in the groove”, creatively speaking, is a high beyond most, hitting the proverbial brick wall sucks. But, then again, as often as not these phrases, suggesting lack of inspiration, can be excuses for not facing the tough part of this life. So, what do you do when you hit the slugs? Here are three great habits to start now, to ignite your passion for writing!

Get up and get going

Sure, you started your blog, in part, because you hate to get up early, and you don't time cards. This should not be an excuse for keeping whatever schedule does work for you.

Whatever time is “first thing” in the morning, for you is fine. What isn't is dragging around until your day is half over and complaining about your lack of success in your artistic career.

So, get up and get to work on something. Even if it's just answering email, or deleting your junk mail. The quicker you become productive, the less likely you are to allow your day to slip away.

Here is some great advice from professional writers about how they spend their days: http://www.writing-world.com/life/organize.shtml

Set yourself a goal

I know it sounds like a cliché, but you would be amazed what you can accomplish if you just write down what you want to achieve. There is something about planning that makes it easier to take action.

According to most experts, you can never really have too many goals. Setting them in phases is advisable, goals for each day, each week, each month, and so on. The more detailed the better, but don't just fantasize about them, write it down.

Trackable goals, with action steps work best. If you want to finish the great American novel by the end of next Summer, how many pages do you have to write each day, and how many freelance projects do you need to pay the bills in the mean time?

Want to learn more? Here is an excellent article on goals for writers. http://www.writing-world.com/basics/goals.shtml

Treat your work like a business

Yeah, we like to sit in our underwear, and eat cereal at noon, while watching cartoons, but none of this helps us do our best work, no matter how much we lie to ourselves about it.

Take a shower, groom yourself and get dressed every day. It is amazing how much more you feel like working if you spend a little time preparing to do it.

Set aside some space for an office, or writing space. Sure, it's okay to crunch out chapters while setting in your bed, especially if it really works for you, but if lounging around your apartment or house makes you lazy, find a coffee shop, or better yet a library, with fewer distractions.

Get some great tips here.http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com/2012/07/3-must-dos-to-run-your-writing-like-a-business/

You Won't Believe the Easy Secret to Getting Free Traffic on a Free Blog From Day One!

Free traffic, something every writer and web master wakes up in a sweat about at night, if they have not figured it out yet. I don't get huge amounts of traffic,  but I also do not have the time to dedicate to it that would make that happen. However, what I can do, is take a blog that is brand spanking new, and free, and with only a couple of links, get over 25 readers with just one post, on the first day!
Now, that, translated into a 30 day schedule, adds up to 750 visitors! Without any real marketing, and, you don't even have to write anything brilliant, in fact, it's probably better if you don't.

First, you need a great site with lots of bells and whistles, just kidding! Go to Blogger, sign up, pick a title you think people will like in a niche, just like this one. Choose your template, add a photo of yourself, and get ready to be read!

So, what do you write about? Well, you can try topics that are popular, like today, Isis, Obama's Isis speech, Islamic terror and 9/11 are hot topics, you could try that. But, it doesn't have to be that juicy, it could just be about your topic.

Whatever you choose, make sure it's original, Google hates copycats and may actually prevent your post from being seen. It should be something informative, something people will be interested in, and you should write at least 300 words. Search engines like dense content!

Next, you need a headline. Take a page from those obnoxious headlines from pop news sites that have been popping up in the last few months on Facebook. "You won't believe...." or "Look what happened when..."  curious people will click, I promise.

So, finish your post and hit "publish".  Once that is done, copy and paste the link to your post into a FB profile or page and wait. Want to see a real life example? Go to Secrettogreatwriting,blogspot,com where I did just this, at the beginning of the week,and got 26 views without any other promotion.

Next time, I'll teach you a trick to double, or triple this into traffic that can build you a site worth having. So, why does this work? What many webmasters overlook is the fact that blogspot is a Google domain, and much like Youtube, it gets preference. Your posts will show up much quicker in many cases than posts on more developed sites. Good luck, tell me how it goes! Now, let's see what happens with this post!

Eating Humble Pie, Ala Smashwords This Morning!

So, after posting my first blog post in quite some time yesterday, feeling good about what I have managed to achieve so far, I hit a roadblock on my way to epublishing success! I have my file, which has been converted into a number of different formats with quite a degree of success and few changes needed, but it won't pass the epub test
So, there are three things I do when faced with an online dilemma I don't personally know the answer to. Here they are, I hope this helps!

I realize that much of this is web 101 for millenials, but for us older folks it takes a village, so, if this is kindergarten stuff, click over to the next post and I'll teach you some old school ninja tricks you haven't thought of yet.

Google the heck out of it!

Before everyone started using the term SEO in everyday conversation, you could be reasonably certain that within the top ten results of any search, your answer would appear. (if it was going to) Not so today. Today, you get a lot crap at the top of the search, so the first thing you need to do is skip down until you are past the "sponsored" results. ( most of you know this)

Next, I recommend getting into an answers, or forum style page with some experts. So adding forum to your search can help sometimes. Now that you are in, look for questions that actually match yours, not just what pops up, and follow the threads until you find something that helps.

Note: this first search is almost never a complete answer,  but  it will lead to a chain of results that will eventually, if you search long enough, yield the answer, if indeed it is out there.

Compile your results

When I am working through a tough  problem, it helps to keep track of where I have been. If you work without your websearch history, or do so much searching (like me) that you have to clean it out just to keep your machine running smoothly, try a sticky note, with the URLs of helpful pages copied and pasted onto it, and (again if you are like me) a brief description of what was helpful.

If this is an issue you are likely to face again, save that sticky note for future reference, it takes three to six times of repeating an action for it to register as something we "know" how to do, and there is only so much space in conscious memory, so keep track of it.

Write out your solution

Not everyone is a writer, but if you are reading this blog, you obviously have some interest, right?
So, that being said, don't waste an opportunity, write out your solution in an entertaining and informative way and share it!

There are a lot of sites where articles like this can be uploaded for free, and you might even get paid for hosting them there if people like your stuff, but more importantly it helps build your craft, and gets your name on one more published piece of work , even if it is just online, it's more than many people will ever do!

So, now you have an idea of what I will be spending my time on for the next little while, until I am an expert (non tech-y expert, or competent layman, really) on formatting for ebooks! Here I go!

Case Study in Ebook Publishng, The Wishmonger

                                                                         

A little over seven years ago I started writing a story that is now available as my first ebook novel. The book is called, The Wishmonger and its available on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M5MU37Q?tag=pulist-20

Since I had not posted here in a while, I thought it was a good opportunity to share with other writers about my publishing experience. Here are three things I think you should consider when self publishing.

Picking a Platform

I know that word gets used a lot, so let me explain. A platform is simply a publishing website and for ebooks there are many. Three things you should consider are:
1. Royalties: How much do you get for each copy (Amazon and Smashword set the bar pretty high at 70%)
2.Traffic: two things here, first, big sites get lots of traffic, however, that means lots of competition for eyeballs on your book. Second, a site with moderate traffic, but less competition might be better. You can download seo add ons for some browsers that help you determine rankings, etc. My favorite is SEOquake. Compare carefully before choosing, or go with a site that does not require exclusivity and hit several!
3. What kind of promotions do they offer, and how much do they cost? Larger sites, like Amazon will promote a book that starts to sell, generally at no cost to you. Smaller sites may do some, but have limited resources, so most of their promotions will cost something.

Three sites you should look at to start, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords, and Lulu.com.

Promoting Your Book

I mentioned above that most sites provide some promotion, but relying on a single site to drive traffic to your sales page may not be the best approach. Here are some thing to start thinking about and looking at, before you are ready to launch your book.

1. Book review sites: these come in three flavors. first there are self posted review sites like Good Reads.com. I put my book here and that listing came up at the top of Google for The Wishmonger the very next day. Next, you have a variety of free  book review sites. All of the ones I visited recently had some pretty strict guidelines and long waiting times, but that doesn't mean they won't work. You may need to lay a little ground work, such as getting a few  sales, and some reviews before you can be successful here. Third there are the pay to play sites. It used to be true that if someone asked for money to review your work it was a scam. Not so much anymore. These sites usually don't charge much, and if they have good ranking and traffic, a link from one or two certainly can't hurt.

2. Social Media, you know the drill, put it on Facebook, Tweet about it, invite your Linked in connections to visit your authors page, etc. The key is persistence and consistency. Do a couple of posts several days a week to get things going, then find out what it takes to keep people talking, and do that. With The Wishmonger, I have used Facebook both talking about it on my personal profile and on my authors page.

3. Blogs: yes, this post is completely self-serving, but it also has a lot of good information in it. A great way to get traffic to your book is to get mentions, or guest posts on high traffic blogs, but barring that, both blogger and Wordpress have free blogs available that anyone can start, as many as they want! I recommend blogger, since Google owns it, it seems to show up faster.

Writing the Next One

The smart money these days is on the guy with a whole truck load of titles for sale. Not only does it make it easier to get repeat sales from customers, every time your promote a new title, the old ones get a bit of a boost as well. The Wishmonger is the first in a series, with the second one set to come out after the first of the year.

So, there you have it, and here is the link to my fabulous  novel, which I know you now are dying to read. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M5MU37Q?tag=pulist-20