Beyond all the hype about blogging, the fact is, blogs are a powerful PR and marketing tool for authors. Blogs (short for Web logs) provide an opportunity for you to be heard and to increase your visibility across the Internet.
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Welcome to the Blogosphere!
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Understand What a Blog Is. Think of a blog as your own personal column, diary, or journal, available via the world wide web. A blog can contain text, links to Web sites, photos, video, and audio. As a blogger, you can allow readers to post comments about your entries, thereby creating a sense of community. Some blogging services are free (www.blogger.com); others charge a small monthly fee (www.sixapart.com).
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Don’t Squander Your Blog. A blog is not an online marketing brochure. Web visitors have little patience for stealth advertising.
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| Provide Content That Ties to Your Work. While your blog entries can be about anything, ideally they’ll relate to your book and area of expertise. A novelist who has written a spy thriller might comment on an breaking news story about an espionage case. Someone who has written a book on nutrition might comment on a recent study about obesity, and so on. |
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| Enrich your Content. Blogs are often filled with hyperlinks to relevant content on other Web sites. Readers will appreciate the links. Add photos, too, when they can enhance an entry. |
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| Take a Point of View. Your blog is your soapbox, and as such, it should be used to tell the world what you think. Whatever your genre, let people know what “this author” thinks about a particular topic. |
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| Keep to the Point. Some pundits argue that a blog entry shouldn’t be more than 250 words and others advise you to write as much as you need. The best idea is to stay on point. Focus!. |
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| Blog Frequently. While you don’t need to write a daily entry, it’s important to constantly add new content to your blog. A vibrant blog will encourage people to visit your site to see what’s new. In fact, blogs are probably the easiest way to keep your site fresh. And the more that people visit your site, the greater the chance that they’ll become interested in your books. |
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| Give Your Blog Top-Billing on Your Web site. Make sure that visitors to your Web site have easy access to your blog. You might even post the latest blog entry title on your home page. |
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| Tend to Comments Promptly. If you’ve set your blog so that people who comment on your entries must first be approved (a good idea, to avoid having your blog filled with advertisements and other SPAM), check daily to ensure that you can approve or disapprove visitors’ input in a timely way. |
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Proof Your Work. Proofread your work before it goes live in your blog. A finely-edited blog enhances your credibility as a writer and communicator.
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