Fiction Writers: How to Start Your First Blog

At the 2010 SCBWI Illinois Words in the Woods writing retreat, agent Stephen Barbara, editor Kristin Daly, and author Kathi Appelt all agreed that keeping a blog (an online journal, short for "weblog") is not an advantage to a writer-it's a necessity. A blog or at least a website, they all insisted, is just something every author today has.

Of course, this statement is not necessarily true. Many authors have neither website nor blogs, but here is the point: today's readers expect to find more information about an author online.

A blog is free. It's easy to set up and maintain. Readers expect authors to have a website, with at least a bio, list of published works, and links to where those books are available. Yet, a blog is so much more than a website. A blog is a current, updated connection with your readers, a way to announce new projects, and a way to promote your current ones.

Starting a Blog in Three Steps

1. Sign up with a blogging provider. Blogger, WordPress, and LiveJournal are all popular, free blogging providers. Don't worry about technical savvy; if you can sign up for an email account, you can create a blog.

2. Follow the instructions to name your blog and pick your template design. No need for fancy designs and gadgets on your blog. YA author Kristin Cashore keeps a blog with a simple white background, and the look is clean and professional.

3. Publish your first post. That's it...you're blogging!

(For a fee, you can register the domain name of your choice. I pay $10 annually on Blogger.com for www.staceylaatsch.com. To register a custom domain name on Blogger.com, from your blog home page, click Design -->Settings tab -->Publishing (on the menu below the tabs). From here, you can check availability and register a domain name of your choice.)

Maintaining a Blog

Posting on a blog is as easy as using any word processing program. You'll find similar formatting tools, and uploading photos and videos is as simple as clicking a few icons. You will be able to save drafts of your post, preview, and, when you're ready, publish your post to your blog.

Now...what to write? A blog is the most current and updated part of a website. Give your readers a reason to keep coming come back: Post regularly. Feature a guest blogger. Interview a fellow author. Include photos and videos.

Some authors provide details of their upcoming appearances and forthcoming publications. Some use their blog to promote other writers, offer writing advice, or even discuss subjects completely unrelated to writing. While you may want to include some of your personal observations and thoughts, readers appreciate information they can use, and if you provide that information, and keep your blog up-to-date, they will return to your blog regularly.

Promoting a Blog

Congratulations, you're blogging-along with hundreds of thousand of others in the vast space of the Internet. So the question remains...how do you attract readers to your blog? Here are some tips to promote your blog:

1. Sign every email with your website URL.

2. Maintain an online presence. Social networking sites may sound to some like a waste of time, but their growing popularity makes them a promotion tool that is a shame to waste. You don't need to spend massive amounts of time on these sites to spread the word about your blog and your writing projects. In fact, you can auto-post your blog to most social networking sites.

To Import a blog to Facebook:

From the Facebook home page: Sign in -->Account --> Application Settings -->Notes --> Import a blog

(This article at www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/22/how-to-import-your-blog-into-facebook/ explains this process step-by-step.)

Setting up an RSS feed to auto-post to Twitter is a bit more complicated, but Twitterfeed makes it simple with a step-by-step process: you can find it at http://twitterfeed.com/.

3. Connect with other bloggers. Once you're up and blogging, you'll find that most bloggers are eager to comment on your blog, sign up to follow your blog, and spread the word about your blog in exchange for you doing the same for them. Once you make connections like these, you may even want to guest blog for another site or invite another blogger to do the same for you.

A Few Notable Blogs for Fiction Writers

Agents

Guide to Literary Agents - excellent blog by Writer's Digest editor Chuck Sambuchino

http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/

Query Shark - New York agent Janet Reid's brutal and highly informative critique of real query letters

http://queryshark.blogspot.com/

Authors

Kathi Appelt - the author of The Underneath and Keeper keeps a video blog on her website

http://www.kathiappelt.com/

Scott Westerfield - the author of the Uglies series and Leviathan keeps a current blog with lots of photos and information on his travels and tours

http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/

Kristin Cashore - the author of the Graceling series has a very simply designed blog filled with insightful posts

http://kristincashore.blogspot.com/

Blog design

Pimp My Blog - free templates for blogs

http://pimpmyblogdesigns.blogspot.com/

Spice Up Your Blog - tutorials on how to add gadgets and designs to your blog

http://www.spiceupyourblog.com/