A couple weeks ago, I posted a blog about my writing goals for this year. One goal I didn’t mention because it’s not actually writing, is to sell more of my books. Great idea, but how do you go about that?
I
figure a good place to start is to just have more people know I exits. Again, that’s a great idea, but what do I
do? More importantly, what can I do that
is simple and cheap? One idea I had is
to actually blog more. For the last
couple of years I haven’t really done much blogging. Part of it was that for a time I was on
several sites where you got paid for interactions with your posts, so I put all
of my stuff there. But one by one those
sites went belly up, and I kind of lost interest in posting stuff. I’d post the occasional thing if the mood
struck me, but there was nothing regular.
When
I figured I should start blogging more, I remembered reading an article years
ago on making the most of your author blog.
I forget who the author was, but they said that one way to have
meaningful interactions with potential readers is to stick to some
schedule. If readers know that every
Monday they’ll get to read some writing horror story and every Thursday they’ll
get some writing advice, then they’ll keep coming back.
It’s
great advice, and I think I tried to follow it years ago, but I think I overdid
it. It’s the classic story of having to
split your finite time between writing your novel and writing the two or three
blog posts for this week. I tried to do
too much, fell behind, and got discouraged.
So this time, I’m keeping it small.
On the first Tuesday of the month, I’ll post a blog about something,
such as my writing goals for the year, and on the third Tuesday I’ll do a
Random Writing Tip. I’m also doing a
couple things on my other blog, so I’m averaging about a blog a week, which I
hope won’t strain my time.
So
that’s my … secondhand tip. Make some
schedule for your writing. And it
doesn’t have to just be for blogs. It
could be anything from writing a blog every Wednesday, or working on your novel
on odd numbered days and your poetry on even, or working on your stories during
the week and revising on the weekends.