Category Archives: Blogging

How I Blog

Want to start your own blog? Try blogging like I do.

In the past 11 years, I’ve written over 650 blogposts. When I started, experts advised fiction writers to blog as a way to increase their online footprint and drive book sales.

These days I’m not sure that matters much. YouTube might be a better venue, if you can create standout videos. But hours spent blogging (or shooting videos) are hours not spent writing fiction. Still, it’s become a weekly routine for me.

Before I began in 2011, I listed about 20 ideas for topics and created a Blog File. Whenever I saw an article or had some stray thought worth blogging about, I added it to my list. Today, the list runs to 168 topics.

I start a new Blog File every year, copying the unused topics left over from the previous year. The file lists published blogposts, future topics, and contains the posts themselves.

Each week, on Thursday, I select a topic from the list, unless a more urgent topic idea occurs to me. After choosing the topic, I jot notes for points I’d like to make in the post, and might even organize these notes and do some online research.

On Friday, I use the notes to write the post’s first draft. I create the draft in my word processor program, not on the blog platform (WordPress). Since each post should have an image, I work on that, too.

Be careful using images from the net. They might be copyrighted. You can’t get in trouble taking your own photos. My wife kindly consents to taking pictures of me. Someday she’ll hand me a bill for all that work, and I don’t know where I’ll find the money.

Saturday arrives—editing day. Still working offline in my word processor, I improve prose clarity, check spelling and grammar, and adjust the image. My word-count goal’s between 500 and 600, though those aren’t firm limits.

When the text meets my satisfaction, I copy it to WordPress as a draft post. Next, I import and position the image and set up all the hyperlinks. A preview of the post helps me make sure it looks right and that the links work as they should.

Early Sunday morning—showtime. I review the post one last time. If I change something, I make the change on WordPress and in my Blog File, which serves as my backup.

After designating appropriate categories and tags, I preview the post one last time, and then publish it. I then draw attention to it using Twitter and Facebook. In the Blog File, I move that topic from the ‘unused’ to ‘used’ list. Done.

If that process sounds rigid, maybe it’s because I’ve made it sound stricter than it is. I’ve posted on days other than Sunday, and skipped weeks on occasion.

Overall, I believe I’ve benefited from the discipline of weekly posts. The schedule pressure stimulates my writing creativity and productivity. I enjoy it.

Has blogging boosted story sales? Hard to say. Sometimes my blog posts reach the first page of search engine lists for certain topics, so that may result in more visits to my blog, more views of my stories, and maybe a purchase or two.

Would blogging work for you? Only one way to find out. Start doing it. Pretty soon you’ll be blogging like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 7, 2022Permalink

Has It Been 10 Years Already?

I started this Poseidon’s Scribe blog in January 2011, so it seems I’ve been doing this for a decade now. I’m closing in on 600 blog posts (this is my 587th). Hard to believe Poseidon’s Scribe is ten years old.

It was very kind of author Todd Sullivan to interview me on the subject of blogging discipline. You can watch the interview on YouTube.

In fact, I’ve included a new Interviews tab on my website, so you can read or view all the interviews of your favorite blogger and author.

Back to Todd Sullivan’s interview of me. In that video, I provided the following overall advice about blogs:

  • Valuable content. Provide useful information to readers.
  • Quality writing. Keep posts brief, interesting, and well written.
  • Clean appearance. Make your site uncluttered and easy to navigate.
  • Periodic posts. Establish a rhythm of posting and stick to it.

Here’s what I advised about starting a blog:

  • Write down why you want to blog. What’s your niche?
  • Identify your intended audience. Whom are you writing to?
  • What might your audience want to know, that you can provide?
  • Write down 20 topics for your first 20 blogposts
  • Add to that list as you come across other ideas
  • Commit to posting on a regular schedule (helps you, readers, and site popularity)
  • Don’t expect instant followers, comments, or notice, let alone fame.

This was what I said about writing individual blogposts:

  • Craft an interesting and useful subject line. Numbers catch readers’ eyes, as do the words you, your, and you’re.
  • Include an image or video with your posts
  • Start with a rough outline before writing, but be willing to deviate from it.
  • Edit by imagining you’re a reader just surfing to that post. Cut boring stuff. No long paragraphs. Keep the overall post short.
  • Proofread before publishing

To supplement the advice I gave in the interview, I’d add this—it’s best not to dedicate your blog to the craft of writing. The net is saturated with writers writing about writing. Consider blogging about the subjects you write about instead. If your fiction focuses on certain settings, or characters, or themes, write about them.

I’ll go further than that. Consider not blogging at all. Set up a website, sure. It can be a fairly static one, with your bio, your bibliography, your scheduled appearances, etc. But think about this before you start blogging: time spent blogging is time you could be spending on your fiction.

Back in 2011, experts advised all beginning writers to blog. It was, and remains, a good way to increase your online footprint and to raise your site ranking in searches for the topics you blog about.

However, I’m not sure it increases sales of your fiction, or improves the quality of your stories. Think about that before you start a blog.

If your goal is better fiction, or more sales, work on your fiction and your marketing.

For me, though, a decade-old habit is hard to break. You can look forward to more years of steady blogging from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 14, 2021Permalink