laurenwaters

Yes, I feel like I’m back in a new school, searching for friendly faces, and praying that I don’t end up sitting at the lunch table alone…again. Actually in all honesty I was so mortified at being seen alone that I would not even eat if it meant sitting alone. So this new blog is so challenging for me! I never was the person that could just walk into a room and start talking to strangers, but luckily I somehow manged to meet people slowly whenever I needed to.

Blogs are a fantastic (and free) way for people to notice your books and gain a loyal following, for both traditionally and self-published writers. So how does one begin a blog and earn new followers?

These are all the hints I’ve picked up along the way and hopefully will pay off soon:

1) Start following and COMMENTING on other’s blogs–I still need to do this more…

2) Post on writer’s forums and partake in active discussions–I noticed every time I post threads my traffic increases vastly

3) Try to write blogs on a consistent and predictable schedule. More people will keep checking for updates if you’re dependable–my goal is to post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday regardless of vacations and daily life dramas.

4) Pick a strong theme for your blog and stay on topic. If you write around the same issue it will keep your audience’s attention–my main focus will be my trials, tribulations and (hopefully) triumphs of self-publishing and fiction writing in general.

5) Always strive to keep your blog posts current, interesting, humorous, and colorful–there are many places around the web to find free images to liven up your posts and if you hit a dry spell scanning other’s wonderful blogs can spark inspiration for a new topic of your own.

6) Even though it may seem like no one’s out there you still must express yourself and hope that in the future others will stop by and peruse these achieves once you get your gang going–but until then I will keep staring wistfully at my 0 commentors.

7) When all else fails get your family members and friends to join up to keep you company–I haven’t gotten to this stage yet but if you see 20 commentors all of a sudden than I might have reached this point.