People often ask me how I can come up with a new idea for a blog post every single day. This does seem like a stretch to most people—even writers. I notice that many bloggers post only a couple of times a week and some don’t post but once every few months. I say, why bother? Isn’t your purpose in blogging to stay in touch with your audience? Who’s going to notice you when you posts are only occasionally? On the other hand, how can you come up with something to say more often than weekly or monthly? Here are some tips for those of you with nonfiction books, either in the works or published: (Watch for a separate blog post for writers of fiction.)
• Write about what you know. Presumably there are many aspects to your topic—some of which you have experienced, studied and observed. If your book features vintage airplanes, report on your recent tour of an aviation museum. Conduct additional research on some of the planes and write about aspects of each in separate posts. Share something significant you learned from a pilot you met at the museum. List some of the best aviation museums in the states/world. Describe some of the most extensive or interesting airplane collections around. Write about how safety measures have evolved over the years. (This could fill several posts.) Can you see how the subjects could be endless?
• Write about things you want to know. Whether your topic is woodworking, managing feral cat colonies, making cupcakes, parenting or beading, presumably, you are constantly faced with new challenges. Write about what you learn when you set out to meet and overcome them—how to create more refined edges on your bird houses, a better way to ensure the right consistency in your frosting or how to barter for beads in estate and yard sales, for example.
• Relate the experiences of others. Interview other experts in your field. Invite guest bloggers to fill space at your blog site. They will surely have new information and a different perspective to share.
• Keep up with the news. Not only should you be studying and reporting what’s occurring in your own field, the national news can affect people involved in your topic. Environmental issues, for example, might affect birding, fishing or gardening hobbies. The economy affects many people—from those with a writing career to those in real estate to the viability of college for many families and to the state of our volunteer pool, for example. Many of your posts could stem from how world affairs is affecting your world of writing, coin or stamp collecting, hair coloring or pretzel-making.
• Recycle your ideas. Learn to write on the same subject from different angles. This skill alone will certainly carry you far toward a more successful and active blog site. Also dredge up older posts that attracted a lot of attention and rework them creating a new post.
• Here’s my number one favorite and most useful blog idea. I listen to my audience. I am in constant contact with writers and authors. Some of them come to me with questions or problems. I meet some at the presentations I participate in, at book festivals, at bookstores, at the grocery store… Writers comment on my blog and articles published on other sites. They participate in SPAWNDiscuss. I know what concerns them, pleases them, excites them and what challenges they face. And I write about these things in my blog. Take this post, for example. I started out by saying that people often ask me how I can come up with enough ideas to post every day. Lately, I’ve been visiting the blogs of my colleagues and I’m noticing that some of them do not post very often. These concepts led me to write on the topic of ideas today. See how that works?
Now, if you have a book to promote or you are working on a book, you really should be blogging often enough to attract regular followers. This is one way to build a platform to use in the very necessary process of book promotion.
Learn more about blogging, article-writing, giving presentations, sending press releases and tip sheets and so much more in my latest book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author (Allworth Press, 2011) http://www.matilijapress.com/PromoteYourBook.html It is also available at amazon in print and on Kindle.