I blogged parts of two books, and the posts serve to draw readers into my topic, and then point them to my books. Some people turn blog posts into a book, while others blog parts of their book once they have written it, and a few people blog the book as they write it. This […]
Part 6 in the continuing series on using WordPress for blogging: a platform-building, book-selling tool. Today we’ll cover plugins. In many ways a WordPress plugin is similar to a WordPress widget: both enhance the functionality of a blog or website. Though widgets are visible to readers, plugins generally work behind the scenes. If a widget […]
YouTube Channel Features Veteran Author Peter Lyle DeHaan was interviewed on the Self-Publish Your Books with Confidence YouTube channel by Taryn Nergaard, owner and creative director of Typewriter Creative Co., posted on May 25, 2023. The video is titled “How I Self-Published: Peter DeHaan.” DeHaan has indie published (also known as self-publishing) over thirty books […]
There are several blogs I follow; I read them whenever I can. Sometimes I just read, and other times I read and comment. Only a small percent of blog readers take time to comment. The reasons are many: too busy, a lack of confidence, not knowing what to say, fear, and so forth. There are, […]
Some people say that if you’re blogging as a hobby, wordpress.com is okay, but if you consider yourself a professional you need to go with WordPress.org (the self-hosted version). Is it possible to do a professional website with WordPress.com? Though I’ve seen some successful authors use a WordPress.com powered website, it always surprises me. Yes, […]
Blogging is an important aspect of book publishing. This series on blogging with WordPress provides a starting point. Last week, focusing on WordPress, we talked about two options: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. In a basic way, WordPress.com is analogous to Gmail, while WordPress.org is more like Outlook (or in the extreme, it could be like an […]
To start your own blog, there are two aspects: the technical aspect and the content aspect, what is, what to blog about. Let’s look at the content part of blogging first: Find Your Blog Focus If you write whatever you feel like writing (as I did when I started), you will never find an audience. […]
I write a lot and in many areas: magazine columns, newsletters, multiple blogs, non-fiction books, memoirs, and I recently added short stories. But this doesn’t sap my creativity; I still have more ideas than the time to explore them. Here’s how I fuel my writing: Keep a List of Blog Ideas: I have a running […]
I once read that blogging is a form of self-publishing. The author’s opinion gave me pause. It seemed a simplistic claim. I felt it in some way diminished the noble art of publishing. Anyone can blog, and it seems most everyone does, but not most everyone self-publishes a book, even though the tools are there […]
As someone who’s written 2,500 blog posts and counting, you may be surprised that I don’t think a writer must blog. Here are two considerations, followed by a blogging option: Fiction Writers It’s hard for fiction writers to build a following with a blog. Unless you want to blog and have ideas for posts that […]