As we migrate from 2015 to 2016 we pause to reflect on where we’ve been and then to look forward to where we’re going. First, here is our top posts for 2015, revealing the best of this blog as voted on by you (that is, the pages you read the most times): These represent the […]
Last week I mentioned four benefits of having an author podcast to build our platform. The reasons are compelling. But before jumping in, we need to consider if podcasting makes sense for us. I was an early adopter of podcasting. Though I don’t have the dates, it was shortly after I started blogging, so around […]
An online friend wrote a blog post that went viral. It elicited emotion. Passionate comments spewed forth in support and opposition. Because of the firestorm his post created, a publisher offered him a book deal. He turned his blog post into a book. This is one-way blogging that can result in a published book. Though […]
With some creativity and planning, authors can hang onto their joy of writing Some writers hate to write, but their love of completing a book spurs them on. I understand the ecstasy of a job that’s done. I love finishing a writing project, be it a book, a ghostwriting assignment, an article, or a post. […]
Last month I added a new feature to my blog posts. I look for an interesting tweetable phrase relating to my topic and then place it in a box using a large font. It stands out and gets the reader’s attention. It looks like a callout in a magazine. (Magazine publishing is my day job.) […]
A friend, who is also a prolific reader, once shocked me. Talking about nonfiction books, he said: “I only read the first chapter. Then I page through the rest and stop to read anything that’s interesting.” My incredulous look encouraged him to explain. “Most nonfiction books pack their entire message into the first chapter. The […]
I just began writing a book, an 85,000-word book. It needs to be finished by the end of November. That’s a lot of words in a short amount of time. I made a schedule. I will write Monday through Friday and edit on Saturday. With a few exceptions, I need to write 1,750 words a […]
Ever since I first heard of content marketing, I understood it conceptually. Content marketing is providing interesting and useful information to our audience without trying to sell them anything. But I didn’t comprehend what it meant in practice. I was unable to connect theory with reality. I think my confusion resulted because I was reading […]
As writers we all want more people to see what we write, right? If we have a book, we want more people to buy it, and if we blog we want more people to read it and comment, right? Be careful. Last week I heard about two bloggers whose posts went viral. The first case […]
Last week’s post was long, my longest ever on this blog. It was far longer than my goal of 200 to 300 words and beyond my limit of 500. Today’s post will make up for that. It will be short. When I started blogging, I’d sit down and write a post whenever I had time […]