“If a friend came to you looking for advice on starting a blog, what three pieces of advice would you give them?”
This is rather good timing for this question after a month when so many bloggers have just completed The A to Z Blogging Challenge. Mostly today, I just wanted to not turn my computer on after such a hectic month, but I'll give this a go.
1. Don't start until you know what you want to blog about. If you're just keeping a journal of helping your child with their homework, you might not find many people interested in reading that. But if you don't care if you grow an audience of readers, it doesn't matter what you write.
2. Read a lot of blogs before you start yours to get ideas and help you decide which platform you like best.
3. Know going in that blogging does take time. Are you sure you want to commit to it?
May is very busy for me. I have my local writer's meeting this Saturday. The entire second weekend in the month will be spent in Boston at my daughter's graduation. The third weekend is the annual writer's conference that I help run. And then it's Memorial Day. And in between times I have so much lawn work to do, the pool to open and some other household fix-ups. Oh, and I have to do some writing too. I'm not in a hurry to get through any of those things but I will be busy.
And a last piece of blogging advice, join an active supportive group like the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Don't forget, this week is our monthly first Wednesday posting. There is a lot of good stuff coming your way during the upcoming months for IWSG. If you're not a member, why not?
What advice do you have for a wanna-be blogger? Do you have plans for May?
29 comments:
Hi Susan - congratulations on finishing the A-Z - always a very satisfying achievement ... your daughter's graduation - will be wonderful - congratulations to her.
So much going on ... enjoy the lawn and the pool and the conferences and the writing .. cheers Hilary
Great tips. Blogging DOES take a lot of time. My tips would be:
1. Pace yourself in order to avoid burnout
2. Reciprocate with comments (this also leads to friendships)
3. Blog for you and not your audience. After all, if you do not enjoy what you blog about, you will lose interest.
Yep, that is why many quit, they lose interest or they don't know about the time one, until they do it and see how much time it takes
Congratulations Susan, on finishing A-Z! Hard work, indeed. I guess my comment about blogging is if you want your blog to be read, make sure you read and comment on others blogs. Blogging is relationship driven...you get out of it what you put in. If you want it to, it can enrich your life dramatically!
Yeh on finishing A-Z!
I agree about blogging taking time, not only in the writing of posts but also in the visiting other blogs, the commenting, the responding to comments, etc. I agree with Liza's comment above - "Blogging is relationship driven."
My two bits:
• Proofread. Nothing turns me off more than a post with typos.
• Keep rants to a minimum. A blog is not a soapbox for personal grudges.
The IWSG and blog hops are great ways to keep you writing and connecting. May is also a hectic month for me! Congrats on completing the A to Z Challenge!
Mary at Play off the Page
Excellent blogging advice.
My local writers group meets this Saturday, too. There must be something about the first Saturday of the month. :)
Best of luck with all you have going on this month.
My advice would be to make sure you are having fun doing it. Anything that becomes a burden instead of a joy is hard to keep doing.
May is going to be a crazy busy month.
That's awesome advice. Blogging does take a lot of time, and I think many folks don't realize it when they start. It's also about interaction and not just writing posts. My May will be busy too. Yikes!
Sound advice. My post was more about design. I'm hoping May isn't too crazy for me. The day job we are staying open later and so the next two weeks I will be there way more than I want to be, but the pay check will be pretty.
In May, my younger daughter will be in her school play, both daughters will have school concerts, and we will go on vacation to Kiawah Island. (And the older one is turning 12!) Yep, it will be busy, but I would love to get back into my writing after spending April blogging A to Z.
You do have a busy but fun filled May ahead! Great advice you gave about blogging; I would also add to gain readership or followers, comment on lots of blogs consistently that you enjoy reading and also join some weekly memes and again visit a lot of people and comment, comment, comment :)
betty
When I first started blogging I'd never read other than one or two blogs and didn't know much about what blogging was about. I knew what I was going to blog about though. Then after I started it wasn't long before I changed my direction. Reading other blogs and catching on to what worked best is part of my turn-around, but I also kept thinking of so many other things to write about. If a blogger doesn't experiment and stretch themselves, they can get pretty limited in what they are doing.
Work you say? Darn right good blogging takes a lot of work and time often with little measurable return. You gotta love it at least a little.
Arlee Bird
A to Z Challenge Co-host
Tossing It Out
You know, I didn't do #2. I hadn't read a single blog when I started mine, which made finding blogs to connect to difficult. When you're new to blogging, it can be tough to find them at first. Now I realize I could've easily Googled for writing/author blogs. Haha!
It's very true. Hell, we still don't even know what we're blogging about, topic-wise. We just talk about whatever interests us.
Our advice would simply be to not do it for money. So many people create a blog and put a few ads on it, expecting to make a ton of money and be able to work from home. Yeah, that doesn't work. If you blog, do it to promote yourself, or be social, or because you love it, but don't do it because you're going to become the next Internet millionaire. You won't be.
Knowing what you're blog's going to be about is really important. My publisher just said, "Blog." So I did. I has taken me some time to figure out what it was I supposed to be blogging about. I kind of backed into this, and I wouldn't recommend that to someone just starting out.
Reading a lot of blogs before you get started is great! That's kind of how I began. It really helped.
I have been blogging for eight years or more and love it, the excitement of the A to Z only heightens the year's blogging.
Yvonne.
I still blog about anything and everything that comes to mind but as you know, I publish recipes too.
I've spent so much time writing these things. I often doubt whether it's worth it.
Sounds like you have another busy month, Susan. Wishing you lots of fun in Boston. Congrats to your daughter. I tend to blog about anything to do with writing, that sometimes means sharing some of the bizzare moments that have happened to me throughout life. Happy May!!
I need to receive all that blogging advice, not give it. One thing I know for sure, if the writer needs a user friendly venue, go for Blogger. It's lots easier to figure out. WordPress is taking too much of my time just getting the PlugIns to work right.
Sounds like you have another busy month, Susan! Have fun!
Great advice for starting a blog, especially the third point, because you have to be ready for commitment. It sounds like you have a busy month ahead, I'm hoping to get some writing in this month.
I completely agree with your tips. It takes time and effort. It helps to know what the focus will be. Starting with Blogger for example is an easy way to get familiar with the process. I wanted more creative freedom, so I choose Wordpress.org (slightly different than Wordpress.com), and there is a learning curve. Subscribing to various writing groups, such as IWSG is a good way to increase your skills.
I like your advice about reading other blogs. It's like the advice you give to writers about reading. I had an acquaintance start a blog out-of-the-blue one day and a few weeks later delete it. She never asked for advice and wasn't a blog reader. She was turned off by the fact that people expected her to follow back and engage... go figure.
This is good advice, specially the warning about the amount of time it takes. Glad to have found your blog.
Jump in, have fun, and be yourself.
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