A Bit on Blogging

Hello Everyone!

The September authors are wrapping up their extensive blog tours, the October authors getting ready for theirs, and I just sent the November authors their tours. Sufficed to say, our authors are saturating the book blogging community! And that’s a good thing!

As I’ve mentioned to all of you before, guest blogging has become the newest and easiest way to connect with readers. Yes, it’s a lot of work and yes, it’s hard to come up with topics and yes, it can be totally annoying—but I’ve had many a conversation with industry professionals (including booksellers) who think it’s really great and proactive that our authors are out there talking about their books.

So, I’ve put together some tips and info that I think everyone will benefit from!

1) Give Good Blog: Keep your blogs at a conversational length—I think a good length to aim for is 750-800 words, but in general blogs are around 500-1000 words. Anything less than 500 looks like you’re lazy and anything more than 1000 becomes way too wordy and the reader can get bogged down.
Tip: Remember to end your blogs with a question to encourage the readers to comment!

2) You don’t have to talk just about your book—let’s face it, mentioning your book summary and the blurbs you’ve gotten and where to look for it and where to find more information on you can get tiresome and boring!
Tip: One thing I’ve started doing is asking bloggers to give me topic suggestions to help you all get the wheels rolling for guest blogs. This also helps because then we get to know what bloggers (and therefore readers) want to know not only about your books, but also about you as an author! Some of the most commented on blogs I’ve seen aren’t because I’m sponsoring a giveaway, but are about the funny things writers do in their day to day lives!

3) But you do have to talk about your book—first and foremost (even though I just said you don’t have to always talk about your book), your blog tours are about promoting your books, and doing whatever you can to drive your audience into stores or online booksellers and actually purchase your books. So, yes, have fun talking about your favorite song—but you do have to tie that in to your book, or your writing process, or something related to your craft and/or creation of the current book.

4) Sneak a Peak—Bloggers love it when they can say they have an exclusive excerpt. But, personally, as someone who reads book blogs anyway (and not just because I get paid to do it), I think it’s a bit of a cop out when an author just sends and excerpt and that’s it.
Tip 1: Be sure to explain why you chose an excerpt to share—does this reveal something surprising about the hero or heroine? Is it particularly funny? Did something happen to inspire you to write it? Or maybe the research behind a scene was interesting and might not be totally clear to the reader upon reading it?
Tip 2: I think many readers like escaping through romance novels, but I do think they want to take something away from them as well, and guest blogs are a great way to explain this to them.

5) PROOFREAD. PROOFREAD. PROOFREAD.—or if you don’t catch your own mistakes, find someone that can. Please remember that I am a publicist not an editor. I have most of my press materials looked over by fellow publicists, copy editors, etc. (and sometimes, outside parties [like my mom or my boyfriend] who have no idea what I’m talking to ensure it makes sense on a literal level)
Tip 1: I do look over your blogs for content, and sometimes I do catch a random grammatical error or typo. And I do let you know when I think something can be re-worked, edited down or changed. But the last thing I want to see happen is that snarky commenter (see #9) who is just waiting for an author to do something wrong, and call them out on it!
Tip 2: Additionally, I’ve had bloggers not post a blog based on bad grammar. Seriously. It hasn’t happened in a while, but it’s been done.

6) Organization—This is more of a personal publicist preference rather than an overarching idea—send me your blogs in an attached word document, saved along the lines like “September 10 Casablanca Authors Blog DJackson.doc” (date, blog, name). You have no idea how many guest blogs I receive that are “guest blog 7” or “blog.doc.” Nonetheless, this will keep them organized on your computer, my computer and the blogger’s computer when I send them out.

7) Say Cheese! And send me a current (ie within the last 2 or 3 years) author photo—bloggers and readers want to see your dazzling smiles! Putting a face with a book yet another way to connect: what, authors are real people? Who woulda thunk?
Tip: I know for some of you, we run into penname issues, and that can be worked around.

8) Be Social! Aside from my #1 rule (which is #10 on this list)—you MUST MUST MUST check comments. Even when there aren’t any, YOU MUST SAY SOMETHING. It’s poor internetiquette not to say “Hey Blogger McBloggerson, thanks for having me today! I hope you enjoyed this little bit about my new book. Readers, I’ll check in during the day to answer any questions and join in the fun discussion!”
Tip: Now, I know—you have a day job and kids in school and errands to run and deadlines to meet and any number of other things to do, so if you KNOW you are going to be super busy or are going out of town or there’s an emergency—let me know! You don’t have to tell me minute by minute details, but you do need to let me know so I can tell the blogger you might not be able to check on comments. And if you know far enough in advance, we can schedule around it.

9) Don’t Fight with the Readers. If someone says something mean or disrespectful or ridiculous or rude and totally stupid and irrelevant, DON’T RESPOND TO IT. If you have to think twice about pressing save or send, DON’T PRESS THAT BUTTON.
Tip: Remember my mantra: the internet never goes away. Say it to yourself for a few minutes.

10) Have FUN! Guest blogging is definitely work—but it is something every author should start considering a part of their overall publishing career (and if they don’t, then they will be surprised at the state of the romance market). And you should be HAPPY and EXCITED to share your work with eager readers—both those that know about you, and the new readers out there who should know about you.

Now wouldn’t you know it, I’ve gotten very wordy (1,196 words—oh man). But if you have questions I’ll be around all day and answer them in the comments! Also, share some of your own blogging experiences or tips!