5 Ways an Author Blog Could Kill Your Writing (and What to Do Instead)

Writers: There is a a good chance you don’t need an author blog.

Static author websites are great, and you’d be crazy not to have one. But starting an author blog is a different (and often tragic) story.

In fact, your author blog might even kill your writing. There are hundreds of authors who started blogs, churned out posts for a year, and let it come to a dead stop.

Why? Because they realized it wasn’t worth the effort.

I’ll show you the five major reasons an author blog can be bad for your writing (with examples). We’ll cover some other, better audience-building methods to focus on instead.

And, since I’m a complete hypocrite and I run my own author blog, I’ll show you the one and only reason you might want to start one anyway.

Ready? Let’s save your writing…

1. Blogging Will Steal Your Valuable Writing Time

There are two ways to run a blog:

1. Post erratic, guilt-induced content apologizing for why you haven’t posted in a while. Give up. Come back for one or two weeks. Give up again.
2. Post high-quality content on a very measured schedule.

#2 is extremely effective for building an audience… But it comes with a heavy price: years of your time, effort, and perpetual focus.

Blogging takes a lot out of you. You need to come up with content, publish at least once a week, manage your website, deal with commenters, etc. To get a meaningful audience on a blog, you will need to carve a huge, vital chunk out of your writing time every week.

Your author blog will steal creative productivity from the writing projects you actually care about.

Jane Friedman, a full-time writer working in the publishing industry, warns about the investment it takes to blog:

“You do not have to blog, and if you don’t have much interest in the form, then please don’t pursue it. As with any form of writing, it takes a considerable investment of energy and time to do it right and get something from it.”

2. Blogging Builds the “Wrong” Skills

I wrote a post on my blog called 26 Ways to Write Instantly Sympathetic Characters. I’m pretty happy with it, because it’s already one of my most popular posts.

In total, it took me six hours to write it. I spent about two hours researching:

• Hunting down examples
• Studying my favorite characters
• Actually learning how to create sympathetic characters

The other four hours? Writing the post. Instead of implementing what I had learned, I was working on skills like:

• Creating internet-viable content
• Blog-style pacing and scannability
• Information dissemination (as opposed to absorption)

Traditional blogging is information heavy and story light. Very few blogging skills translate to writing publishable stories.

As an author (aspiring or otherwise), you’ll build your storytelling skills much faster if you just focus on writing stories.

Are There Exceptions to This?

Of course. There are no rules in writing. (Though there are some very overconfident guidelines.)

Let’s say you publish weekly microfiction to your blog. Every week, you get a little better at storytelling… while also building your audience. Hopefully.

But I have only one question for you: Why do you want to build a following from scratch?

There are plenty of voracious, established writing outlets that are overflowing with readers:

• Wattpad
• Reddit’s /r/WritingPrompts
• Writing forums and online writing groups

Skip the years of sweat and tears. Start on one of these platforms. Grow your writing skills while tapping into an enormous pre-existing audience.

Author Blogs Don’t Sell Books (Not Really)

Long ago, quick and dirty practices thrived on the internet…

Back in the “wild west” of the Dot-com Boom, content producers could see massive results with even the laziest tactics.

Publishers saw gold.

I’m not blaming the publishers here – when there’s a new frontier, you have to explore it. But those wild west days are long since over. The almighty Search Engines ruled in favor of the users, not the exploiters.

And with that, the internet was tamed. Yet some old myths refuse to die…

Do you feel obligated to start an author blog? Is your publisher telling you “that’s the best way to sell books?”

Every guilt-tripped author blog looks the same. Start with the first posts, and scroll up through the latest, and here’s what you’ll see:

• The first posts are wide-eyed and brimming with optimism. They vary in length and quality, and make too many promises.
• Then comes a stretch of posts put out at seemingly random intervals.
• The latest posts are sparse and almost always start with an apology.

Eventually, the blog withers like the grass in the West Texas desert.

Answer this for me:

1. Who are your favorite authors?
2. When was the last time you bought a book… because you were reading their blog?

Rarely? Never?

Here’s how most readers buy books:

• Get recommendations from friends
• Find a great deal or get an email notification about their wishlist
• See their favorite author announce a new release on social media

Unless you live and die by the blog, there are vastly better ways to sell books. We’ll get to those soon.

But first, I want to show you why even the most successful authors don’t bother with blogging.

Even Professional Authors Get Sick of Consistency

The most successful authors are really good at finishing projects.

One day, you will finish your book. No more adding. No more editing.

The same can’t be said for a blog. You will always have to feed the beast. Otherwise it will starve, and it will whine pathetically, and everytime people come over to visit, they’ll see it and make that “Oh, dear” face.

For example:

Neil Gaiman was at a wedding. He wrote something for the Bride and Groom, and it was beautiful. People asked if they could get a copy of reading.

Then, Gaiman remembered he had a blog: “I have a blog. And it is dusty there and really, I should put [the reading] up. So look on my blog.”

Neil did not post again for almost six months.

You can tell he’s more concerned about publishing his next book than his next blog post. Which is something his readers (and publishers) are extremely grateful for.

That brings us to the final death knell for author blogs…

Your Readers Just Want to Read Your Stories

Chuck Wendig is a full-time author who somehow has the time to update his blog almost every day.

His advice for starting an author blog?

If you don’t love it, don’t do it. Here’s why:

“Blogging because you have to? What an execrable task. Who wants to read a blog that you feel is an obligation? I want to read something the author wants to write, not filler content meant to prop up a dead thing. This isn’t Weekend At Bernie’s.”

What Should You Do Instead of an Author Blog?

Someone once said, “Blogging is like social media, but for adults.”

This statement is not only arrogant, it’s also extremely ignorant.

Social media is a perfectly valid way to grow your audience. In most cases, social media is a more valuable way to reach an audience – because everyone is on one platform or another.

Barring distractions, ideal social media usage is far less time-consuming than an ideal blog posting schedule. Authors who use social media (with a strong, distraction-free plan in mind) have more time to write.

A Two-pronged Strategy for Building Your Audience

Focus on ONE platform you absolutely love. Build your audience there.

• Want to engage a community? Head to Facebook.
• Are you an endless font of hilarity, unique thoughts, or controversial quips? Take to Twitter.
• Love taking pictures of yourself? Instagram. (Okay, maybe this isn’t the best platform for authors.)

Be consistent. Focus on engaging with your fans (or future fans). Don’t go to Facebook just to share your stuff. (And quit stalking your ex.)

Get into pre-existing networks.

• Offer to get interviewed on Podcasts.
• Finish your book and give away advanced copies to reviewers.
• Guest post on popular blogs where your future readers might already exist.

These strategies will allow you to tap into a much larger audience – without having to build your following from scratch. Most owners of blogs, podcasts, etc. will be thrilled to have you create content for them.

The Only Reason You Should Ever Start an Author Blog

Why did you start writing?

You wouldn’t be a writer if you didn’t love at least some part of it.

The same should go for blogging. The only reason you should start an author blog is if you love blogging. I publish regularly to my writing blog because I genuinely love sharing writing advice.

Your author blog must be a labor of love – or else it will burn you out. Take a stab at your other options first before you start an author blog. Save your writing time for writing.

Credit: WritersDigest

How To Free-Write

Do you have trouble writing? Did you choose a topic or idea to develop, but now you find yourself stuck? Try free writing! This exercise is used by writers to gather their thoughts and ideas before they begin a document, with the result being an endless, non-punctuated, and free-flowing paragraph that will be immensely helpful in the preliminary writing process.

Doing Your Own Free-writes

1. Set a timer or use the clock on your computer screen.Give yourself 5 to 10 minutes to write continuously. This is so you get going and write quickly. Spend the time writing, not worrying about the time.
2. Select a topic for your free writing.If you have chosen to do focused free writing, write this topic at the top of your page. If you just wish to write without a topic, go ahead without one. You may be surprised at what you write even on days when you begin with “I can’t think of anything to write here.”
3. Start your timer.
4. Write down whatever comes to mind.It can be in relation to your topic if you have one or if you are doing unfocused free writing because you are trying to come up with an idea or topic, just write down every random thought that crosses your mind as quickly as possible.
5. Continue writing until the designated time has run out.Do not stop until that point.

• Do not pay attention to grammar or typos.
• If there are any incomplete sentences or misspelled words, do not worry. Just keep going.
• If you run into a dead end or draw a blank, keep writing the same word or phrase over and over again until something else pops into your mind. One idea is to take a quick glance around the room and choose one object to describe.
• When the time has run out, look over what you have written and circle or underline ideas that you like or that you think that might be useful for your project.

Group your marked ideas and phrases and decide where they lead you in your writing process.

Use online tools such as 420fables.com to make free-writing a regular part of your daily writing discipline.

Begin your rough draft. If you have enough to start your paper or document, then begin working on your rough draft. If you do not have enough ideas, free write for another session, or try another informal invention technique such as brainstorming or mind mapping.

 

Credit:

Wikihow

How to Bounce Back After a Business Venture Goes Awry

Even many of the most successful entrepreneurs have had the experience of a business venture going wrong. The intricacies of business can cause a venture to falter, even if you’re not directly responsible for the downfall. Unfortunately, the many moving cogs of a new venture can cause you to overlook essential factors, resulting in a regretful business venture.

Many entrepreneurs stress the importance of bouncing back. As Bill Gates says: “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” The best entrepreneurs use the experience of a faltering business venture to bounce back more forcefully than ever before with new projects.

There are several ways to bounce back strong after a business plan goes adrift.

1. Don’t conflate a startup’s potential

In reality, many startups don’t turn out quite as planned. A Harvard Business School study finds that 75 percent of venture-backed startups fail. However, many fledgling entrepreneurs only see examples of startup success in the media, with former startups like Snapchat, Airbnb and Dropbox among the numerous success stories. Especially with many of these former startups so prevalent in day-to-day life, the idea of startup success can conflate into an unrealistic vision.

The false impression of most startups finding success, when the opposite is true, can lead to some unwise entrepreneurial planning. Without recognizing the possibility of a given startup failing, some entrepreneurs can blindly devise a business plan without heeding any potential hiccups or bumps in the road.

If your business plan doesn’t go as intended, it’s worth evaluating precisely why that happened, regardless of whether you had anything to do with it personally. It’s also worth acknowledging that the venture simply ended up like many do, so don’t treat it as an indictment of your potential or talent. From Warren Buffett to Bill Gates, even the most successful entrepreneurs have their share of investment and entrepreneurial failures.

2. Realize that profit is rarely immediate

With some exceptions, new business undertakings are unlikely to be profitable in their first year or two. A piece of knowledge that a faltering business can provide is the lack of immediacy in success. When starting your next venture, it will be easier to remember the multitasking, demanding work hours and mental requirements of your previous venture, helping you to form a decision over whether or not it’s going well. This time, with the earlier challenges fresh in your mind, prudence will play a larger role in evaluating the success of a business idea.

Especially if your previous venture showed potential, but you lacked for capital to continue the experiment longer, it can be worthwhile to take some time off to gather funding before launching the next plan. Ideally, businesses should be able to support themselves financially for a given period, while buzz builds and the business model gets truly underway.

3. Merge new lessons with a new industry

A business venture that goes off-course can teach multiple lessons about that industry itself, particularly in how its customers react to a new product or service. Perhaps your business plan and idea felt solid, though the approach was not received well in the niche. If the product or service is in any way compatible with another industry, it can be very worthwhile to consider exploring that industry instead, especially if it’s an industry where you have pre-existing contacts.

4. Keep track of happy customers

Even if your previous business plan didn’t work out as planned, you could still have previous customers that were happy with the product/service, or even your charm as a salesperson. When getting your next venture underway, be sure to reach out to these customers, mentioning your connection to the business with which they’re familiar and happy. Ideally, you will be able to get some lucrative leads with pre-existing connections.

5. Take inventory

There are different levels of severity for a faltering business. Some failed business may drain investors dry, while others may have pulled the plug before serious damage occurred. Regardless, it’s prudent to take inventory of the funds and resources you do have. Taking inventory helps provide a realistic picture of when you can hop back on the horse and pursue a new idea, in addition to how much you can realistically invest in terms of money and time.

6. Define more realistic goals

Experience with a misguided business venture can help lead to more realistic goals in the future, with new knowledge surrounding what does and doesn’t work, in addition to realistic monetary expectations for the short and long-term within a specific industry. Plus, experience from past failures helps to correct and adjust in the future, enhancing your knowledge at the moment as you take action.

A wavering or unsuccessful business endeavor is nothing new to the majority of active entrepreneurs. What’s important is how you bounce back, ideally with more gusto and passion than before. Failure can result in expanded knowledge regarding more realistic goals, networking opportunities and personal strengths, helping to increase the likelihood of your next endeavor being a smash hit.

Culled from Entrepreneur

Post Tags:#business plan#business venture#entrepreneurs#warren buffett

Rebrand Your Business Without Losing Your Audience

 

The rebrand of your business can take many forms, from picking a new name to implementing a new business model. While these changes are taking place, businesses must still work to connect and communicate with customers.

Is it possible to rebrand a business without losing your audience and disappointing current customers? Five business owners shared their tips on how to make it all work.

Know why you are rebranding.

A rebrand is a major undertaking, involving your marketing, web presence, client list, employees and mission. The process is more likely to succeed if you have compelling reasons for the change.

David Black, head of marketing and customer support for Retire Ready Solutions, helped guide his company through a rebrand that involved both a major name change and a refocusing of services. In their case, a rebrand was necessary to encourage growth and clarify their services. However, if that’s not the case for your business, he said, rebranding could do more harm than good.

“If it isn’t essential, there may be easier ways to grow your business,” said Black. “If [your] company is leaning toward rebranding, make sure to think through everything that will be affected and consider the time, expense, and work that will need to go into it and whether the [return on investment] will justify the expense and effort.”

When Rod Hughes, the vice president of Kimball Hughes Public Relations, helped oversee the company’s rebrand from Kimball Communications, he worked hard to communicate that the change was primarily about earning and maintaining their clients’ trust.

“I became an owner [and] partner in the business in 2016, and we wanted clients to understand when they worked with me, they were working with a decision-maker for the business,” said Hughes. “Our agency president, Gary Kimball, plans to retire in 2020, and we felt it was important to our existing clients, as well as prospective clients, to see a continuity of leadership and a long-term transition plan for management of the agency.”

Don’t commit to a rebrand without clear, strategic, customer-centered reasons. And once you do, make sure customers know exactly what those reasons are if you want to maintain their loyalty.

Have a comprehensive strategy before you start.

“The decision to rebrand was a fairly easy one to take,” said Black. “The difficulties arose in the details and the implementation. Like peeling back layers of an onion, you don’t realize all that goes into a rebrand until you get into it.”

Many businesses are surprised by the complexities involved in a rebrand. While initial plans may focus on a new name and matching domain, the process is likely to involve designing new logos, branded company products, a new website design and content, product guides, the services you offer, and even the clients you pursue. To ensure the process runs smoothly without losing customers, have a strategy in place before you begin.

Plan for the changes that will need to be made as well as which parts of your marketing and business strategy will be affected. Designate members of your team to be in charge of each area, from making design decisions to communicating with the public.

“Rebranding is a process through which you reset your mission and priorities going forward … Work to reflect that in your branded materials as well as in the minds of your customers,” said Hughes. “It’s a significant undertaking and should be treated as such.”

Anticipate questions and concerns.

Communicating with customers during a rebrand is key to maintaining existing client relationships. If customers doesn’t understand why changes are happening, they may lose trust in the business, and you could see a significant drop in revenue.

Brian Moak, the owner of HEART Certified Auto Care in Chicago, rebranded his family’s business to expand it into a national franchise. But during the process, he found that many existing customers worried that the name change and expansion meant the family-owned business had been bought out. To preserve their trust, Moak worked to anticipate the questions customers would have and provide answers before they took their business elsewhere.

“During a rebranding process, keep your communication simple, straightforward and speak to people’s fears and concerns,” Moak advised. “Change is scary, and people … need clear explanations and reassurance to understand, support, and buy into your vision.”

When marketing agency GMR Web Team rebranded to focus on clients in the healthcare industry, owner and founder Ajay Prasad found that understanding the concerns of employees was as important as anticipating questions from customers. Employees, he pointed out, are the ones responsible for communicating with customers, and without their support and understanding, customers will be left in the dark.

“Make sure you have a sound business reason for rebranding. Discuss [it] with your team and get their buy-in. That way, your employees can easily communicate it to existing and potential clients, and understand the goals they should be tracking,” said Prasad. “Every rebrand is meant to improve a business, so everyone needs to understand where to expect those improvements.”

Publicize your rebrand.

Communicating with your customers doesn’t have to be internal or private. All five business owners found that talking about their rebrand as publicly as possible didn’t just help them maintain their current level of business – it led to an increase.

“We … used social media, press releases, and media contacts to communicate with customers and the general public,” said Black when describing how Retire Ready shared the news about their rebrand. “We saw an increase in traffic to our website and greater interest in our company, because there was a better understanding of what we offered, and it was easier to find us in search engines.”

Moak found that when his team went public about the reasons for HEART’s rebrand, his customers stepped up to offer their encouragement and support. “Our customers are thrilled that we are trying to expand our mission to other communities,” he said.

Kris Gösser, the chief marketing officer for healthcare cloud compliance company Datica, oversaw the company’s rebrand right before their industry’s largest trade show of the year. With such a high-profile event coming up, Datica’s team had to talk publicly about the rebrand and the reasons behind it. This, said Gösser, was good for the company.

“We had an overwhelming positive reaction from our customers. They definitely liked our new name, new identity, new aesthetic and new vibe in the market,” he said. “… [Customers] were more happy to associate with Datica than they were with [our former] brand.”

Don’t drop the ball on existing customers.

Strategies, like being transparent about your rebrand and having a clear plan for how to accomplish it, go a long way toward retaining customers. But the best way to avoid a drop in business is to focus on maintaining excellent service, no matter what else is going on.

“If possible, ensure that the rebrand affects your existing clients as little as possible,” advised Prasad. “It will take time for the new focus to start paying off, so you do not want the current revenue flow to drop.”

In the course of its rebrand, his business narrowed its client-acquisition focus to the healthcare industry. But Prasad also made sure that existing non-healthcare clients knew they were still a priority. “We sent a blast [via email] telling them that we will only accept healthcare-related businesses as new clients and that nothing will change for them. Our clients like us, and no one had any issue with our repositioning decision. We even kept our old website live … and told our non-healthcare clients to use [it].”

The ultimate goal of any rebrand should be to grow the business by better serving your customers. Sometimes that requires putting client services ahead of the rebrand. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Hughes found that his firm’s rebrand took longer than anticipated in part because existing clients had to be the company’s top focus. “The process of rebranding will take longer than you expect,” Hughes said. “Competing priorities – especially client or customer-facing priorities – will always require your time and attention ahead of the rebrand.”

That willingness to delay the rebrand in order to focus on service paid off, Hughes added. The firm didn’t lose a single client during or after the rebrand, and old customers are just as happy as new ones.

 

Culled from Business News Daily

Post Tags:#Branding#business#new business#rebranding

Dedication and Willingness to be Terrible: How Ishiguro won the Nobel

 

Kazuo Ishiguro wrote the bulk of The Remains of the Day in four weeks. All it took was extreme dedication—and a willingness to be terrible.

In the way the sculpture or carpentry is a craft, writing is a craft. There is art, lifestyle, and romance to it. Writers don’t just jumble words on blank pages; writing is a mix of discipline, dedication, a staring into the abyss of the subconscious, and a unison with the supernatural. Like a worker of clay, writers mash words, and are themselves mashed and caked in the clay of the art.

Writing is a delicious work, but it is for the most part simply work. It’s often lonely. It’s rarely romantic. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect,” Anaïs Nin said.

Writing is refreshing and exciting, and it is also a public service. Writers of literature are public servants in that they use their stage not just to celebrate literature but to also put the creation of literature in its place – of mirroring the society. And it’s especially refreshing when writers at the highest levels of the field do that. One of them has been Kazuo Ishiguro, the British novelist and the latest winner of the Nobel Prize.

On Thursday, 5th October 2017 the Nobel Committee announced Ishiguro as its 2017 laureate for literature. The Committee noted in its citation, that came in part because the author, “in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

Almost immediately after the announcement was made, a story from The Guardian, written by Ishiguro himself and published in December of 2014, began circulating on social media. The piece is headlined, “Kazuo Ishiguro: How I Wrote The Remains of the Day in Four Weeks.” The article details how the author overcame the consensus about writing, and most importantly the haul of life’s demand, to conjure enough letters that would become Ishiguro’s most famous piece.

Due to distractions from the “first flurry of public success” that accompanied his second novel, an end seemed to have come to his “proper” work, spending a whole year fruitlessly to write the opening chapter of a book. So Ishiguro and his wife, Lorna, hatched a plan to jump-start his creativity:

I would, for a four-week period, ruthlessly clear my diary and go on what we somewhat mysteriously called a “Crash.” During the Crash, I would do nothing but write from 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday. I’d get one hour off for lunch and two for dinner. I’d not see, let alone answer, any mail, and would not go near the phone. No one would come to the house. Lorna, despite her own busy schedule, would for this period do my share of the cooking and housework. In this way, so we hoped, I’d not only complete more work quantitively, but reach a mental state in which my fictional world was more real to me than the actual one.

The goal, essentially, was to deliberately create an environment in which the author and his narrative might be fused into one. It was a crash. “Throughout the Crash,” Ishiguro notes, “I wrote free-hand, not caring about the style or if something I wrote in the afternoon contradicted something I’d established in the story that morning. The priority was simply to get the ideas surfacing and growing. Awful sentences, hideous dialogue, scenes that went nowhere—I let them remain and ploughed on.”

And he hooked it. Four weeks later, Ishiguro had a draft of The Remains of the Day. He tinkered with it still, yes. He added and trimmed and honed. For the most part, though, he had, in a concentrated month, completed a masterpiece. He’d spent his year of unproductivity, he notes, doing the background work of the writing—he’d read books by and about British servants, and histories, and “The Danger of Being a Gentleman”—and the Crash came at a time when Ishiguro knew what he needed to know to write what he wanted to write. All that was required was to sit down and do the work.

It’s a helpful reminder to writers of literature both serious and less so—and to anyone who might be intimidated by talk of writing’s metaphysical properties. “If you mix Jane Austen and Franz Kafka then you have Kazuo Ishiguro in a nutshell, but you have to add a little bit of Marcel Proust into the mix,” said Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of The Swedish Academy, explaining the Committee’s choice of Ishiguro. “Then you stir, but not too much, then you have his writings.”

It’s high, and accurate, praise—but it is the reward for Ishiguro’s quest for knowledge, strong spirit to make a difference, unchained mind, and stalwart dedication to link the clutters of words, dialogues and character. And it is indeed a vital imaginative breakthrough!

• CAREER
• DEDICATION
• WRITING