Author Websites & Blogs

[Julie]

Hi all,
I was sat yesterday researching the next 'batch of agents,' which takes ages and diverts from writing time, as I can get completely lost in the process. Taking a break from that, I picked up the current Writers and Artists and came across a chunk on self-publishing. Part of this chunk talked about the value of having a website and writing a blog.

A few years ago, I did consider the latter and spent an inordinate amount of time reading other people's blogs. Somewhere along the line, I deemed it too hard to try myself and I went back to my own writing.

I want or wanted (can't decide) to be traditionally published - until I read the above. I think, after a full day of researching a particular agent (finding their client list, reading clients' novel extracts on Amazon, scouting for agent's interviews, tweets, blogs, etc, I just felt I couldn't muster the enthusiasm for it anymore, at least not at the moment.

Maybe website/blog is the way to go. Perhaps just writing about the things that interest me/ putting up some poetry/some extracts/ teaser, etc, - is a more immediate way of connecting with potential readers rather than waiting to be picked from the slushpile. Putting work 'out there' and just letting the universe decide keeps the flow open?

So, if you already do this or your considering doing it, I would love to know. Is self-publishing and self-promotion the way forward in this climate?
Thanks,

Galadriel

 

[Tracey (T)]

I keep on meaning to do it but get stuck every time on the best way forward. I guess I worry too much that I’ll put something out there and then regret it. As a result I’ve got various plans and notes and my partner keeps on saying I should get myself set up with a website and all that stuff but I always find something more pressing to do. Ridiculous really. Even writing this, it’s making me think that I’m just being very cowardly. I think I need the validation of an agent wanting my work because then I may start to believe that it’s ok! I shall watch with interest for any good advice that comes out of this.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I vented forth about this subject in a couple of old threads:

https://colony.litopia.com/threads/what-i-wish-id-done-before-starting-to-write-books.5850/

Whether you continue with your research into literary agents with a view to getting a traditional publishing contract, or if you decide to go Indie and self-publish, then you should really have a blog and a website devoted to your book. Also, social media profiles, including a Facebook business page. Agents and publishers will check to see if you have these things already. They're after clients that can self-promote. They're more likely to make an offer to someone with 1,000 + followers than someone who's anonymous. Gone are the days when publishers organised all the promotion for you.

My blog (based on Colony posts): Paul Pens

My website: THE CORNISH DETECTIVE PROFILE

I recommend CloudAccess.net as a provider of website space. I use their free option, which works fine, and they always remind me in good time when my monthly membership is about to expire.

There's a lot of such self-promotion work involved in being a writer in the 21st-century. Writing the book is the easy part!

 

[CageSage]

I use the free Wordpress (it may be different now, from what I've read).
If you have a web site and you have books, there should be a page or pages for the books (or a drop-down list from a page). However, a blog or web page won't do the advertising. It takes time to fit in, so doing it early or before you have a book is good, so you have that time. It won't sell a lot of books, but it can find reader groups. Most people follow other writers, but most readers also want to become writers, and writers also read, and I don't think there's any harm in sitting on this particular fence.
As with other platforms, if you use the blog/web page to only advertise your books, you will lose followers. The blog site is to get to know the person behind the stories. However, if you don't have a page with your books, or notify the followers of a release, you're missing an opportunity. You never know who will reblog your post, or how many of the followers will tell their friends.
I'm only just dipping my toes in Twitter, and don't yet have a FB account. The advertising I've done is limited because I don't have much of a backlist in any one genre (the mistake of doing more than one category lies here). I do have a plan for advertising, even if the budget is small -- because some of my followers will see and do something when I advertise more widely. And I want a good backlist when I'm paying out money -- the value for the writer in getting new readers is also having more than one item to sell (I don't know what the best number is).

I do enjoy socialising with the people I've met on and through the blog, and many of them are people who pay for my self-published pieces ... it would be nice if they also left reviews, but if they talk about the stories with other people ...

Anyway, good luck. And remember to have fun.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I self-publish, after realising that the part I really didn't want to do--marketing--was going to largely fall to me anyway (even with a traditional contract), and I may as well go for the higher royalties of self-pub.

Anyway, as I always knew, I don't do marketing well. But I have learned a bit along the way, and I'm improving all the time. The key is in building relationships with readers. Most indie authors do this through social media--whichever platforms your particular audience frequents. So, while having a web page is critical, it's not where you sell books or chat with your readers, particularly--it's a professional presentation of your brand.

Marketing also takes money. You have to buy advertising and make sure your imagery and words are professional, so they don't stand out as 'indie'. And there's no point in marketing until you have more than one book. Most folks say you should have at least five, preferably in the same series, so you'll get read through from ads on the first book.

As I say, I don't do this well. Still learning, still figuring out the ways in which I (a serious introvert who hesitates to even tell people I write) am comfortable connecting with readers. Just spent a few hours yesterday hanging out with a fellow Kiwi author with similar books to mine at one of her online 'dragon parties'. I know they're huge hits with her readers ... and after participating in one, I don't think I could do it. But I've taken other ideas from her successful strategies, and am slowly building a strategy that works for me.

 

[Jonny]

It's something I've thought of in the past and still do frequently. There is quite an emphasis put on having a social media platform these days for sure, but when I was traditionally published by a significant publisher a while ago I was still left to do almost all of the publicity and marketing myself.

I keep toying with the idea of setting up a website dedicated to my writing but then when the first rush of euphoria subsides I think that doing so is quite a task to undertake well, and I ask myself what will it achieve. Going through a significant amount of work perhaps only to see tumbleweed blowing through my new pride and joy whenever I take a look isn't an inviting proposition.

Will it become just another drop in the ocean of the vastness of the Internet? Which raises another question - how would I make it stand out among the many squillions already out there? The answer is that I don't know to be honest, but now reading through this thread I am again wondering whether I need to bite the bullet and set one up anyway.

I currently have a website (writing-related) but not about my writing, so in theory it would be quite easy to start a new page up alongside that. Maybe I will. But were I to do so what do those with a personal writing-related site think of two different sites co-existing in the same web space?

Strikes me it could cause confusion and that I might be better to use the same or another provider's free option to test the water and set up a stand alone "Jonny writes..." thing.

All that being said I think my preferred route is to still get a traditional agent-brokered publishing deal, but I just might get my writer website up and running. Also, it can't do any harm.

 

[Julie]

I keep on meaning to do it but get stuck every time on the best way forward. I guess I worry too much that I’ll put something out there and then regret it. As a result I’ve got various plans and notes and my partner keeps on saying I should get myself set up with a website and all that stuff but I always find something more pressing to do. Ridiculous really. Even writing this, it’s making me think that I’m just being very cowardly. I think I need the validation of an agent wanting my work because then I may start to believe that it’s ok! I shall watch with interest for any good advice that comes out of this.

That's how I've been. makes me wonder if there's any Litopians who could write step by step instructions for setting up a blog/website. Or maybe there's a Wordpress for Dummies book.

Chuck Wendig on blogging offers some advice: "blog like there's nobody there. I blog for me, to me, about me . . . because it allows you to be yourself and not feel like you need to constantly perform for an audience." He also suggests turning off the ability for people to comment on it which keeps the space clear as yours.

He also mentions owning the host, coding and other sort of scary words to do with blogging! See The Kick-Ass Writer.

I'm wondering how critical the validation of an agent is. As writers we certainly need honest feedback about our work and access to editing folk, but self-publication suddenly appears to be more acceptable as a vehicle for getting your work out there. I've been cowardly too, TL - but what are we afraid of? There's plenty of writers doing what we're hanging back on - I'm sure there's a few who do it badly too. But, I honestly think that to 'come out of the writerly cave,' and write something immediate that may be seen (even by potential agents) by lots of people might be more beneficial than having one and a half novels on the hard drive hoping our efforts in targeting agents will pay off.

None of us want to trip up and fall in the mud, but perhaps tying ourselves up in knots about what we put out there is impeding writerly growth.

I've lots of poetry I could put up; books that have engaged me; struggles as a writer; influences, etc. If I put them into a blog, I'm letting the universe decide if people want to read it; it's also giving a chance to promote novel there too. I guess we could include 'interviews' with Litopians about what motivates/ influences them.

Just throwing the thoughts out there!

 

[Julie]

I vented forth about this subject in a couple of old threads:

https://colony.litopia.com/threads/what-i-wish-id-done-before-starting-to-write-books.5850/

Whether you continue with your research into literary agents with a view to getting a traditional publishing contract, or if you decide to go Indie and self-publish, then you should really have a blog and a website devoted to your book. Also, social media profiles, including a Facebook business page. Agents and publishers will check to see if you have these things already. They're after clients that can self-promote. They're more likely to make an offer to someone with 1,000 + followers than someone who's anonymous. Gone are the days when publishers organised all the promotion for you.

My blog (based on Colony posts): Paul Pens

My website: THE CORNISH DETECTIVE PROFILE

I recommend CloudAccess.net as a provider of website space. I use their free option, which works fine, and they always remind me in good time when my monthly membership is about to expire.

There's a lot of such self-promotion work involved in being a writer in the 21st-century. Writing the book is the easy part!

Thank you - I'll take a look. I agree with what you're saying.

 

[Julie]

I self-publish, after realising that the part I really didn't want to do--marketing--was going to largely fall to me anyway (even with a traditional contract), and I may as well go for the higher royalties of self-pub.

Anyway, as I always knew, I don't do marketing well. But I have learned a bit along the way, and I'm improving all the time. The key is in building relationships with readers. Most indie authors do this through social media--whichever platforms your particular audience frequents. So, while having a web page is critical, it's not where you sell books or chat with your readers, particularly--it's a professional presentation of your brand.

Marketing also takes money. You have to buy advertising and make sure your imagery and words are professional, so they don't stand out as 'indie'. And there's no point in marketing until you have more than one book. Most folks say you should have at least five, preferably in the same series, so you'll get read through from ads on the first book.

As I say, I don't do this well. Still learning, still figuring out the ways in which I (a serious introvert who hesitates to even tell people I write) am comfortable connecting with readers. Just spent a few hours yesterday hanging out with a fellow Kiwi author with similar books to mine at one of her online 'dragon parties'. I know they're huge hits with her readers ... and after participating in one, I don't think I could do it. But I've taken other ideas from her successful strategies, and am slowly building a strategy that works for me.

Like you Robinne, I'm not comfortable with self-promotion, but while I'm staring into my lap there's people like yourself who are doing it and giving it a go.

Sounds like I'm not ready for a website yet, not with one novel, but maybe offering short stories (not my strength) or poetry perhaps on themes used in novels, etc. in a blog will help prepare me for cracking on a bit quicker with writing novels.

Thank you for your insightful response.

 

[Julie]

It's something I've thought of in the past and still do frequently. There is quite an emphasis put on having a social media platform these days for sure, but when I was traditionally published by a significant publisher a while ago I was still left to do almost all of the publicity and marketing myself.

I keep toying with the idea of setting up a website dedicated to my writing but then when the first rush of euphoria subsides I think that doing so is quite a task to undertake well, and I ask myself what will it achieve. Going through a significant amount of work perhaps only to see tumbleweed blowing through my new pride and joy whenever I take a look isn't an inviting proposition.

Will it become just another drop in the ocean of the vastness of the Internet? Which raises another question - how would I make it stand out among the many squillions already out there? The answer is that I don't know to be honest, but now reading through this thread I am again wondering whether I need to bite the bullet and set one up anyway.

I currently have a website (writing-related) but not about my writing, so in theory it would be quite easy to start a new page up alongside that. Maybe I will. But were I to do so what do those with a personal writing-related site think of two different sites co-existing in the same web space?

Strikes me it could cause confusion and that I might be better to use the same or another provider's free option to test the water and set up a stand alone "Jonny writes..." thing.

All that being said I think my preferred route is to still get a traditional agent-brokered publishing deal, but I just might get my writer website up and running. Also, it can't do any harm.

What was your book, Jonny? Did you go direct to the publisher as opposed to getting an agent? Perhaps in a Huddle you can elaborate on what you did to market yourself?

I do get that websites/blogs are 'drops in the ocean,' but that's got to be more productive that sitting in your own puddle? I'm thinking blog. @Robinne suggests needing multiple books ready to go if you're doing a website, and while five seems out of my grasp, maybe three is more doable.

When you say you have a website, do you mean you're blogging? To quote Wendig again "Everything should spring forth from your blog, and everything should lead to your blog. Think of it as the hub of a wheel, with all other social-media extensions being spokes radiating from that wheel."

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Ultimately, you have to self-promote. No literary agents or publishers or readers are going to knock on your door to ask if you've written a book they could read. Somehow or other you have to let the world know that your writing exists.

A blog is a good way of demonstrating your writing skills. If the thought of producing blog posts for scores of readers intimidates you, then do as Kurt Vonnegut suggested for creating a story:

'Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.'

When I write a post for the Colony, which will end up on my Paul Pens blog, I try to adopt a one-on-one approach, as if sharing something sitting opposite me...did you know?....what do you think about this?

If you have an interest, apart from writing and reading, that you could base a blog on it might ease your way into promoting your books. Blog about bakery, wildlife photography, cats or whatever takes your fancy. Those who subscribe to your blog will be interested to hear you're written a book.

One of my favourite blogs, which I know several members of the Colony enjoy, is dovegreyreader scribbles.

dovegreyreader scribbles

Based on Dartmoor, she posts about books she's read, flowers, local walks, knitting, quilting, wildlife - including the barn owls in their birdbox and local walks. It's like getting an update from a friend.

 

[Mythobeast]

I've had a blog for years (We had to make our own heaven), but I don't contribute to it regularly. A lot of what I think about on a daily basis is either contentious (political philosophy), boring (OAuth2 authentication), or proprietary (news analysis scoring algorithms). Anybody wanna hear how I built a media server out of a Raspberry Pi this week? Probably not.

I like Wordpress for this purpose. I've built full web sites before (Intellectual Icebergs - About Int Ice), and they are really way too much effort. If you can pay someone else to do it, then cool, but for progress reports and random thoughts, Wordpress has a far milder learning curve.

Writing articles on the blog is a different skill from writing in a book, but it isn't foreign to most of us. The writing style is similar to what I use for posts like this. I just hold them to a higher standard of "interesting", and probably re-read them a few more times than I did this post.

The purpose of a blog, for me, is a point of organization. It's a little like "I Blog, therefore I am." or "If a book is published and nobody hears about it, does it make a splash?" It provides a frame of reference, even if hardly anybody reads it.

 

[Nikky Lee]

I think there's a bit of confusion between website and blog here. You can set up a website with your basic information and pretty much leave it alone for the most part. You can use it as a place to point to if people want to learn about you from a short author bio and the books you write/have written. I would always recommend any author who is seriously looking to publish to have one.

A blog can be part of a website or a standalone thing separate from it. It requires a lot more effort to regularly post and update. I don't think it is necessarily a must-have. If your plan is to ultimately sell books, you have to be where the conversation is, and today that is on social media (for now, these things evolve quickly). For me a blog is a nice-to-have, it works in conjuction with my social media and provides long form content for readers to engage with, but I don't post a blog and expect readers to miraculously find it in the sea of the Internet. That's what social is for, it gets you "found".

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I think there's a bit of confusion between website and blog here. You can set up a website with your basic information and pretty much leave it alone for the most part. You can use it as a place to point to if people want to learn about you from a short author bio and the books you write/have written. I would always recommend any author who is seriously looking to publish to have one.

A blog can be part of a website or a standalone thing separate from it. It requires a lot more effort to regularly post and update. I don't think it is necessarily a must-have. If your plan is to ultimately sell books, you have to be where the conversation is, and today that is on social media (for now, these things evolve quickly). For me a blog is a nice-to-have, it works in conjuction with my social media and provides long form content for readers to engage with, but I don't post a blog and expect readers to miraculously find it in the sea of the Internet. That's what social is for, it gets you "found".

Yes. What Nikky said. And if I were doing it right, I'd separate my blog from my author website, because when I started my blog, my intention was to publish non-fiction related to gardening, rural life, homesteading... Then I got sidetracked by fiction, but I kept up the gardening, rural life, homesteading sort of blog (because I really enjoy it, and some day I will write those non-fiction books I intend to...). Yeah. Branding. I've failed miserably at that, and I know it.

 

[Julie]

Ultimately, you have to self-promote. No literary agents or publishers or readers are going to knock on your door to ask if you've written a book they could read. Somehow or other you have to let the world know that your writing exists.

A blog is a good way of demonstrating your writing skills. If the thought of producing blog posts for scores of readers intimidates you, then do as Kurt Vonnegut suggested for creating a story:

'Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.'

When I write a post for the Colony, which will end up on my Paul Pens blog, I try to adopt a one-on-one approach, as if sharing something sitting opposite me...did you know?....what do you think about this?

If you have an interest, apart from writing and reading, that you could base a blog on it might ease your way into promoting your books. Blog about bakery, wildlife photography, cats or whatever takes your fancy. Those who subscribe to your blog will be interested to hear you're written a book.

One of my favourite blogs, which I know several members of the Colony enjoy, is dovegreyreader scribbles.

dovegreyreader scribbles

Based on Dartmoor, she posts about books she's read, flowers, local walks, knitting, quilting, wildlife - including the barn owls in their birdbox and local walks. It's like getting an update from a friend.

Wise words, Paul, thank you. I had a quick peek at your blog before yesterday's Huddle. Nice use of photos to break up text too. What are part of Cornwall are you in? Bodmin? I used to live in Porthleven; I still love and miss the place.
dovegreyreader sounds like my kind of blog. I'm very familiar with Dartmoor as it's on my doorstep. I'll take a look.
Thank you

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Wise words, Paul, thank you. I had a quick peek at your blog before yesterday's Huddle. Nice use of photos to break up text too. What are part of Cornwall are you in? Bodmin? I used to live in Porthleven; I still love and miss the place.
dovegreyreader sounds like my kind of blog. I'm very familiar with Dartmoor as it's on my doorstep. I'll take a look.
Thank you

I've lived in various places in Cornwall, starting off in Saltash (Plymouth's bedroom) before moving to St. Cleer on the edge of Bodmin Moor. I lived for a few years at Great Trethew near the road to Looe, before moving to Atlanta, Georgia for three years. Returning to Kernow, I dwelled on a sheep farm on one of the highest parts of Bodmin Moor. After working in Herefordshire for a while, I came back to Cornwall, finding a flat near Saint Columb Major. I know Porthleven and would like to live in Penwith, which feels like the most Cornish part of Cornwall.

With blogging, I believe that you need to tempt the reader into reading on and this can be achieved with the use of photographs. Some bloggers inflict huge tracts of text on their followers. It might contain good stuff, but looks intimidating. It's not easy to gather followers to your blog, as there are thousands of blogs on writing. It's still crucial to get your name out there.

Be aware that literary agents take shortcuts to find new talent; they don't rely on the slushpile. Rather, they approach placed entrants in writing competitions, face to face meetings with authors at literary festivals, contacts made via social media and blogs and writers who pitch on Twitter's contests:

Preparing for Twitter Pitching Contests, Including #SFFpit This Week!

 

[Julie]

I've lived in various places in Cornwall, starting off in Saltash (Plymouth's bedroom) before moving to St. Cleer on the edge of Bodmin Moor. I lived for a few years at Great Trethew near the road to Looe, before moving to Atlanta, Georgia for three years. Returning to Kernow, I dwelled on a sheep farm on one of the highest parts of Bodmin Moor. After working in Herefordshire for a while, I came back to Cornwall, finding a flat near Saint Columb Major. I know Porthleven and would like to live in Penwith, which feels like the most Cornish part of Cornwall.

With blogging, I believe that you need to tempt the reader into reading on and this can be achieved with the use of photographs. Some bloggers inflict huge tracts of text on their followers. It might contain good stuff, but looks intimidating. It's not easy to gather followers to your blog, as there are thousands of blogs on writing. It's still crucial to get your name out there.

Be aware that literary agents take shortcuts to find new talent; they don't rely on the slushpile. Rather, they approach placed entrants in writing competitions, face to face meetings with authors at literary festivals, contacts made via social media and blogs and writers who pitch on Twitter's contests:

Preparing for Twitter Pitching Contests, Including #SFFpit This Week!

I like that - Saltash being Plymouth's bedroom! I cycled through St Cleer once. You've certainly moved about a bit. Yes, I always feel you've got to drive the extra couple of hours to the bottom of Cornwall to be in Cornwall! Cornwall has the most beautiful coast line. I used to live a few houses up from the clocktower on Institute Hill (or Army Hill as the old locals insisted).

Well a week on and I'm no closer to blogging; been working on second novel instead. I'm letting it play around in my head for a while. I'm not sure what I'd blog on - certainly not a 'how to write.' Good nature writing is always appealing. The mulling continues!

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Your post inspired me to give my website a bit of a spruce-up. Tucked the blog back further, changed my header image to feature my books, and reduced the number of tabs at the top. I still need a more prominent call to action message/button on the front page, but until I get better at actually sending out newsletters (I manage about 2/year, I think), it seems silly to be aggressive about signing people up for one.

 

[CageSage]

I use the free Wordpress (it may be different now, from what I've read).
If you have a web site and you have books, there should be a page or pages for the books (or a drop-down list from a page). However, a blog or web page won't do the advertising. It takes time to fit in, so doing it early or before you have a book is good, so you have that time. It won't sell a lot of books, but it can find reader groups. Most people follow other writers, but most readers also want to become writers, and writers also read, and I don't think there's any harm in sitting on this particular fence.
As with other platforms, if you use the blog/web page to only advertise your books, you will lose followers. The blog site is to get to know the person behind the stories. However, if you don't have a page with your books, or notify the followers of a release, you're missing an opportunity. You never know who will reblog your post, or how many of the followers will tell their friends.
I'm only just dipping my toes in Twitter, and don't yet have a FB account. The advertising I've done is limited because I don't have much of a backlist in any one genre (the mistake of doing more than one category lies here). I do have a plan for advertising, even if the budget is small -- because some of my followers will see and do something when I advertise more widely. And I want a good backlist when I'm paying out money -- the value for the writer in getting new readers is also having more than one item to sell (I don't know what the best number is).

I do enjoy socialising with the people I've met on and through the blog, and many of them are people who pay for my self-published pieces ... it would be nice if they also left reviews, but if they talk about the stories with other people ...

Anyway, good luck. And remember to have fun.

I'm also not going to have one site for the blog and one for the books. Every person I know who's done that is sorry, but now they're stuck with it. I do talk about my stories on the blog, have the books available, and don't have a sign-up page. There are many who'd say that's bad, but readers can follow on so many sites that having another one for only one author seems like an imposition. I may be proved wrong one day, but for the moment, it stays as it is.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Useful advice on self-promotion here:

Getting the Word Out About Your Book Release

Blogs, websites for your book and social media posts are all good ways of getting yourself and your book known, but there are thousands of writers all doing the same, so, it becomes as issue of how to publicise the place you're self-promoting!