Why Should Fiction Writers Blog?

By Anne R. Allen, @annerallen

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: When I sold my first novel (back in 2008), everyone told me I needed to start a blog. All the authors were doing it, and if I wanted to be successful, I had to jump in. As a teen fantasy author, I had no idea what to blog about (or why anyone would care that I was blogging at all), so I fell back on what I knew--writing. For me, it worked out great, but not all writers have been as lucky. For those facing the "to blog or not to blog?" question, the delightful Anne R. Allen visits the lecture hall today to share her expertise on blogging as a fiction writer.

Anne R. Allen is the author of 12 books, including her new release from Kotu Beach Press: The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors. Her award-winning blog, Anne R. Allen's Blog…with Ruth Harris was named one of Writer's Digest's Best 101 Websites for Writers. She's also the co-author of How to Be a Writer in the E-Age, with NYT bestseller Catherine Ryan Hyde.

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The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors is available in ebook for $2.99 for a limited time at Nook, Kobo, Apple, and Amazon. The paper version launches in February 2018.

Take it away Anne...

People don't read novels on blogs—so why should a fiction writer have a blog?

It's true that readers seem to shy away from fiction on blogs. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it's because readers prefer fiction that's formatted like a book, without the block paragraphing and lack of indents we use on blogs.

But I do know readers don't like it. I have a friend who's a mega-selling novelist who put some of her short stories on her blog absolutely free. They never got more than a handful of hits.

She put the same stories on Amazon for $2.99 each and they sold like crazy.

So, yeah, you don't want to blog your fiction. You need to blog about the subject matter, setting, or something else related to your novels, but not the novels themselves.

Blogging is also not a particularly good way to attract an agent (agents will glance at your blog if they're considering your query, but mostly to make sure you're relatively sane and don't look impossible to work with.)

So what is blogging good for if you're a novelist?

It's good for getting to know people and letting them get to know you. With a blog, you can meet people in the publishing industry as well as readers who will buy your books someday, even if you haven't written any yet.

The networking you do online is the key to establishing a writing career these days. I'm amazed at how many new writers still think a book launch is just something that happens at your local bookstore or a nearby book fair.

Today, a writer's market is global. Do you know the country where people read the most? India. Or where the second biggest population of English speakers lives? India. Followed by Pakistan and Nigeria.

So how can you get known by readers all over the planet?

With your blog.

You can reach more readers with one blogpost than with months of those painfully ill-attended "signings" or those $1000-a-pop book fair booths.

You don't have to go on an expensive blog tour, either. An informal series of guest posts and interviews with other writer-bloggers in your genre can get your book in front of just as many potential readers.

It certainly has worked for me. And I'm not the only author who's found blogging the key to career success. Listen to what bestselling fantasy author Nat Russo said after an expensive launch that failed to make any book sales.

"I slashed the number of book ads…and went back to blogging…sales rocketed…they leaped from 3/day to over 70/day, where they've remained ever since."

Yeah. He stopped buying advertising and went back to blogging. That took him from a negative bottom line to making a nice living from his books.

Not only does blogging generate sales, it also gives you emotional support that you need as you're starting your career. Ours is a lonely profession. Connecting with people on the Web can give you moral support as well as information.

It also provides valuable contacts. You know how they always say you need to know somebody to break into publishing?

Blogging is a great way to get to know somebodies.

They don't have to be famous somebodies. Although who knows—maybe they'll be bigshots someday. Several of the bloggers I met early on became literary agents. Others write book reviews. Some are bestselling authors.

But most of all, blogging can reach readers. Blog about subjects related to your books that will draw in your target reader, and they'll start visiting.

I realize this doesn't happen right away. You need to get out into the blogosphere so people know your name and your "brand." I spent almost a year blogging for crickets until I won a contest run by then Curtis Brown agent, Nathan Bransford. The prize was a guest spot on his blog.

That taught me the power of guest blogging and networking. I started getting regular readers and making friends with them. That's all "networking is" —making friends.

And networking pays off.

How? Well, a year after I started my blog, I got offers from two publishers and an agent because they discovered me in the blogosphere.

A few years later, Ruth Harris, a New York Times million-selling author,was my blog partner, the blog was getting 100,000 hits a month and it was named to Writers Digest's Best 101 Websites.

Our guests have included movie stars, Golden Globe winners, mega-sellers, literary agents, and even Nathan Bransford himself.

And as far as marketing, while other authors are desperately trying to get their books into bargain newsletters where they pay a huge amount of money to give some books away, I've had big, slick magazines, writer's conferences, and major websites come to me offering me free publicity.

I've been interviewed for the fashion magazine More about "Fear of Homelessness in Older Women" (the subject of my mystery No Place Like Home) and for the American Bar Association Journal on "Amazon Customer Reviews" (which I satirize in my comic mystery So Much for Buckingham.)

I've been invited to write for Author magazine on "How to Deal with the Time-Suck of Social Media," and I've been asked to write articles on writing craft for major magazines and books on the publishing industry, including Writer's Digest and Writer's Market.

I was even interviewed for the American Bar Association Journal about Amazon reviews and they photographed me reading So Much for Buckingham—a nice piece of product placement.

Some of the books and magazines paid me nice money. Others gave me major publicity that would have cost me thousands of dollars.

All this happened because of my blog. Even though I write fiction.

I'm not guaranteeing this will happen to every author. And I'm not promising immediate results.

But a blog is the best way to build your brand and get your name out there so people have a chance of finding your book-needle in the vast bookselling haystack.

About The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors

An easy-does-it guide to simple, low-tech blogging for authors who want to build a platform, but not let it take over their lives.

An author blog doesn't have to follow the rules that monetized business blogs do. This book teaches the secrets that made Anne R. Allen a multi-award-winning blogger and one of the top author-bloggers in the industry.

And you'll learn why having a successful author blog is easier than you think.

Here are some things you'll learn in this book:

• How an author blog is different—and easier to maintain—than a business blog
• What authors should blog about at different stages of their careers
• Choosing the right blog topics for your genre and audience
• How one type of blogpost can build your platform quickly
• Basic SEO tips that don't make your eyes glaze over with tech jargon
• How to write headers that will grab the attention of Web surfers
• How to keep your audience by learning the tricks of content writing
• Essential blog and social media etiquette rules
• What happens to your blog when you die?

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