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Plug Your Book!
73
Fiction authors have even more freedom, but a bigger creative
burden. They can write about themselves, or even from the point of view
of a fictional character. A story from their book can continue on the blog,
veering off in new directions, experimentally, in response to suggestions
from readers and other writers.
Raw materials for posts
A free, easy way to find new raw material for your blog is to create
a Google Alert, which will automatically scour thousands of media
sources for any keywords you specify. You’ll be alerted via e-mail when
something containing your keywords appears in newspapers, magazines,
Web sites, or other sources. Sign up at:
Google Alerts are also a handy way to monitor mentions of your blog
title, book titles, and even your name or the names of other authors.
Your blog’s title
A blog title usually spans the top portion of each page like a
newspaper masthead. Titles are usually short and catchy—perhaps just
a couple of nonsense words like Boing Boing, or a made-up compound
word like RocketBoom or BuzzMachine. The name could be a non
sequitur or double-entendre like PostSecret. Sometimes a title is just a
title, like The Official Google Weblog.
Try to include in your title the most critical keyword related to your
niche. Joe’s Organic Strawberry Growing, Baking and Eating Guide is
a good title. A poor title would be Joe’s Thoughts and Ideas about Fruit
because nobody would search for something like that, and if they saw it,
they couldn’t guess what it’s about. Be obvious. Pick a few words that
will be easy for people to remember and to repeat in conversation and e-
mails.
Writing your blog posts
The essential ingredient of a blog is its short entries, or posts.
They’re arranged in reverse chronological order, with the newest at top.
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