A blog is essentially a web log or journal. Blogs started as online journals and have evolved into useful business tools, in addition to being a way to share your thoughts with the world.

For a writer, a blog can be a great way to keep in touch with readers, and share details of your writing process or upcoming releases and events that you’ll be attending. A regularly updated blog makes a site look cared for and active.

How Often Would I Have to Blog?

A blog requires regular updates to stay fresh and some folks don’t feel like making the commitment to frequent posting. Keep in mind though, regular doesn’t have to mean daily. You could maintain a weekly or monthly schedule, if you prefer.

The key is to keep to your posting schedule, whatever it may be. People will get used to your schedule and anticipate your next post if you’re consistent.

And if you’re only updating monthly, maybe put a note on your site letting folks know that’s how often you blog. That keeps people from thinking your site is dead because your last post was a month ago.

Should You Start a Blog?

The answer to this question comes down to how often are you willing to update your blog?

If you don’t have time to maintain even a monthly posting schedule, I’d suggest you don’t put a blog on your website.

Instead, start a mailing list and email out updates and book release information to your readers. It serves the same purpose as a blog – to provide information to your readers, but there isn’t the same expectation of regular updates as with a blog.

If you do have time to post regularly, then yes, start a blog. Visitors to your site will appreciate seeing updates from you on your writing and your books.

Your Turn

Do you have a blog on your website? What’s your posting frequency?

It’s pretty much accepted that a writer (or any other small business) needs a website these days. The real question for many writers is “how much will a website cost me?” After all, most writers aren’t made of money.

The good news is that it is pretty inexpensive and easy these days to put up a website. If you want to go the shared hosting route and just have a blog, the cost can be free. Go to one of the shared sites like WordPress.com, Blogger or LiveJournal and you can be blogging immediately.

If you want your own website with full control over it, you want to go the self-hosting route.

To set up your own site, here’s what you’ll need:

Domain Name

This is the “address” of your website. janedoe.com, for example. To register a domain name (aka buying a domain) costs between $9 and$15 per year, depending on where you get it and if they’re offering any deals for buying additional services from them.

When registering a domain name, you can get it pretty much anywhere. There are many companies that will handle the domain registration for you – GoDaddy, Domain.com, Register.com, etc.

Many will offer additional services in addition to the domain name – like business registration and private registration. You don’t really need any additional services though private registration is nice. For a small fee, the domain registration company will list their own information as the contact for your domain, keeping your name and address hidden. A nice feature for when you become wildly famous and need some anonymity from zealous fans.

Hosting

After you’ve purchased your domain name, you’ll need somewhere to host your website. This means signing up with a hosting company – GoDaddy, HostGator, BlueHost, DreamHost, etc. Hosting runs from $5 – 15/month. You can sometimes get a lower price by paying for a year or two in advance.

Also, before you buy your domain name, check to see if the hosting company you’re going to go with offers free or reduced cost domain registration service. You could save a few bucks that way.

What Else?

That’s it. You need a domain and hosting to set up a website, so for about $10 to get your domain and up to $15/month to run it, you can have your own home on the Internet.

Sure there’s some set up involved in getting your site running, but the overall cost isn’t that expensive.

Your Turn

If you don’t have your own site yet, what are you waiting for?

When setting up your own website, you have a couple of options on where you host it. Hosting is the server where your website files live.

The usual process is to get an account with a hosting company – a company that runs a server and lets you use space on that server for your website files. (Or you can host it on your own server, but that requires a lot of technical knowledge that most writers don’t have or want to develop. And a server.)

You can go to a company that offers free hosting or one that offers paid hosting.

The free hosting companies are sites like Live Journal, Blogger, and WordPress.com. These companies offer websites on their server in the form of a blog. These are shared hosting sites, because your blog shares space on the server with other blogs.

Paid hosting companies like Hostgator and Bluehost will rent you space on their servers for your website. Even though you are renting space, a paid hosting account is called self-hosted.

So how do you choose which type is best for you?

Self-Hosted – The Upside

You can use your name as your URL (if it’s available). This is great for name recognition and branding for a writer.

You can usually set up unlimited email addresses for your site for more personalization and customization (ex. jane@janedoe.com, information@janedoe.com, bookgiveaway@janedoe.com).

You have total control over the look and feel of your site. You can use a template or get a custom-designed look. You can install plugins for additional functionality and display side-bar widgets as desired.

There is limited risk in losing your content (as long as you are doing regular backups).

Self-Hosted – The Downside

Setup is more involved than a shared blog and can require some technical knowledge, a techy friend, or really great instructions to follow.

Your hosting company could restrict access to your account (unlikely if you are following their terms of service) or go out of business. (If you have backups of your site, though, you could switch the URL to another site, restore your backups and be running again relatively quickly.)

Shared – The Upside

An account on a shared site is very easy to setup. Usually a login name, password, choose a few blog options and you’re blogging.

You can get some carryover traffic from other blogs on the site. This can mean more people visiting your site.

Shared – The Downside

You have less control over your blog/content. If the site chooses to suspend your account, you may lose everything. (If you can do backups of your content, you can lessen the risk of losing everything.)

You may have less name/brand recognition – your URL would be something like janedoe.blogspot.com instead of www.janedoe.com. (Some shared hosting sites do allow you to have a custom URL, but it is usually a paid service.)

There are limits on the look and feel of the site. You may be restricted to using only the site’s templates and widgets. (If you don’t plan to have a very fancy site, this might not be an issue.)

Summary

I’ve seen several successful writers run their only website via a shared hosting site and it works for them.

But if you want to take full advantage of the Internet and its capabilities, I recommend a self-hosted website for any writer who is looking to make a career out of writing. It gives you the most flexibility and control over your site and its content.

That gives you options.

Your Turn

Do you currently have a shared hosted or self-hosted website? How is it working for you? Love it, hate it, wish you had something different?

Joe Konrath has been pioneering new promotion methods since he sold his first book. He’s blogged about his experiences with drive-by book signings, blog tours, and electronic book sales.

His latest post covers his efforts to increase his readership and fanbase by being everywhere, like the southern plant kudzu.

Kudzu, a fast-growing vine that climbs, coils and trails along the ground and over plants, shrubs, trees and buildings. It is prolific in the southern US and is classified as a pest weed due to its persistent and rapid growth.

While you don’t want to be considered a weed as a writer, kudzu is an impressive plant to emulate with your writing career.

Because not every person who reads one of your stories will become a fan, building a fanbase of lots of readers means getting your stories into as many hands as possible. The more stories that you make available in more places, the more chances that readers have to find you and to fall in love with your stories.

How to Be the Kudzu

Submit your stories to traditional publishers whenever possible. This is still the best way to get started in publishing.

When you’ve decided a story is done making the rounds with no takers, look for other ways to get it into the hands of readers.

Step 1 – Prepare Your Stories

Polish all stories up to your current writing standards, especially any under-the-bed novels that you wrote years ago.

Joe rewrote each of his rejected novels to his current writing standards before making them available to the public. By releasing only quality materials, you’ll keep your current fans happy and increase your chances of gaining new fans.

Step Two – Package Your Stories

Gather several short stories into one file to form your own short story collection. Novellas can probably stand alone, depending on length, though you could combine a novella with short stories. Novels can also stand alone.

If you don’t have enough material on your own, get together with writing friends and create your own themed anthology of short stories.

Design a graphic cover for your book, either do it yourself or enlist a friend with graphic design skills. Great cover art is eye-catching, so make it the best you possibly can. Study the cover art of popular books in your genre for ideas on fonts, colors, text placement and common genre elements (i.e. male/female/couple on romance novels; weapons, mystical symbols or animals on urban fantasies; broken things, bloody weapons, chalk body outlines on mysteries or suspense).

Step Three – Publish Your Stories

Save them in PDF format and list them on your website as free downloads.

If you’ve gone together with friends and created an anthology, have each writer upload the file to their own website and provide download links for it.

Go to Smashwords and follow their Style Guide to format your ebook and publish it through them.

For more exposure, also follow the guidelines to get your ebook included in the Smashwords Premium Catalog that goes to mainstream distributors like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Sony and other retailers.

When publishing through a company like Smashwords, set the price of your ebook low – $1.99 or less. You’re asking strangers to take a chance on an unknown author. Make it easy and cheap for them to do so and you’ll get a better response. The intent is to get your work into the hands of a lot of readers. Making a lot of money in the process comes later.

For an anthology, read the Smashwords guidelines carefully and discuss how you’ll handle payment to each writer if you choose to publish through Smashwords and charge for the ebook. (Might be easiest to price it as free to avoid the hassle. Each writer can always release their own expanded version of their story or a different story altogether as a paid version.)

(Yes, you want to post the same books for free on your website and for sale on Amazon, iTunes, etc. Some people feel better about paying for a story – it’s perceived as higher quality than a free one. But free downloads are a great reward for people who go to your site to check you out.)

Step Four – Promote Your Stories

Write a blog post announcing the free downloads available on your site and that the ebooks are also available on Amazon, Sony, B&N, etc.

Send out an email to your newsletter list about the free downloads.

Provide links to the free versions and the paid versions of your ebooks on your site.

Announce the availability of your ebook on your social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.). Remember not to be pushy with the announcements. (“Buy my book, Taming the Kudzu!” is bad. “New story: Taming the Kudzu available for download. (link)” is good.

You don’t have to do all four steps immediately. Your first job is to write some stories or resurrect old ones that can be polished. Then take each one through the steps – Prepare, Package, Publish and Promote.

Your Challenge

Take a high-quality, unpublished short story, novella or novel (that you are not actively submitting and that you don’t plan to submit), save it as a PDF, and make it available on your website as a free download.

Send an email to your newsletter list telling them the story is available for download.

Then leave a comment with your website URL so we can read your story.

Be the kudzu and start spreading your stories everywhere.

Your website doesn’t have to be complicated or huge. One or two pages is plenty if you don’t have much to list yet.

About Me Page For Your Bio

Tell the world something about yourself. But not your entire life history, unless (and here’s the important caveat) it has some relevance to what you write.

If you grew up in Patagonia and you write agricultural thrillers set in Patagonia, awesome. List that in your bio.

If knitting is your life and you write about members of a knitting circle finding romance, list the knitting in your bio.

Look at the bios in the back pages of books you love and write something similar for yourself. Don’t make it too long.

Book List

If you have books published, you need a page with them listed and links to where people can buy them. You want people to buy your books, after all, so make it easy for them.

If you write a series or interconnected books, provide a list of recommended reading order.

Contact Information

This is SUPER important. Have an email address listed on your site so that people can contact you. On your About Me page is a good place.

Make sure it is an email account that you check regularly.

Since you have your own domain, make sure you email address is related to it, firstname@authorname.com, not something like “iwritegr8books@aol.com”. An email address on your own domain looks more professional.

Your Turn

Do you have these pages on your site? Do you have any others?

It’s becoming common knowledge among writers that you need to have your own site on the Internet after you’re published. Your fans need somewhere to pick up the latest scoop on your book signings as well as to get the complete list of books you’ve written.

But did you know that you need a website before you’re published? Yep, you don’t want to wait until you’ve actually got a book contract in hand.

A Website Shows That You’re a Professional

This is for readers as well as agents and editors. It says, “I understand the importance of the Internet as a marketing tool and I’m out here using it.”

There are 1.7 billion people using the Internet around the world. That’s a huge market to ignore by not being online.

Agents and Editors WILL Google You

If an agent or editor is interested in your query/partial/full manuscript, they’ll often Google your name to see what the Internet has to say about you. You want them to find your website first on the list, as opposed to a whole lot of nothing.

You also want them to find the carefully-constructed site that showcases you and your writing. Not just the comments you made on that oddball forum you dabbled in during college. Or the rant you posted on that freebie blog you created years ago and then abandoned.

You Can Start Building Your Fan Base Now

It can take a long time to gather a large group of readers, so you want to start as soon as possible. You can begin by posting snippets of your work on your site – a few paragraphs, maybe a sample chapter, or a short story. Enough to get people interested in what you write and wanting more.

Make sure it is the best you can possibly write and don’t post too much. Your website isn’t a substitute for getting published (unless you’re not pursuing writing as a career, in which case, post as much as you want). The material on your site is to give visitors a sample of the incredible stories and characters you write.

But What If I Already Have a Website?

Congrats! You’re ahead of the game. You can use these three reasons to guide you when you make changes to your site.

1. Are my changes going to make my site look even more professional?

If not, reconsider them. Your writing career is business. Your website is part of that business. Make sure it looks like a business website. That doesn’t mean that you can’t add some whimsy or personal touches to it. Just remember to think business when you’re making tweaks or adding new stuff.

2. What would an agent or editor think of the changes I’m going to make?

Adding a picture of your dog to your site? Probably won’t hurt.

Adding a dozen pictures of cute animals because they’re adorable when you don’t write anything animal-related? Probably not a good idea.

Writing a rant against your publisher or the publishing industry? Again, not a good idea.

When in doubt, refer to question 1 and remember that your website is for business. If you want a site with dozens of adorable animal pictures and the freedom to rant at will, consider setting up a separate site under a different name.

3. Will this change make it easier for my readers to find me/read me/talk to me?

If the answer’s yes to any of those, absolutely make the change! Add links to your social media sites. Add new short stories or character teasers. Provide an email address to contact you or start a mailing list.

Anything you can do to reach out to your readers in a positive way will help your career in the long run.

Your Turn

Do you have your own website? Leave a comment with the URL so we can visit. Free publicity!

There are many factors that will prompt a person to buy a book. We don’t really care about those reasons. What we care about is what makes a person buy a particular book? And what can we do to make that particular book be yours?

The general “buying decision” process goes something like this:

1. Person becomes aware of a particular book’s existence.
2. Person desires to own book.
3. Person has money to purchase book and does so.

Awareness

This one is our first hurdle. A reader can’t buy a book if he doesn’t even know it exists.

First, you have to get your book in front of as many people as possible. Standing on a busy street corner holding up a copy of your book will work, but probably won’t be very efficient. You’ll probably get attention, but not the kind you want.

Enter the Internet – the world’s busiest street corner. Or multi-level highway interchange with a bazillion exits, if you prefer.

While a street corner isn’t efficient, using the Internet can be. On a street corner, you can’t target the specific individuals who a) buy books and b) buy the kind of books you write.

A better option would be to stand outside a bookstore. But the entire world doesn’t shop at the bookstore in your town, so again, you aren’t reaching enough people. (And the manager will probably shoo you away as a loiterer.)

On the Internet, you can target those folks by hanging out where they hang out – at book review blogs, at booktagging sites, at forums for book lovers.

Once there, you subtly introduce your book’s existence. (We’ll talk about tactics down below.)

Much better than standing on a street corner. (And your reputation will still be intact.)

Desire

Next hurdle is getting a reader to want to buy YOUR particular book. Now you need to get the reader interested in the story you wrote.

Great cover art helps with this. So does compelling teaser copy on the back cover.

However, with Big Publishing in the picture, you may have absolutely no say over either of these items. (Witness a veteran author who had her hero turned into a pink albino. Youch.)

So, what can you do?

Back to those sites where readers hang out. You want to get your compelling teaser copy out into the world. You want to share some of the plot synopsis. (Not the whole thing, of course, because then there’s no reason to read the book.)

You want to get your book reviewed wherever possible. (‘Cause even bad publicity can be good for book sales.) You want to get people talking about your book in real life and all over the Internet. You want people recommending it to their friends.

You really want friend recommendations. We’re social animals. We crave social approval. If my friend reads a book and tells me it’s the greatest thing since street corners were invented, I’m already disposed to liking it. I trust this friend to advise me on my wardrobe; of course I’m going to trust her with my reading habits.

And now that she’s recommended it, I’m halfway to reading it, because I don’t want to be missing out on something fantastic.

If two of my friends are talking about the same book, you can bet I’m on my way to the bookstore that afternoon. I don’t want to miss my ride on the Fantastic Book Bus. “Move aside, people. I have exact change and I’m getting on this bus.”

If you’ve written an exciting story (and of course you have), then people are going to talk about your book. The more people talking about your book, the more people reading it.

Money

Okay, this one you can’t do much about. Unless you plan to send a free copy of your book to everyone who wants to read it. But that kind of works against the idea of book SALES.

But you can try to point people to alternate sources for your books, if they can’t afford to buy them. Like the library. (And tell them, if the library doesn’t have a copy, to request it.) Or point them to the ebook version that just happens to be half the cover price of the physical book. Or your website where you’re giving away three copies. Or the book review site that gave your book a glowing recommendation and always gives away the review copies they’ve received.

Tactics

• Hang out at sites where readers hang out – book review blogs, booktagging sites like LibraryThing, Goodreads, Shelfari, Booktagger.
• Create an account and start reviewing and commenting on books you love.
• Set up your profile on those sites to mention your book along with a short story teaser.
• Get your friends to leave a review of your book on sites like Amazon, B&N, Borders, and the booktagging sites.
• Submit your book for a review to blogs that review your genre.
• Give away copies of your book and announce the giveaway on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
• Get your friends to promote your giveaway on their own social media accounts and blogs.
• Allow the entrants to “earn” more chances at the book by posting a review (if they’ve already read your book), or an announcement about the giveaway on other social media sites.
• Put the first chapter of the book on your website to hook people in. (Clear this with your publisher first.)

There are a lot of books published in the world and you won’t get your book in front of every reader out there. But by focusing on activities that can increase awareness of your book and interest in the story, you stand a better chance of increasing your sales.

photo credit: Stephen Cochran

I attended the Get Motivated all-day seminar at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines about a month ago. Great day, enjoyed listening to the speakers, got a free lunch, came home with a migraine. (Too many people, loud sounds and flashy lights.) But a fun day.

At one point in the day they announced they were going to give away a Disney vacation as a door prize. Rather than draw for a winner, they had a “dance-off” with people pulled from the audience. One gentleman, Alan, had the most hilarious dance style-arms flailing and jumping from side to side. It was positively ridiculous, but you could tell he was having a great time. His enthusiasm and willingness to get up on stage made me clap the loudest for him.

I have a real problem with looking ridiculous. Not that I look ridiculous on a regular basis. (I hope.)

Instead, it’s that I might look ridiculous to someone else and I don’t want that. REALLY don’t want that. Could properly be called a dread of looking ridiculous, I suppose.

I couldn’t get up on that stage and dance like Alan did. I could, but I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t get up and dance like any of the contestants, even if I could dance as well as some of them. I have no self-confidence in my dancing skills. If I didn’t look ridiculous, I would certainly still feel ridiculous.

It got me thinking about what makes people willing to get up and do whatever, despite how it may look. Passion about an idea or a topic is one of the things that will drive people to those extremes. You’re too passionate about what you’re doing to care that you look ridiculous to other people.

Susan Boyle is another good example. She’s the UK lady who went on Britain’s Got Talent and shocked the audience and judges with her singing ability. A middle-aged lady, not fashionably dressed or made up… when she came out on stage you could see the derision on the faces of the audience. Everyone thought she was ridiculous to even get up on the stage, let alone sing. They were laughing at her. Until she opened her mouth and started to sing. Then she got a standing ovation from the crowd.

Did she care that she got laughed at? That the crowd thought her ridiculous to try? No. She loved to sing and wanted her chance to show them that she could sing. Her passion gave her the courage to step out on that stage.

Do I have anything in my life that I am that passionate about?

Do you?

Shiny is the best way I can think of to explain my outlook on life.

My inspiration for shiny came from a terrific book – Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design by Danielle LaPorte and Carrie McCarthy.

I read this book and was immediately struck by how fun this idea was. Figuring out a style statement to live your life by. I settled on Tailored Sparkle for mine. Tailored because I love planning, organizing, designing… I’m always thinking of ways to do something better, to improve.

And my creative edge? I’ve always been drawn to things that sparkle. Shining, glittery things. Even the words – sparkle, glitter, glimmer, spark… are some of my favorite words just for how they sound and make me feel. And my last name is a variation of Corvus which means Raven. Ravens are drawn to shiny things. Seemed like an obvious match.

I was trying to figure out a way to incorporate my Style Statement with my outlook on life to be a theme for this site. I had a brain spark one day on ‘shiny’. I see the shiny in things. Shiny is my personal pair of rose-colored glasses.

Shiny is:

• being optimistic
• searching for possibilities
• looking for the bright side
• not giving up
• making things better
• working toward my dreams
• believing in people
• believing in hope

Don’t get me wrong, I see the bad, too. There’s plenty of bad out there and you don’t have to look hard to find it. I choose to focus on the good, on the shiny in life.

Shiny is how I see the world.