write « Robin Writes

A reader asks, “As a writer, how often should I blog?”

Oh, mercy, there are as many schools of thought on this as there on comma usage . . . but in general, you don’t want to irritate people with a barrage of irrelevant content and, at the same time, you don’t want them to forget about you.

Let’s start with content. You can write about anything, of course, or you can use your blog as a journal of sorts. Now, some people might want to hear about your daily life, some won’t. “Relevant” content is simply something of value that most of your readers want.

You can blog about the writing process, your own writing career, or something at which you have expert status—if you’re an author, what is your book about? Make yourself an expert.

Who are your readers? That’s what you have to figure out. Look at the list of those who follow your blog, and see what they have in common. Look at past posts and see which get the most hits and the most comments. This will tell you what your followers want.

Then tailor your content to that. Don’t make every post a “buy my book” pitch, but you can certainly do that once in a while, and even mention it in passing. I’ve found the best way is to have permanent buy links in the sidebar of my blog. They’re there, they’re visible, and people can click if they want.

Frequency—again, that’s up to you and what you have to talk about. If you can create enough content to blog on a daily basis, go for it! Just be sure it’s interesting to your readers and not repetitive. And, too, watch the length. A blog post of two paragraphs often isn’t worth clicking on, and one that lasts for more than 1000 words can become tiresome to read.

I recommend blogging once a week, at minimum. Or even every two weeks, if you’re short on time. Once a month just isn’t frequent enough; your readers may well move on. Seven days a week might be too much.

And be consistent. Pick a day, or two days, or whatever, and make sure your blog is live on those days, every week. Most blogging platforms allow you to schedule posts; take advantage of that. Readers will start to look at those days and be expecting your post.

It might take some time to find what works best for you, and that’s okay. Experiment, and when you find your formula, let your blog take off.

I’m now posting four days a week here at Robin Writes; I’ve done the twice a week, three times, and even once weekly. The latter just doesn’t cut it for my readers . . . Why four days? Well, I’m experimenting again! I do two posts a week related to prepping, and two related to writing (one is answering a reader-sent question, like today’s). I split up the prepping because I realized I do two separate sub-topics: prepping in general, and our “journey” in moving out to the country and being self-sufficient.

Another tip is to write your blog posts all at once. I do mine on Sundays, my day off, when I have time to actually just write. Then I upload and schedule them, and I’m all finished!

Finally, keep a list, on your desktop where you can find it, of potential topics. That way, if something doesn’t come to mind right away, you can pull from that list and whip up a post pretty quickly.

Do you get those invites? To virtual book events, on Facebook? I’m not a fan, maybe because I have too much else going to spend more time on Facebook “attending” an event. Just don’t like them. If you do, that’s okay, I won’t hold it against you—but I doubt I’ll accept, either. Nothing personal.

Another event I’ve seen cropping up a lot lately, and ‘tis the season, and all that, is multiple invites for the very same event. Now, I usually don’t post an “event” unless I’m the only author attending, or unless I’m attending as a publisher.

First, Facebook lists the poster as the “host.” If I’m going to an event, the venue is usually the host. Like a library or bookstore. Festivals, on the other hand, have multiple items and vendors, like farmers’ markets and toy festivals or horror conventions, etc.

Typically, the venue posts the event, and I’ll share it; sometimes they’ll send me a .pdf flyer and I’ll post that as a photo. All the information is there, without the hassle of creating an event.

The problem comes when EVERYONE involved creates an event and invites EVERYONE to said event. Of course I’m going to that event, my name is listed there! Why should I respond, or how should I respond, to the invite? There’s no “um, yes, I’ll be there, I’m on the program” option.

Second, when I do create an event, I invite people who actually live in the area and/or who may be in town at that time. It’s a little irksome to see, when inviting willy-nilly from a friends’ list, people who live 1000 miles away and who click “going.” I mean, really?? Often, they add “will be there in spirit!” or something like that. Or maybe they click “going” because they’d like to go, or like the event itself. Hard to say.

Imagine that you and a friend are hosting a party. A real-life one. Would you send each other invitations? No. Would you like getting RSVPs from people who obviously aren’t going to be able to come because, say, they live in another country? No again.

So what’s the difference? Nothing that I can see.

This kind of goes along with the “like for like” events and invitation to “like” Facebook pages. I don’t like that either.

Why?

Because those aren’t “real” likes. If someone likes your page because you like his, is it much different than trading book reviews? Nothing unethical about it, really, but it can quickly become tiresome. And when those people who are liking you only for a kickback get tired of seeing your feed or decide to cull their list a bit, off you go, because they have no idea who you are or what you wrote. And they aren’t interested. They’re only interested in numbers.

Let’s say you have a thousand likes on your author page. Great! Has it helped sales? How many of those 1000 people have bought your book? It’s hard to tell, right? But let’s play numbers. Have you sold to 10% of them? That’s 100 books. Maybe some you sold to directly, maybe they bought online somewhere. That’s pretty good. Then again, maybe at an event, you sell two books. Maybe the attendance is 200 at a multi-author event, which comes to 1%. Maybe it’s an individual signing and you sell four books out of the 25 that you brought along. That’s about 20%.

As a side note: often, people will TELL you that they bought the book. But they didn’t. Really.

Sales is just a number—it’s the percentage that counts. But those doing like-for-like want to gain likes and sell their own books. They aren’t interested in selling yours, unless they read it and loved it. In that case, they might actually read your posts and share them. And that is exposure. The liking itself is nothing.

Now, anyone at all can like my pages or follow me on Twitter. Any exposure is good, right? But I have particular rules for following back on Twitter, and on Facebook, I’ll like a page only if it’s interesting to me. Or, well, okay, a close friend or colleague.

Look at your shares—how are those doing? Because that’s where the exposure comes from. Be honest. Like what you like, because you like it. It’s the same thing as going to a conference, planning to sell books, and doing “trades,” where you buy someone’s book because he bought yours. A neverending circle.

I get invites every day to like pages, but I seldom do, simply because I can’t keep up with I’ve got now—particularly those pages whose owners still think that social media is real time and they can check in a post and comment once a week, if that. You know the ones, who comment on a week-old post that everyone else has long forgotten about. And, too, the ones that I’m simply not interested in; why would I care about a “local business” in Timbuktu? My liking them, virtually, will do little to nothing for that business.

So be selective with invites, events, and likes. You’ll cut down clutter on your newsfeed and shave off some time in your social media promotions. Remember, all the marketing you do, particularly online, should be aimed at the ONE reader. Narrow it down and do everything you can to pull in that ONE reader. Like the pages they like, post about the things they like and are interested in—this is what will increase your sales and the effectiveness of your online promotion.