Writing 101: Why writers should blog?

 

     There are many reasons a writer should blog. I think the most common reason they do it is they hear that it will help them build their platform. This is correct, but how do you do that. Many people start a blog only to be discouraged when, four months later, the only people reading their blog is their mom, their best friend and their cat.

     This, however, is an important lesson and one that can really help a writer. See, we live with the belief that all we have to do is say something and others will be drawn to us. Unfortunately, many of us are not that interesting. As a recent article indicated, many people on Twitter are simply talking about mundane things that interest no one, including themselves.

     This again brings us back to the first question: why should a writer blog?

1.      Writers should blog to gain experience with marketing.

As I said above, many writers spend hours writing blogs where they pour their heart and soul in to writing only to learn that no one is reading them. Once we figure this out we can either give up, or decide to learn how to generate traffic. People who follow the second path learn the most important lesson about the usefulness of blogging: Market research.

2.      Writers should blog to gain experience with writing.

Closely related to the first is a writer’s need to learn how to perfect their craft. The best way to learn how to write is to spend time writing. I have learned in the last few years of writing my Writing Career Coach blog that there is really a tone and style to blogging. You must master that tone and style in order to attract readers. Likewise, there is a tone and style to writing columns, writing fiction and writing non-fiction. Experience with each kind of writing strengthens the other. I can now easily write tighter to conserve space [like is necessary when working on back cover copy, a facebook page or an elevator speech] or I can spread things out and really draw the tension [as is the case with longer books. Don’t give away too much too fast].

3.      Writers should blog to gain experience with deadlines.

When you become a full time writer your agent or editor won’t call every day to be sure you put time in on your book project. You have to be self disciplined enough to break your book up in manageable chunks and complete them on time. Blogs force you to do that.

4.      Writers should blog to gain writing samples.

For a writer their blog is their living resume. [This is something important to keep in mind when you are considering the kinds of topics and pictures you want to add to your blog.]  They give a sample of your work so others can understand what it is you do and how well you do it.

Let me illustrate this point. I do a great deal of content editing in addition to advising clients on how to build a successful writing career. I spent lots of time explaining what I did and how I did it. Not everyone knows what the difference between a content edit and a copy edit was.   Therefore, I had to do sample edits for each client so they could try on my skills. This began to demand a huge amount of my time and resulted in mixed success.

So, in May I posted an example of an actual edit I’d done for a client on ONE PARAGRAPH of her work. I did it to teach writers how to improve their writing, but also so potential clients could see how thorough I am in teaching as I edit. You can see the blog here. An interesting thing happened as a result of this blog posting. While I didn’t have a flurry of my blog readers contact me to become clients, I did see a 100% increase in the number of people I bid jobs to hire me. That means that I doubled the number of people who decided to be my client. This is compared to the people who had sample edits or nothing at all.

You do not have to be The Writing Career Coach to benefit from a blog. The same is possible when contacting editors and agents. If you have a strong readership and have developed a unique voice through your blogs, you can use them as living resumes.