If you are blogging a book, I want to know about it. Leave a comment here and tell me who you are, what you are blogging a book about, and your blog address.
In this way others can go read your blog, too.
Also, let me know how many people (if any) are reading your blog–if you are willing to–and what promotion tactics seem to work best for you. If you are really successful in your blog-a-book efforts, I’ll feature you on this blog.
As you see, I didn’t include my URL because what I’m doing probably doesn’t fit your criteria. I’ve been using one of my blogs to post unpublished novels. The first was serialized after completion but before the final draft. The reception was favorable and I received a lot of useful feedback. Encouraged by that response, I’ve been posting the daily output for this year’s NaNoWriMo. Even as a first draft, it reads well, because I use NaNo to write a book, not just meet a word count, and it’s spell checked and lightly edited before I post.
I’m not sure whether I’ll ever blog a finished book or one that I’ve published, but blogging an early draft is an excellent way to gain feedback from other writers, and to build readership for the future published novel. It’s a bit scary to make an early draft public, knowing that you’re not putting your best foot forward, but the rewards have made it worthwhile. I made it very clear that neither one was a finished product and that critiques were welcome. I’ve also added notes to some of the current postings, thinking that might be interesting to other writers, as well as being a record for my own use.
Posting an early version can help establish your ownership in case of pirating. Of course, a pirate will also be stuck with something that still needs a lot of work and that will be identifiable by people who’ve read the original postings.
You are still basically blogging a book. You just don’t seem to be promoting it. Keep up the good work, though, and thanks for coming by to tell me about your projects!
Hi Nina,
I attended your excellent talk at the Writer’s Digest conference this weekend because I’ve been blogging excerpts from my book and wanted advice. You helped a lot.
I’ve been blogging to ‘build a platform’ and to provide value to my readers. I blog twice a week about Project Management and leadership which is my field. My book is a business novel that places the lessons of Projecct Management in a fantasy realm.
My approach has been to post three times about general Project Management and Leadership themes and then, once every two weeks, an excerpt from my book. That keeps my writing ahead of my blogging and should allow the book to be published before I give it all away on the blog. But you gave great advice about not telling everything in your posts, leave something that they can only get in the book.
One thing you said was a problem for you, I have addressed. You were asked about how people can read your book in order on your blog and you said you didn’t have a way for them to do that. I tried reading your book in order on the blog and couldn’t find an easy way. The way I handled it was to start another blog that has only a few very long posts that correspond to the book’s chapters. At the end of each of my excerpts on my primary blog, I have a sentence that offers the readers a chance to read the entire story in order with a link that takes them to this blog.
Thanks again for your advice and I hope to learn more as your newest subscriber.
Bruce
Bruce,
Thanks so much for your long comment and your words of praise. I really appreciate it.
As for the long post somewhere else (another blog), that is one solution. Thank you for offering it. I’m not sure that would be the solution I would choose. I’d at least want that post to be on my original blog, but the fact that it is long bothers me. I would still like to find another way…
Thanks for subscribing, and stay in touch!
Nina
Hmm… Having the long posts on the original blog is an even better idea. I hadn’t thought about that.
The way I do it is invisible to the reader. They just follow the link and they go to http://www.twelvetowers.blogspot.com instead of http://www.roundtableprojectmanagement.blogspot.com.
I’d like a more elegant solution, like having a table of contents that hyperlinks you to whichever chapter you want to read. I think I can do that.
I’m not too concerned yet since only a few readers have taken me up on the link to the full chapters.
I have another question for you. During your speech you mentioned that it was better to pay for a blog than using a free one like I do. But you didn’t have time to get into it. Which of your posts gives the details on why?
Thanks for your replies,
Bruce
Bruce,
You hit it on the head. I have been thinking of changing my Page#1 page to a TOC with hyperlinks. It will be a lengthy processs, but it would work. It won’t be super for those who want to read, but it will work. If it opens in a new window, then it won’t be bad.
As for the post on hosted vs. self-hosted, here you go: https://howtoblogabook.com/?p=237 There is more on this topic in the book. I had several experts read it and add to it. The reason why is this: You want your traffic going to your “home”–your URL, not to WordPress.com.
Nina