If you have done a good job of mapping out your booked blog’s content, you should now have a table of contents for your book and a list of subject you will cover in each chapter. Now it’s time mine your blog for gold: existing blog posts that will provide the content for your book. Pieced together, these create a manuscript.
The first way to look for pertinent blog posts for your booked blog chapters is in your categories. If you have used them correctly, they should be working like filing cabinets for all your content. Every time you write a post, you file it away in the appropriate category by subject matter.
Begin by looking at the subjects you have listed under each chapter title. Then see if you have a category that relates to that subject in any way. If so, open up the category and begin searching inside for posts that fill the criteria of your chapter.
For example, if I was booking my blog, Write Nonfiction NOW!, and was searching for posts for a chapter on writing for publications, I might look in the “personal essays,” “articles,” “becoming a journalist,” “journalism,” and magazine articles” categories to find pertinent posts.
Begin with one chapter at a time and work through all the related categories—or all your categories, if necessary. Find the posts that relate to each chapter and then cut and paste the into a word document. If you know in what order they will go in the chapter—what subject will come first, second, third, etc., past them into the document in that order. If not, then just paste them into the document and figure that part out later. However, knowing the structure of each chapter—and of the whole book—before you begin this process really does help. It saves you a lot of work later.
If you think you don’t have a full content plan for your book after doing your mind map, or if you feel overwhelmed by the job of figuring out what blog content belongs in your book, in each chapter and in what order, it’s time to hire a book coach or consultant or or a blog-t0-book coach or consultant. This person will be able to see the big picture of your blog and of your book. For all you know, you’ve got several books to mine in your one blog!
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[…] to Find Content for Your Booked Blog March 15, 2012 By Nina Leave a Comment Yesterday I discussed how to use categories to find content for your booked blog. Another great way to find content when you are trying to repurpose your existing blog content into […]