When you create a blog for the purpose of blogging a book, you have to ask yourself an important question: Do I want this blog—and this blogged book—to serve as a branding mechanism for me as a writer and as an author? The answer determines how you design your blog.
The question actually represents a bigger one: Are you a one-book author or a multiple-book author? If you are a multiple book author, you must also ask yourself if you want to write one blog or multiple blogs.
If you are a one-book author, it’s easy enough to create a blog, blog your book, and then continue blogging on the same topic on that blog forever (or until you decide to stop). If your blog design—the banner and blog title—reflects your book content, everyone will “get” what you are “about” and what you “do.” For example, howtoblogabook.com brands me as an expert on blogging books as well as a writing, blogging and publishing expert. Problogger.com brands Darren Rowse as an expert on professional blogging. Scarymommy.com brands Jill Smokler as an expert on parenting. All of us are able to create books and products under that one brand.
Some bloggers, like Darren, have more than one blog. He also writes about photography and has a blog on this topic, digital-photography-school.com; he has books on this subject, too. I also have several blogs, one on writing and publishing nonfiction, one on human potential and practical spirituality and one on boys who dance. I’ve produced books on all these subjects as well.
If you are a multiple-book author and your books fall into different genres, you either need different blogs or an “umbrella” blog where you can then branch out into different areas. In the latter case, you can create categories where your posts on different topics are filed. This allows you to blog about different topics. You can also create pages where you provide links to posts on different topic, articles on specific topics, or generally explain the different areas upon which you focus.
An umbrella blog isn’t the most effective way to brand yourself, though, especially if you plan on blogging a book. It’s better to devote one website (blog) to your topic. As you blog a book on one topic and then continue blogging on that subject, the SEO from all those posts provides enormous branding power as well. If those posts get lost amongst a jumble of posts on other topics, it can become difficult for readers to understand what you do or write about. Your brand gets muddled. Therefore, if you write about a lot of topics, you might be better off with more than one blog. You can then tie them together under an umbrella author website that provides links to all your blogs. I did this at ninaamir.com. (And you can use a WordPress.org site to accomplish this, since a blog serves as a website. Ninaamir.com is a WordPress.org site.)
It’s important to take time prior to creating your blogged book site and to figure out where you are going with your writing career and who you want to be (or are) as a writer and as an author. Once you have a clear picture of your brand, then it’s time to create the blog that will house your blogged book.
Photo courtesy of Suwit Ritjaroon|freedigitalphotos.net
Nina, I like the concept of an “umbrella” blog or website. You are to be commended for all of your posts that you wrote prior to your departure for Germany. I know you had a wonderful time watching Julien perform in Russian in the Nutcracker. I’m sorry about his back injury but so glad he was able to still be in a performance. You will soon be returning to California with enough memories to keep your mind smiling and your heart humming for a long time.
Thanks, Barbara! Yes, I wrote quite a few! And I wrote more on the plane…seeing Julian dance was lovely.