Now that you’ve decided to blog a book, you’ve got some decisions to make. First, you must choose a topic. While this step seems pretty obvious, there’s more to it than meets the eye. You can choose just any old topic and start writing. Or you can choose a topic that will attract readers.
Of course, you can also choose a topic that interests you and that will attract readers. That’s really what you want to do. In fact, you want to choose a topic you feel passionate about since you’ll be writing about this topic for a while. You don’t want to choose a topic you’ll dread blogging about each day. You want posting blogs to feel fun and interesting. You want your subject to motivate you to post.
Knowing something about your topic helps, but you can research your topic as you write. You blogged book will have to contain expert information, though, so be certain the information is available. Many people who write books do research to complete their manuscripts. The same holds true for a blogged book. You can become the expert on your topic if you are willing to put in the time and effort.
If your topic meets those four criteria—it interests you, it interests a lot of people, you feel passionate about it, and you can find information about it—your blogged book will meet with at least some degree of success.
At this point, you might want to check with some of the blog archives, like Technorati.com, or simply Google blogs on your topic to see what other blogs exist on your topic. Then choose a unique angle for your blog. You want your blog to stand out from the crowd of other bloggers writing on your subject. The fact that you are blogging a book on the subject will make you stand out to some extent already, but you’ll need a bit more of a hook than that. So, consider what others are writing about and choose an angle that works for you.
In a later post, we will discuss in further depth how to analyze the competition in your subject area.
Hi Nina! Helpful, inspiring blog. I have a question: If I do start to blog a book, how is that “book” protected, as far as copyright? What’s to keep someone else from stealing it?
Hi Rachel! Happy to find you here! That’s a great question. Here’s my answer:
When you hit publish on your blog post, you do send your words out to the world. However, your work is basically published by you. You’ve copyrighted it. You can say so somewhere, if you want….at the bottom of your blog posts. The world knows, though, that blogs are written by you, the author. They are published work. If someone were to steal your work, all you’d have to do is show the blog as your proof you wrote the book.
However, like anything, if you worried, write a few posts and send them to yourselves in a sealed envelope that you don’t open. Or actually send something off and have it copyrighted.
I personally don’t worry about it. I feel the blog itself is a published work and protected in that sense. I’ve never heard of anyone stealing a blogged book or anything else blogged.
Occasionally someone does “use” something from someone’s blog without attribution. When the blogger finds out and asks for attribution and a link to their blog, the other blogger is usually happy to accommodate.
Can I blog my book if it is already self published?
Yes, you can, but I don’t see much purpose in doing so. The reason to blog a book really is to build readership prior to publishing your book.