You’ve begun blogging a short book (or even a long book). Or maybe you decided to blog to build platform for a forthcoming book, to promote a previously released book, or simply to express yourself. You had a lot of momentum when you started, and now… suddenly, you’ve begun to wonder: Do I really have anything to write about that is worth reading?
It could be that a lack of unique visitors (readers) to your site spawned this negative thought, or you might have low self-esteem in general. Maybe a reader left an unkind comment on a post.
The reason doesn’t matter. Now you have so-called writer’s block. You’re afraid to blog because you think you have nothing worthwhile to share.
Poppycock.
Everyone Has Wisdom to Share
If you have life or work experience, you have something to share. If you happen to be an expert or authority in a subject area, you have something to share. If you are passionate about a topic or cause, or if you have a hobby or skill, you have something to share.
Someone wants to know how to keep rosebushes alive. Someone else wants to learn how to remain married for 50 years, make money on the stock market, start an online business, raise successful kids, foster dogs, or knit unique sweaters. No matter what you know, you can transform someone’s life with that knowledge.
And, it’s your responsibility to share what you know to others. The Jewish mystics, or Kabbalists, teach that you stand on a particular step on the path to fulfillment or completion. Call it consciousness, higher learning or even “connection” if you like. There are others above and below you. When you teach what you know, which, in this case, equates to sharing your wisdom via your blog posts, you move up a step. That makes room for the person behind you to move up a step as well, and it pushes the person above you to share his wisdom and move up a step as well. If you don’t share what you know, you remain stuck on the same step—and you restrict the movement of those around you.
I tell you this story to impress upon you the fact that you must share your wisdom. It’s your purpose. Not only that, the world needs what you know. Even if you end up with a small group of readers, they benefit from your knowledge. In fact, not every blogger attracts thousands of readers per month or day. Many have just hundreds of readers per month. But those readers’ lives are transformed by the bloggers’ words they read in posts each day or week.
Rediscover Your Wisdom
At this point in your project if you feel like you are floundering and lacking the expertise to continue blogging your book, try this exercise:
Make a list of all your accomplishments to date that relate to your blogged book’s subject matter. Or, as I did in this post, just list facts about your career. Include everything you can think of from the time you were quite young until the present day.
When you run out of items to add to the list, go back through the list and highlight your accomplishments—big and small.
The information garnered during this exercise should bolster your confidence and provide you with “signature stories.” These are the primary stories you share when asked by journalists about your writing journey. However, you also can write about them in posts. They provide wonderful anecdotes or vignettes to illustrate your points and your expertise.
When you complete your list, pat yourself on the back! Acknowledge your knowledge and authority. Celebrate it!
Then get back to writing. You can start writing some of those signature stories. Add them to your book or your blog posts. Let the world know what you know: You are an expert, and you have something valuable to share via your written words.
Share Beyond Your Blog
And don’t be shy! Bloggers gain readers by sharing their posts on social networks. You can’t just assume readers will discover your blog if you write consistently and regularly. Yes, that practice will get your posts cataloged by Google and other search engines, and eventually it will drive your posts and your site up in the search engine results pages (SERPs). But it is not enough. You need to let potential readers know you’ve published a post, and you need them to share your posts as well.
So share you posts, and make it easy for others to do the same. (Include social sharing tools underneath every blog post.)
Here’s a great blogpost from Coschedule.com that will help you learn how to share your posts, your blogged book and your wisdom effectively.
Tell your friends about National Book Blogging Month! Share this post or the image to the left. Let’s get more people blogging books!
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