According to the Blogger.com Help article, Promoting Your Blog, I’m a bit of a lost cause when it comes to blogging.
As of this writing, my blog does not send pings or have a site feed. I’m not sure whether my Navbar is activated and the word “blogroll” means nothing to me (I visualize either a stodgy candy bar covered in crushed goobers or a lightweight, orange fluorescent sleeping bag used by hyper-hikers to sleep suspended from the side of a cliff).
I did think about turning on my site feed, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like “out there” . . . so I went looking for a blogging education. According to the Help article I’m flunking out all round, not only from a technical standpoint but from a content angle.
Promoting Your Blog says:
— Publish regular updates. Simple: the more you blog, the more traffic you’ll get.
— Keep your posts and paragraphs short. Strive for succinct posts that pump pertinent new information into the blogosphere and move on. Keep it short and sweet so visitors can pop in, read up, and click on.
A while back, through my publishing service, BookSurge, I was lucky enough to receive a free book marketing consultation by telephone from author RW Ridley, fellow Blogger.commer of The Self-Published American.
I’ve been promoting my book, Fear of Writing: for writers & closet writers, for more than eight years now, so by that stage I was too jaded to want to hear the “been there, done that” advice about media kits and AmazonConnect. In the name of promoting my book, I’ve done everything from presenting my own writing workshops to running an online course based on my book to hosting a chat room at my Website—and more (far too much to bore you with here).
But the session was free, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I wish now I could find the notes I scribbled as RW Ridley took me to the cutting edge of techno-promotion.
I do remember one thing Ridley mentioned: book trailers. In my defense, I’m slowly working my way toward getting one of those. When I’m ready, I plan to use the services of my friend Bev Walton-Porter’s videographer husband, Paulzuzu (see the colorful and stylish book trailer he created for Bev’s book: Sun Signs for Writers).
Truthfully, it’s probably a good thing I can’t find my notes from that marketing session. I’ve come to realize most of my stress in life is self-inflicted and results from endeavoring to . . . guess what?
Achieve too much.
I’m really pulling back these days; putting more focus on things like long, hot, relaxing baths and using my African Healing Dance video to unwind and reconnect with myself.
(Yep, the same one I’ve had for so many years without using, it really is a video. Good thing we still have a video machine.)
Working with this new philosophy, I’ve recently made some reverberating decisions. This has affected everything from my online business to my worries about the purpose of this blog.
Finishing my screenplay, inventing a new recipe (Turkey au Gratin), doing a 10K writing day with my friend Jenny and MIL Saundra—and proactively putting off projects like book trailers, starting a wiki and resurrecting my newsletter until after the New Year—is quite enough to keep me happily busy.
But, hang on a minute. I started by telling you about RW Ridley in relation to blogging and why I’m a washout.
(See what I mean? Hardly what one could call a “succinct post that pumps pertinent new information into the blogosphere.”)
RW told me of a successful author he knows whose primary method of book promotion is his blog. This smart operator updates his blog 2-3 times a day with short, succinct posts—his other hallmark being his raw honesty. This captures the attention and wins the trust of his readers and they subscribe to his blog because they don’t want to miss a word he writes. Even three times a day.
As wonderful as all that sounds, I’m content for the moment with being a loser. I’ve threatened my own sanity enough by operating in the too-hectic zone as an author in the public eye (albeit grassroots) to want to feed myself through that ol’ meat grinder again.
I enjoy my blogging more when I let myself write whatever I feel like writing—which also means it’s bound to get lengthy—and without the pressure of having to update my blog every day.
Though I might still try to puzzle out this site feed business. . . .
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