It’s a blogging explosion in romanceland!! Every other day a new friend or acquaintance tells me they’re starting a blog. That’s great! Romance has been slow to take up the new media force that is blogging, and I’m thrilled that so many new writers are jumping on the blog-train. It’s truly an amazing promotional tool and an exciting new way to interact with other writers and our readers.
But. There is always a but! A blog isn’t a new toy that requires no thought or effort. To truly be the tool that your blog can be for you, you need to use it with purpose and dedication. I’ve visited countless dozens and dozens of blogs in the past few months, and my list of hot buttons has become highly refined.
You will annoy me (and many other people) with your blog if you:
1. Don’t allow comments in your blog. A blog is an interactive tool! A chance to discuss topics and events with your readers and other writers. The blush is quickly off the rose if your blog entry is a static post that bars interaction. If you have a problem with spam or troublesome, inappropriate comments, consider a change of blog platforms that will allow you to utilize spam blocking strategies and ban specific IPs of obnoxious posters. NOT allowing comments is not the solution!
2. Use a blog host (such as Blogspot) and don’t allow Anonymous posting. If you don’t allow Anonymous posting, no one who is not a member of your blog host can leave a comment (and generally, people will still sign their name to their post, so it’s not truly anonymous, it just means they have to manually sign their name rather than their name appearing automatically). Again, consider a change in blog platforms if obnoxious posters are a problem for you because not allowing Anonymous posting is the same thing as not allowing comments at all to someone outside your blog host.
3. Don’t post every day or almost every day. If you’re in a coma, okay, you’re excused. I’ve been to blogs recently where the last entry was October 2004! As a friend said to me, “If I go several times in a row and there’s not a new post, I’m all done with that blog.” What’s the point of having a blog if you don’t post regularly? Readers of your blog are counting on you. If you don’t post on a regular schedule, they’ll drift away. If you go out of town, leave a note in your blog that you will be blogging again regularly on X date. Don’t risk losing your hard-earned blog audience while you’re whooping it up in the Bahamas.
4. Bore me to death. Long, long, long (did I say long?) stories with no point or punchline kill me. Don’t talk about the weather, either. Unless you can make it funny. Or you’re going to show me a cute pic of your kids building a snowman. Or you’re going to personify the weather and tell me that Old Man Snowy bitch-slapped you on the way to your car (as was done brilliantly recently by Vanessa Jaye in her blog). But if you’re just giving me the temperature and wind chill factor (really, I’ve seen this in a blog!), I can get that from The Weather Channel.
5. Tell me you wrote eight pages today. And that’s all. Tell me you wrote eight pages and discuss your struggle with characterization or working around your toddlers, but don’t just use your blog as a diary of your page progress. Tell me something about yourself while you’re at it if you expect me to care. I want to care! Make me! I dare you!
6. Post your bookcover in every other entry. And in the entries in between, post your booksignings. The occasional promotional post is fine, but if all you do with your blog is post promotion, who cares? The rest of your site is for that. The blog is for your readers getting to know you, for you getting to know your readers, for drawing people into your world with your anecdotes, your opinions, your personality. Don’t waste the opportunity!
Even the most mundane events of your writing life, and your personal life, are filled with humor and drama–we’re writers! Our blogs should sparkle with our voice, our passion, our energy, our enthusiasm! Not only are we writers, we’re writers of popular fiction directed at mass market. We should have the best blogs in the blogosphere!
Go forth. Do your part. Blog daily, blog with drama and humor. Blog like you mean it!!
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Another annoyance is when you aren’t sure if anyone is actually reading your blog. If you read the blog, you should post a comment! Always. That way you don’t feel like you’re blogging to an empty wall.
Well said, Suzanne!
For a perfect example of an entertaining, addicting blog, visit Suzanne’s. I know I do. At least twice a day!
I’m hooked! (And isn’t that the point?)
ACK!
You’re so right. I’ve been looking at my blog as a personal thing. Sure others are welcome to stop by, but it’s really for me. Not a good thing. Actually I use it for writing exercise pretty often. It’s a good place to vent about how my characters have escaped me or how I’m NEVER going to hear back from H/S or Kensington.:-) I LOVE going to your blog every day and here and a few others. I need to follow your example. Thanks for reminding me.:grin:
I’m new to blogging but love coming to read yours, Suzanne. Thanks for the tips, maybe I’ll stop lurking!
Another thing that’s annoying are bloggers that get a slew of comments, some that contain questions for them, but they blithely ignore them all…
Great column, Suzanne…and it’s always interesting to read what others think makes for a good blog. I think blogging has really exploded in the romance community over the last six months to a year, but I don’t think we’ve been all that slow to pick up on this new form of communication. I’ve been blogging for about two and a half years now, and it’s really a sanity-saver for me – and I wasn’t the first by a long shot. I also wanted to mention that, for me, at least once in the past I deliberately stopped posting for a couple of weeks because I felt too exposed in terms of too many people visiting my blog. By stopping blog entries for a period I knew some people would lost patience waiting, and never return.
That’s related to how hard it is to keep the right perspective and be revelatory but not so intimate you reveal what you took for constipation last week. Some blogs I read are almost cringe-worthy in terms of the personal information shared…others are terrific and induce me to come back nearly daily with fun stuff.
It’s a tough balance to maintain – some of my blog entries are pretty personal, but I try to be as oblique as I can or to wrap things up in humor so that I can reveal myself without being in-your-face about it.
The blogs of all of us associated w/Romancing the Blog that I’ve seen so far are ones I’m enjoying reading. And I know it was helpful to me, early on, to know that I wasn’t the only one out there blogging about romance, which is why I got hooked on a couple of author blogs just as I started my own. Rosario, for instance, I think started hers either right after or right before mine, and the same w/Alison Kent (at least their archives go back to approximately the same time).
TTFN, LLB
Thanks, Suzanne, for the tips. I’m fairly new to this blogging thing, so what you are saying is quite helpful. I’ve already committed to avoid personal topics that reveal TMI and are irrelevant to what I’d most like to blog about – writing and the romance world. Besides, I don’t imagine my friends or family would appreciate such entries.
I admit to being guilty of not leaving comments as frequently as I should – I’ve been in lurker mode since I discovered this new world. But knowing how much getting comments means to me, I’ll make sure to do better on leaving them.
The biggest challenge will be keeping up with a daily post. But I know what you mean about the frustration of stopping by a blog only to hear crickets. I tend to erase those spots from my jog around the blog block – time is just too precious for that.
Great column, Suzanne. Thanks!
Lynn M
Nice topic! I was kind of hesitant to take up blogging, but I really love mine now and I’ve tried to make it represent what I want to find Out There. I write about the creative process, because when I visit another writer’s site I want to know how he/she got past X,Y or Z sticking point. I write about other things because writers have lives aside from sitting at the computer. (Er..we do, don’t we?) But I refrain from unpleasant topics because I know it throws me off stride if I go visit somebody’s site and see something horrific that I can’t get out of my head afterwards. We creative types, we’re so sensitive.
Thanks for such a thoughtful and thought-provoking post!
Great article Suzanne…so far I am resisting the urge to blog but I know I’ll give in one of these days and I will keep your comments in mind!
Especially the one about lurking/no comment…a failing of mine…one I vow to correct…right now!:smile:
Christyne
How ironic that you would blog this when the first “Columnists’” blog link on this website is totally blank for the month of February.
Well, if you click there it looks like she’s experiencing technical difficulties. I would think it would be hard to blog if your site isn’t working.
I don’t always leave comments in blogs I visit–only if I have something to say about the topic.
And yeah, Alesia’s blog is down right now–I just read it last night, and there are definitely entries for February!
Okay Yeah I know there are some laxes in my blog. I really wish that I had time to blog everyday but I do at least try to do so once a week. So I guess updating it once a week should count, right
Thanks, everyone! (And special thanks to those of you who mentioned my blog!) Re the topic of comments, I don’t always leave comments in EVERY blog I visit. If can offer encouragment or sympathy or the topic makes me laugh or sparks my interest, like Larissa said, then I’ll leave a comment. I love to =get= comments, so I always figure everyone else does, too, so I leave one if I can. Marguerite, if you can’t blog every day, keeping some kind of regular schedule is good so people will know what to expect. (Daily is best! LOL.)
Oh, and blogging hint number 478…never read Suzanne’s blog before you post in your own blog…you’ll just sit there in front of a blank screen going, “How come she makes it look so easy?”
Great article, Suzanne (see, I learn fast). Question for some of you here. I get a lot of traffic to my blog, but very few people leave comments. I do feel like I’m talking to the wall sometimes, but I talk to the wall a lot in our household, so I’m rather used to it.
Advice from our blogging experts?
LOL, Julie! (But thank you!)
Kathleen, hey, I’m not above *bribing* people to leave comments! Which I do all the time!
Aha!
Suzanne, like Julie says, you do make it look easy! The truth is, you’re right — blogging (done right) should have some focus and consistency. (Something I’m *cough* striving for.
)
I’m still new to this myself, and coming from a journalism background (and by journalism I mean “local suburban newspaper,” but still…) I get “stage fright.” Is it polished enough? Is it focused? I’m still trying to find a friendly, conversational rhythm that doesn’t sound preachy or “teachy” but isn’t just my usual scattered thoughts on the lack of bread in the cupboard, why Jude Law hasn’t called me, WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS SCENE ABOUT?!, and why visiting my usual Buffy boards is really, truly good for my writing. :innocent whistling:
Blogs are a great tool, and learning to use them well should be Blogging Rule #1.
Hear, hear about comments. In fact, I expect to have the *right* to comment on other people’s blogs, as long as I sign my name to that comment.
My blog is certainly evolving, and being more reflective of my personality than when I first started and I was rather scared of it!
If you can’t blog every day, another option is to get a feed for your blog. That way people with feed readers (uh, I’m sure that’s not the right name for them) will at least be alerted that you’ve posted and can come visit your blog.
Great post, Suzanne.
Kathleen -
I don’t know if I qualify as an expert, but I’ve certainly been blogging long enough, and when I started blogging, commenting was not as built in to most systems as it is now. Regardless, there are weeks when I post four times and nary a comment, and then I’ll do a very silly entry like I did over the weekend and it’ll bring lots of comments. It doesn’t mean people aren’t reading if they don’t comment. Perhaps having a hit counter would help? At least you’d know you’re reaching X number of people.
And it tends to add up. I’d already been blogging for nearly a year when I moved from blogspot to blog-city, and since July 2003 there have been more hits than I’d have imagined…in the grand scheme of things my blog’s 153,000 hits since then don’t amount to a hill of beans as compared to the traffic we get at AAR, but it’s still something that amazes me.
Anyway, if you write for a living you’ve got to assume you communicate well and that people are going to read – and like – what you’ve got to say, even if they don’t always agree with it. If you enjoy blogging, just do it and don’t worry about the rest.
Good luck…TTFN, LLB
Great column, Suzanne! Filled with your trademark energy and enthusiasm (yet curiously restrained in exclamation point usage.
gg) One other *Don’t* I’d add is bitching. As in constantly, maliciously and at great length.
It’s one thing to rant–rants can be funny, and we all get teed-off about something/someone. Who doesn’t love a good snarky post? But being truly ‘mean spirited’ and poisonous is a turn off. A blogger will find his/her readers–the ones that bother to stick around–not so much ‘connecting’ with them, as much as watching the trainwreck.
Great topic. I’ve been bad and not posted in my blog in a while. I must do better. I know this.:oops:
What a great article, Suzanne! As someone who mostly lurks and rarely posts comments on people’s blogs, I’ll try not to be so…silent from now on. (Posting comments can be a little intimidating!)
Another great blogging accessory to have is a feed so that readers don’t have to visit your site to know that you’ve posted a new entry. I subscribe (when I can) to all my favourite blogs and new posts magically arrive in my Inbox. This is great when sneaking in some personal e-mail time at work.
While this seems a little counter-intuitive – obviously, you want people to visit your site – I’ve found that the sites I most often visit are those with blogs I regularly read. (It helps if your blog links to something interesting on your site.) Also, if I only have 10 minutes of free time on the computer, I’m more likely to check my mailbox than open up all my bookmarked blogs.
That’s a very solid list of tips! It’s intimidating to start a new blog.
I do have to disagree on your point about allowing anonymous comments without a visual test such as this blog requires. Allowing untested anonymous comments can create an avenue for comment spammers to fill old posts with dozens or hundreds of spam comments, which are then logged by search engines and affect search engine rankings. That’s just bad practice, computing-wise, like running an open-relay email server.
I also disagree with the first commenter, who suggested that readers should comment just to be polite. How can the blogger tell which of her entries interest/help/move her readers if readers post just to be polite?
!@#$ you, Suzanne! I have a whole article on this… — okay, we didn’t quite overlap
, but you totally hit on my theme (which is good, I’m a huge believer in contributing to the collective unconscious!). Blogs are not things you acquire, they’re tools.
Blogging software allows people to publish to the web easily. You (the author of the blog) get to decide what you want from your blog. Cheese sandwich blogs are really useful, but, if you’re using your blog to sell you the writer, then your focus should be a bit, well, more outwardly focused.
PS — The posts that generate the most traffic at Booksquare are not the posts that generate the most comments. I’m sure there’s a correlation here, but my math skills don’t extend that far. I don’t worry about the lack of comments (love ‘em, but don’t worry too much if they don’t come as I can see that people are reading), but I do miss my regulars if they’re gone for too long. It’s a community thing.
Thanks, everyone, for all the interesting comments!
Erin, I don’t think we disagree.
As I noted in my column, if spam is a concern, then consider a switch in blogging platforms to utilize spam-blocking strategies.
“The posts that generate the most traffic at Booksquare are not the posts that generate the most comments.”
Kassia, it took me awhile to figure this one out, you’re right on target here. Yet, I do like the interaction. I hope you still write your column piece, or post it to your site.
Had it not been my agent’s suggestion, I wouldn’t have a blog but now that I do, I’m addicted. It’s immediate gratification or mortification if you don’t write something well. Most of my posts are personal but I have posted about my current manuscript, characters in my next novel and my neverending quest for publishing. There’s truth to the Kevin Bacon game of 6 degrees of separation – many of my readers are connected to my favorite blogs who are writers who link to someone that I know. Instead of being three phone calls away, the world is now only two blogposts/links apart.
Great post. I heartily agree. Make your blog personal and a little bit entertaining. I love to see the entire process, a bit of people’s work, or even what they are working on.
Michelle
Rambling on I
A columnist at Romancing the Blog had an interesting entry, “How to Annoy Me With Your Blog.” Number three was write every day or at least every other day. Geez. I have a hard enough time accomplishing that with my…
Suzanne, you convinced me. I took my comments off after getting 400 spams in one day. But I’m going to take your suggestions about how to block spams and get those comments back up and running.
I started blogging back at the beginning of 2004, stopped, and started again at the end of 2004. I put myself on a schedule where I write something on it at least once a week. I haven’t gotten to doing daily entries just yet, but I’m getting there.