Blogging With Purpose

Hi all! This is going to be the last installment of our regular GPF until May. There will be one special post. On G day. (Yes. On a Friday.) And the guest will post about something starting with a G. The regular slots will continue in May.

In the mean time, don't hesitate to contact me to book a slot. If you look to the scroll bar at the right, you'll see that I'm booked until June. So you better hurry to snap up a slot. My address is mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com.

Well then. I think Beth might be quite familiar to some of you. She was the blogger that brought us Project 52 last year. This year, she moved to wider topics involving writing and the lit world. But let's rather just read her great tips on how to test the blogging waters (love that cliche), shall we?





Blogging With Purpose



I've never done a guest post before so I'm a little nervous. I wanted to do something that I thought would be useful to most everyone and I've decided to talk about blogging. I'll share some about my blogging experience, but mostly I want to talk about how to get the most out of blogging.

Blogging should be fun. That's the most important part. It's a great tool to build a writer's platform, market almost anything you want, and improve your writing but if you don't find something you enjoy in it, you'll never stick with it. So what do you blog about? Anything you want to. It's your space. That's a simple answer now, but when I started my first blog anything I wanted to seemed massive and confining at the same time. Those first few posts were god awful, horrible. I didn't know what to write about. I really didn't have anything to say and I knew I needed to blog. I forced myself to write something. The result was awkward posts that were difficult for me to write and had to be difficult for anyone to read. I like to read, aside from writing it's my primary hobby. (Adventurous life, I know). So I came up with Project 52. I decided I would review 52 books in 2010, which was great. I had something to blog about. I started with just the reviews and as I got better at blogging realized I could blog whatever. P-52 ended. It was hard to let it go, but I did. I seldom blog book reviews now, but I know how to blog and that it's okay to say whatever I want.


If you're in a spot where you don't know what to blog about just pick something you love and give yourself a project.

The next challenge is usually attracting/maintaining followers. The best way to do this is to get around to other blogs, leave comments that let the blogger know you're interested in what they had to say and follow. Contests and author interviews are great, but at the end of the day people just want to know that some has heard them. The blogging community is great and the best way to get followers is to be an active part of that community. As a writer, it will only help you in your career anyhow. I've met so many fabulous people who have awesome insight on writing, editing, and publishing that I wouldn't know if not for the blog.

Blogging is a valuable experience and there is so much to be gained from it. So go make the most of it. In fact, quit reading this and go meet a blogger you don't know right now.



Thanks Beth! Don't delay, people. Go click over to Beth's blog to read some more of her posts. :-)