Chasing Attention is a Bad Thing (but It’s So Hard Not to Do)

series of photos by René te Witt http://www.sxc.hu/profile/renetewittTwo weeks ago I wrote a post at my Someday Box blog which I’m inordinately proud of. My fans responded by making it the busiest day I’ve ever had at any blog in 11 years. By a factor of 3 — yes, one post tripled my best day ever.

And now, the following days of normal traffic look puny and sad.

When kids say something surprising and get a laugh, they do it again.

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Blogging 101, the Short Version for Authors

Cheryl Campbell

Cheryl Campbell

Continuing our conversation with author Cheryl Campbell

On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:42 PM, Cheryl Campbell <ccampbell.me@gmail.com> wrote:Hi Joel,

I know you’ve been writing and blogging way longer than me, but when you work on topics to blog about, do you just write what you want? write based on others’ questions? have a theme/series in mind for topics? Or all of the above? Or maybe this goes back to your evil plot and you have a different tactic altogether? 🙂

What I’ve been trying to do is do short blogs about indie publishing and posting tidbits, links, books, etc, I found especially useful/helpful…including helpful people like you.

Your coaching is on getting the story out of “someday” mode and into real mode. And I have writer friends who were just like me and they play with writing on the side here and there. I had only finally cracked down a couple of years ago and decided I would go for it all. Turns out, I kinda have a passion for writing that I didn’t really know was there until I stopped dabbling with it and got serious.

So that’s a bit of babble to say that with my blogs, given I have friends in the same boat and knowing they’d be just as lost as I was starting out on this, I have been trying to post helpful info in case they do ever get their own stories out of the someday box too. Seems like a good place to start for me as a completely green blogger….I’m certainly learning a lot on the fly.

Thoughts? Any suggestions on how to make blogs more effective? Or is it more about who you’re trying to reach as a target audience and writing with them in mind?

Cheryl

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But I Don’t WANT to Blog!

Most writers dislike marketing. They dislike anything that takes them away from their writing, but marketing is toward the bottom of the list.

I don't want to blog!

I don’t want to turn into a plaid polyester-wearing used car salesman! I just want to write! Besides, I have a blog, and it just lays there, doing nothing. How will anyone find it? What difference will it make, anyway?”

I’m a writer who came at this from the world of marketing (the subject of most of my books) so I have a different perspective.

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