Posted by Donna on January 8, 2010 under blogging, branding | 
One of my favorite blogging resources has become CopyBlogger. A colleague referred this blog about blogging to me a few months ago and I’ve found it extremely helpful in many areas, from developing content and SEO to best practices in blogging. There was a new post this week from contributing blogger, Larry Brooks I thought would be useful to share here at Social Media for Writers: How My Blog Landed Me a Book Deal.
Blogging is indeed crucial for authors. It’s great for building a personal brand, enhancing SEO, and for getting more personal with an audience. When it comes to using a blog to help a writer get published, blogging can help build an audience and a platform. That’s what Brooks writes about here.
Brooks’ blog post discusses how having a quality blog can help writers get a book deal, but he first demystifies that this is not a shoe-in or overnight solution. Rather, getting published as a result of a popular blog is something that takes time and something that is just part of the process, not an alternative route to being discovered. Not everyone can be Diablo Cody or Tucker Max, after all. Brooks leads his post with this valuable blogging advice:
“First, let’s get one thing out of the way. A blog alone, no matter how popular, isn’t enough to score you a book contract. It’s not quite that simple. In other words, it doesn’t quite work the way it does on television.”
I encourage you to check out the rest of this post and learn how blogging can help you build an audience and platform, and perhaps, add Copy Blogger to your list of writing and social media resources.
Posted by Donna on December 14, 2009 under blogging, resources |
As more and more writers embrace social media. more and more writers are sharing their own experiences with using the medium via blogs. I came across one of these blogs, Market My Words by Shelli. Not only does she share her own knowledge of writing and marketing, but she’s scored interviews with some agents and editors and has asked them about social media and writers. I recommend checking out her blog. Kind of like me, Shelli has a background in both writing and marketing. She has assembled quite the resource.
Several months ago, Shelli also gave Social Media for Writers a shout out when she linked to an early post, SMO Etiquette Advice: When is it okay for a writer to follow an agent/editor on Twitter? Thanks for the link, Shelli, but more importantly, thanks for writing your blog!
Posted by Donna on December 13, 2009 under Analytics and Monitoring, Annoucements, Mentions, blogging, search engines |
Happy weekend. Just a quick hit here. I was looking at my Google Analytics report for Social Media for Writers to see where traffic is coming from. There were a few other blogs that have posted about this blog, so I was very happy to see that. There is such great sharing happening today because of technology.
There was a blog, Laptop Guy Unplugged (www.laptopguy.blogspot.com) which has a post about me, “Google Analytics and Finding Smart Friends“! I mean, about me, as in Donna Talarico not about this blog. First, flattered. But why I am sharing this is because it’s a perfect example to illustrate how ranking well for your own name helps people find you. I blogged about that just a few days ago with the post, How Writers Can Dominate Search Engine Results: 5 Steps to Owning Your Personal Brand. (Of course, this is only a good thing IF you want to be found, I suppose.) Audrey, who wrote the post, was searching for “social media for writers” and she found the blog. But then, she was curious about me, and well, I’ll just let her post tell the story:
This post just fascinated me. See how you can just get a little lost online making connections? It’s incredible. I also LOVE that she gave a shout out to The Office. I also take comfort in knowing that I am not the only Google Analtyics nerd who loves to not just look at data, but follow it, too.
For tips on how writers (or anyone) can rank better, please see my post. And, the funniest thing of all, is that her post is about Google Analytics. That’s exactly how I found out she wrote about me and Social Media for Writers. Perhaps my next post will be on how writers can use Google Analytics.
