Content Ideas for Author Blogs


We all suffer from blogger burn out sometimes. You need a day or two off once in a while to recharge.  So here's a few content ideas for author blogs:

Quotes

Quotes always go down quite well and make for easy content. A quick search for "quotes for writers" or something similar will pull up plenty to choose from. You could take one you particularly like and use it as inspiration for your post. Alternatively bundle a few together in a "10 great quotes about...." or "20 quotes I love" post.

List of articles

Do a list post with links to past articles you've written. You could do two separate posts, one for popular posts you've done on your blog and another for guest posts you've done for other peoples blogs. You could even turn it into a blast from the past series and break it down by topic covered into several posts over a week or two.

Alternatively you could do a round up article of some good articles by others that you like.


Visual and engaging

Take a photo of something and do a caption this. Just write a short intro saying that people need to post a caption in the comments section to go with the photo. You then do another post after say a week listing all the captions submitted. People vote for the best one in the comments section of that post. Can be just for fun or you could offer an ebook or something as a prize for the winner. You then do another post to announce the winner. If you also do a pre-contest post to announce it's coming soon, you get 4 blog posts out of it. Photo can be of anything but making it connected with you or your book will work better from a marketing point of view. A goofy pic of you working at your desk, you trying to write with your kids hanging off you, a pet reading one of your books... something that will get their attention.

Another way you can use images is to take a photo of you working at your desk or of your writing area. You then just add a bit of info about it e.g. what you have on your desk and why, why this is your favourite space to write, etc...

Use video

Record some video's where you talk about your book. Keep them short (say 1 minute each). You get content for YouTube and you can embed them into your blog as blog posts (you just need to write a short intro and you're set).

Video can be used for various content. Read book reviews you've received, read an excerpt from your book, talk about the characters (a video for each one), talk about what inspired your book, talk about the process you used when creating it, talk about ways readers can help spread the word about your book, etc... The possibilities are endless.

Use slideshows

Mix it up and add a slideshow. Again the possibilities are endless. It could be a slideshow to highlight your best review comments, your top tips for writing _______ genre, etc... You could even do one with photo's from the various stages of your books creation with a brief note on each one to let people know what you're doing in the photo. A fun, alternative way to let readers know about your writing process.

Share your learning curves

As writers we're always learning something new. It might be about writing or marketing but the learning curve never ends. Use this to create some content for your author blog. Let your readers know what you've been learning.

Work in process

Let readers know what you're working on. This doesn't mean you need to blog your book (although some authors do). What I mean is tell them about your new projects. Get them excited about what's coming next by sharing snippets. Let them know how your word count increased over the week. Are you in the editing stages? Let them know. Cut a scene? Share it on your author blog letting your readers know why you cut it.

Events

Let your readers know about events you're taking part in. This could be a book signing or an interview you'll be doing or a conference or presentation you'll be attending. After wards you can also do a post with a summary about the event to let them know how it went.

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking but there are plenty of other things you can do too.

Still stuck?

Host someone else on your blog. Have another author guest post for you or interview them about their writing process. You could even do a book spotlight for them. You help out another author and they drive traffic to your blog. It's a win-win situation. All you need to do is copy and paste their content into your blog so it's super easy too.

Got some ideas of your own? What are you blogging about?

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1 Comments

  1. Thelma Case12 November 2013 at 04:46

    Thanks for sharing these wonderful content ideas. A lot of blog authors are surely delighted with this post. Cheers!

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