Blogging for Writers

"To Do List": from magazine to blog to book

Sasha Cagen's 2nd book, To Do List, is a perfect example of how to take your idea, however strange it sounds, and go with it. Who would write a book proposal pitching a compilation of to do lists? Who would accept it?

Sasha first did a magazine of lists from 2000 - 2003. In 2005 she started a blog collecting people's to do lists. On November 6 of this year she released a book of 100 TDLs. No doubt her publication of the book was influenced by the success of the blog.

Your lesson from this: take what interests you and blog about it. At the least you'll enjoy spending time with the subject and practice writing. You might even inform or entertain a few people. At best you'll get a book deal.

Then you can use your blog to promote your book.
 

BTW, if you want to contribute a list to Sashas' blog, she's still accepting them.

HT: Blogger Buzz, the blogger.com blog.

Blogging with the Writing Process

"If you're finding writing difficult, it's because you're not taking the writing in stages, and are trying to edit when you should be planning or just writing." - Angela Booth

I'm working on applying this advice to help me keep up with my blog. Hello! It's the writing process planning, writing, and editing. I preached it to my middle school students and am teaching it to my kids. Sometimes it can be condensed into short amounts of time. Sometimes, as in ACT/SAT tests, it has to be condensed. Other times the process can be spread out. The process could either by days long process or it could be minutes or hours.

The bottom line is to get my brain operating in the process mode. As I exercise with the process, my writing muscles will develop. My goals is to get better at writing quickly and well, another example of how blogging can help writers develop.

Too often I try to do the whole process in one sitting. Sometimes I can do it, most time it takes too long. I practiced Angela's suggestions with this post - just jotted down phrases and things at first, then came back to it over a few days. As Angela said in her post, sometimes she doesn't know the point until she writes about it. Her entry is full of inspiring quotes, take a few minutes to read it then go get your blog on.

Online Resource for Helping Writers Use Technology

A subscription to Ten Keyboards is a must have for your virtual reference shelf. The mission of Scot Herrick's blog is "helping writers use technology to market their  work." Mission accomplished. One of the most helpful parts of the blog is th e "Writers' Resources" page. This is where he neatly compiles posts in topics including: 

• Technology for Writers - includes tips on keeping your computer running well
• Blogging for Writers - finding your voice, marketing, feedback, etc.
• Blog Parts -parts is parts, but what about blog parts?
• Blog Plans - including reasons not to have a blog

That's just a bit of the info avaible. Schedule some reading time to hang out on Ten Keyboards. Bookmark or subscribe to it. Then, go get your blog on.

Blog Building: Add a Sitemeter Counter

I just added a Sitemeter counter to this blog. It took under 15 minutes. Thanks to the handy dandy Typepad Widget Sitemeter has available.

What is Sitemeter? They keep info on who comes to your blog and how, among other things. Blog stats are helpful in showing people, like agent or editors, you have an audience.

Thought Typepad has stats available on their control panel, I like using Sitemeter because there is more info - and cool charts, if you're into that kind of thing.

The ladies at Blogging Basics 101 have a short post on stat counters, including links to several options for counters you can install. (I wonder how many people will come to this post looking for info on how to install counters, as in kitchen. I'll be able to find out from Sitemeter.)

Now, go get your counter on.

Get Your Blog on Google

Here's how to get your blog recognized by Google. It's no guarantee of where you will show up in the search results, but you have to get out there.   

The most basic thing to do is submit your URL/web address to Google here. 

You can also "claim your blog" at Technorati by going here.  They ask you to join, but it's fairly painless.

Your site can also be submitted to Icerocket, another search engine.

If you use Typepad, your posts are automatically submitted to Google and Technorati. I don't know that it would matter one way or the other if you go ahead and initially submit your blog manually to those two.

If you use other blog providers, feel free to comment and let us know if they autmatically submit your posts to search engines.

For more resources about this, check out Problogger's, Services to Ping.  If you really want more info, don't forget the "related posts" at the end of the post.  Sensory Overload Warnings: there is a lot of info there. Don't get overwhelmed.

There are tons of sites about increasing your page rank, etc. Take a few minutes to submit your blog, but don't let it take away from your time writing good content.

Now, go get your blog on.