Blogging Guest Speakers at LARA RWA Meeting

• Make comments on other blogs, lending your opinion and insight and don't forget to link back to your blog in your comments. That will help drive traffic back to you.
• Blog about other blogs and provide links to their blogs – cross promotion for bullet #1 & #2 is very effective for driving traffic back and forth.
• Write your own book reviews about your favorite books and link to those author's web sites and/or blogs. Don't forget to tell the author you wrote a review. You have a chance they may link back to your blog – VERY good if it's a popular author!
• If you have published books, provide small pictures of your books on your blog or web site…people are drawn to pictures!

Fronnie Lewis (also writing as F. Leegh Lewis) – Fronnie has a background in news and is the creator/coordinator/moderator of Cheers for Writers, a series of author interview and book signing events. You can visit her blog at www.fleeghlewis.com and www.awritersgroove.com. Some of her helpful tips were…

• Blog on current events! People love to comment about what's going on in the world today. Write your opinion on a topic and then ask your readers what they think.
• Read blogs for agents, editors and publishers! Not only do you find out tips and tricks on writing, they will frequently tell you exactly what they're looking for, what they love and what they hate about getting submissions. This is a great place to do your homework on those agents and publishers you're submitting your work to.

Charlene Sands – This is our Country & Western gal! She not only shared her personal experiences with blogging and how she got into it, but was also the person to speak on group blogging. You can read her blogs at her web site www.charlenesands.com and on the group blog www.petticoatsandpistols.com. Some of her helpful tips were…

• Link Link Link! Most blogs will allow you to link to other of your favorite blogs. This is more of that cross promotion mentioned by all speakers. AND link to your own web site (if you have one) or where your readers can buy your book(s) if they're available.
• You don't have to blog about your books or make it all about your writing. But, you can blog about topics that tie into what you're writing. So it's an indirect way of referring to your stories.
• Write topics that provoke your readers to respond. Ask questions. Ask their opinions. Speak on hot topics.

There is so much more information these ladies shared with us, it's just too much to list here. If you're going to be at the upcoming Romance Writers of America (RWA) Conference, be sure to attend their workshop! You'll get all these tips and even so much more than we experienced at the LARA meeting on Sunday. Also, visit their blogs. Charlene has the Top 10 Comblogments with more amazing suggestions and tips!

Blog Resources

Where can you do your own blog? How much does it cost? How do I write a blog? If these are questions you have, I won't be able to provide an extensive answer to all these questions, but I can give you a little shove in the right direction. I'm still pretty new to this myself.

Blog Sites – Some of the blog sites I saw mentioned were www.blogger.com, www.typepad.com, and www.wordpress.com. However, there are literally THOUSANDS of blog sites out there. Here's a couple of sites that list blogging sites: http://topsites.blogflux.com/ and http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/popular-blogs. If you Google “blog sites” you'll get ALL KINDS of results. Have fun!

Cross Blog – One other way of finding blog sites is by the surfing you do back and forth between bloggers. I've just referred you to the blogs for these four ladies, so that will most likely refer you to other blogs from the people who comment or searching you can do in those blog communities. And it goes on and on! Just beware of becoming addicted! 😉

How To Write A Blog – Truthfully, you can write whatever you want! BUT to be effective, you should be engaging your readers and write for your target audience that you select. Seriously, there are soooo many resources for this and everyone has a lot of good tips to offer. Go to Google and search for “How to write a blog” and you'll get a lot of great articles.

Hope this posting was helpful! Do you have other suggestions or favorite blog sites? Please let me know by posting in the comments. What has been your experience with some of the blog sites – as a reader and blogger? Thanks in advance for your input!

That's my two pence…

Arial 😉