BellaOnline Forums Career Nonfiction Writing Blogs and Websites

One of my soon-to-be-famous clients just launched his website and asked me for suggestions as to how to enhance it. I determined that many new authors are faced with the same dilemma - not having a published book on the stand (yet) to highlight their site can be frustrating. But, it doesn't mean they can't offer value to other writers through their .com (or in my case, .net) enterprise.

These were the suggestions I gave my client:

Overall: Keep your blog/website geared toward your writing and writing in general - even if you don't post that often, when you do post make sure it has value for other writers...such as:

1. Use your vocabulary as a tool [note: he has a very impressive vocabulary!]. Post a cool word, it's meaning and how you used it in one of your novels. Make it interesting, not scholastic.

2. If you come across some great information online about writing, provide the link to it and give a few sentences about your thoughts on it. Many established authors have a link on their site that gives advice on how they made it. Take advantage of their information and provide your readers with the link.

3. Read a good book lately? Promote it and tell why you like it as a writer, not necessarily a reader.

4. Discuss your writing habits (i.e. my 2KPWD - 2,000 words per day). Several people reach my site from Googling "writers words per day" and other similar queries.

5. Post a discussion about the conferences or workshops you've attended and the agents you met. Even if they rejected you later, share with your readers how you handled meeting them and how you gave your pitch. What would you do differently next time?


Read More Tips on Launching a Website or Blog

Good tips. If you write on nonfiction, a website on the topic is important, too. Mine is on homeschooling and it brings a lot of people to my book, and the book brings a lot of people to the site. A site on a particular topic will easily attract attention before the book comes out. I'll have an article in the future on author websites, and it would be good to hear how everyone does theirs.

Terrie - I'm looking forward to that article. I have opened blogs and closed blogs and played around with a website, but never really took the leap. I also appreciated the tips from this thread.

I think you really need to just come up with a good theme that people will be interested in. There are tons of blogs out there, so it is key to make sure your content is wanted to be read by a mass audience or a targeted audience. It's pretty awesome to see traffic start to pick up on your blog and the next thing you know it's an unstoppable machine. I never per se had this experience, but I've known people who've made it big in the blog world.

It seems to me that it would be pretty difficult for an unpublished writer to appear credible talking about writing. People generally want to learn from experts.

I encourage my website clients to post material about the subject of their writing, not about writing itself. A good example is Linnea Heinrichs' site at http://www.linneaheinrichs.com

A blog or website is more successful if it concerns the writing topic, not topic of writing or the writer, at least until he or she gets relatively famous, if not rich!

That is very true, but I think it at the same time you can build your reputation by utilizing other social networking sites. For instance, on the site I work on, eHow.com lets users be able to write out their own How-To articles and flaunt their expertise. Content on eHow are indexed pretty high on search engines and is also a great way to drive traffic to one's blog site or website. All around, it's just a good way to brand yourself as an authority in something and have your name on a credible site.

I agree with Terrie and Georganna -- a blog or website about a particular topic would probably be much more useful (and logical) than one about writing. (Unless the person in question is unusually qualified to talk about writing -- for instance, if he or she is a newspaper editor or an English professor or something.)

I just started a personal writing site, aimed at beginners. It drives me crazy to see a writer post articles on how to write a bestseller when they've never written one. Since I have one book out and one due out this year, I am qualified to talk to beginners, but not experts, so that's where I stay. But I have a number of sites focused around the topics of my books, and I expect them to be more popular than my writing site until I have a stack of books published.

I like that idea! A site to get advice and feedback and all move along together.

I am just starting to make a little from my non-fiction writing and have reached the stage where I need a modest website presence so I can direct enquiries - I will do something clear, simple and quick this week! - and then pop back here for some tips.

Terrie,

I'm so glad to see the nonfiction writing topic! I loved Elle's fiction writing articles and forum, but always sort of longed for a nonfiction focus.

Is this brand-new, or did I miss it before? For a writer, I can sometimes not be very observant :-)

I think the secret to a successful blog is focusing on what interests you as a writer, and maybe also what you've been successful at. That way you can share your expertise, and explore new ideas and report back on them. And -- if you're focused on something you're passionate about, it's easier to blog regularly!