Should i blog or write a book

I want you to write a book. But I want you to do it with your eyes open. The first unrealistic expectation is about book sales. Some Authors go into the process of writing a book thinking their book will sell millions of copies. The facts are clear: very, very few books sell a ton of copies. You can use a book to get clients or paid speaking gigs, promote your company, raise money for a fund, or launch a brand. There are dozens of ways you can use a book to make money. The New York Times Bestseller List is the most prestigious list of book sales, but for dubious reasons.

Yes, people do that. It can and does happen. This is because hitting the New York Times Bestseller List is expensive, time-consuming, and an immense amount of hard work. I have no idea. If you had one, it was a major signal of credibility and authority. It meant something. A book also shows that you can commit to something and follow through. It shows that you can get things done—things that are hard and prestigious and require skill.

Yes, writing your book is emotionally risky. For one thing, there are very few famous authors. Writers are almost never become celebrities because of their books especially not first-time authors. In fact, there are only about 15 living people who are famous for writing and nothing else.

Malcolm Gladwell is one. JK Rowling is another. You can probably name a couple more. Not 10 more. Definitely not There are a lot of famous people in America, but they all got famous some other way. But I bet you had never heard of any of them before I told you who they were.

A book—by itself—will not make you famous. But a book CAN help you become more well known in your industry. When a media outlet wants a comment on something, who do they go to? The expert, right? And how do they know someone is an expert? The gatekeepers all want you to have a book before you can get in.

But you can use it to get there if you do the work—the hard and tedious work—over and over. Reach out to journalists. Post excerpts on LinkedIn. Talk about your book idea on social media.

Maybe even do podcasts and webinars about your book. The idea sounds glamorous, and we want that glamour. Glamour comes from doing the hard work to deliver something other people find valuable. Book writing is hard , not glamorous. Any Author who went through it and came out the other side will tell you that.

And maybe, if you put that work in, to catapult your own career to the next level. Think about it—how many times have you had a problem and tried to solve it by finding a book about it?

All those people would be coming to you for answers. It lets them know exactly who you are and shows them how you can help them. We needed to learn how to scale our company. I reached out to Cameron, and now he advises our company. And all because he had a really good book that led me to him. There are probably other people out there who could have taught me the same things, but Cameron is the only one who had a great book I could read, to decide that he was the guy to teach me.

I never would have listened to a sales pitch or paid attention to an ad. I had to see proof , and his book was it. It made me come to him.

Some books sell millions of copies and become bestsellers. Why not hope for the best? But the problem with unrealistic expectations is that they make you write the wrong book. The BEST strategy for a book, the one that led to all those success stories I told you about, is to reach a niche audience. That STOPS you from being authentic, open, and vulnerable for your audience, which are all the qualities that make a book great.

This gets you the trophy. You want to do this the right way. If he can find time for regular blogging, so can you. If you want to make a blog a success, then you need a big audience.

You want people to know your name. You want them to recognize your work. You can publish a post once every two weeks. If you find it hard to keep up with your blogging schedule, you can check out essay writing service reviews and find a professional writer to contribute to your blog. When you make the site popular enough, you can start attracting guest bloggers to help round out relevant content. Treat this like a storytelling project. When you pour your entire heart and soul into a post, the result will be a reward on its own.

Be yourself. Lay it all out. Give your best and see what the audience thinks of it. You have to make a distinction between blog writing and book writing. Sure, some of the most famous writers in history, such as Alexandre Dumas, Gustave Flaubert, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, published their masterpieces in the form of periodical literature or serials. They presented their novels in newspapers, chapter by chapter. That worked for them. Blog posts should be suitable for online reading.

The online audience is looking for brief paragraphs, subtitles, visuals, and other elements that make reading on screen easy. They also want to get into a discussion after reading a post. First, you have to identify the audience who would read the book you plan to write. Then, you need to discover what types of blogs they like. Identifying your target reader is a crucial step for creating a successful blog. Write for them! Invite them to comment. Let then ask questions and give them answers.

Trigger discussions and let them participate in the selection of topics. Think about your target readers and pick a niche that resonates with them. Then create a publishing schedule and start writing! Julie Petersen is a writer and an editor. In the future, she is thinking about writing a novel. Her personal blog, AskPetersen. I am thinking about writing a blog before I write a book but I wanted the blog to be a source of research for the book.

So for example, the book I want to write is a romance so my first post I wanted it to be about how to write a good romance novel and also relate it back to my book idea. Should I relate it back to the book I want to write or should I not mention it? Hi Christine, I think you can absolutely mention it!

It would probably be best to refer to it as an example or teaching tool. Largely based on personal experiences that led to an ED, but linking scientific facts and how I survived and overcame everything.

I also, want to write a blog taking the trauma, ED etc. I have never blogged but have been active on Facebook until it got so negative. Practice makes perfect. I mean Ms Lisa you are excellent in what you do but others are pale in comparison.

The internet the blogosphere is suspect at best. So, because I am a new author, should I create a blog before I have written my book? Write your book first. As a published author, blogging may give you an avenue to discuss your work, as well as provide a mechanism for feedback.

Stay neutral and apolitical, unless you welcome controversy. Concentrate on quality versus being exceptionally verbose. Good post, Steven, and good advice for new authors.

For example, we developed video vignettes with him speaking and built these into ads and Facebook postings. So I find looking at the bigger picture of goals and objectives, and then building a plan that works for the author and the book is essential.

EVERY situation is different. This advice, though, contains really good general ideas to start with! Great post. It certainly takes a lot of time, but fortunately for me, much of the material I put onto my blog can be migrated in my books. I write a blog that reviews family-friendly books for two reasons. It helps me keep up with what other authors are writing for the market and is also a way for me to give back and connect with my own audience.

Interesting post. Especially someone who does not need to be goosed into writing regularly? Excerpts from work in progress? Discussions of elements used in the work?

Little essays on process and progress? It takes away from the actual job of the writer — which is writing. However, if you want to blog, then blog. It depends on how prolific you are I suppose. What I have heard, and it seems to work better is this: having a monthly writers newsletter. Several established writers do this eg Harry Bingham and it seems more personal to me.

Then work to make it better and prove to yourself that you are the one in a million with a fresh voice and the ability to deliver it. I write romantic suspense and cookbooks.

I blog about my travels and cooking failures and successes. Sometimes I add recipes or excerpts about my novels and pictures of the covers. What we all need is a break from digital insanity. I write.

Blogs bog. Maybe for many others it is more effluent. This is true for anyone attempting to build an online platform. Once I become an expert writer, I can focus on working on a book, a much larger project, on enhancing my overall profile. I would even like to share some of the useful ideas in this post with emerging writers. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Reading — in addition to being plain fun — can make you a better smarter, more informed, satisfied person. In my experience successful people are often voracious readers. Good Writing Habits. The Book Professor - November 4, 0.

With the right tools, even busy people can make time to write a book. So how long can you expect to be at the keyboard before your manuscript is complete? From setting expectations to understanding SEO, there are things you can do as a writer to launch and succeed in a career writing for digital publications. It's easier to find flaws in someone else's work than it is in your own. There's a lot you can do to minimize errors and make your writing shine, but another set of eyes on your work is always a good idea.

Reviewing your writing from an editor's perspective can be a challenge, even for experienced writers. Here are strategies that can help you bring fresh eyes to your written work. Does My Book Need Editing?

Steven Spatz - May 25, 2.