I love Randy Ingermanson. Let me just start there. I’m very excited to be presenting at Mt. Hermon with L. L. Barkat in part because it means I also get to participate in Randy’s fiction workshop. In fact, I finally went and got Oxygen, a book I’ve been meaning to read for sometime.
That said, I found myself resisting Randy’s latest post at Advanced Fiction Writing…
“Blogging Tip #2: Branding Your Blog.”
I mean, on the one hand, blog branding is important. I’ve done it here to some degree. A friend helped me design GoodWordEditing.com to be a kind of brand. Though “GoodWordEditor.com” probably would have been more accurate. I just don’t write about the nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts of editing enough, but I’ve come to believe it’s okay. I’m not the kind of person who focuses like that. Nor am I the kind of person who needs to. If you’re still with me, you’re not really interested in editing anyway.
So what are you interested in? Community. Conversation. Social interaction.
That’s where this medium is the message. Rare is the Randybird who can be social about something like Advanced Fiction Writing. I can’t do it, that’s for sure.
But the big mistake we make is thinking that these kinds of branded blogs are what people want from a blog. Sure, we all read a few blogs like this. I read Randy’s feed. I have read CopyBlogger regularly at times. And ProBlogger. Lately, all of my blog reading has been consumed by our network at HighCallingBlogs.com. (We achieved PageRank 4 in just two months, thank you very much. That means each link we pass back to our writers is gradually worth more and more credibility.)
But listen. Even HighCallingBlogs.com isn’t my brand here. Darn it, I’m not a brand. Neither is my blog. I’m a guy who is using a new tool of communication to communicate with other people. No agenda. No platform building. No secret plan to rule the universe with my social marketing scheme. This blog is not a business for me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting it is wrong for someone to use a blog as their business. It’s not wrong to create a kind of niche media empire out of your blog in the way that Randy has done with Advanced Fiction Marketing. (Forgive the hyperbole.)
What I’m resisting here is the idea that blogs naturally tend toward a certain kind of content. So many writers are trying to build a platform on their blog. So many publishers are trying to promote books through blog tours. Recently, a friend of mine told me of a well-known Christian press that is now including blog tours as part of their regular publicity package for authors.
Just think about that for a minute. That’s totally bizarre.
Even though it makes me happy for people like our own High Calling Blogger, Tina Howard at Spaghettipie.
I’m dangerously close to rambling here, so I’ll cut to the bottomline:
Don’t count on blogs to create a better bottomline for your book sales through easy to track conversions. Some people may be able to pull this off, but I have my doubts.
I’ve never seen anything that suggests blogs work as a direct marketing tool for selling books. THEY DON’T. As evidence, consider the fact that the Direct Markets Association isn’t even talking about blogs anymore. Blogs might work for direct marketing someday. Randy himself might crack the code. Or maybe Steve Gibson. But Steve and I think it’s unlikely.
Because selling stuff isn’t what blogs do best. Blogs are about conversation. They are about real relationships.
As long as a writer is authentic, I’d argue that it doesn’t matter what he or she says on the blog at all! I mean, sure they need to have a good blog with decent inbound links and traffic. In other words, they need to understand how to use social media tools to have a good conversation. (Which is why I really appreciate Randy’s latest series on blogs.) But even with an understanding of blogging tools, blogging writers need to be conversationalists with interesting things to say.
Because a blog is just a point of contact with readers and potential readers.
How we engage readers once they meet us in the blogosphere seems like a very personal thing. It could be a specific business strategy like Randy has. It could be a place of experimentation like Steve has. It could be a place of public reflection and devotion like Seedlings in Stone. For many others, blogging will be something less focused, but just as effective at building community.
Randy himself is completely upfront about this. His goal at Advanced Fiction Writing isn’t to convert blog readers to book purchasers.
Sometimes I think we writers get so focused on selling our fiction through blogs that we miss the point completely. And we miss the joy of this medium that allows us to develop real relationships with people we would have never met otherwise.
We have a tremendous amount of freedom to decide how we want to meet people in this space or any space. We come as we are. The important thing is that we decide to come. We make it a discipline. We show up regularly.
We learn to be ourselves at work, at home, at church, at conferences, on committees, in classrooms, in front of audiences.
And on blogs.
As Hopkins says, “Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: /. . . / Selves . . . Myself it speaks and spells/ Crying What I do is me, for that I came.”
I say more. What I blog is me, for that I came. I blog in God’s eye, what in God’s eye I am: Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places.
And Christ blogs in ten thousand more, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.
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Now, if you want to explore the poem I quoted too much there, open up the text of the poem in a new window, and listen to this eight minute explication:
12 comments ↓
Go, Marcus. You’re my blog hero.
Well said, Marcus! A blog does not need to be a marketing tool in order to be worthwhile for a novelist. You can blog for any reason you want.
The series I’m doing now is of course for those novelists who want to use it as a marketing tool. I think this is possible, because a blog can be a great marketing tool for nonfiction, but I don’t yet have a blog for my own novels. I will in time, when the time is right. And I’ll know what my goals are.
The problem I see is that a lot of publishers tell their novelists–”Go start a blog! It’ll really bump up your sales!” LOL, that won’t happen automatically.
See ya at Mount Hermon!
*applause* Nicely put.
Amen!
I had this conversation with a some people a few months ago. They were talking about setting up their own blog and stressed about “the brand.”
Don’t stress! I said. It’s about community. Blogs are friends chatting.
One of the girls said it is about brand. She only reads blogs about certain things.
But she also reads those blogs like you would a newspaper. She doesn’t interact either through comments or her own blog.
Here’s what I think about branding in general, whether as a writer, a product, or a blog (and, you know, I am the expert and all): it’s a lot like a writer’s voice.
It’s who you are, what you’re passionate about.
At least, that’s how I think about it so that I can stop stressing about it.
My “brand” will leak through, whether I’m talking anthropology, musicology, or washing machines.
Thanks, Marcus, this is good advice. It’s the reason I felt comfortable giving the details on my water-well problems on my blog, even though it had nothing whatsoever to do with writing fiction.
In fact, even the “well pipe parts list” that I posted about has had a lot of readers. And the neat thing is that I was able to share truth in the process. I’ve had a few people learn about the “Water of Life” when all they were searching for was “endopure pipe stiffeners”. So if my blog blips into bits and is never heard from again, and if my book doesn’t even sell one copy, the chance to share things like that make it all worthwhile.
And meeting people is nice, too!
That’s a relief. You mean, I can blog just to blab? I can meet people just for fun? I don’t have to shamelessly bait unsuspecting readers like notches in my marketing headboard? What a load off, and what fun we could have just talking! But on the other hand, that means I have to be really, really interesting.
I only have time to read a small handful of blogs regularly (yes, fiction writing IS social. Randy’s blog is pure par-tee. Some of us get all tingly from learning something new) . So I choose blogs of utmost interest to me.
If I had a choice, I wouldn’t read my blog. Hmmm.
Heather said it well, when she affirmed that our voice would shine thru. I am learning about the “sound” of my voice as I blog. I am learning to interact with people more, and I am learning from other bloggers.
Keep up the good work, Marcus!
I’m glad it’s primarily community. I’d hate to have someone sell me on something at every blog I stop at.
L.L., you are such a nice person. I am really looking forward to presenting with you at Mt. Hermon. Thank you for asking me! In fact, you were the first person I met through blogs.
Randy, you are quite the gentleman to stop by here. And you sum up the problem well in your comment. Publishers are part of the problem when they tell writers to start a blog as if it is a magical cure-all for sales. I hope we can chat about fiction blogs in March. I’m thinking devices like the Kindle will open up that market. We’ll see.
spaghettipie, thank you, ma’am!
Heather, you got it right. “Blogs are friends chatting.” At least that is the most powerful effect of blogs. I also like your insight that people who read blogs as brands don’t interact with them as much. Problogger and Copyblogger are case in point for me on that issue. I never comment there.
Robert, people like you are a good reminder of why I blog at all. How would we have ever met if not for the CSFF group?
Camille, thanks for coming over! I love the vivid imagery. It comes down to confidence for me. I don’t try to sell anything here–unless I do it naturally the way I might tell a friend about one of my favorite movies. But otherwise, I try not to manipulate readers to do anything–unless I tell them upfront that I’m manipulating them just to see what would happen. Also, I wouldn’t sell your own blog short. The first chapter posting struck me as particularly brave. I hope to take a closer peek at that later.
Sally, ditto on the comment to L.L. and Robert. We met via blogging. How cool is that? And you are absolutely right about voice. Because blogging provides such quick feedback, it is easier to learn what works and what doesn’t. Even crickets in the comment section tells you something.
Eve, alas the vast majority of the millions of blogs out there exist solely to sell stuff. Thankfully, a huge chunk of them are automated and easily spotted from afar.
Amen dude. There is a ironic truth that applies in much of cyberspace. Whatever you’re trying to do you probably won’t be able to do. You’ll be too late to the game. Instead, just write! Write write write write write. Let your words speak or not speak. If you’re a serious writer or blogger, you probably won’t have time to do very much branding work.
These are things I wonder about. Much, lately.
Which makes me think of Jesus who served in out of the way places, like Nazareth.
I wonder: Doesn’t God give platforms to the humble?
Prompting other lips to praise?
If He gives the words to write, oh, to be faithful to that.
I wonder what it would look like if we took up the Jesus brand: Authentic Love. Relationship. Humility.
Thank you, Marcus, for a place to think on these things.
Well said, Marcus, now all you have to do is tighten it up, draft it for your week at WI and save me the trouble of reminding you when your turn is up!