The Positive Effects of Blogging

One of the blogs I check out from time to time is The Creative Penn. J. F. Penn is a self-published author who has taken the time to discuss what it really took to get her book off the ground. She has some great insights and points to certain pitfalls. Her first book is called, “Pentecost” and you can find it on Amazon for both Kindle and Paperback.

In her post, chronicalling her book launch, she mentions this when talking about her blog:

Without this baseline, I wouldn’t have been able to do most of the following so I consider my blog to be the most important asset I have to market myself and my books. I’ve been blogging here for over two years now, posting an article, video or podcast every two days consistently.

In terms of basic stats, The Creative Penn has just over 5000 subscribers from RSS and email lists and 21,000 uniques per month according to Google Analytics.

This is all before her book was launched. What an incredible start she had. And what incredible dedication to blogging. I see this with other authors as well. They make sure to carve out time to promote themselves and their work. Which, makes absolute sense.

And it is something I’ve needed to work on for a long time.

One of my fellow writing partners, Matthew Quinn, was the first to impress this fact on me. He added me to his blogroll and commented how I hadn’t updated in a long time. He talked about how it’s helped him, and then mentioned his site stats–31,000 at his peak total hits 39,732 with a top month of 3,003 in July 2011 (thanks to Matthew for the correction). (And still)I was floored. I’m lucky to get 50 in a day.

But, he’s also been blogging for several years as well.

What is my take away? I have a long road ahead of me. Of blogging and promoting and maybe some days talking to empty air. But, it is worth it. Because the power of an internet presence cannot be ignored.

And I’ve been working toward it already this year. Which I’ve already seen positive results. I’ve had an uptick in views. I have gained more writing followers on Twitter (who I have followed in return). My blog has been highlighted in Writer’s Lament for my article on how “Hiroko’s Tale” is doing and my adventures into Amazon publishing. Things are going well.

I’m looking forward to the next few months.

Speaking of…

Novel News

I want to start getting the word out about the novel I’m working on. Just building a little buzz. It is still in the early stages, but the comments from my writing group have been largely positive. Once I get further into the book I’ll start to talk more about it. Specifically I want to talk about my writing process and how it has shaped the book.

As for the book itself–to whet your appetite–it is a Young Adult novel that takes a different look at the paranormal and magic. So many books today are about the supernatural and paranormal. Which are two things I love. But I feel the genre has been going in only one direction. I want to bring a different look at it all.

For my book… Well, let’s just say it is Harry Potter meets H. P. Lovecraft. *evil grin*

Sounds interesting, right? Write.