Find The Perfect Balance For Your Author Blog

Many authors find the idea of writing an author blog daunting, or perhaps just plain annoying! However, doing so is a good way of communicating with fans, building your readership and marketing your work.

When it comes to finding things to write about for your author blog, however, getting the balance right can be tricky. If you are too ‘niche’ you risk alienating potential fans, if you are too vague you risk not having enough of a hook to get anyone interested in the first place!

While some authors feel that sticking to a very specific, narrow topic will help them capture a particular demographic, there are plenty of very successful blogs which cover a far broader range of subjects that do equally well.

So how do you find that perfect balance for your author blog?

Pick a few topics that you are passionate about and feel you can write confidently on. If you love writing but are also a keen gardener then why not combine the two? You can overlap by writing short stories about what you find in the garden, or poems about nature.

People have a wide range of interests so there is no need to focus solely on one topic. Just because you are a writer doesn’t mean your posts only have to be about your writing, or the struggles of a writer, or what it’s like to be a writer. Fans like to know more about the author themselves so combine posts about your work with more personal posts about your home life or where you go on holiday, what you like to read or the other things you like to see and do.

However, going too broad can be detrimental, and authors must be wary of this.

Your blog should have a theme, something unifying that ties it all together. If it is completely random and each post feels as though it has been written by a different person it’s going to be hard to build an audience. If a reader likes your post they will come back for more. But if the next post they read is around a completely different topic, with an unfamiliar tone and style they could end up feeling let down and then not bother returning a second time.

A narrow niche can mean more work for you. If you chose a topic that is very specific it will be far harder to continue to come up with interesting and insightful ideas for blog posts. No matter how passionate you are if you find yourself really scraping the barrel when it comes to thinking of ideas, or simply regurgitating your old posts over and over again your readers will quickly become bored and turn elsewhere - and it won’t be much fun for you to write them either.

The best way to find out if you have the right balance for your author blog is to test the water. Experiment with different posts and slightly different styles and see what works best, there is no harm in reaching out to your readers and asking them to tell you what they’d like to see more of either - that way you’ll know what they love to hear and can tailor your blog posts to suit them.

There is no right answer when it comes to how you manage your blog, simply make sure what you write about is what you are passionate about while also writing with your reader in mind. If you do that you can’t go too far wrong!

Bethany Cadman -author of 'Doctor Vanilla's Sunflowers'

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