What are your goals for your author blog? What difference does it make? Actually, quite a lot. Let’s talk about this.

The following are the topics I’ll be covering more indepth in separate posts in this series; I’ll add links as I post them:

1. Is Author Blogging Dead?
2. Blog or Website or Both?
3. Social Media
4. Author Blogs
5. Connections and Audience
6. Content Tips
7. Goals
8. Layout
9. Types of Posts
10. Specific Pages
11. Promoting Your Blog
12. SEO
13. Ideas for Posts
14. E-Mail Newsletters
15. Author Blogs: My personal conclusions – and series resource list

YOUR AUTHOR BLOG GOALS

How do you want to present yourself and your book(s) and other writing to your potential readers? And what are your personal reasons for creating an author blog? By thinking about your goals, you’ll be able to decide what kinds of topics you’ll discuss, what kinds of media you’ll use, the length and layout of your posts, and more. Your goals can even help to determine if an author blog is what you really need.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR YOURSELF?

Why do you want, for yourself, to write a book and/or other writing formats? Why do you want to blog? Let’s think about that. Which of the following goals do you want to reach?

• Put yourself out there to potential readers and other writers in the writing community—and also to people who are interested in your topic and skills.
• Network: find and connect with like-minded people—for your books and related products and services, yes, but also to build your own circle of friends who share your interests.
• Teach and coach, mentor, educate
• Improve your writing skills by writing regularly, researching, etc. Practice writing craft such as language use, sentence structure, word choice, organization, or whatever skills you need to develop as a writer
• Develop your ability to present information, both in writing and extending that to speaking and other presentations
• Practice aligning your writing voice to your life voices: conversational, professional, thinking
• Become recognized as an expert or influencer in your field or genre. Become a voice of knowledge, authority, expertise in your fields. Shine through your words and ideas
• Provide updates on your projects
• Showcase your travel or other life adventures
• Develop your creativity and share it with others
• Develop your personal writing style: informal or formal, conversational, humorous, academic…
• Write as a way to reflect personally on your beliefs and ideas, and then present them to the world
• Practice tech skills: computer use, blog and website design, graphic arts, design, book publishing skills, video, audio, etc.
• Think about your purposes for writing: personal adventure? Business support? Fun, creativity, personal expression? Follow your passions? Self-exploration? Self-validation? Get feedback on ideas? Find healing from personal trauma?
• Share unique knowledge and perspectives

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR YOUR BOOKS AND OTHER PRODUCTS AND SERVICES?

Being an author is a business. Writing a book involves time and energy. It involves costs to prepare your book, and most likely to publish and market it. Even if you hope to find an agent and/or traditional publisher, you’ll most likely want to hire an editor to polish your manuscript so it’s suitable to submit. And if you decide you want to self-publish, unless you have publishing skills yourself, you’ll most likely also need to hire a reputable self-publishing company or individuals who have skills including interior design, cover design and illustrations, copyright and ISBN skills, and so on. And also, even if you get traditionally published, you’ll likely have to spend for marketing such as your book launch costs, possible advertising costs, and perhaps postage to mail book parcels to customers. So how does a blog fit in with this?

• Your blog can help build your writing business. It is an important marketing tool. It can build an audience of readers and promote your book(s) and related products and services. It can help sell your books!
• It can promote you, too—as a writer, yes, but also as an authority in your genre or book subject area.
• It can showcase your knowledge and skills, and open doors for other business opportunities such as workshops and conference presentations—which can help to pay for your book expenses
• It can help you develop business skills: self-scheduling, self-motivation, organizational skills…
• It’s a way to showcase your business skills to find your dream job or even develop and grow a successful business or society of your own to employ and support others
• Through comments and conversation on your blog posts, you can learn more about your ideal audience and their needs and interests that can inspire you as you write your book(s)

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR YOUR READERS?

To be a successful writer, you need readers—your target audience. Your author blog can help you build your community of readers. What are your goals for them?

• Provide entertaining stories
• Teach them how to do something
• Inspire them with your stories—and with your ideas and values and dreams
• Illuminate topics that many people find puzzling or difficult
• Create a community of readers who are interested in your book’s genre—and writers who share your interests and goals
• Share your thoughts, dreams, observations, and perspectives that will inspire your readers and encourage them to improve their own lives, make changes, think more deeply
• Bring your readers along on a journey—perhaps actual travel, but also what you are seeking and learning in life
• To encourage your readers to respond and join your community and to read and enjoy your book(s)
• Help others to heal from trauma by sharing your experiences and solutions
• Build loyalty, connection, and conversation

Your blog can help you reach your goals for yourself, your writing goals, your business goals, and your goals for your readers. As you ponder what YOUR goals are in all of these areas, you will be inspired to come up with blog posts that reflect your personal passions, your books and other aspects of your writing business, and your desires for your readers. Those posts will help you build a community of like-minded people who can share their own thoughts, dreams, and interests. I think the following quote, from blogger Ken Gray, sums up many of the goals that blogging can fulfill for an author:

               “I would say however that there is still a need for a public space for extended, shared reflection, for the comparing of notes and life experiences, for disciplined reactions to the challenges of the day, and for friendly banter and yes, for me at least, humour…. The point is we are all trying to figure out how best to communicate and share matters of interest and importance. In a communication-saturated world we seem to have lost the best practices for well informed and researched debate and interactive learning…. for some depth in our deliberation and our dreaming.”

Indeed! You can read Ken’s full post at https://take-note.ca/2021/10/18/the-blog-is-dead-details-below/ (and I’d encourage you to explore more of his blog. Lots of great thoughts—and blogging approaches).

WHAT’S NEXT?

Read through the lists of goals above for your blog (and your books and other writing). Write down the ones that appeal to you and add any other personal goals that aren’t listed here. For each goal, jot down a blog post topic or a blog method that you could use to help reach that goal (check out the previous post in this series on “Blog content”).

Don’t forget to comment! (You’ll find the “Leave a comment” link in the top left corner of the post).  Here are some ideas:

• Share with us your personal goals that guide and inspire you in your author blog writing
• Share with us your goals for your book writing, too
• What changes might you make in your author blog, based on your goals? What topics might you write about that you haven’t up until now?