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In our recent interview, David Henry Sterry of the Book Doctors shared five of their top tips for aspiring authors. In this next installment, David covers more top tips specifically for us bloggers.
1. PICK SOMETHING YOU’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT
DHS: First of all, pick a subject matter that you’re absolutely passionate about.
Don’t try to follow trends. We get this all the time, like people ask me “What’s the hot thing in publishing? What should I be writing about? Werewolves, vampires, unicorns, dwarves?”
No: pick something you’re passionate about, something that has meaning for you, something that makes you excited, something you think about and do in your spare time.
2. PUT SOMETHING UP WITH CREDIBLE REGULARITY
DHS: And then, of course, there’s persistence; to have daily application of the principles involved in success. You’ve got to put something up with credible regularity: if it’s not every day, every couple of days.
You’ve got to keep feeding your blog; it’s like a garden. If you don’t water it, if you don’t weed it, if you don’t plant the right seeds, it’s just going to sit there and be a scrappy patch of weeds.
3. REACH OUT TO PEOPLE
DHS: You’ve got to have people to read it, so you’re going to have to reach out to people.
You want to find those people in your discipline, in your area of interest, and connect with them in meaningful ways. Do nice things for them.
I like to say that the biggest principle of social media is ‘Good Samaritanism’. I get things every day, and I’m sure you do too: “Vote for me!” “Be my friend!” I’m like, “Why am I going to vote for you? I don’t even know you! Why are you sending me this? Why do you want me to do something for you when I don’t even know you?”
Now, if someone emails me and says “Hello, I just wrote a review upon Amazon – which anyone can do – of your book The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, I’m going to do something nice for that person. I will put a link to their blog all over my Facebook and my Twitter and, you know, I’ll do something nice for them if they have made themselves a friend of me.
When I’m going after somebody, I put a link to their stuff up on my various platforms. I put a review up. I put a comment up on their blog; it doesn’t take much time to do that. But when I’ve done three or four of those things, then I feel comfortable about asking them to help me in some way.
So I think that’s a really important principle to embrace: to collect your tribe of people. That’s what’s absolutely crucial. You’re writing about something in new and interesting ways, that you’re passionate about, and then to have a group of people who are interested in the same thing.