Ten years ago, my children told me to start a blog. “What’s a blog?” I asked innocently. They exchanged one of those looks that makes a parent think, “Just wait until they’re my age and they have smart-aleck kids.” A decade later, I am still asking the existential question, “What is a blog?”

I didn’t know why I needed to start a blog a decade ago. After all, I had a purpose in life, one which did not involve splattering myself across the Internet. (My children also advised me to start a Facebook page and get on Twitter — neither of which they did themselves.) (Hmm…maybe they were smarter than I thought.) At the time, I didn’t really know what a blog would be good for.

I rapidly found out.

A blog is whatever you make of it because, after all, a blog is writing. In some cases, it’s a way to organize your thoughts. (Some people even like to organize other people’s thoughts.) (Oh, avoid “thought leaders.” They think too much of themselves.) There are also those who need a way to keep track of where they are going, or what they are eating, or what their cats are doing. (Inexplicably, everyone on Facebook wants to know where you are going, or what you are eating, or what your cats are doing. If you are a writer, you can make all those things interesting, although on Facebook that will be a worthless endeavor. Just post photos.) 

In my case, my blog has proven to be an excellent method for providing easy access to nicely organized publishing resources. It was completely serendipitous that a lot of other people found those resources useful as well.

One important perk of obsessively keeping track of literary journals is that my work gets published. And I occasionally win one of the contests that I post on my monthly lists and on my Free Contests page. (My personal essay, “They Will Try to Kill You” won first prize in the Tell Your Story Contest, and my short stories and personal essays have gotten several honorable mentions.) The fact is, had I not been so compulsive about listing every single publishing opportunity, I wouldn’t have been nearly as diligent about submitting my work, which I tend to forget about once I get my next “must-write” idea.

The same holds true for my novels. I have, at this point, probably submitted my YA fantasy to every agent for my genre (well over 500). And I have gotten three offers of publication. (One of these days, I will write a blog on “Contracts You Shouldn’t Sign.”) I am nothing if not persistent. And in publishing, persistence pays. No matter how many times you are rejected, it only takes one agent or editor to say “Yes!” (Give yourself a boost right now and look at the list of famous authors who were repeatedly rejected here: Never Give Up! Never Surrender!)

The moral to my blog story is that sometimes what starts as self-interest morphs into a benefit for others. In fact, that may be the best path to altruism. After all, if you know what you need, you also have a handle on what others may need. In this case, I hope every writer reading my blog has benefitted from my (only mildly OCD) need to organize absolutely everything. 
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Keep writing!


Like this article? For more articles about the publishing world, useful tips on how to get an agent, agents who are looking for clients, how to market and promote your work, building your online platform, how to get reviews, self-publishing, as well as publishers accepting manuscripts directly from writers (no agent required) visit Publishing and Other Forms of Insanity.

In January, I usually take a look at my posts from the previous year, just to see what struck a chord with my readers. As usual, the most popular posts were free writing contests and calls for submissions. These often made it into the tens of thousands of views. (I didn't include them here. It would have made for a repetitive list.)

Some posts were a lot more popular than I had anticipated. The post about writers who published their first novels after the age of 40, for example, got over 4,000 views. (I didn't expect that, but it seems there are a lot of older writers out there. I, of course, am one of them. Hence the post.)

What was also interesting was the fact that for all of these posts, the number of views topped my most popular posts from last year by 400%. In spite of the self-publishing boom, lots of people are interested in getting traditionally published.

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TOP 10 POSTS OF 2017

#10 Getting Your Self-Published Book Into Libraries (4013 views)

#9 15 Famous Authors Who Were Published After 40 (4118 views)

#8 12 Agents Representing Short Story Collections (4282 views)

#7 An Insider's View of the Publishing Business (4338 views)

#6 4 New Literary Agencies Seeking Clients (4628 views)

#5 2 New Literary Agents Actively Seeking Fiction, Memoir, Pop Culture & more (4707 views)

#4 13 Paying Markets for Flash Fiction (5136 views)

#3 27 Great Websites for Writers (6531 views)

#2 17 Publishers Accepting Unagented Short Story Collections (8385 views)
And my top post was (drum roll) ...

#1 11 Agents Seeking Literary Fiction NOW (11,277 views)

Last year I decided to review my posts to see which ones had attracted the most readers. (I posted them here: Top 10 Publishing Posts of 2015.)

Not surprisingly, the posts which garnered the most readers were about major publishers (notably HarperCollins) opening their doors to unagented writers. (HarperCollins' brief excursion into democratic operations has since been abandoned.)

This year, I encountered a problem when I simply looked at numbers of views per post. My Free Contests posts, and Calls for Submissions posts, had gotten so many views that they encompassed all of my Top 10. So, I moved down to the next category, which was Agents Seeking Clients. These also had gathered many thousands of views. (You can see all the agents looking for writers by clicking on the link.) 8 Literary Agents Seeking Horror NOW, for example, had gotten 5,060 views.

In all fairness, I had to discount all of those posts as well, and move on to my next category, which had to do with marketing and promotion. Without further ado, here are those top ten posts, in descending order. I hope you will find them useful.


#10 8 Ways to Use Goodreads to Promote Your Book (1310 views)

#9 How to Use Pinterest to Build an Audience (For Writers) (1370 views)

#8 15 Magazines That Pay $500 or More (1740 views)

#7 13 Paying Markets for Personal Essays (1897 views)

#6 6 Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishers Accepting Unagented Manuscripts from Writers (2074 views)

#5 Promoting Your Scifi or Fantasy Novel on Social Media (2084 views)

#4 Top 10 Sites for Indie Authors (2189 views)

#3 82 UK Literary Agencies Seeking Clients (3249 views)

#2 175 Literary Magazines Accepting Reprints (5294 views)

And my top post was (drum roll) ...

#1 272 Paying Markets for Short Stories, Poetry, Nonfiction (7326 views)


Runners-up

Mega-List of Agents Looking for Memoirs (and other Nonfiction)

What a Trump Presidency Means for Writers 

18 Paying Markets for Humor 

If you are a writer, you absolutely must keep a blog. Why? Because blogs are a great way for agents and/or editors to see how you write informally and, of course, your fans will enjoy reading your blog posts.

The problem faced by bloggers is the same faced by up-and-coming writers. How will people find you? If you have not yet published a book (and even if you have) it is difficult to make yourself known in the vast Blogosphere.

Fortunately, there are many ways to promote your posts. You can precycle by publishing your posts on other well-trafficked sites first, you can guest post, you can also post links to your posts on various platforms.

A few sites also allow you to recycle your posts. That is, you can re-publish your posts on another, larger, platform. (See LinkedIn, Medium, Scriggler, and Niume below.)

When you re-post, remember to include a call to action at the end. The call to action is a simple statement of who you are and what your blog is about, along with a link. It should inspire people to check out your blog.

As a case in point, here is my call to action:

Erica Verrillo has published five books. She blogs about the publishing world, posts useful tips on how to get an agent, lists agents who are looking for clients as well as publishers accepting manuscripts directly from writers, explains how to market and promote your work, how to build your online platform, how to get reviews, how to self-publish, and where to find markets for your work on Publishing and Other Forms of Insanity.

The following are the sites I have found to be the most productive in terms of generating traffic to my blog.
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Google+ - Google Plus is an excellent platform for bloggers. There you will find numerous writing communities of all stripes: marketing for authors, self-publishing, fantasy writers, poetry, horror, sci-fi writers, bloggers - you name it, there's a community for it. If you haven't already, set up your Google Plus profile, and join the appropriate communities. Once you've joined, you can post links to your relevant blog posts on community boards. You can also post your writing, depending on the community rules. (Make sure you read those rules before you post!)

Because you only post a link to your post along with a short intro, Google Plus directly increases traffic to your blog. There is no need for a call to action, although you should make sure to place the name of your blog at the top of your intro. An additional benefit is that people on Google Plus groups are likely to recommend your post to others.

LinkedIn - LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, allows members to publish blog posts. You can either compose a post, or simply copy and paste your blog posts onto your LinkedIn blog. There is no predicting how many people will see your post. Most of my LinkedIn posts have gotten a less than impressive response, but a few have gotten over 10,000 views, so don't forget your call to action on these posts!

Like Google Plus, LinkedIn has groups. Because LinkedIn is aimed primarily at professionals, the discussions tend to focus on practical aspects of writing. This is an ideal place to share experience, advice, and tips.

Medium - Medium was developed by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. The idea was to create a platform for both amateurs and professionals featuring publications that operated as a form of social journalism. Since its inception, the platform has changed, and bloggers can no longer simply add their posts to publications. (Adding posts to publications is now by invitation.) Even though the new restriction cuts down on traffic, it is possible to generate tens of thousands of views on Medium because it is directly connected to Twitter. All of your Twitter followers who are also on Medium will automatically become your Medium followers.

Medium does not have a lot of bells and whistles. You can easily upload images and do basic formatting, but not much else. On the plus side, you can import blog posts, which eliminates tedious copying and pasting. In general, Medium has a nice clean look, which makes posts easy to read. Medium followers are also more apt to look at your profile. While, like LinkedIn, most of my posts on Medium have only generated a modest number of views, occasionally one will take off, generating tens of thousands of views. For that reason alone, it's worth it to post on Medium.

Niume - Niume is a relatively new collaborate blogging platform. It groups posts into Spheres, which are collections sharing a similar theme. When you sign up for Niume, you will be asked to join five Spheres. (Choose those which most closely conform to your blog topics.) After you've joined you can publish your blog posts in any of those Spheres.)

Niume is a little more cumbersome than Medium. It does not allow direct imports of blog posts, and when you copy and paste all your formatting and links will be lost. As far as followers are concerned you will be starting from scratch. (However, the number of views for any given post is entirely unrelated to followers.) Niume also ranks Niumers by "hype" which is a concept I cannot explain to you, because I don't have any idea how it is calculated. (Sometimes, one of my posts will get a lot of reads but no hype. Even more confusing, sometimes a post gets hype but few reads. Go figure.) As Niumers accumulate hype, they advance in rank and influence, which means the posts they give a thumbs up to will gain more hype. The "leaderboard" of each sphere ranks Niumers with the most hype by week, month and all time.

Scriggler - Unlike the other platforms mentioned here, Scriggler is entirely devoted to writers and writing. Once you've signed up, you can post stories, news, and opinion. (Opinion is a good place for blog posts.) Scriggler also sponsors writing contests.

Because Scriggler caters to writers, it actively promotes stories that are posted on the site. Scriggler sends a Publication of the Day to everyone who joins the site, and actively tweets new stories and opinion pieces. Members are enthusiastic, and happy to leave comments.

Reddit - Reddit advertises itself as "the front page of the Internet." Its demographic is young men who have some college education. You can post links to your blog posts on various subreddits, provided that you join first. Subreddits are moderated. Here is a list of subreddits for writers: Reddit for Writers.

Facebook - With well over a billion active users, Facebook is the undisputed king of social media. Posts that go "viral" often do so because of Facebook. (One of my Medium posts got 25,000 views in 48 hours because of Facebook.) If you don't already have a Facebook page, open one, gather up some "friends" and start posting your blog.

In addition to your own Facebook page, there are dozens of public Facebook groups for writers where you can post anything related to writing. If you don't have a lot of "friends" on Facebook, this is a marvelous opportunity! Some of these groups have tens of thousands of members. Start with this list: 39 Facebook Groups for Authors.

#MondayBlogs on Twitter - Author Rachel Thompson started #MondayBlogs as a convenient vehicle for bloggers to share their posts. Every Monday, bloggers tweet their most recent (and/or most interesting) blog posts using the hashtag #MondayBlogs (don't forget the s). #MondayBlogs is wildly popular, with tens of thousands of tweets. (You can tweet anything EXCEPT your book. No ads or photos are allowed.) Use only 120 characters for your tweets to allow others to re-tweet.

In contrast to tweeting randomly, I've seen a significant bump in my blog traffic on Mondays due to #MondayBlogs, especially when people with lots of followers re-tweet my tweets. Here are additional hashtags for writers: 246 Hashtags for Writers.

Pinterest - Founder Ben Silbermann describes Pinterest as a "catalog of ideas," rather than a social network. It is a convenient and elegant means of storing information using images. So, make sure you have a great image on every single one of your blog posts to encourage your visitors to pin.

You can make a board specifically for your blog. Give it a title that matches what your blog is about to make it easier to find in a search. Describe it as "The Best of ____ (name of your blog goes in the blank)" and make sure to use plenty of popular search terms in your description. (You can find these by typing the first few letters of any term into the search bar. Watch what pops up.)

Forums - There are numerous forums for writers - Writer's Digest Forum, Writing Forums, Litopia, My Writers Circle, Writer's Beat,  Absolute Write, to name a few. Most forums discourage posting links to blogs until you have introduced yourself and participated in a few discussions, so make sure you check the forum rules before posting.

For more ideas on how to promote your blog, see DIY Author's, How to Promote Your Blog

Also see:

Precycling: A Great Way to Get the Most Mileage Out of Your Blogs

Flogging your Blog

This is the first year I have looked back at my posts. (Normally, once they are up I simply move on to the next exciting idea.)

But, stats are important for various reasons. They tell us what people like to read. They also tell us what people need. Blog posts that provide answers to questions, that inform, and that explain are bound to be popular.

And for writers, anything that answers the question, "How do I get published?" will be warmly received.

(I promise that in 2016 I will continue to provide answers to that question.)

So, without further ado, here are my top ten posts - in reverse order.
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#10 10 Awards for Self-Published Books (1569 views)

#9 Should You Hire a Professional Book Cover Designer? (1948)

#8 Publisher Pan Macmillan Accepting Unsolicited Manuscripts - No Agent Needed (2129 views)

#7 Fantasy and Sci-fi Reviewers  Accepting Self-Published Authors (2616 views)

#6 2 New Agents Seeking Writers (2630 views)

#5 23 Poetry Publishers Accepting Unagented Manuscripts (2729 views)

#4 Speculative Fiction Magazines Accepting Submissions (4127 views)

#3 2 New Agents Seeking Writers: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Nonfiction, Thrillers and more (4727 views)

#2 234 Hashtags for Writers (5759 views)

#1 HarperCollins Seeking Submissions - No Agent Required (15,973 views)

If you are new to the blogging scene, you probably don’t have a lot of followers (yet). For aspiring authors, this is a calamity. There you are, pouring your heart and soul into your posts, and nobody is reading them! How will anybody know that you are a gifted writer if your blog is languishing, unhonored and unsung, in cyberspace?

The standard advice to unsung bloggers is to guest post, preferably on a high-profile blog that gets a lot of daily traffic. While this is a good way to build visibility, it can often take months before your blog is posted. (The more popular the blog, the longer the wait.)

A more traditional approach for increasing your visibility is write for ezines (online magazines). Again, this is a time-consuming process. First you have to pitch your idea, then have it approved, and then wait for a slot. For those who need to build a platform now, all that waiting, often followed by the inevitable heartbreak of rejection, can be a strain. A third option is to precycle. 

Let’s say you have written an informative, humorous, moving or any well-written piece that simply screams, "People need to read this!"  In order to get these gems the immediate attention they deserve, you can post them on sites that get a lot of traffic, but don’t involve a long wait. It seems almost too good to be true. 

The only catch is that all of these sites require that your work be 1) original (it is, it is!), and 2) that you post on their site first (it boosts their SEO to have first shot at original pieces). Because these sites are concerned about the quality of submissions, they will want to see examples of your writing before approving you. (This is easy if you’ve been devoting yourself to your writing.) After a short wait, you are good to go.

Where you precycle depends a lot on what you write. Some sites cater to people with a literary bent, others to the contemporary scene, and still others to more practical information and advice. If you do a Google search on “article submission websites” you will find lots of places to precycle.

In the meantime, here are some suggestions:

1) Blogcritics. "A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Everybody who’s anybody reads Blogcritics. (It’s got a global Alexa ranking of 23,796, which is quite good.) The audience tends to be young, so Blogcritics is far and away the best place to post reviews of anything contemporary (music, books, articles, TV shows, movies, culture, politics). But do not despair if you are an old codger. You can post other pieces as well. I’ve posted everything from medical articles to opinion pieces without a hitch. (Take a look at their “features” to get an idea of the range of topics.) The best thing about Blogcritics is that they syndicate their articles. That means your post could end up in an online newspaper. Perhaps in Seattle. Make sure to read their guidelines carefully.

2. Buzzle. "Intelligent life on the web." 
For all you fiction and poetry writers, Buzzle is a gift from heaven. Like Blogcritics, Buzzle appeals to a young audience, but unlike other high-ranking article sites, they welcome fiction and poetry. (Poetry!) Their audience is predominantly female. Buzzle does not allow URL links in their posts.

3. ArticlesBase. 
This is a high-quality free article site that prefers informative “evergreen” articles. An evergreen article is one that stands the test of time. You can read it a year from now, and it will still be relevant. The reason for their preference is that ArticlesBase, like many other free article services, is a resource for journals and ezines that need an article fast and don’t want to pay for it. Once you submit your article it could appear anywhere. You won’t get paid, but you will get exposure. No anchors or URLs are allowed.

4. BloggingAuthors. "A place where readers and writers meet." 
If you have published something, you can write for BloggingAuthors. In their words, “BloggingAuthors.com is dedicated to helping authors of all genres, including mystery, business, legal thrillers, relationships, non-fiction, spirituality, religion, health, book promotion, and literary fiction.” Though they claim to get 1000 views a day, their Alexa ranking is abysmal. The reason you may want to post here is 1) they include a bio and a backlink to your website and blog, and 2) they tweet. Whenever they post an article it gets tweeted to 7,000 followers. BloggingAuthors is distributed through a weekly mailer.

More Resources:

50 Free Article Submissions Websites

List of top 50 Article Directories by Traffic and Pagerank

Free article tracker

First published on Blogging Authors 3/4/13) as "How Writers Can Use Alexa to Build a Platform."

Of the many ranking systems used to evaluate websites, Alexa, an analytics service owned by Amazon, is one of the most popular. In a nutshell, Alexa measures traffic to a website – the more visitors, the higher the rank. (Low numbers indicate a high rank. Number 1, the highest position, is occupied by Google.) Alexa provides data on 30 million websites, and has over 7 million visitors monthly.

How does Alexa gather website information?

Big Brother is not actually watching you. In order to retrieve information on how many people visit a site, Alexa provides a free toolbar. (See below.) Once installed, this toolbar monitors which websites a person visits. That part is fairly straighforward, but not altogther useful. Mere numbers don't give businesses enough information to tailor their marketing efforts, which is why Alexa also gathers data on demographics, such as age and income groups, sex, and region. For marketing purposes, knowing who visits your website, and from where, is crucial information.

There are some drawbacks to the system. The toolbar is most often used by techies, people who specialize in SEO and other analytics. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that tech sites have higher ranking than sites that appeal to people who are more concerned with other types of content – such as literary work. Alexa can't measure the browsing habits of people who don't install the toolbar, which may account for why regional traffic in India is often much higher than the U.S. (India is a major source of website and internet technology.)

How can you make Alexa work for you?

If you have just launched a website, don't even think of trying to improve your Alexa ranking. No matter what you do, your rank is going to be abysmally low (your number will be in the multi-millions), and there is no amount of backlinking, blogging, or giveaways that will get you under 100,000, which is the cut-off point for viewing demographic statistics.

Instead of trying to improve your own ranking, you can use Alexa much in the same way other businesses do. (If you have published a book, in any form, you are a business.) Let's say you would like to increase your visibility as a writer (i.e. build your platform). If your blog isn't getting a lot of traffic, it makes sense to either guest blog or write articles for sites that get significantly more visitors than yours. The easiest way to research the most-trafficked sites for posting guest blogs and articles is by looking at their Alexa ranking. You can get a quick view by installing the toolbar, or you can go the website for more specific data.

I have used Alexa ranking to help decide where I guest blog. Whenever someone publishes an article on the top sites for books, articles or blogs on my topic, I immediately look up their Alexa ranking. If the rank is high (i.e. the number is under 100,000), I check to see who visits the site. If the site appeals to my demographic, I submit a guest blog or article. Chances are, the article will be accepted, because I'm submitting an article geared towards the needs of their market.

Writing requires time and effort. Make sure you get the most out of your labor by placing your work where it will work for you.

Resources:

Alexa
http://www.alexa.com/
     This is where you go to search Alexa rankings. To install the toolbar, click on the tab     "Toolbar." Installation takes a few seconds.

What is Alexa Ranking and Is It Worth Striving For?
http://www.demondemon.com/2012/06/05/what-is-alexa-rank-and-is-it-worth-striving-for/
     This is a nice little article that spells out what Alexa is and does … and doesn't.