Blogging to build your freelance career: create a focus for each blog

Blogs are hot. And beyond hot, they’re vital to your writing career.

I’ve just published Blogging for Beginners in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine.

If you missed the issue, you can read the article on Writing Hacker.

Most writers have got the message that blogging is a vital tool; Writer’s Digest has just come out with “20 Tips for Good Blogging”.

I especially like this tip The Writer’s Perspective by Maria Schneider on developing a focus for a blog:

“2. Decide what you want your blog to be. Who are your target readers? It’s important to decide from the beginning whether you’re blogging for professional or personal reasons. If you want to blog strictly as a diary or a way to get the creative juices flowing, password protect it. Think hard about who your potential readers are and what sort of image you want to portray. Announce your full vision for your blog in your first post.  “

A focus for your blog is vital.

You can have as many blogs as you like, but each blog must have its own raison d’être, and you must know what that is. If you’ve been following my writing online, you know that I have lots of blogs – at least 20 or so just devoted to writing. I have lots of blogs because each and every blog you create needs a specific focus.

Each blog you create must have a focus

For example, over on my Just Write a Book blog I’ve just posted “Get discovered on your blog: win a book deal”. that blog is for writers who are writing (or aspire to write) books.

Yes, I could conceivably have posted that snippet on this blog, or on Writing Hacker, or wherever, but that blog is for people who want to write books, that’s its focus.

When working with my blogging students, I’ve found that FOCUS is hard to get across; so think of it this way: a blog will be online not just a week or a month, but for years. My primary writing blog has been online since 2004.

I’ve made mistakes with focusing blogs too, which is why I can speak about this mistake with some authority. Earlier blogs I created lacked focus. Starting in around 2001 I created several blogs on Blogger and LiveJournal which I’ve let die, mercifully so. A blog without a focus is a mess.

So remember that a blog is a long term thing – the blogs you create will help to shape your writing and writing career for decades, so create a focus for each one – create as many as you need.

Your Blog: Your Vital Writing Sales And Promotions Tool For 2008

Gotta blog? My ebook, Writing Success with Blogs by Angela Booth, helps you to take the first steps into the new world for writers: instant publishing on blogs.

Your writers’ blog is your must-have branding tool. It also has a very practical use – it’s a writing portfolio. From the ebook: “Before editors will pay you to write, they want to know that you can write. They want clips – copies of material you’ve published. This seems like a Catch-22: you can only get published if you’ve been published. Your writing on your blog can be in lieu of clips. Your blog lets editors gauge your abilities and style, before they put down the cash.”

The book helps you to create your own writer’s blog.

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Tagged as: blogging, blogs, blogs for writers, focus, pro blogging