You would think that after all I’ve written on The Book Designer that I would get a lot of questions from friends about books, book design, ebooks, that kind of thing.
And I do. But that’s not what I get asked about the most. Oh, no. What people want to know about is blogging.
I’ve written often about author blogs, building an author platform, using keyword analysis to draw potential readers and book buyers to our blogs.
But a year ago I didn’t know any of this stuff. I read a blog once in a while, but I had no idea what blogging or social media was really all about.
When I realized I wanted to start blogging about book design and self-publishing, I had no idea how to start a blog. WordPress, html, css, tags, categories—it was all Greek to me.
What gave me the detailed instructions on how to get my blog up and running, the real nuts-and-bolts of how to do it, was Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind training program, which I’ll write about at more length sometime soon.
Yaro’s a brilliant guy and knows internet marketing in his bones, but Yaro doesn’t know anything about the publishing business, self-publishing, or the way books are born and raised. So I haven’t really had a resource to offer people. And almost everyone wants a blog.
Objections and Resistance
Every client I’ve talked to recently is either blogging or wants to blog. But many people are confused, and hesitate to make something of it. I hear all kinds of objections and resistance:
- “I don’t have anything to say. What will I write about?”
- “I’m a writer, not a salesman. This is art, not commerce!”
- “It’s so technical, I’m no good with that stuff. I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Now I know that anybody who can actually write a decent book can learn how to start a blog and run it pretty easily. But how to do it? How to get the step-by-step help we all need when we’re starting out?
Joanna Penn, Author, Trainer, Blogger
I’ve been lucky enough to become friendly with Joanna Penn, of The Creative Penn, her website for authors that’s one of the most helpful and creative blogs for writers online today. Joanna’s interviews, blog posts, training tools and general enthusiasm for indie publishing are resources every writer should dip in to. I know I do.But now Joanna’s done something really brilliant. She’s taken just the Blogging module out of her full-bore training course for authors, Author2.0 and created a stand-alone course just for authors who want to blog, or who have a blog but can’t seem to get started.
And here’s the great thing: Joanna’s another Blog Mastermind student. She’s brought the savvy about internet marketing that Yaro teaches, and applied it to solving the problem of blogging for authors.
I’ve been working my way through the materials Joanna includes in this $39.95 course. The 56-page full-color illustrated ebook was amazing. Detailed explanations of things other people take for granted. Links to tons of resources. She’s also included videos, audios and more material that will help the beginning blogger get up and running.
Is It Worth It?
Joanna’s How to Blog for Authors and Writers is really perfect for authors who are just getting started blogging. It takes you right from the beginning, provides background, explanations, case studies and really gets you up to speed quickly. Joanna offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and invites people who have questions about the material to email her directly.
Not only that, Joanna is a great example of what she teaches. You can learn a lot just by following her blog. I wish I had this program available when I got started blogging, it would have saved me quite a bit of confusion. Here’s my affiliate link to Joann’s site, check it out for yourself:
Takeaway: Joanna Penn’s Blogging for Authors and Writers is a unique resource for any author who wants to get started blogging. If the description fits, take a look for yourself.