What to blog about as an author

I started this website years ago for my fiction, and had a couple broken blogs on it before trying to the Divi theme. Then I half-set up a bunch of pages and let it rot. It’s hard to blog when you aren’t getting traffic and don’t have books to sell, and it’s not the most direct form of marketing anyway.

However I’ve just finally solved a broken blog issue (after several years of ignoring it) and am feeling a slight amount of motivation to put this blog to use. The problem for most authors, fiction especially, is what do I write about?

Firstly, this is a site for readers, so I want talk about YA fantasy and scifi, review books in my genre, share what I’m reading and what I’m working on, and also touch on any genre specific things like new movie adaptations. That’s a lot of work, but I may try to power through it all in a week or so, maybe using some AI writing tools to crank out content.

But it’s also a place where I can just be an author and talk about writing.

On my main blog, creativindie, I’ve been talking about writing and publishing for nearly a decade. So it feels draining to keep writing about the same topics. And while I don’t really want this to become a personal blog where I whine about stuff, I’m actually feeling the urge to do exactly that: for this to be my “personal struggles” as I document the details of making a living as a novelist.

It isn’t that hard to bust out a 500 to 1000 word article in under an hour, and it’s a little bit like a ritual writing practice/practicing in public, which are both good things. I’ll focus mostly on adding value, sharing secrets, building support tools, and giving my audience and community useful help and tips; and also probably some longer roundup posts that will drive more traffic.

I’m happy that the blog works and looks OK, and once I rebuild all my main pages I think I’ll have a pretty decent author site to being launching my completed series. The best blog posts are informative and personal. I hope to share a little bit about myself so readers can get to know and understand me. But the blog is meant to introduce the right readers to my books and get them hooked on a new series. It might get a bit messy, but once I boost traffic it might help make a difference in terms of partnerships or income.

I think I’ve turned comments off for now, mostly because they’re a pain in the ass, but I hope you’ll stick around and check out my posts and resources if you’re an author trying to up their publishing game.