I totally lack the blogging instinct, and it sort of freaks me out.
A couple of days ago I announced that I’m publishing a novella this summer, and part of my strategy is a three-posts-per-week blog series about what I’m doing and why, because I’m treating it a bit like a proof-of-concept project. So I’ve basically committed myself to twelve posts a year from April through September. This is a number real bloggers would shake off as no big deal.
It’s already giving me panic attacks. I’ll pull through, but lemme tell you, the panic is there.
One of the tools I’m planning to use to publicize the book and the project is the company my husband works for, Outbrain, which specializes in content recommendation and referral. They do pretty amazing stuff, the net effect of which is that they help your content find its way to readers who are likely to be excited to read it. Outbrain is my ace-in-the-hole to help drive traffic to my website, which, mostly because I am a really bad blogger, gets minimal traffic.
Well, this will not surprise you, but when I sat down with my contact at Outbrain, Natalie Chan, to discuss my needs and expectations, she listened patiently, made copious notes, asked lots of questions, and then made the strong recommendation that I start blogging more. And then, in order to make sure I understood how important this was going to be, she suggested very strongly that this go at the very top of my to-do list, and that I write at least ten posts in advance. And because I figure if I’m going to hire Outbrain, I had better do what Natalie says (especially when it’s such an obviously good idea), I started writing those today.
The official launch of the project is still about two weeks away, but I’ve spent the last month in writing and planning. Do I have enough stuff to write about to generate ten posts? Oh, heck yes. How much progress did I make towards writing those posts today? Well, I wrote a few thousand words, but only one coherent post emerged. By contrast, my husband wrote five posts today. His website gets exponentially more traffic than mine. It’s infuriating, if not entirely surprising.
Meanwhile, my husband is trying to help me write better blog posts: ones that are not too long, that don’t have uncomfortably large paragraphs, and that have images.
I forgot to find an image for this one. Here’s a dinosaur on a truck waiting to ambush my mom, who was following about a mile behind my car.
Don’t worry, I still have two weeks to get good at this. I can do it. I can do it, honest.
