Bess McAllister is the new DIY MFA Web Editor.

As Web Editor at DIY MFA, Bess will be taking on most of the social media duties. This means she’ll be doing most of tue updates on the Facebook and Google+ Pages and tweeting with the handle @TeamDIYMFA. I’ll still be on Twitter as @DIYMFA so all tweets coming from that handle are direct from me. I’ll also continue writing all Writer Fuel newsletters, unless otherwise noted. We’ve been testing out this method for a few weeks and so far it’s working, but as always if we make any changes or adjustments we’ll keep you all in the loop. I believe that it’s very important for you to know who the tweets, shares and updates are coming from so we make it a priority to keep you informed of any changes. Aside from social media, Bess will write articles at DIY MFA more regularly and will help me plan the editorial calendar. Bess will be the go-to person to field requests from writers who want to do guest articles on the DIY MFA site (more details on that later this week). In addition, she’ll be helping me line up Q&A articles or video interviews with authors and industry professionals. If you want to get in touch with Bess directly, you can email her at: bess [at] DIYMFA [dot] com

A few things about Bess that you might not already know.

You probably remember Bess being among the team of interns that joined DIY MFA. You also may have noticed her byline on several DIY MFA articles in recent weeks.Or you might know Bess via her hilarious blog It’s the World, Dear where she writes about her adventures in New York City and in writing. And that’s just the beginning. Bess is just the person to help with the DIY MFA social media presence. She’s worked with a best-selling author as a social media and marketing assistant and this winter she is serving as an editorial assistant at Tor/Forge books. But what you probably wouldn’t guess is that Bess has been involved with DIY MFA from the very beginning, even before this project was it’s own entity and was just a link off of my personal blog. That’s right. Bess has been one of the very first followers of DIY MFA and she’s seen this project grow from the ground up. In September of 2010, I decided to do a one-month test-run of DIY MFA on my personal blog. At the time, I had no idea if DIY MFA would have an audience (much less business potential) so this was all a shot in the dark. As part of an incentive to get people interested in DIY MFA, I decided to offer a free critique to a randomly-selected participant who signed up for the mailing list, I drew the winner at the end of the one-month experiment and guess what, Bess won. As we emailed back and forth to set up a time for the critique, we eventually figured out that not only did we live in the same city, but I lived in the same neighborhood where she worked. At this point it was inevitable that we would do the critique session in person over coffee instead of over Skype. We met at the Lincoln Center Atrium, a glorious indoor public space and a great spot to write. Right away Bess and I bonded over our love of teen literature, New York City and, of course, all things related to writing. We stayed in touch long after that afternoon and a few months later when my writing group was on the lookout for new members, I suggested we invite Bess. After that, she and I have attended conferences together, read one another’s work an and become trusted writing colleagues. Since she’s one of the few people who’s seen the concept develop from day one, Bess has been one of my go-to people for feedback on DIY MFA materials. She’s not afraid to give honest critique but also knows how to do it in such a way that even the most fragile of egos will come out feeling all warm and fuzzy.

Please help me welcome Bess to her new role as Web Editor!

I am so excited to have Bess at DIY MFA in a more official capacity. I’ve followed her work over the years and it looks like her career is really taking off! Keep an eye on this one, people. She’s definitely going places.

The post Introducing the New DIY MFA Web Editor: Bess McAllister appeared first on DIY MFA.

With this new look, it means that we’ve made lots of changes to the format at DIY MFA. Read on for details about the new-and-improved version.

A Word About Change

Change can be scary–or at the very least–uncomfortable. Personally, I’m not a huge fan. In fact, I usually resist even the smallest of changes, kicking and screaming and tearing my hair out. OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea.

The truth is, I don’t have time for change. (Who does?) I like to know that my favorite breakfast cereal is sitting in that same spot in the supermarket aisle so that I can swoop it up without thinking as I zip toward check-out. I haven’t changed my Starbucks order in ages because I like not having to think about all those options. Not thinking is key, especially when it’s first thing in the morning and my brain is only half awake.

And I like websites that keep things the same. Some sites are almost pathological in their need to update and change things (ahem, Facebook) and it feels like just when I’ve started getting used to a new format, BOOM! there’s some crazy upgrade that throws me for a loop. I don’t like figuring out a new system or layout; it slows me down or worse, frustrates me because I can’t make the site do what I want it to do.

Most of all, change means taking the time to understand whatever that new thing is. We’re all busy people. Time is a lot to ask.

Since there there are so many new things at DIY MFA, let me give you a two-minute tour. I’ll walk you through some of the cool new features and point out the important landmarks so that when you have time to amble through the new site, you’ll know which things you won’t want to miss. Sound like a plan?

New and Improved DIY MFA

We’ve redesigned the homepage so that whether you’re new to DIY MFA or you’ve been following the program for a while, you’ll always see what’s new and important front and center. The latest articles will be featured on the front page. When we start launching products and courses you’ll find the newest ones on the homepage as well.

If you haven’t already signed up for our mailing list, you can click here or enter your email in the sidebar. As a thank you, we’ll send you a free DIY MFA Starter Kit. You’ll also get our newsletter, Writer Fuel, which means each week you’ll get an in-depth look at a topic related to writing that’s getting the most buzz, plus you’ll get additional goodies you won’t find on the site.

Finally, don’t forget to check out the Writer Igniter, our very own DIY MFA web app! Just click over to the page and hit the shuffle button and it will randomly generate a story prompt for you, like magic!

Now that I’ve given you the rundown of the most important features, go ahead and explore the site. If you’re viewing this in a RSS reader, click through so you can see the new look!  And if you like what you see, please tell your friends by hitting one of the “share” buttons below.

To those about to write, I salute you.
To everybody else, I suggest you stay out of our way.

The post New Features at DIY MFA appeared first on DIY MFA.

The world of bloggery can at times seem like a nighttime jungle riddled with snakes, rotting trees, booby traps, and poison darts. And this time, Indiana Jones won’t be there to save you.

Don’t be intimidated. This won’t hurt… much.

If you’re a writer or an author or you eventually plan to become one, you need a website now for several reasons.

1. Fan loyalty. As Jon Bard said earlier this week, if you are good to people, people will be good to you. You want fans who are going to knock down bookstore doors to get your book when it comes out.
2. Publishing ain’t what it used to be. You can’t win affection from fans, agents, or publishers on a manuscript alone, brilliant though it may be. Writers of this day and age have to be well-rounded. And if you plan on self-publishing or e-publishing, your website is going to be essential as it’s your sole source of promotion.
3. Occupy yourself. When you’ve revised your book about 20 times, sent it all to agents, and are waiting to hear back, what else are you going to do with your time? You might as well be productive rather than sit there twiddling your thumbs.

Alright, so you’ve decided that you’re going to build a blog. Now what?

Unless you’re an HTML wizard, you’re going to want a reliable blog host. The two most common are WordPress and Blogspot. Either way, you want to go ahead and purchase a domain name (www.yourname.com, as opposed to www.yourname.blogspot.com) as soon as possible. This will ensure that your fans can find you more easily and that your doppelganger doesn’t take the domain name while you’re waiting around for the opportune moment. (Luckily for me I planned on including my middle name in my author name. Otherwise my would-be fans would have been startled to learn I moonlighted as a soulful songwriter).

Add an email account to your site (me@yourname.com). Writers are generally hermitting creatures. But in this case you want people to contact you. This is a good thing. Somewhere visible on your site, you also want links to your preferred social media outlets.

All the mechanics are set up. And now, the daunting hill looms ahead. You have to start writing on your blog.

In my brand spanking new blog post, I mention four things that you should never do to start up your blog. For clarity’s sake, here are four things that are imperative if your blog is going to be successful.

1. Have a direction. Don’t write a blog just because I’m telling you to do it. Have a purpose in mind. Is it going to be a blog for writers? What topic? Are you going to post about your favorite craft or historical subject? Are you going to have characters from your latest published novel fling insults at each other? Have a reason for your blog’s existence. State it clearly and then deliver.
2. Be loud. Post on Twitter and Facebook about your blog often. Put the website name in your signature on your various forum sites. Reach out to others with similar blogs and see if you can guest post, or if they would guest post on your site. Tell your friends, family, and enemies. You want people to find your site and to stay hooked.
3. Balance your life. Your brand new blog is going to take work and dedication, but don’t let it consume you. You still have a book to finish and edit, and a new one to start. You still have short stories and poetry to submit to magazines. You still have a job until you become a wealthy bestseller. The blog is important, but not so important that you should stop writing your fiction or nonfiction.
4. Post consistently. If you plan on three times a week, do your best to stick to it. If you can only post once a week, that’s fine, but make sure you do it. If your readers go to your site on Monday morning only to find that you have nothing new, and the same thing happens the week after, chances are they’re not going to come back. If you decide to start up a few months later with “Sorry it’s been so long…,” that damages your credibility and probably your subscriptions, too. Keep their interest with consistent, exciting posts.

I recently started my own blog, too. Thankfully I had Gabriela to help me out with some of this stuff. But if you’re looking to start up a blog, let’s do it together. Tell me your trials and tribulations with starting your own blog and let’s see if we can troubleshoot it. The jungle is less scary if you have a handy compass and a good friend to walk with down the winding, wild trail.

The post Blogs Are Scary appeared first on DIY MFA.

Meantime, writers and publishers stood on the sidelines, seemingly unaware that the same thing was about to happen to them.

Despite the confusion and discouragement, musicians did, in fact, have a choice: Adapt or die. Understand and accept the new reality and opportunities will arise. Hang on to the sinking ship of the old paradigm, gnashing your teeth and wringing your hands at the injustice of it all, and you’re shark food. Your call.

And now, dear writer, you have the same choice. What’s it gonna be?

If this makes you worried, overwhelmed or ready to pack it in, fear not. I actually bring good news:

A generation of musicians have figured it out … so you don’t have to!

That’s the key: examine what’s worked for musicians and you’ll understand what can work for writers.

All of which brings me to Amanda Palmer.

Meet Amanda Palmer:

She’s a singer/songwriter..  She’s not wildly famous, nor on a major label.  Apart from her loyal fan base, it’s doubtful most music fans have much of an idea who she is.

And, a few weeks back,  purely on her own, she made more than $368,000 selling her music in just two days.

She did it by cultivating a fanbase and staying engaged.

Here’s how she recounts the first day of her sales effort:

Remember, Amanda Palmer isn’t world famous.  But her fans know her and love her.
And they want her music.

Let’s dispel something straight off:  Being unpublished (if, in fact you are) is not a hindrance to having fans.  There’s no reason why you can’t build a web presence, give away free stories, poems or eBooks and start cultivating a fan base right this very minute.  So do it.

Here are some ways to get started:

Use Common Tools in an Uncommon Fashion

You’re a creative person.  So why use Twitter, blogs and Facebook so uncreatively?  Be different to connect with readers.

Some ideas:

• Written a short story or novel?  Set up Twitter accounts in the names of your protagonist and villain and let them have at each other.  Make it over-the-top dramatic, funny or emotional.  Build a truly epic battle, played out in 140 characters or less.  And, once every 5th or 6th Tweet, include a link for curious onlookers to download a sample chapter.
• Do the same on Facebook.  Your hero should have a fan page and so should your antagonist.  Invite fans to choose sides.
• When you blog, write about your fans, not yourself.  Take the time to create a profile of who your “typical fans” might end up being.  What interests them?  What frightens them?  What motivates them?  Write about that.  Be a kindred spirit, not a distant author.

Build an e-Mail List

Just because a visitor reads your blog or Twitter feed once doesn’t mean they’ll remember you.  You need to build a relationship.  The best way to do?  By e-mail.

Here’s how to build your list:

1. Invest a few dollars and get set up with an e-mail service.  A few good choices include GetResponse, Mailchimp and Constant Contact
2. Set up an autoresponder message new signups will receive instantly.  Ask a specific question to trigger your target reader’s imagination.  (e.g., if you write romance, ask  “I hate romance clichés and really try to avoid them in my writing.  Which clichés are you most tired of seeing?”)  Your goal:  to get them to write back to you — something that becomes important in the next phase of our fan-building campaign.
3. Pull together an awesome freebie that includes some of your work.  Because visitors don’t know you, simply offering a sample of your work likely won’t get them to fill in your contact form.  So, have your work hitch-hike along with a gift they can’t resist.  Again, the key is to think like your potential fan and determine what would get him (or her) pumped up.  .  Here’s a suggestion:  public domain eBooks.  Gutenberg.org features thousands of eBooks covering almost any subject imaginable.  They’re already laid out for the Nook, Kindle and computer and they’re free to download and give away.   Say your story features a bird lover, and you believe that other bird lovers will be especially drawn to your work.   Have a look at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30221/30221-h/30221-h.htm and gaze upon a glorious book from 1897 filled with wonderful artwork and delightful prose.  What bird fan wouldn’t be thrilled to receive a gift like this?
4. Create a simple page that offers only one thing — the opportunity to download your freebie (along with a sample of your work) in exchange for a visitor’s e-mail address.   I like using video to build the personal connection from the get-go.  Here’s an example of a page I set up for one of our freebies.
5. Promote the page via your Twitter and Facebook feeds.  Then, find some forums where your target reader may already be, and register for access.  Create a “signature” for your posts (a standard bit of text that appears below everything you post) and start participating.  Don’t promote — let your signature do that for you.  (Continuing with the bird theme, your signature may be “Birds Illustrated – A Glorious Collection of Vintage Color Bird Prints and Marvelous Prose.  Download FREE for the Nook, Kindle or PC.  https://youraddress”.

Spend an hour day promoting the link to your signup page.  Over time, you’ll develop a list of fans who are not only pre-selected by their interest in your subject matter, but thankful for the gift you’ve given them.

Now, stay in touch.

Getting those e-mail signups accomplished two things:  an opportunity to connect on a personal level (thanks to the probing question you asked) and on a group level (via e-mails to the entire list).

When someone responds to your question, send  a friendly note to drive home the personal connection.  It may not seem like much to you, but to a new fan who’s enjoyed your gift (and, hopefully, your work), it can mean a great deal.

Finally, stay in touch with your entire list via a weekly message with tidbits and opinion about the topic you all have in common, along with offers to download more samples and other freebies.  This is long-term relationship building that will offer real returns when you’re ready to mobilize your fans to buy your book or eBook down the road a piece.

So that’s it, really.  Be creative, be outrageous, be giving.  Talk to your fans and then listen when they talk back.

That’s what Amanda Palmer did, and she just made more money in two days than lots of “famous” musicians (and writers) will make all year.  Are you ready to do the same?

—————————————–

Jon Bard is Managing Editor of Children’s Book Insider, the Newsletter for Children’s Writers and Fightin’ Bookworm-in-Chief at The CBI Clubhouse.  If you’re interested in writing for children or teens, Jon has a gift for you: an free eBook packed with advice from bestselling children’s authors!  Visit https://cbiclubhouse.com/2012report/ to get your copy instantly.

Follow Jon on Twitter @CBIClubhouse.

The post How to Build a Network of Fans appeared first on DIY MFA.

[thumb]https://duotrope.com/[/thumb]Duotrope: A great search engine for all manner of literary magazines. The search engine is subdivided by genres, style, length, subject, payment, publishing type, and a few other options so you can thoroughly narrow your search results. If you were wondering where that feminist poem is going to fit, or where you’ll publish your aliens-and-spaceships short story, this is the place to look!

[thumb]https://queryshark.blogspot.com[/thumb]Query Shark: Janet Reid’s humorous blog that critiques query letters. What’s so helpful about it is that she comments on real queries (names redacted of course) and points out common mistakes that she sees as a literary agent. You’ll learn a great deal just from seeing her critique of other people’s queries, and you will come to laugh with her at the often hilariously foolish queries that some send in. If you’re brave enough, you might even test the shark-ridden waters with your own!

[thumb]https://agentquery.com/[/thumb]AgentQuery and QueryTracker: Two Picks for the price of one! Both of these sites are search engines for literary agents. They do for novel queries what Duotrope above does for short fiction and poetry. You can search for agents by location and genre, as well as get some detailed help with how to query. On AgentQuery, you can even submit queries to forums and receive helpful feedback from authors in similar boats. At QueryTracker, you can keep track of query submissions to various agents and the dates of their replies.

[thumb]https://www.rachellegardner.com[/thumb]Rachelle Gardner: Rachelle is a literary agent with a good deal of advice from the “inside” view of publishing. She posts articles such as “Is There Room for Originality?” and “9 Ways to Outwit Writer’s Block.” Her posts are definitely worth checking out!

[thumb]https://wegrowmedia.com/[/thumb]We Grow Media: Dan Blank’s site is dedicated to “Helping Writers & Publishers Make an Impact and Build Their Legacies.” His lessons and courses focus around writer platforms and how writers can best use social media. The newsletter is especially worth your while, as it features the best articles that will help authors get the most out of their tweets or grow their platforms.

[thumb]https://inkygirl.com/[/thumb]InkyGirl: A children’s author/illustrator and young persons’ novelist, Debbie has a lot of great blog articles on her writing process. She has sections called “Writer’s Guide to Twitter” and “250, 500, 1000 Words/Day Writing Challenge,” which encourages readers to select one of those goals and then consistently write so many words a day. Being an illustrator, she also includes hilarious comics on the site which are sure to tickle any writer’s funny bone.

[thumb]https://janefriedman.com/[/thumb]Jane Friedman: As a professor of e-media, soon-to-be online editor for the Virginia Quarterly Review, and a former publisher of Writer’s Digest, Jane has quite a few things to say about social media, writing, networking, e-books, trends online and how they all interconnect. Her knowledge is invaluable. We also love Porter Anderson’s guest column, Writing On the Ether, for his news, humor and sheer vocabulary.

[thumb]https://chaoticshiny.com/[/thumb]ChaoticShiny: A personal favorite for years. Though the countless writing-inspired generators (such as “Pantheon,” “Medieval Army,” and “Apocalypse”) might initially seem suited for sci-fi and fantasy writing, there are also quite a few resources for writers of other genres as well, such as the character generators and story/plot generators. You might use them in times of resolute writer’s block to kick-start your writing, or pick and choose different tools to use in your stories.

[thumb]https://writeoncon.com/[/thumb]Write On Con: A hidden internet gem! Write On Con is an online, free writing conference. Though it happens only once a year (this year’s dates are August 14 and 15), the site is active with contests and news mostly year-round. Like ‘real-life’ conferences, Write On Con roster features tons of authors, agents and editors.

[thumb]https://nanowrimo.org/[/thumb]NaNoWriMo and Story A Day: Last but not certainly not least, some of the best resources out there for novelists and short story writers. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is active in November. It’s a worldwide endeavor which challenges you to write a 50,000 word novel, start to finish in one month. From personal experience, it’s the only time I’ve ever actually finished a novel. They’ve got all manner of forums and you can even sign up by region and meet other writers in person (gasp!) near you. Other programs include Camp Nano (during July and August) and Script Frenzy (in April). Story A Day is similar to NaNo, except you are challenged to write one short story every day in May!

So there you have it – our Top 10 (twelve, actually) Picks for writerly websites! Stay tuned – tomorrow we’ll have our list of Top Twitter Picks and on Thursday we’ve got Top Book Picks. And don’t forget about the Blog Party this weekend! Be thinking about what favorite resource you’ll share!

The post Top 10 Website Picks appeared first on DIY MFA.

Don’t get me wrong.  If your blog is all about humor, I’m not saying you should suddenly get all boring on your audience.  What I mean is that you need to have an overall strategy for the blog that pulls all the content together.  This is where the editorial calendar comes in.

Make an Editorial Calendar for Your Blog

Step 1:

Download the Editorial Calendar Worksheet and print it out.

Step 2:

Start with the first page.  You’re going to make a mind-map to brainstorm post ideas for your blog and organize them.  Inside the magenta oval, write the name of your blog.  In a few words, also jot down what your blog is about.  (I call this the “umbrella subject” of the blog).

Step 3:

Brainstorm 5 different possible topics that would fit under the umbrella subject of your blog.

Step 4:

For each topic, brainstorm 4 possible post ideas.  Write those on the orange lines.

Example: For DIY MFA the umbrella subject might be something like: “Getting the MFA experience outside of school.”  Topics that fit under that subject are things like “reading,” “writing craft,” and “creativity,” and so forth.  For “writing craft” I might think of posts topics like “5 Ways to Make Your Character Awesome.”  Notice that the teal lines are just general topics but the orange lines will give you specific ideas that could fit within the confines of one individual post.

Step 5:

Now turn to page 2 of the worksheet; you’ll see a chart.  This is where you map out your actual post schedule.  Decide whether you want to cluster posts from the same topic together or if you want to spread them out.  Think about how your editorial calendar fits with the yearly calendar too.  (Are there holidays or events that could tie in to certain post ideas?)

The chart itself is pretty self-explanatory.  Under Date, you write the date that you plan to publish the post, and under Post Topic you write the post ideas from the orange lines on page 1.  Tip:  When writing the Post Topic, it’s especially useful to write it as though it were the subject line of the post.  Try to come up with something that will grab your readers and entice them to read more.

The three boxes at the far right of the chart are meant to be checked off when you complete each of the 3 important aspects of crafting a post: writing a draft, selecting a picture or two (sometimes I’ll leave this one blank if the post doesn’t need a picture) and hitting that big ol’ “Publish” button.

That’s it!  Now all you have to do is start writing those posts.

The post Make an Editorial Calendar for Your Blog appeared first on DIY MFA.

So this weekend I decided to face reality and delete the subscriptions I was no longer reading.  It took me a day and a half to get through all the feeds and make decisions about which to keep.  In the process I learned a number of lessons about effective blogging.  After a while, I started seeing similarities between the blogs I simply had to keep in my reader and those I could do without.  These patterns meant some blogs were more effective at grabbing my attention, and the following seven steps are what I took from this weekend’s experience.

7 Steps to a Better Blog:

Step 1: Have a clear reason as to WHY you’re blogging.

Before you reserve your name on Blogger or buy a URL, think about WHY you’re doing it in the first place.  Are you trying to reach out to potential readers?  Or is your goal to share information with other aspiring writers?  Think about who your target audience is, who would be the ideal reader for your blog.  Then and only then, should you start typing and hit that publish button.

Step 2: Pick a topic, any topic, and stick to it.

Some blogs have a clear focus.  They talk about one or two subjects with little bits of randomness thrown in for good measure.  As I culled blogs, if the subject was one that resonated with me I immediately move the blog to my “must-read” folder.  If it was a subject that didn’t quite suit my style–or one that I no longer had interest in following–I stopped reading the blog.  It was the middle category where the subject was unclear that gave me trouble.  If I couldn’t tell what the blog was about by reading a few sentences of the most recent post, I had to unsubscribe.

Step 3: Blogs have to be visually pleasing but also functional.

OK, so I’m a little bit of a design nut I’ll admit, but nothing pains me more than to click through to a website and find that the text is virtually unreadable because the background is too busy or the color of the font is weird.  When choosing a blog design, I stick to the K.I.S.S. rule: Keep It Simple Stupid.  Not only are simple designs often more pleasing to the eye, they can also be easier to read.  A few rules of thumb:

• While serif fonts (like Times New Roman) are easier to read on paper, sans serif fonts (like Arial) are easier to read on screen.  Go with something sans serif when choosing a font for a blog, especially for the body of the posts.
• It’s easier to read dark text on light background than the other way around.  Yes, dark backgrounds can look cool and “design-y” but they’re harder on the eyes so avoid them in large blocks of text.
• The overall “look” of a blog should support what the posts say.  Yes, a super-cool design is awesome, but if it conflicts with the tone of your posts or is distracting to the reader, then it’s not functional.

Step 4: When it comes to your sidebar, less is more.

I see a lot of blogs out there with sidebars that scroll for miles and miles.  The trouble is, no one is going to scroll all the way to the bottom and it ends up making the blog look cluttered and perhaps even slower to load.  Choose only the gadgets you absolutely need in the sidebar.  You can always create a separate page for awards or recommended links and it will help keep your front page looking clean and clutter-free.

Step 5: If I can get a sense for the blog just by reading post titles, it’s a keeper.

So many blogs have posts with quirky or cryptic titles.  The bloggers probably think they’re being clever and I’m sure their most loyal readers get it, but for someone who just stops by the blog sporadically, it helps if the post titles describe what the post is actually about.  I used to do the quirky-style title at DIY MFA until I noticed that headline-style titles were much more effective at driving traffic.  In particular, I’ve found that the titles to get the best responses often fall into one of three categories:

• Lists, like tips or top 10, or both! – Example: Top 10 Writing Tips
• “Why” Titles, that entice readers to want to know why such-and-such is true. – Example: Why Writers Should Blog
• Verb Titles, giving readers a specific directive – Example: Improve Your Writing in 7 Days

Also, I’ve found that for list-style posts, the most effective numbers are: 3, 5, 7 or 10.  These numbers seem to resonate with readers, for some reason, so  I try to stick to them, even if it means adjusting the post to fit the number I want to use.

Of course, I don’t limit myself just to these three types of titles, but they are a good place to start.

Step 6:  “Articles” pull more weight than “posts.”

I like to think of blogs as being like online publications, only the writer, editor, publisher and marketing guru are all the same person.  The blogs that feel like they have an organized editorial “plan” driving them resonate much more with me than ones that do not.  When I read blogs that have an editorial framework I feel like I’m reading articles, not posts.  Articles have a beginning, middle and end while posts tend to flow from one to the next in a more free-form way.  If I read one article but then miss the next few days on the blog, I don’t feel like I’ve missed out.  Posts feel more interdependent to me, kind of like watching a serial TV show where the episodes build on what came before; it’s hard to break in once the series has been going for a while.  At DIY MFA, while we have weekly themes I also try to make each post stand on its own like an article, both for the benefit of newcomers to the blog and for people who only visit once in a while.

Step 7: If you want people to visit, you have to post new stuff.

The single most common reason I unsubscribed from blogs was because the most recent post was not… er… recent.  Any blog that hadn’t posted in 2012 got pulled from my Google Reader.  Now, I know life gets overwhelming and oftentimes bloggers have to cut back, but if they cut back so much that their last post was months ago, they can’t expect readers to keep coming back for more.

This past weekend I learned a lot about my taste in blogs and what I choose to read online.  But that’s the clincher, isn’t it?  It all comes down to taste.  While I prefer sites with more article-style posts, another person might love blogs that have more of a journal-like flow.  While I prefer to know what a post is about just from the title, another person may enjoy the surprise of those titles where you only “get” the joke once you’ve actually read the post.  Just as writers are diverse, so too are readers; this is true with blogs as well as books.  And that’s what makes this journey so rewarding: there are readers out there for just about anybody!

The post 7 Steps to a Better Blog appeared first on DIY MFA.

It can be an overwhelming proposition to jump into social media or try out a new platform.  For writers who aren’t using social media at all, there’s so much of it out there, that it’s tough know where to start.  Writers in this scenario likely feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options available and this can lead to paralysis.  If you don’t know where to start, it’s often easier not to start at all.

On the other hand, even writers who navigate the internet like it’s their second home can feel hesitant to try out new platforms or communities.  It takes a huge initial investment of time and energy to learn the new platform and figure out how to make the most if it.  Some time ago, Jane Friedman posted a fascinating article about getting over that initial “hump” when using new technology or social media platform.  Even writers who are fairly tech-savvy and “plugged in” to the social media world might find themselves resisting new platforms or technology at first.

The reason this happens is simple: writers are asking the wrong questions.  They’ll worry about WHERE in this vast land of social they should set up shop, and WHAT they should do once they’re there.  Instead, they should be asking something completely different.  They should be asking WHY.

For every social media decision–whether it’s to start a blog or to join Twitter/Facebook/Google+/YouTube/etc.–writers need to have a clear idea of WHY they’re doing it.  Many writers engage in social media because they think they should.  They have been told that they need a “platform,” and the best way to get one is to blog or tweet or what-have-you.  They’ve been told what they need to do, but no one’s told them why.  So these writers dive head-first into social media without a strategy driving their choices, and a few weeks or months later, their enthusiasm fizzles and they fall off the face of the interwebs.

I could tell you why I think writers need social media (in fact, that was my initial plan for this post), but now I realize that would defeat the point.  The truth is, each WHY is as unique as each writer.  Social media needs to have a strategy that ties it together.  Without strategy, social media becomes simply a matter of going through the motions, which is not a great way to acquire that ever-elusive authenticity that everyone out there on the web seems to be seeking.

If you’re engaging in social media just because someone said you should, just stop.  Or at the very least, go back and consider why you’re doing it in the first place.  And don’t just think in vague terms; get specific.  Why Google+ vs. Twitter vs. Facebook?  Why blog?  Why is each social media platform useful to you as a writer?

As a writer considering these questions, you may also want to check out Dan Blank’s new course at WeGrowMedia.com called “Build Your Author Platform” which I took last summer while developing DIY MFA.  This helped me build a strategy to drive my social media choices and helped me make DIY MFA what it is today. 

Now, I’d like to know: What social media do you use?  And why do YOU think writers need social media?

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