Kamis, 31 Juli 2008

The Perfect Plan

Few things make an entrepreneur's heart sink quite as deeply as the prospect of creating a business plan, and yet that one monumental step might be exactly the thing to ensure success in the long-term endeavor. It doesn't have to be as daunting as it sounds, and it can be downright fun.

The same holds true for blogging. Having a good blog is an important part of your long-term blog book tour success, but you must have a plan so your blog does all that it can and should accomplish.

You can start by answering a few simple questions:

  • Who?
  • What?
  • Where?
  • When?
  • How?
  • Why?

Arrange them in any order you like, and each day think about one question and it's relationship to your blog.

Today, let's use Who. Look at your blog with an objective eye, and decide if it truly reflects who you are. Who is the person behind the image? Is this an author's blog? Who is that writer? Is your readership seeing you the way you would like them to? Who are you? And what can you say in your next post that will give a clearer indication? How can you change your blog to more closely reflect the personality you'd like to project? Are you all over the map? Sound whine-y? Foul-mouthed? Or do you seem like someone you'd like to meet? With interesting commentary and good writing that makes people come back for more.

If you have time, take it a step further and look at who you're linking to. Do they reflect your focus on the blog? Or have those links just been there forever and they really need a little housekeeping?

Happy August and good blogging!

Sabtu, 26 Juli 2008

August Blogging Challenge

We're issuing a challenge to all you blogging authors to help get your blogs in good shape for a blog book tour. August is The One-Post-Per-Day Blog Challenge. Post each day, every day.

Anyone who participates can leave a comment and link here so we go over to leave messages on your blogs. The idea is to get your blog active and noticed by the search engines before your tour. So start thinking about how you're going to beef things up on your blog; you don't want to bore us to tears with useless drivel.

If you don't know what a blog book tour is, go read The Quickest Blog Book Tour Guide Ever. You'll find more useful tips to get your blog in topnotch shape for a dynamite blog tour. It all starts with your blog - that's the launching pad for the best tours.

If you want to participate with a group, this challenge is homebased at the Blog Book Tours Yahoo!Group. You must give your full name and book title to join the group.