On Blogging

As you write, a lot of people tell you that the best thing you can do is read, read, read. Why? Because you get in tune with what's selling, what you like in other people's work, sentence structures, what carries a novel, etc.

But blogs aren't really all that different. When I started The Submission Process last year, I kind of just....blogged. Then...I started learning.

I followed agent and editor blogs. I started looking around at what else was out there, and I found Books of Adam. (If you haven't read his blog, you should, it's hilarious.) Just one read, and he made a follower out of me. Why? Because it's down to earth, it's real, and it's spit your milk out funny.

I also started thinking...what else drew me in?

Right....There were stories, and yet there were pictures. It wasn't just pages of endless text. I found myself paying more attention to blogs I followed; the ones with a lot of text, I'd read the first few sentences and then stop. Mainly because I was bored and overwhelmed. The ones that had pictures, I'd actually read. Thus, I started posting pictures, too. Like this one:

Because every step you take, is a step in the right direction :)
Climb those mountains!

Plus, pictures make it personal, you know?

I also found that the more I spanned and commented on blogs, the more people commented on mine. The more I put my posts on twitter, the more people stumbled across me.

So my advice of the day? Read other people's blogs. Figure out what you like about them, and implement it on your blog.