Bloggers Beware

Rachel Firasek is an urban fantasy and paranormal romance author by night, and an office manager by day. She began her world of serious blogging in November of 2010 and has since found the key, or so she thinks, to a successful author blog. The jury’s still out on that one, but she has figured out what type of blog she loves to read and which one she’ll skim past. Here’s what she’s discovered:

1. Keep your posts short. I’m busy and unless you’re giving me the secrets on how to create the perfect author banner, perfect story, perfect anything…I’ll probably skim you if I have to scroll too far down the page to finish the post.

2. Try to find the humor in whatever you’re writing about. Sure, some posts are more serious than others, but a serious blog all the time will bore me. My third grade teacher had the best teaching method ever: Entertain first, teach second, and children will absorb more. She taught for over 30 years… I still remember that lesson.



3. Hook me with a great title! Titles are just as important on your blog as they are for your books. Have a long boring blog title, I’m expecting for the blog to be similar.

4. If you want my comments, you have to give me something to comment about. If your blog post is about your book, with an excerpt and blurb, and really nothing else, then you have to lead me to comment. Give me a question to answer that ties into your book. I’ll remember it better. Now sometimes a topic doesn’t need a leading question and I have to comment regardless, because the post is so great. But, sometimes, I sit and listen to the crickets chirp while I’m trying to figure out what to say about the post. If you’re not getting comments, it’s because you are not leading your following.

5. Always interact with your followers. I like to know that a blogger has read my post. Most of the time, I’ll spend several minutes coming up with a reply and I expect for the author to do the same. There’s always a good chance that I’ll reply again if the author is very good at spurring a conversation. This is what you want. Interaction keeps people coming back.

Okay, that’s it. That’s my key to a successful blog. It’s working for me. How’s yours doing? Do you have another hint that is working for you? Are you a blog reader and have a complaint about blogs that bore you—without name-pointing?

Terry, thank you for letting me guest-post today on your site.

Rachel, my pleasure, and thanks for being here. For more about Rachel, and her upcoming novel, Passion of the Soul: Piper’s Fury, which debuts in April, visit her blog. A POSSESSED WIP: you’ll find details about the book later this month.