A New Direction for the Blog

One of the primary purposes of my blog is to promote (and sell) the books I've written. According to all the marketing experts (Ha) from the many writing websites I read/ follow, an author must have a blog!

I suppose the theory is that people who read my blog (and like the style, content, or whatever) will eventually (maybe) be curious enough to buy one or more of my books. Of course, in the meantime, just trying to promote and encourage people to read the FREE blog is a challenge!

If I tweet the link daily and drop at least one or two posts on Facebook each week, I can usually get above 100 readers - more than enough to feed my ego and make me feel like a real author, but far too few to translate into actual book sales. (Amazingly enough, I do get readers from several foreign countries.)

All of which leads to a more pressing question - where does, or should, the writer devote the majority of the limited time available to write? Admittedly, the time taken to scribble the weekly blog is often less than an hour, but sometimes I find it difficult to budget even that small amount. And growing the audience for the blog remains difficult. Of course, I also routinely break one of the cardinal rules of blogging.

Again, according to those experts, in writing a blog, you should stick to one particular topic or theme. Boring! I prefer to write about a variety of subjects. I like to respond to current events such as the political issues of the day. Sometimes, I write reviews of books when I come across something really good (or bad). Occasionally, I write movie reviews. And I talk about my books or writing in general.

So anyway, I've decided that every now and then, I should just demonstrate my writing. I've shared poetry before, but I'm thinking maybe a few short passages from my novels or short stories? Something that will perhaps make a reader curious enough to want more?

For example, here is the Prologue from my first novel, The What If Project. Somewhere in the final editing process, I cut this out, but I still like it.

He opened his eyes slowly, smiling as he looked in amazement into his own past. He sat very still allowing the sights and sounds of his childhood to embrace him as if calling him home. He was momentarily struck by the unreality of his surroundings, but in his heart, he knew it was real. He had been here before. Taking a deep breath, he watched the idle movement of the old swings swaying gently in the slight breeze. There was a light, metallic sound as the chain links brushed against the steel poles anchored in the ground. Even before he had opened his eyes, the sound had told him where he was. When, he was.

But why? That was the question. Why was he here and what did he hope to accomplish? But that wasn’t right either. It was a different question that had brought him here. What if? What if you could go back in time and change one thing from your past? He knew his own answer and that was why he was here. He thought back to how it all began and smiled once more.

Let me know what you think! In the meantime, thanks for reading and have a great week!