Author Buzz

Where Authors & Readers find each other

Blogs and blogging

blow your own trumpet — Possibly the most important page on an author’s blog is the about page. Yet, this vital about page is too often left out. Today I am going to take a look at the humble about page and why it is so important for establishing your platform as an author. Without […]

Why your about page matters

20th February 2019 in Blogs and blogging tagged about / Author Platform / blogging / Neil Gaiman / Sir Terry Pratchett by Matthew Brown

Author Buzz is pleased to announce a new experiment – the Say Blog. Say is a mix of author quotes, publisher insights, and member opinion. It is open to all members to express their opinion on whatever topic they might wish as well as sharing news on interesting things UK […]

The Say Blog

18th January 2019 in Blogs and blogging tagged blog / blogging / UK / your say by Matthew Brown

When you run a blog, maintaining a publishing schedule can seriously increase its effectiveness. The WordPress Editorial Calendar is one such way to manage this task. The editorial calendar is something we added right after the last big update. It is a tool to help you plan your posts, and […]

Use the calendar to plan your posts

11th January 2019 in Blogs and blogging tagged calendar / planning / posts by Matthew Brown

Author Buzz has a few ways you can track your writing progress on your blog. WP Progress Bar If you just want a nice progress bar for your posts, then this is the plugin for you. It creates beautiful and easily customised progress bars. If you want to represent information […]

Track writing progress on your blog

4th January 2019 in Blogs and blogging tagged NaNoWriMo / plugins / progress by Matthew Brown

tiny man — You have heard it enough while you were writing – show, don’t tell – but did you know it applies to blogs as well? A mistake a lot of bloggers make, me included, is to tell readers what we want them to know. We do it even more if we […]

Authors when you blog, show, don’t tell

17th July 2018 in Blogs and blogging tagged blogging / show by Matthew Brown

Blogging is not easy – especially if you want to use it to sell books – but these advanced blogging tips for successful authors should help you sell more books with your blog. First, what is a successful blog? These days, successful authors are usually blogging authors but having a […]

12 Advanced blogging tips for successful authors

18th April 2018 in Blogs and blogging tagged blogging / books / fans / readers / sales / social media / success / traffic by Matthew Brown

Internet — Did you know that URL structure can make a difference in search traffic? Although minor, URL structure can have a cumulative impact on SEO. URLs are one area that most people setting up an author blog forget about. One thing that I did not cover when I wrote A Definitive Guide […]

Let’s talk about URL structure for author blogs

3rd March 2018 in Blogs and blogging tagged Author / blogs / guide / SEO / URL / WordPress by Matthew Brown

Blog — Most author blogs are abject failures as far as marketing and promotion are concerned. This is actually great news for you because it means, if you get the basics right, the competition will be scarce. Why author blogs fail As far as I can tell, there are three common reasons […]

A Definitive Guide on How to Start Blogging as an ...

27th February 2018 in Blogs and blogging tagged Author Platform / blogging / guide by Matthew Brown

Reading — As an author, what can I do to increase my readership base? Are there things I should (or should not) be doing to get more regular readers? This is pretty much the question that I recently attempted to answer. Vishwa asks on Writers’ Stack Exchange: I recently started writing a […]

How do I increase my readership base?

15th January 2018 in Blogs and blogging tagged Author Platform / blogging / readers / Seth Godin by Matthew Brown

author typing — One of our longtime members, Bob, asks, “Must one have a blog before one publishes a book?” Bob, goes on to ask if a blog is the same as a platform. I’m going to answer that right now. Do I need a blog? There is no rule in the world […]

Do authors need a blog before they publish?

1st January 2018 in Blogs and blogging tagged Andy Weir / Author Platform / blog / Matt Damon / publishing by Matthew Brown

Authors, before you had a following, do you remember how that first comment felt? What about your first subscriber? Or realising you had your first true fan? The chances are those first felt pretty good. If you have your head screwed on right, what you did was pay attention to […]

A secret for building a following

21st December 2017 in Blogs and blogging tagged Author Platform / blogging / fans / followers / readers by Matthew Brown

Blog — As authors, we are inclined to think that we know how to write – the truth is most author blogs fail. The fact is most people will not see the end of your article and a lot of people will never scroll at all. That means that you must get […]

Why author blogs fail

18th December 2017 in Blogs and blogging tagged Author Platform / blogging / blogs / guide by Matthew Brown