The fantastic benefits of your writer’s blog

Blogging has amazing benefits for writers.

If you’re not blogging, you’re wasting a brilliant opportunity.

Blogging is completely experiential – the benefits are different for each writer, but I’ve yet to meet a writer who’s been blogging for a year who isn’t shocked by the benefits they’ve received, and continue to receive.

Some of the benefits for new writers:

Confidence

If you’re a new writer, a blog gives you the confidence and ability to write for an audience. Please notice that I put confidence ahead of ability. As a new writer, you need the confidence to START.

Some writers are born with the confidence to send their work off to editors, but they’re in the minority. I’ve even heard of professional writers admitting to collapsing into tears when they send off work that means a lot to them, so it’s not surprising that aspiring writers feel that the process of writing for public consumption is overwhelming.

Your blog helps you to get comfortable with words

Inexperienced writers “write”. Experienced writers just say what they’re got to say – you can hear the writer’s “voice” behind the words.

Developing this voice takes a lot of writing. A blog lets you do that writing in a low-risk, comfortable arena.

Your blog enhances your creativity

Writing begets writing. The more you write, the more you’ll have to write about. If you commit to blogging, the knowledge that you need to collect material for your blog stimulates your creativity. You’ll come up with ideas for your blog, and for other writing too.

You can use your blog as a writing sample

When you’re a new writer, you don’t have any credits. This means that editors are hesitant to assign commissions to you. Your blog proves that you can write, and gives a commissioning editor an idea of what your style is like. Add your blog URL to query letters and proposals that you send to editors, and invite editors to visit your blog. The fact that you have a blog lets editors know that you’re serious about writing.

Your Blog: Your Vital Writing Sales And Promotions Tool For 2008

Gotta blog? My ebook, Writing Success with Blogs by Angela Booth, helps you to take the first steps into the new world for writers: instant publishing on blogs.

Your writers’ blog is your must-have branding tool. It also has a very practical use – it’s a writing portfolio. From the ebook: “Before editors will pay you to write, they want to know that you can write. They want clips – copies of material you’ve published. This seems like a Catch-22: you can only get published if you’ve been published. Your writing on your blog can be in lieu of clips. Your blog lets editors gauge your abilities and style, before they put down the cash.”

The book helps you to create your own writer’s blog.