Welcome to the Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition III!
Round SIX of this popular event is coming your way the entire month of August 2017 and it's going to be epic! The invites have started to roll out and everyone from your all time favorite Wa...
Kelly has been gracious enough to feature me in the Wattpad Block Party before. For previous editions, I've written general advice on Wattpad, writing and creating characters, a sneak peek and a character interview so for this party I wanted something new... Well, at least new for me. And then I remembered how people compliment me on my blog and ask me for advice on how to start their own. I'm not tech savvy, but I have a couple of years of experience with CatMint5's World (dilyanakyoseva.wordpress.com), so why not?
I'll give you ten tips on creating and running a blog, and share with you ten book-related topics you could write about.
And since the readers of my Dogs, Bats & Monkeys Paranormal series were really hoping for something related to those stories, I'll end this post with the character profile of Detective Callum.
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5 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CREATING A BLOG
1. Is it going to be a professional blog or a hobby? If it's a professional blog, you'd want to invest some money into getting a domain name, a professionally made banner and even maybe a site theme that would be exclusive to you and reflect who you are and what you are going to write about; if it's going to be a hobby, then the free version of a site like wordpress.com should be enough.
2. Make sure there's an email sign-up/follow blog option.
3. When picking a theme for your blog, make sure it's mobile-optimized/mobile-friendly. That means that no matter on what device you look at the blog (PC, phone, tablet), the layout will be optimized for that device.
4. Pick a theme that shows who you are, but also what your site will be about. If you love browsing through dark, gothic pictures, but on Wattpad you are writing a light-hearted Romance that you want to promote through your blog (for example, through character interviews and exclusive side stories), then don't use the gothic images as background and header for your blog. Instead, pick something that will go with the book you'd like to promote.
5. I can't stress this enough: use CC0 (Creative Commons, a licensing type) images and fonts! This is especially important for blogs that you'll be earning revenue from, but even if you aren't making money off your blog, don't risk it and check the licensing on the images you'd like to use before you put them up on your blog.
5 THINGS TO REMEMBER AFTER YOU'VE CREATED YOUR BLOG
1. Post regularly. I aim for at least two posts per week, but I usually end up with three. On Tuesdays, I upload a Tuesday Tiny Writing Tip (the series covers writing, editing, productivity and more), and I also post each Sunday. When I have the time, I'd write something for Fridays as well.
2. Keep it consistent. If you are going for a bookish/writing-related blog, then post about books and/or writing. Yes, you can occasionally upload something else (that's what the Others/Miscellaneous category/tag is for), but if your posts are 60% recipes, 30% funny pictures of your cat and 10% writing tips and book reviews, then yours is not a book-related blog.
