Announcement: Blogging Tips Book By Lorelle VanFossen

My new book, “Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging”, is now available.

This book began as a series of articles from this blog to be put into a hand-out for participants of the Successful and Outstanding Blogger Conference (SOBCon07) held last week. As we discussed the book, it was clear that we wanted something more, something different, something that hadn’t been done before. Liz Strauss of Successful Blog, the producer of the conference, wanted to break ground with a new kind of blogging book, simple and to the point. Basic tips to help the blogger at any point in their blogging career.

“Blogging Tips” was born, a book focusing on what bloggers won’t tell you about blogging.

From conception to completed and printed product was 4 weeks. I worked on it as I traveled around the country, proofing the printer’s blue lines in a hotel in Everett, Washington, during a business conference and had it back in the mail to the printer within two hours of receipt. It was a whirlwind process that I do not recommend to anyone.

“Blogging Tips” returns to the basics of blogging and beyond with hundreds of the tips you need to know before you start blogging, and after.

• Learn how to define your blog’s purpose: The book helps you to explore why you blog, the reason behind your blog, and who you are when you blog. Together, these tips help you define your blog’s purpose, and in turn, your blog’s identity and brand.
• Learn how to build your blog’s plan: There are many reasons to blog, but many more reasons to blog with a plan. There are step-by-step tips to help you create a road map for your blog, charting a focused course for the development of your blog, blog content, and writing skills.
• Explore the pros and cons of blog design: There are a lot of how-tos, what-to-do, and what-not-to-do tips that will help you determine and/or reevaluate your blog’s design and structure. Tips including helping you understand the modular aspect of modern blog designs and how to make each layout section of your blog offer the most valuable information to your readers, encouraging them to dig deeper into your blog and return for more.
• Learn more about writing interesting and attention-getting content: Finding a constant stream of original content for your blog can be a challenge. The book offers a variety of tips for helping you to expand your content resources so you have a diverse range of inspiration and motivation for your blog posts.
• Develop your blog writing voice and style: Blog writing is similar but different from other types of writing – and what and how you write depends upon the type and style of your blog. The book offers tips for helping you to decide who you are when you blog as well as how to make your intent clear with your best writing style.
• Tips on writing with keywords and search terms: We continue to live in a text-oriented web world where the written word still matters. Writing with strong keywords and search terms not only helps your blog be found, it makes your blog writing clearer and easier to understand.
• Learn how to encourage your readers to respond: A blog is about interactivity. “Blogging Tips” offers a wide range of tips to help you encourage readers to comment on your blog, as well as how to remove all the obstacles that get between a reader and their ability to comment.
• Deal with comment spam and other nasty comments: Comment spam is here, but there are many tools now available to stop comment spam from appearing on your blog. Another growing phenomenon is the increase in nasty commenters and bloggers, those who thrive on saying evil things to other bloggers. The book includes tips on how to deal with nasty and unwanted commenters and bloggers, keeping your eye focused on your blog’s end goals and purpose and not the mean people.
• Explore the new PageRank, TrustRank, and SEO techniques: There are a lot of changes in the new PageRank, including the new TrustRank, all coming together to test and evaluate how your blog scores with Google and other search engines. The book lists point-by-point things you need to consider as you write and develop your blog with search engine ranking in mind.
• Learn how to improve SEO with podcasts, video, and other multimedia: As more and more blogs are adding audio/visual elements, the book covers some basic tips a new blogger needs to know about including multimedia.
• Tips to prevent blog burnout: Burnout happens to everyone, and blogs tend to eat people’s spirit up if they live to feed the blogging monster. Tips are offered to help prevent and deal with blog burnout, and how to better manage your time, energy, and creativity with your blog’s content and management.
• Tips on developing a blog plan of action in response to disasters, emergencies or accusations: Blogs serve as communication tools when disasters or emergencies strike. They are also often put on the spot with threats of lawsuits, copyright infringement, and defamation if they cross the line. Are you ready for your blog to be attacked or serve as a communications tool for when an emergency happens? During an emergency is not the time to be making a plan. Make your plan first.
• Tips on administrating and maintaining your blog: So many blogging tips are directed towards blog content and design, but most of your blogging time maybe spent administering your blog, cleaning out comment spam, responding to comments, checking stats, and other maintenance tasks. The book offers tips on creating a maintenance schedule to help you keep on top of your blog’s administration.
• Tips on online social networking and interaction: Today’s road to blog success is lined with social networking and bookmarking services. If you aren’t up on the latest in online interaction, you could be falling behind and stagnating. The book covers tips and suggestions on how to improve your online and in person marketing and networking skills to help your blog continue to stretch and grow with new readers.
• Learn how to respond to copyright violations: As I say in my popular article on content theft, it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” your blog’s content will be stolen. The book covers some basic tips on how to respond and fight copyright violations and blog scrapers.
• Learn about your rights as a blogger: What are your rights as a blogger? Do you know? Bloggers are confronting freedom of speech, defamation, revealing sources, and other legal issues all the time. Are they protected within their country? The United States is currently working on protecting bloggers as journalists, though this might not last and it might not apply to your country. “Blogging Tips” helps you answer some of those questions with tips and resources to help you understand your blogging rights.

To Order Blogging Tips Blogging Tips by Lorelle VanFossen is available through the Blog Herald’s new bookshop. For a limited time, in honor of the 2007 Successful and Outstanding Blogger Conference, the book will be available for USD $12.95 (plus $3.00 US & $12.00 International Orders Shipping and Handling) Get your copy now

And that’s just scratching the surface of all that is jammed packed into over 100 pages.

The book’s format is totally about the tips, with check boxes along the headings so you can “check off” each tip as you apply it to your blog.

Whether you have one blog and are just getting started, or many different blogs with distinctive subjects and voices, there are tips for you in this book.

There are two ways to order the book. You can order it directly from the publisher, SplashPress or through the new Blog Herald Bookstore.

Special Offer

If you order within the next week, I will personally autograph your book.

Along with that offer comes a lower price for the book while supplies last for USD $12.95 plus shipping. We’ve only a few books left from the conference, so if you want the lower price along with an autograph, you better hurry.

Who is Lorelle?

For those who have been reading Lorelle on WordPress, you are familiar with my work with WordPress and this blog, offering daily tips on how to blog in general, as well as with WordPress.

I’m also a professional writer and the author of Taking Your Camera on the Road, one of the first personal websites on the Internet, featuring over a thousand articles on travel, nature photography, and life on the road, and Lorelle’s Family History, a genealogy blog. I’ve a few other blogs lying around here somewhere.

I’ve also self-published several books on photography and travel, and one cookbook with my husband, Brent VanFossen, who used to handle all our cooking while I handled all the computer gear. Then I had to learn to cook. SIGH. Together, we each haul our own camera gear.

I am a daily columnist for the Blog Herald and guest blog and write for many blogs, ezines, websites, and print publications. Recent guest blog posts included Blogging Is About Writing and Blog Translations: The Next Web Frontier on Darren Rowse’s Problogger, and Your Writing Persona: Who Are You? on Writing Great Ezines & Blogs from Patsi Krakoff.

Along with driving Matt Mullenweg, Donncha O’Caoimh, Ryan Boren, Mark Jaquith, Andy Skelton, and the rest of the fabulous WordPress and Automattic crew nuts with my bitches and whines about WordPress, I travel extensively as a web consultant and public speaker, and can often be found in airports, truck stops, outside shops, and prowling your neighborhood looking for an open WIFI connection to send off my next blog post.

Yes, if you see a strange motor home or rented car outside of your home and you have an open WIFI connection, don’t call the police. Come out and say hi and get a hug for helping me connect to the world and my blogs.

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