Help Me Pick: 11 Ideas for Upcoming Posts

Last Friday, I put up a post hinting at decisions I was making to my business structure and life.

As soon as I finished posting that, in typical fashion, I started making those changes.

It wasn’t quite as impetuous as that makes it sound. I’d actually made most of these decisions already in January when I was looking at my year. It just took me this long to get through the grieving process enough to implement them.

The biggest change is that, after fourteen years, I’ve decided to shut down My Secret Wish Knitting so I can focus more on my author and editor businesses.

While this did bring up some feelings, most of them were of relief. (And a bit of overwhelm as I work through the process of actually shutting it down. It feels like a lot, especially as the activities are more draining for me than starting something new, spending time writing, or completing a project.)

Then on Tuesday, I wrote a very personal post about some of the ways I struggle with marketing myself as a person brand. (And I can’t tell you the number of times I almost took it down since. That was a scary one for me, for sure.)

In that post, I talked about a refocusing on long-form blogging for marketing. Yes, on this blog.

I’m excited, but I’ve also come to a realization over the last few days—as much as I love long-form blogging, I’m really out of practice. Social media has retrained my brain to sound bytes and sixty-second sketches. I need to train it back.

Yep, I can chatter on like this about what’s sitting at the top of my head, no problem. But, much like Instagram has evolved from a platform where we shared our breakfast to a platform where we entertain each other (for better or worse), I feel like that’s the best way to offer you value here, too. Navel-gazing posts like I put up earlier this week are not only terrifying for me, but, also, who wants to read them on a perpetual basis? I wouldn’t.

So, here are my ideas. I would love to hear what types of posts would interest you most for upcoming blog content, because I am seriously floundering here.

1. Featured authors. Interviews with and articles about other authors who write books in my genres about their work and stories.

2. Character takeovers. Posts “written” by my characters about or possibly interviewing other characters in my books.

3. Character bios and art. These would likely focus on my fantasy series, but if you’re a contemporary romance reader who likes to see this stuff, let me know and I’ll balance it out.

4. Research factoids and tidbits. If you like hearing about the interesting and weird things I discover that I normally only work into my books in oblique ways, I could share that. (I learned what a “piece of eight” actually was, for instance, and it was almost as interesting as the Pirates of the Caribbean version.)

5. Author and book blogger collabs. These types of posts might include having guests post about their favourite books or their own books, running group giveaways, doing cover reveals for each other, and generally introducing you to other amazing people in the book space.

6. Book reviews. While my pace of reading is pretty slow these days, when I do finish a story I feel is worth sharing, I’ll talk about it here.

7. Reading lists. These would be books I think you might like on a theme or topic. I may not have personally read the books, but I would source them from recommendations by others or by scouring books and their reviews online. The purpose would be to help you find other interesting books similar to mine. (Note that I also always have featured authors and group promos posted on my Promos page.)

I realize that’s a long list, and I don’t see any of these as terrible ideas, so I may try all of them. However, I would definitely love to hear from you what kind of content interests you most. That’s where I would focus most of my efforts.

And here are types of content I will continue to produce (though the frequency may depend on the results of this poll):

1. Writer’s life and behind-the-scenes. These are not so much about the process of writing (unless you want that!), but about my actual life. The life updates, in other words. Pet and plant pics will be involved.

2. Personal essays. These inspirational or opinion essays have been a staple of this blog, and whenever I have something to work through in my brain or something important to say, they will continue to show up. (You can see previous examples on this page.)

3. Writing and business updates. I mean, I assume you’re here because you want to hear about cool stuff I’m making, right?

4. Random Cool Stuff and other Projects. More than just a “Writer’s Life” post, these posts showcase cool things I find on the Internet or fun things I’m doing on the side, especially with digital art.

Please leave a comment with:

• Your top one to three types of favourite content from the lists above.

• Anything I missed that you would like to see.

• If you like them all and would like to see a mix, that’s great. Please tell me, though!

And, while you’re at it, drop the title of a book you’ve loved recently. I would love to hear what you’re into.

Happy Friday!

Talena

Quick Poll in a graphic: What bookish blog content interests you? 1. Featured authors. 2. Character takeovers. 3. Character spotlights. 4. Interesting research. 5. Author & book blogger collabs. 6. Book reviews & reading lists. Did I miss any? Let me know below. (I cheated a little and combined two from my post for this list because it was better for the design, lol. Also, I originally screwed this graphic up. Now it should match the post!)