A Blogging Book Review

Bloggers Boot Camp: Learning How to Build, Write, and Run a Successful Blog by Charlie White and John Biggs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first blogging book I read, it informed without overwhelming, using a friendly not authoritative writing style. I’ve reread the book multiple times and will incorporate this writing style into my blog.

White and Biggs suggest blogging multiples times a day (10-20!) to get readers. Not me! It takes me hours to get one post out and it could put off followers. I unsubscribe when I get too many emails from a company. But it worked for them working on Gizmodo, Mashable, and CrunchGear.

“Bloggers take small stories and magnify them with research, opinion, and humor.”

“…blogging is about writing a lot
-producing videos, podcasts, and images
-making things quickly and making them great”
-coherent, clear, concise, and accessible
-entertainment value, understandability
-conversational

“The best writers pour personality onto the page, making you feel the way they feel.”

My favorite blogging kid does this well and is a joy to read.

Three more things:
1) Research and read one hour daily, first thing in the morning. I used to write first thing, but I always run out of time to read so this fits books in.
2) Write 1,000 words daily. Good challenge, especially since editing formatting, and picture-finding takes so much time.
3) Take weekends off.

I did not want to return this book to the library! The large size and encouraging subtitle reminded me of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with “Don’t Panic” on its cover.