Become a Content Connoisseur in 2016

My friend, Laurence MacNaughton, shared an interesting article with me not long ago called 30 Fresh and Fun Ideas For Your Newsletter. As marketing people, Laurence and I are all over anything that helps generate valuable content for our readers, and we thought that some of the principles in the article would work for authors too. With this in mind, here are 12 blog post ideas for authors interested in strengthening their platforms in 2016. If you post monthly, your year is set. Weekly writer? Generate four articles from each base idea and you’ll never run out of great content.

1. Create and use top 10 lists

This one is so fun and easy that I’m using a form of it for this article. Commit to a number and fill in the points. If you write mysteries, how about naming 10 of Agatha Christie’s best works? Romance Writer? Ten best (or worst) bodice rippers you’ve read. Take informative, silly, or thoughtful approaches and you’ll have your readers clamoring for more.

2. Advertise reader & writer conferences & workshops

This idea is great because you can use it to keep up with industry events to satisfy your own needs, and advertise where you’ll be for book signings, etc. Your readers will know where the next best events are and will be there to learn as well. This is community service at its finest. Just remember to add links and acknowledgements as appropriate.

3. Produce an “Author’s Studio” video tour

Even though our main focus as authors is on the written word, our world revolves around the visual. And with so many phones equipped with video cameras this can be a fun project. Tour your studio, or go to the inspiration place you’ve selected for building a new world in your next novel. Photos make great illustrations for your writing work, and readers love them.

4. Getting social? ASK for followers!

Yes, a lot of authors claim to be introverts. And when you’re working on a new story it’s understandable that you need your alone time, but when you’re blogging, tweeting, and otherwise community or readership building, get social. ASKING for followers is one of the best ways to get them. We are in business after all. And the subject will help you write in a new style–persuasion as opposed to entertainment.

5. Connect your work with unusual holidays

Love this idea! Did you know that January is National Blood Donor Month? Are you writing the next great vampire story? Connect and enjoy. Holiday Insights is a website with many bizarre and unique holidays. Combine them with your writing themes and you’ll have valuable content each year for many years to come.

6. Where in the world is my book?

We’ve all played the “where’s Waldo?” and “Flat Stanley” games. Why not do the same with your book? Visit libraries and bookstores that carry your work and snap a picture. Only one copy on the shelf? Turn it into a puzzle to find. If readers and friends send snaps of your book? Post it online. This is great fun, and a subtle way to self-promote.

7. How-To articles with a twist

Go ahead. Right now, before the New Year hits, think of a list of writing skills you have or want to acquire in the year ahead, and turn your research into valuable web content. Think outside the box. Everyone’s written an article on creating big characters. What about writing a how-to on the walk-on or cameo character? Have you come up with a great acronym for warding off writer’s block? Go further. How To sharpen six pencils in 30 seconds or less. Play with this and have fun. Whether or not it turns into a blog post, you almost always benefit from explaining how something works.

8. Tell the story of writing your stories

If your career was focused on a brick-and-mortar business you owned and not a book you wrote, writing a corporate history would be important and valuable. As an author your own writing biography is equally important. You can write current articles on your travels, personal experiences, and most of all, lessons you’re learning on the road to publishing that next great book.

9. Refer-A-Friend promotions

Like asking for followers, it’s important to grow your readership continually by getting others to talk about you. Incent your current fans to invite a friend by offering a piece of SWAG (stuff we all get) to anyone who refers a friend and that friend signs up to get your newsletter or to follow your blog. Do a profile on your biggest fans to keep the excitement going (and produce more valuable content for your blog).

10. Advice columns work for you

According to the New Yorker, the first advice column was published in 1691. As you can imagine, this kind of writing has gone under many changes since then, but remains a popular form of writing. Start by making up readers with questions and before long, your advice column may become as popular as Conan the Grammarian.

11. Reader Research & Results

There are a few ways to create surveys and polls on line.  Why not satisfy your curiosity about your readers as well as giving away some fun information?  We all participate when someone asks a question like, “If you could eat dinner with 10 dead people, who would they be?” Find out popular names for heroes and villains, places people always wanted to go, favorite character flaws, and soon you’ll have a treasure trove of information to inspire your next story. Meanwhile, your blog readers have fun participating in the world of creative writing.

12. Talk about the weather

Really! Believe it or not, when all else fails, weather remains a popular subject just about anywhere.  In England, apparently three quarters of the population talk about it more than anything else.  According to the PinPoint article referenced earlier, “At some point, the crazy weather will impact your area. Consider writing about it.”

Wishing you every content success in 2016.