• Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
Book Cave: Authors and Publisher promotional services and features
Book Cave
Authors & Publishers
Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
  • Contact
  • Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Sign Up for Deals

    • Login
  • About
    • Book Cave Reviews
    • Who We Are
      • Mission
      • In the Works
      • Book Cave Logos
      • Meet the Ratings
    • Privacy Center
      • Privacy & Terms
      • Your Privacy Rights
    • Affiliate Program Agreement
    • Trademarks
  • Current Deals
    • Deals from Retailers
    • Book Cave Direct Deals
      • Exclusive Ebook Downloads
      • Free Group Deals
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Readers
    • Sign Up
    • Rated Books Database
    • Rate a book I’ve read
    • Browse Author Pages
    • Reader FAQ
    • Reader Blog
    • Giveaways
      • Win a Free Ereader!
      • Last Giveaway Winner
      • Past Winners
  • Authors
    • How It Works
    • Our Services
      • Feature Your Book
      • Group Features
      • Subscriber Magnet Services
      • MBR Ratings
      • Create an Author Page
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Pricing
    • Submit a Book
    • Create Account
    • Become an Affiliate
    • Author Resources
      • Author Blog
      • Author FAQ
      • Promotion Tips
      • Cover Guide Calculator
  • Book Swag
Author Website,Promotion & Marketing
12 Jan 2021 at 09:48 PM PST
Posted 2 years ago

10 Blog Mistakes to Avoid

By Catia Shattuck

Advertisement

JutohWe at Book Cave prefer Jutoh for ebook creation because it gives us more control than most other ebook software out there, while still maintaining a friendly interface.

Browse by topic

All Posts Author Pages Author Website Cover Design Ebook Formatting Grammar & Punctuation Mailing Lists Promotion & Marketing Publishing Tips Social Media Technical Tips Tutorials Writing for Authors

blog mistakes to avoid

I'm a book wyrm
We hope you enjoy reading this post!
If you’re like us and love to read, then click here to score tons of free and discounted ebooks.

Having an author blog is key to promoting yourself and your books. A blog will help you connect with current fans, as well as bring traffic to your website (through your newsletter, through organic searches, and through people sharing the blog post) and get your name out there. Of course, once people are there, you can also convert them to fans, perhaps by offering them a free copy of your book. But blogging is harder than it looks! Here are 10 blog mistakes to avoid, whether you are a seasoned blogger or just starting out.

Writing on a Good Topic

1. Writing posts that won’t interest the correct audience

Since you are an author, readers will usually come to your blog to learn more about you, your writing, your books, the worlds in your books, and perhaps books in general. If you have a blog post on how to change a tire, it may be interesting, but it isn’t going to be interesting to the correct audience. You want to attract future readers, so your posts should appeal to those potential readers and help convert readers into fans. (Of course, if you write nonfiction books on cars, then a post on changing a tire would be relevant, but for most authors, it wouldn’t be.)

2. Choosing too broad of a topic

A blog post should offer concrete value to the readers. A topic that is too broad will result in a generic, vague post that won’t be very helpful. If you have a lot of ideas, break it into multiple blog posts.

You can tell if your topic is too broad by the length of the post. When writing, keep the post high quality by giving examples and delving into details, and if the post gets longer than 2,000 words, think about breaking it into multiple posts.

3. Not offering something of value

On a related note, your posts shouldn’t all be self promotion; most of them should offer something of value to the readers. So, don’t only talk about your new releases, about how great your books are, and about where people can buy your books. That being said, there are a lot of great topics that can give valuable information to the reader while still promoting your books.

Blog Mistakes with Post Form

4. Writing stiffly

Avoiding this blog mistake is especially important if you are an author because your blog posts should give readers a window into your writing. It can be easy to fall into stiff, essay-like writing when writing shorter or informative pieces like a blog post, but try to keep the writing as conversational as possible.

5. Not breaking up the content

Most readers will only skim your blog posts, and if they see a wall of text, they probably won’t bother reading. Keep your reader engaged by breaking the content up into headings, lists, and smaller paragraphs. Avoiding this blog mistake will also improve your post’s SEO and can help you keep your ideas organized and targeted.

Finding Readers

6. Not responding to comments

Responding to comments will increase the engagement with your posts. The original commenter may comment again, and others will see that you are active and you respond and so will be more likely to add their own comments. People will remember that you responded and will be more likely to read and share future posts.

7. Not using SEO

If you want your blog posts to rank higher in searches so people can find your content organically (and this is definitely the easiest and cheapest way to grow), then be sure to optimize your posts for the search engines.

SEO is its own topic (and we don’t want to have too broad of a blog topic, right?), so if you want to read more about SEO, check out this blog post here.

8. Not promoting the blog

Using SEO will help your blog get noticed, but it is a process that takes time and that can be greatly helped by bringing traffic to your blog immediately by promoting it. Promoting your blog can be as easy as posting a link to a post on social media, coupled with a question for readers that is related to the post (this is a great way to increase engagement and post views). You can also guest post on other sites and link back to your own blog posts or website, if the site you are posting on allows it.

Miscellaneous Blog Mistakes

9. Not posting consistently

With blog writing (and most forms of marketing), consistency is key. Publishing a post once a month is better than trying to publish a post every week but then missing two or more weeks that month. If you are consistent with posting, readers who are following you will know when to check in for new content. It also will make your blog look active and professional.

A great tip for being consistent is to have a few blog posts finished in advanced; that way if you aren’t able to write a new blog post before the next deadline, you already have a backup (but be sure to catch up with your backups as soon as possible!).

10. Not rereading and editing the post

When you finish writing a post, read it again and edit it. Then, let it rest at least a day before re-reading and editing it again. If you can, have a friend read it before you publish it to catch any obvious typos. Obviously, it’s not possible to be perfect (and it’s easy to miss mistakes in your own writing), but don’t leave errors that could easily be caught with a simple read through.

Have any questions or any tips to add? Let us know in the comments below!

If you’d like to learn more about Book Cave promotions and receive more writing tips, please enter your email below and click the “Learn More” button to receive our author newsletter.

Copyright 2021 by Book Cave
Reuse notice: Non-commercial users, feel free to print out “10 Blog Mistakes to Avoid” for personal use or give to friends, share online, or make a meme of, as long as you attribute and link back to this post. Commercial users, you may share a link to this post or quote a short excerpt from it with attribution and a link to this site, but you may not use this post in its entirety. Thank you for caring about copyright.

Share this authorpost

Keep Reading

apostrophe usage

Correct Apostrophe Usage for Omitted Letters and Possessives

When should you use apostrophes with omitted letters and possessives? Which way should they face? A few simple rules will help you use apostrophes with confidence.

Subscriber magnets and how they help me sell more books

What Are Subscriber Magnets and How Can They Help Me Sell More Books?

Authors at My Book Cave now have the opportunity to participate in subscriber magnets. But what are subscriber magnets and how can they help me sell more books?

Jutoh - drop caps featured image

Using Drop Caps in Your eBook

Have you tried using drop caps to set your ebook apart? This tutorial explains what drop caps are and how they can be accomplished, as well as some of the pitfalls you’ll encounter.

Hello fellow book lover! We hope you are enjoying this post.
If you want free, content-rated ebooks that you can download straight from your favorite retailer, just sign up for our free newsletter
Sign me up!

Leave a Reply

Cancel


Comments

    Receive free ebooks on Amazon Kindle from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Apple Books from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Google Play from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Kobo from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Nook from Book Cave
    Receive free ebooks on Smashwords from Book Cave
    Book Cave
    Book Cave Direct
    My Book Ratings
    MY BOOK RATINGS
    Connecting the RIGHT readers with the RIGHT books
    • Sitemap
    • Contact Us
    • Free ebooks
    © Book Cave - All the rights reserved!