Update your blogs! and H.I.G.H. Part 6

Hello everyone,

It is with a heavy heart that I faced a new day. Yes, my precious Ohio State University Buckeyes lost...again. After an amazing season with only one loss they entered the bowl game number one. LSU was ranked number two. Ohio came out strong with a 10-0 lead in the first five minutes of the game...and then, welll.

Okay, now on to marketing and helping YOU build a strong internet business. Yes, that is what I said because while you are a fiction writer, a non-fiction writer, a blogger, or something else you are running an internet business and you must look at it that way to build a strong marketing platform.

So what must you do to build this platform? Reach your customer base.

Today we're going to talk about how blogging can help you do that but we're also going to talk about how it can hurt your business. I don't think we will get it all covered today but we can pick up what we miss tomorrow.

As I'm sure you expect I will tell you that one key is to update your blog.

I am as guilty as anyone else of neglecting my poor blog. I started blogging a year ago this month and for the first...um...nine months I did almost nothing with it. I was frustrated by the lack of traffic and by the amount of time I had to spend doing it. Eventually it became a dead site with only some random posts from people essentially saying "Tiff, where are you?"

So my first piece of advice to building your platform, your internet business, or anything else is to update your blog. I actually am in the process of creating a new product [I'm super excited about it. It will help SO many people and since I found a place to make it very inexpensively I can offer it for less than the price of a book. But more on that later] that will talk about blogs and other things and how you can use them to explode your business like I did mine.

The simplest thing I can tell you to do though is this: update your blog. But you can't just post up any old thing. You need to have content people will actually want to read. That is what you need to learn to do. Once you have figured out what people want to know about, be consistent and provide it.

That is the best advice I can give any of you right now.

Oh, and remember if you have questions or comments about my blog...blog about them [hey, there is content for you :-) ]. Then post a comment in my comment section with a link to the post. I will come over to your blog. That way I can help your readers get the answer to the question and all of my readers can come over and see the answer to a question I may not have thought to post on my own blog.

I am looking forward to your questions.

Oh, and I found a super cool blog today. I told the woman I was going to tell all of you to check it out. Here is the link. http://jennybjones.blogspot.com/2008/01/youtube-and-al-gore.html

Now, H.I.G.H. part 6

There used to be a spot on the morning news "Everyone has a story" where a guy threw a dart at a map and went to that town. Then he'd pick a name at random in the phone book and go to see that person. We learned lots of neat things. I loved that segment.

Well, I guess this is my version of "Everyone has a story". I told you yesterday that things in my life were about to get shaken up. That is an understatement if ever one was spoken. I could give the long, agonizing version of it but I won't. The point here is to help you learn from my mistakes and develop your own writing business.

So the first lesson I hope you've learned is: Be confident in your gift/call.

I, unfortunately, was not. See, I was terrified of failing. {Yep, Type-A all the way, Baby!} So in April I knew it was time to return to my first love, writing, but that meant closing my business. [Because at the same moment I felt my call back to writing I also felt it was time to leave my network marketing buisness.]

I didn't do it and by July my business had gone from highly successful to hemorrhaging money. I would rack up over $2,000 in debt before finally relenting in January of the following year and closing my doors.

And my two little girls who were 3 1/2 and 11 months? By July I learned I was pregnant with my 3rd [That was my dh's anniversary gift for me that year.] My little girl is a huge blessing but it meant I was SICK! SICK! SICK! Yes, I'm one of those blessed souls who got all day sickness that lasted the first 4 months and then came back for the last 3. :-)

And what of my writing? I discovered a full page ad in a Current events magazine [I think it was called World but now I've forgotten] for the Jerry Jenkins Christian Writer's Guild. They said "What is your story?"

OHHHHH I was so excited. Here was what I needed to get going. But we had no money. We had just bought our new house and my husband was working 4 [yes I said FOUR] jobs to pay the bills. We both wanted me to be a SAHM and so Chris worked on the road as a Paramedic, then worked 20 hours a week in the ER at a local hospital [because his full time job had horrible insurance], then he worked a couple of days a month at two different Fire Departments to fill in holes in their schedule.

I couldn't ask him to sacrifice for a childhood dream.

As it turned out, I didn't have to. Things were about to start moving and I could never have dreamed of what would happen over the next five months-neither in my greatest dreams, or my worst nightmares.

Oh, and if you battle fear [or are type A like me] you should check out this blog posting I put up a couple months ago. It is my most read blog currently. I think you'll like it.

http://writingcareercoach.blogspot.com/2007/10/is-fear-blocking-you.html

See you tomorrow.