Writing content for a blog can be a way to jumpstart your book
Do you want to write a book but you’re not sure where to start?
Well, do you have a blog?
If the answer to both questions is yes, guess what? You may already have some of your manuscript written!
Even if you’re thinking, “I don’t have a blog” (or at least, no blog on the topic you want to write about for your book), that’s still not a problem. Simply start writing blog posts with an eye to producing content for your book.
Not quite sure how to go about it?
As a ghostwriter, blogs and books are two services I offer. Since many people who want to write a book feel overwhelmed by the thought of working on such a big project (I know the feeling!), I also offer a service to write a series of blog posts with a book in mind. Alternatively, if you’re a DIYer and want to write your own blogs, I’m still happy to help you shape and organize them when you’re ready to turn them into a book.
How does it all work? Let’s talk about the no-nos first.
A Book from a Blog? How NOT to Do It
If you know much about blogging or publishing, you’re probably wondering how a bunch of blog posts can possibly turn into a book. After all, a chapter in a typical self-help book contains 2000-5000 words; the range is similar for memoir. On the other hand, while ideal blog lengths vary according to industry and purpose, the longest recommended length is 2000 words. Most recommendations are for much shorter blog posts — around 500-800 words. So the absolute longest blog post you should write is the minimum length for a chapter.
“No worries, a bunch of short chapters will be just fine!” you say.
Think again.
For one, while self-publishing allows you to break any rule you want regarding book length (or anything else), to be taken seriously as an author, you should attempt to reach a word count that’s at least close to established standards for your genre. That means:
- 35,000–55,000 words for self-help/business, and
- 60,000-100,000 words for memoir.
Soooooo… that’s a lot of 2000-word blog posts!
Another consideration: most blog posts have a beginning, middle, and end. Even if they’re part of a series, they’re short pieces that can stand independently of each other. A book, however, comprises chapters that build on each other. There will be information in each chapter that may not make sense outside the context of the previous chapters.
Example: a friend told me about a marketing book she’d recently struggled to finish. To see what she was talking about, I read the online sample, and I immediately saw the problem: the author had strung a bunch of his existing blog posts together as content for a book.
The result? From one sub-heading to the next, there were no transitions, and while some content was interesting, it felt like the author abruptly switched topics over and over. It made for a very choppy read, and it was hard to see what the author’s overarching point was — or if he actually had one!
Don’t worry: I promise you can use blog content to write a book! Now that we’ve seen how not to do it, let’s look at how you can do it.
How to Use Blog Posts for Book Content
As I’ve said, one challenge is to turn a bunch of self-contained articles into a large cohesive book with points that build on one another. Here’s where to start:
Outline
Whether you’ve been blogging for a while or want to start blogging so you can develop material for your manuscript, an outline is a must. Here’s how to approach it:
- Existing blog: read through your posts and make notes on points you want to put in your book, where content in one post repeats in another, and which posts you can group together to form chapter stubs.
- Starting a blog: Make notes on topics you want to explore in your book.
- Use a prewriting activity like freewriting, listing, or clustering — check out this link for ways to brainstorm.
- Once you’ve done one or more of these exercises, read over them and underline recurring ideas and key thoughts.
- Find points and ideas that go together, and on a separate page, put them in groups.
Then, create a book outline using these notes: Roman numerals (I, II, III, etc.) for larger sections or “Parts,” capital letters (A, B, C, etc.) for chapters, and smaller divisions for headings and subheadings in chapters.
Using Blog Posts
- Starting a blog: Headings and subheadings under your chapter headings are where you’ll go for blog post topics.
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- Some chapter headings or subheadings may give you enough material for a whole post.
- For others, you may need to combine a couple of subheadings for a single post.
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- Note, however, that once it’s time to turn these posts into a manuscript, you may have to leave out the introductory or concluding language at the beginning and end of the post, as well as any reviews/summaries of previous posts.
- Existing Blog to Manuscript: Start looking at how paragraphs, sections, or even whole posts can fit into your outline.
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- As you went through your posts initially, you should have noted sections of posts that are similar to each other or that repeat information.
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- Be careful as you piece together your manuscript chapters not to bring those redundancies over; you may need to rewrite sections or “Frankenstein” parts of your posts, bringing a sentence from one post into a paragraph from another, for example.
- New OR Existing Blog to Manuscript: Make sure as you move from one large topic to another that you’re putting in transition language. Here’s a website with lists of strong words you can use to connect one idea to the next.
Fleshing Out and Tweaking the Manuscript
Remember, the challenge in going from self-contained posts to a long-form book manuscript is that the writing needs to flow, and thoughts and ideas need to develop from one point to the next. In short, you’ll need to use some creative sandpaper to smooth out the rough edges between former blog posts to keep your reader immersed in your writing.
The techniques I mention above — eliminating repeated information; reorganizing paragraphs, data, and examples; and using the transition words — are great starting points. Other techniques are to add more anecdotes or data, or otherwise flesh out ideas from short blog posts into longer chapters.
You’ll also want to add:
- An introduction to each chapter that presents the topic and outlines what the chapter will cover. Often, you’ll start with a “hook” — an intriguing anecdote, a shocking statistic, or other interesting data point.
- A strong conclusion that recaps what you’ve covered and sets you up to segue into the next chapter. This is also a good place to add discussion questions or points to ponder.
One powerful way to keep a chapter internally connected and give it an overall structure is to choose a single anecdote to “drip” from start to finish. What does that mean?
Open the chapter with a brief dialogue from the middle of the anecdote, leave the reader hanging regarding what happened, then back up to explain the context for the conversation. Next, go into your intro. As you go into each chapter heading and subheading, come back to the story and dole out more details that relate to the heading/subheading’s point. Finally, in your conclusion, conclude the story in a way that emphasizes your chapter’s main point.
Quilting – But With Words
For some aspiring authors, it’s daunting to think about writing an entire book. But blogging is shorter, more piecemeal, and easier to approach.
If you’ve ever quilted, the concept is similar. You’re not making the entire quilt all at once, but rather the smaller, individual squares — something far easier to complete! Then, at the end, you simply combine those unique squares to form a cohesive whole.
If done correctly, you can do something similar using a new or existing blog, tying the pieces together into a fully fleshed-out manuscript. Plus, blogging is also a great way to experiment with and refine tone, voice, and topics to see what resonates with your readers or what feels most like “you.”
Becoming an author has never been easier. Start blogging away!
And if you find you need help, don’t hesitate to reach out.