Introduction

To begin our session on creating blog posts, I want to start with three stories.

Story 1: My Blogging Journey

When I graduated from college in February 2008, I entered the worst recession of my life. On top of that, I went through a painful breakup, my business failed, and my grandfather passed away. I was at one of the lowest points in my life.

Despite everything, I wanted to work with authors, but I had no connections and no credibility in the publishing world. So I started blogging.

In February 2009, I launched Author Tech Tips, answering questions from authors. At the time, I was virtually unknown. But within a few years, the blog was featured by Writer’s Digest as one of the most helpful websites for authors. In 2012, we rebranded to Author Media, and I started building a team of people to help with both the business and the blogging.

I trained my team in everything I’d learned the hard way. Some of our blog posts went on to rank #1 on Google for years, driving massive traffic. Since 2012, the site has received over 3.5 million pageviews and has been the driving force behind most of my influence in the publishing world. If you’ve heard of me, it’s likely because of the blog or something that spun off from the attention the blog attracted.

I didn’t have a course like this when I started. But you do. You can skip the hard lessons and stand on my shoulders. Everything I’ve learned over years of blogging is packed into this course.

Story 2: Garr Reynolds and Presentation Zen

The next story is about Garr Reynolds, a man who started a blog on slide design. He didn’t like how people were using PowerPoint with endless bullet points and cluttered slides. He believed there was a better way.

His blog deeply influenced me. If you’ve noticed that my presentation slides don’t follow the typical bullet-point style, you can thank Garr.

As his blog grew, attracting tens of thousands of visitors, Garr decided to write a book called Presentation Zen, the same name as his blog. He identified his most popular blog posts using analytics, comments, and shares. Then, he took the best of that content, combined it with brand-new material, and had everything professionally edited. That became his book.

The original blog posts remained online to this day at PresentationZen.com. His book sold out its first printing, went on to sell out multiple reprints, was translated into over 13 languages, had two editions, and even spawned a DVD.

As Seth Godin famously said, “Piracy is not the problem. Obscurity is.” Blogging helped Garr overcome obscurity, and it can do the same for you. It sharpens your ideas, builds your audience, and helps you connect with readers.

Story 3: Renee Brumbaugh, the Stay-at-Home Blogger

Renee Brumbaugh was a stay-at-home mom who started blogging almost daily about what God was showing her in Scripture. She worked through the Bible verse by verse, sharing her insights on a simple blog.

Over time, her posts began ministering to hundreds of people who made her blog part of their daily routine.

Let me pause in this story to say that alone is success. Imagine speaking to a room of 100 people every day. That’s more influence than some pastors have, and Renee built it with a blog.

Her blog created a community. Readers not only commented on her posts, they commented on each other’s comments. Eventually, Renee was able to sell her blog posts, landing over five book deals in both fiction and nonfiction.

Unfortunately, her publisher made her take the blog posts down, which killed some of the blog’s momentum. But by then, the blog had already launched her writing career.

What You’ll Learn in This Course

So, what are we going to cover?

• What a blog is—and what it’s not
  
  
• How to write excellent blog posts (Hint: It’s not the kind of writing you learned in school.)
  
  

If you learned to write in school, you definitely need this course, because some of what you were taught isn’t just outdated, it’s wrong when it comes to blogging.

We’ll also talk about:

• How to craft posts that resonate
  
  
• How to structure posts for online readers
  
  
• How to grow your influence through blogging
  
  

A quick note: This is a BYOB course—Bring Your Own Blog. We won’t be covering how to set up a blog or a website. I have other courses for that. For this one, I’m assuming you either already have a blog or you're writing guest posts for other blogs.

Up Next

In the next session, we’ll start by defining what a blog actually is.