When becoming a blogger, the way you write and convey posts is an important aspect to potential readers. Your aim is to be passionate about your writing so that passion transcends. At first, this can look daunting but with these few easy steps, worry no more!
First of all, your written English needs to be readable. I'm talking no spelling mistakes, paragraphing. Editing is an important aspect but don't sit in fear of having to do it alone. You could always ask a friend, English teacher or even another blogger to proofread your posts before they go live on the internet. Grammarly is some free software that double checks your writing for you if you would rather do it alone. As a book blogger, spelling author names incorrectly can lead to confusion and being called out for unediting. Avoid!
Next, it's important to be yourself when you write. As a nervous mess, I started to write posts just for the hell of writing them. My friend then comes to me and says, "That's not you writing." It was me but not the real me. It's vital not to be forced into a persona that you personally aren't comfortable with. You can blog under a pen name (I chose to blog under my real name) but your opinions on books and other things you blog about should be your own views unless you are crediting another person in your blog post.
When it comes to blog posts, readers don't just want to be informed but also be entertained. Personally, there's no word limit you should follow for writing posts however do try to avoid the lecture talk. A lot of waffle and rambling off topic becomes a snooze fest. If you need to research up things for your post, use the internet and read books, credit your sources and back up your facts. Copy and pasting is lazy and a form of plagiarism but the trick is to write often and stay true to the task at hand.
I treat blogging as a way of escaping the world, it makes things a lot more enjoyable than if I treated my blogging like schoolwork. My average word lengths on my posts is between 500-900 words which take roughly 30 minutes-45 minutes to type up. I like to set my alarm an hour early on some weekdays to draft up new posts. It's not a race, but creative expression.
If readers start to take notice of your writing style, they'll tap the follow button as generally interested followers. I will be talking about your audience later on in the guide. But for those who aren't sure about how to schedule posts and keeping things up to date across your blog, the next chapter in this guide will help you do just that!