Tag: Jim Butcher

Author Presence: Create a Blog and your Twitter Bio

During the previous article we talked about Your Brand Name. If you missed it, you really need to check it out as it will come in handy understanding the importance of what I mean by this and how important it is to you.

 

What are we talking about today?

We’ll discuss two things today.

• Creating a blog with WordPress.com
• Twitter Bio

So why are we doing two things today?

For one thing these will be relatively short and another thing, I want each day to be useful for everyone joining in. So for those with blogs, you might get something out of the Twitter Bio.

Blog Talk Time

Creating a Blog with WordPress.com

When you go to the site you will see where you type in a name and then click create blog. Once you have done this the fun begins. Don’t worry about today being intense, it won’t be. And you know what? If you change your mind about the blog name afterwards, you can create another blog with this same account. That’s right, you can create several blogs with different blog names/addresses within the same account. I have RonovanWrites.WordPress.com AND LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com under the same account. Sure I might could have done it separately but I wanted to be able to keep up with the activity on both at the same time.

For this I am creating a new blog called Ronovan Author so as we walk through I will fill in things appropriately

There are four fields to fill out on the

Get started with WordPress.com screen

E-MAIL ADDRESS–ronovanwrties@gmail.com

USERNAME–ronovanauthor

PASSWORD

BLOG ADDRESS–ronovanauthor  ( the wordpress.com part is already there for you)

Once you have filled in these you scroll down and click Create Blog under the FREE column. I mean you can do the premium ones if you like as they do have things like more space, but often times you probably want to at least try out blogging first. You can always upgrade at any time.

• You will get two emails; one to confirm your email address and the other one saying you have your blog.
• After you clicked Create Blog under FREE you will be taken to another page.

Step 1

Set up your blog

Blog Title–Ronovan (I could keep it as RonovanAuthor but not right now, although it might work. I can always change it at any time.)

Tagline (Optional)–Author of Imaginations and Realities

Language–English (Yes you can set it to different languages)

Click Next Step

Step 2

Choose a theme

It looks like at the moment the default Theme is one called Reddle. It’s fine to go ahead and just click on Next Step here as you will be able to change your Theme later. Your main goal today is to get your blog name and get to the point where you can start customizing, not that we will be doing that today. So don’t worry.

Step 3

Customize your blog (Reddle)

It tells you about the Theme but don’t worry about it right now. And when you see words like ‘custom colors’ and things like that, often times you have to upgrade to premium to get those.

Click Next Step

Step 4

Share your blog posts with family, friends, or followers

Basically it is wanting you to connect your blog to facebook or Twitter. We will be doing this later, but if you want to you can now. I will still be going through connecting these two at a later date.

Click Next Step

Now it will want you to create your first blog post. You don’t have to.  At the top of the screen you will see; Reader, My Sites, and Stats. You can click on any of these if you like and just look around.

Today I want to show you the ‘Dashboard’. The Dashboard is where you will spend a lot of time. You will create your blog post/articles here. You will select your Themes, create pages on your blog, and pretty much everything.

Click on My Sites at the top.

Now you will see all of your blog sites. By the blog you just created you will see a gear in the top right corner of the picture. Click the gear and then click Go to admin dashboard.

One thing you will see is a Welcome to WordPress.com Video. I want to say I watched it and it is rather useful so go ahead and watch it.

And that ends your Blog Talk for the day. You have created a Blog, an Author Blog. Next time we speak about Blogs I will want to give you some Theme ideas to use. The reason I want to discuss Themes before we get into the details of the Dashboard is because not all Themes have the same Dashboard options. But they all work basically the same way with just a few  Appearance differences.

 

Twitter Talk Time

The Twitter Bio

You might be wondering “I’m an author of YA SciFi/Fantasy/Dystopia.”

Nice. Yawn. Sorry, did you say something?

Yeah, that was a bit mean of me but I’m here for Straight Talk. In fact at times I do articles with the titles in them called Straight Talk with Ronovan. So let’s get to it. Your Bio needs to say who and what you are.

Here is my Twitter Bio:

Author. Promoter of Authors. Interviewer. Lover of History. Tacos are a food group. #Fibromyalgia http://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/  http://litworldinterviews.wordpress.com

Yeah, it’s not the best in the world. But it tells you what I am and do. It gives you a couple of insights into me. I love history, I obviously am a huge fan of tacos (humor there) (not really) and I have Fibromyalgia. I also have both of my main blog sites included.

I have had people follow me because of the Fibromyalgia. I have people comment on their agreement about Tacos being a food group. And I have had people say they Love History too. I apparently have some sense of humor by including the taco comment.

Be as creative as you like. Remember, be professional.

Neil Gaiman is famous. Being famous makes it a bit easier with the Bio but he still has to be somewhat creative.

“will eventually grow up and get a real job. Until then, will keep making things up and writing them down.”

Perfectly done. His sense of humor is there and he actually tells what he does in a creative way. In fact I need to rethink mine. Look around at your favorite authors and DON’T copy them but see how creative they are.

Jim Butcher is another popular author these days. Yeah, I met him and talked with him for a while during the first round of Dresden Files books. Was a really nice guy and humble.

“–Storyteller. Let’s not complicate things.”

Honestly, I can hear his Harry Dresden character saying this. Well not the storyteller part, but it is definitely Butcher’s writing style coming through in so few words.

 

Until Next Time

Much Respect

Ronovan

 

 

 

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