This past week, a friend asked me some of the details around publishing on Amazon. She mentioned she wants to write a non-fiction book but doesn’t know where to start.
I recommended she starts with a blog.
Now, I definitely believe someone can write a book without having a blog first. People do it all the time. But, I started writing with a non-fiction blog, and it helped my fiction writing in these ways:
It gets you in the habit of writing regularly. (Set a schedule of how often you’re going to post [every Sunday is great—plus, you can schedule posts ahead of time], and stick to it.)
It helps you practice putting your thoughts into words.
You get a lot of weekly wins by finishing posts often, something that doesn’t happen when writing a book.
There are other benefits like starting an online presence and building your audience (I do recommend you start building your email list right away), but those are peripheral. This post is about starting a blog, mostly for yourself, and about building a massive readership.
The awesome thing about having a weekly blog is after 6 months or a year, you’ve written a ton of content that you can now organize, edit, and add to for your book. You’ve given yourself a head start.
Good job, you.
Jump. Build, Fly.
F.C. Shultz
P.S. I recommend starting your blog on Medium. It’s a site designed for writing first. So you get to have a page that is already well designed, so you can focus on writing. And it’s free!