I am curious what kind of material prospective readers find interesting on an author’s blog. My favorite authors range from not posting anything for months or years at a time, to talking about their health issues, struggles with getting themselves to write, or about the books of other authors they are reading. None of these seem appropriate for a new author trying to interest new readers, so I am curious what else you have seen that would be interesting, particularly for the blog of a new author without an existing following. For example, in my case, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing up some of the research I’ve done for my book, or of talking about hobbies, trips abroad etc.
All very good advice. At present my blog just contains occasional posts about the progress I’m making on my book, usually with a photograph of somewhere I’ve visited recently, along with something interesting about it. However, it’s now been more than a year since I published my first book, so this may be getting a little stale.
I do agree that it is essential for authors to post something every so often, just to let their readers know that they’re still around, even if they’ve had to give up writing for a while. The pandemic has been an eye-opener in this regard, as some of the independent authors I used to read, disappeared without a trace.