Bloggers’ Bench with Terry Tyler
Welcome to the Bloggers’ Bench with Terry Tyler
Let’s sit down on the bench next to Terry Tyler and ask a few questions about her blog: www.terrytyler59.blogspot.co.uk
Hello, Stacey, and thank you for inviting me to Whispering Stories! For your readers: I am a writer of novels, blog posts, book reviews and all sorts of other stuff; I have just published my 13th book on Amazon (and am trying not to think about that ’13’ thing).
I started my main blog in March 2012.
Ah – I didn’t feel inspired to start one, I just thought ‘I suppose I’d better’ because I’d self-pubbed two books by then and it was back in the day when writers were being urged to blog on an hourly basis, if not more often, because they were told it would help them sell hundreds of books. Now, we know better!
I used to have a blog on MySpace in 2007/8 and also wrote some articles on a now defunct facility on Facebook called Notebook, so I just copied those articles to my shiny new blog, and took it from there.
No, I also have a book review blog that I started in December 2014.
Depends. I write anything from 0 to 4 posts on my main blog per week, and review an average of 10 books per month. If I’ve posted a lot of stuff there is more to tweet, comments to answer, etc. So it might be anything from 10-15 hours to just a couple.
In the past I’ve run series such as The Zodiac Files, in which writers and bloggers talked about their work with reference to their star signs, and August Reviews, which was an initiative to get readers reviewing—these took over my LIFE, or so it seemed at the time!
Every so often I think of something that I really want to write about, and now I have a place to do it; before I had a blog I used to write stuff on word documents and send it to like-minded friends! It’s good to have an outlet for areas of one’s creativity that isn’t covered by novel writing. I very much enjoy the online blogger community; I like being able to help promote stuff other than my own work, too.
As far as my book reviewing goes, it’s great when I love a book so much that it deserves more than an Amazon review, and I can make a fuss of it on the blog! I am a member of Rosie Amber’s Book Review Team, which is why I started the book review blog, but I review my own reading choices, too.
Can’t think of one, except when stuff won’t copy and paste properly! I suppose there’s the fact that it interferes with my writing time, too.
Absolutely, and lots and lots. Especially via the blog share hashtag days on Twitter. A lot of people share all the posts that come into their email inbox; I do my bit by retweeting, instead, as I have a silly number of Twitter followers so I can help expand others’ ‘reach’ that way.
No, because I don’t consider myself to be ‘a blogger’, I am just a person who writes novels and has a blog! I only mention a particular post if relevant. Mind you, I don’t tell them that I’m a novelist, either.
Aha, I just went back and looked to see what it was! It was something I wrote in 2010 about being in my 50s and thinking how much it sucked. It’s not very good. It’s here: www.terrytyler59.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/being-50
Perhaps to be a bit more diplomatic. I used to rant about stuff I thought was insincere/moronic/sheep-like. I daresay it might have harmed my online profile, generally!
For any sort of blog, think about presentation. Notice what makes you want to click on a title to read the post, and what makes you keep reading. Attention grabbing headlines, short paragraphs. Good spelling, grammar and punctuation, no rambling. Draft and redraft. Use pictures if relevant. Oh, and answer all your blog comments! I was unable to answer mine for a couple of months (I’ve got it sorted now) and I’ve noticed that the amount of comments I get have dropped off; not replying looks as though you haven’t bothered to read them.
If you’re a writer of novels, don’t think you ‘have’ to blog a certain amount. It will help your online presence, but it doesn’t guarantee amazing sales. Don’t spend too much blog space whining about not being able to sell your books/the unfairness of the publishing industry, as it just makes you look bitter. And as if you can’t sell your books.
As far as the blogging ‘community’ goes, be generous; read, comment on, retweet and share others’ posts.
No. I have started writing a series that I’ve been wanting to write for ages, so am concentrating on that; I want to write the first two parts before publishing number one in the spring, so I have my work cut out! I’ll still keep reading and reviewing, though, and writing stuff on my personal blog when something pops into my head.
You can find me over at :-
www.terrytylerbookreviews.blogspot.co.uk
@TerryTyler4
Goodreads
I would just like to say a very big thank you to Terry Tyler for giving us an insight in to her blogging life, and we wish her lots of success for the future.
Thanks so much, Stacey – after all that! The amount of trouble we had with this seems a bit ironic considering my answer about the frustrations – thank you for taking the time to put it right. And for inviting me in the first place!
xxx
I’d really like Terry to publish a post on how she manages to make her hair look so amazing – or does she have a team of stylists?!
Now, you know the answer to that, Julia. Bother to blow dry it and do stuff to it, don’t just leave it to dry (tsk tsk!!)
Ah that’s where I’ve been going wrong. I rarely blow dry my hair – it takes effort. Just naturally dry, straighten and go 🙂
I read when I’m doing it, Stacey – makes it something to look forward to instead of thinking ‘I can’t be bothered’. But anyway I’ve got frizzy, curly hair that looks awful in it’s natural state, so it’s vanity, too!
How on earth do you read and blow dry your hair at the same time?
You are very welcome Terry. Glad you liked the interview.