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Deciding between a writing book and starting a blog

I remember the exact moment I decided between whether I was going to write a book or create a blog. I was crossing the road from Central Station in Newcastle, this road to be exact.

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As I recall, it wasn’t this sunny that day. It was a much rainier day, the grey skies and lack of activity had my head elsewhere. Despite being committed to writing in some form, I wasn’t sure which path to take and it was playing on my mind a lot. After a bunch of trips to Waterstones (one of the leading book sellers in the UK) and a bit of online research, I made a decision.

I realised that writing a book without an audience would be like buying a car without wheels. And writing a book with hardly any book-writing experience would be like trying to find that car without wheels whilst blindfolded. All in all I didn’t think it was a wise idea.

The beauty of blogging is that it is much more adaptable. I have changed my site considerably three times since 2014, including the name of it and themes. I like that I can change my style when I feel like it and find out what works and what doesn’t. I will eventually become confident with a final product and until then, I can create content that can be put into a book and increase my writing skills in the process, at the same time build a community that would like to read such a book. It is a perfect route for a potential first-time-author-nobody like me. To think that I even put so much time into simply throwing a book out there is silly looking back. It was the perfect decision and it has been fantastic for so many reasons since I started back in 2014.

Another reason why I had decided to blog is that I can add to it as much as I want, when I want. I am not limited to pages or word count, and my posts don’t really have to follow a theme. One post could be about my recent trip somewhere, the next could be how I am feeling. I don’t have to stick to chapters and I enjoy that writing freedom.

My about me section mentions that I am book writing, and I have roughly 100,000 words stored in chapters waiting to be tidied up and finalised. I have a title but I don’t want to put that out there until it is closer to publishing. I am not going to touch this however until I know that publishing would be at the appropriate time. My blog has evolved since I started to write the book, so I may make big changes to chapters as since then, my opinions and feelings have changed on certain topics. Another pro for writing on WordPress is that I can evolve over time too. If I published in 2014, I might now disagree with some of the things in those chapters. Waiting has been the right choice for me.

Looking back I think I may have started book writing first, getting a few thousand words into a word document. I remember copying and pasting those paragraphs into my earliest blog posts, and I also remember the moment I almost accidentally deleted the whole thing. That was probably another reason why I wanted play it safe with a blog, 100,000 words is rather scary to have in a document unseen. Blogging I can share it bit by bit with my audience and I love that.

What do you think, have you also considered writing a book? Have you one or more published? Let me know in the comments and feel free to share if you have already.

Happy writing!

 

 

Featured Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash

 

 

Thank you again to all my followers and regular readers, and hello to you if you are new to my blog!

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Happy blogging,

Sam

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60 replies »

  1. I agree that blogging gives a voice to whatever we may be feeling or thinking at the time. I love the freedom of blogging. I may entertain the idea of a book in the future. That thought terrifies me right now. 📗✏️😳 I have a lot of work to do brushing up on writing skills first!

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    • At least you can sharpen your writing skills with a blog until you make a decision whether to write a book or not. It isn’t writing skills that frighten me (although mine aren’t the best), it is the time and effort it takes to get a book finished and complete!

      Liked by 1 person

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  4. Hi Sam,
    I do agree with blogging as well and as a photographer is the way I had to go. But a while back I found my inside voice to write short stories and started a big project to write a novel and release by acts. I was in the same situation where I didn’t know what to pick between writing in a blog or a book, but blogging gives you limitless opportunities and quite a wide range audience. That does not mean you should not write a book. I am saying that both of them should be weighed equally. And in my case is even harder as English is not my first language but I still wanna do that. Good decision and you will get a lot of support with it!

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    • Wow! I wouldn’t have guessed this wasn’t your first language, your English seems perfect! And I didn’t even think of the fact that blogging allows us to post photos constantly, a huge benefit to the platform! I agree with what you have said here.

      Thanks!

      Liked by 1 person

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  5. I really hope that your book becones true, and I will love to buy one⭐️
    I’m authoring a book right now, and I hope one day I’m brave enough to get it out, and I can take my hands in the air and say to my self: I did it🦋But it will be a long time befor it happens because I am in the early stages…. but having a dream is fantastic for me🌸
    May your day be filled with joy⭐️

    Liked by 2 people

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  6. Never written a book, but I imagine a book would need to flow from beginning to end, whereas with a blog it seems I can jump from one topic to another and back to the first again without it mattering too much. This is especially the case if documenting one’s life (or, in my case, my cat’s life) when events come in any order and don’t necessarily follow a logical sequence.

    I used to want to write a book, before blogging was a thing, but now I am less sure …

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  7. I am doing both, and that can be hard. Sometimes I put chapter excerpts up on the blog, sometimes the blog and book overlap and sometimes they are separate. Sometimes the blog is a little lighter if I’m working really hard on the book, but I keep to my schedule of two posts a week. I’m nearing the end of a year travelling in South East Asia, and getting ready for my next adventure, living on a narrowboat in the UK. (We downsized house to boat to fund the trip). The book is about the travel year experience but on return I’m sure there’ll be plenty to write about there too.

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  10. For me there’s been no difference between a book and a blog. Writing is writing, no matter what the resulting delivery method. And as you’ve already discovered, often times the blog becomes the book. And as soon as I sort through and organize 4 years of content, I’ll be ready to release my best seller. Coming to a news stand near you.

    Just keep writing, and I suspect your book will write itself.

    Cheers!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • It was easier to write a book when my blog posts were on more specific topics, now I feel they go off the book topic every now and then! But if anything it has made me reconsider the nature and approach the book takes.

      Good luck with your book!

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  11. Great post.

    I choose to blog before publishing because I can see my writing progression. I’m so much better now than 6 months ago, but still polishing my craft. My plan is to continue posting short stories, but work on one novel with the current knowledge in the background. Most important, my work is on WordPress, In Google documents, In Word documents, In DropBox, and several external Hard drives. You can never have too many backups. never…

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  12. It’s a dream of mine to write a book one day! I always seem to be working on one. But the beauty of blogging is that I can finish work and stay consistent (knock on wood) I’ve been hoping it gives me the work habit in terms of longer writing.
    Your posts are really enjoyable! I hope to read one of your books one day 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

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    • Thank you Gemma for the kind words, really appreciated 🙂

      Keep consistent, I am sure you will develop a healthy habit of longer writing. Have a lovely weekend!

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  13. I’ve definitely given book writing some thought but for some of the same reasons as you I’ve held back. There’s plenty of time to do that in the future but blogging is a good and flexible alternative until that time 🙂

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    • I agree, it really is a great alternative and a blog can really help a book, whereas it doesn’t really work the other way round unless a following has already been established. There is plenty of time to write a book, I prefer to fill that time with a blog!

      Liked by 1 person

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  14. I’ve been writing on and off for years and only made the decision to seriously commit to writing full time (in late 2018) towards the ultimate goal of having a book published. As a part of that I upped my efforts to blog more frequently, renamed my Facebook ‘Author’ page and personal Instagram, and rejoined Twitter. Sharing blog posts automatically as they’re published to both the Facebook page and Twitter will hopefully grow my audience a little faster than giving a lot of time to all outlets. I do also tweet and post independently of my blog – memes, headlines, etc. This gives me some added time to give to my short story book writing. My biggest fear is that people will hate what I write so I’m building slowly to sharing snippets of my creative writing. It’s great to read all the different replies to this post and see the choices others are making. It’s proof that ‘each to their own’ still holds true.Good kuck with your book project 🙂

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    • Thanks Nat, I think it is a great idea for you to start sharing to other social media platforms. I am just getting comfortable with the idea however I have no doubts it is the best thing to do. I keep repeating this so sorry, however ‘if 99% of people think you’re ugly, 75,000,000 think you’re attractive.’ Now add that reasoning to your writing, and hey presto, you have a huge fanbase of people that love your writing!

      Now go find them!

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  15. I relate to this so much! Though all forms of writing fills my soul with joy, my heart has always been in novel writing. I’m so thankful for platforms like this that give regular no-names a voice. I’ll be sure to look out for your works in Waterstones in the future.

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  16. I’m in a similar situation. Ice shelfed the book idea for now, knowing I’d want to get back to it one day. I hope that one day will be sooner rather than later. Keep going and working on yours!

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  17. I’m currently in the process of transitioning from writing books (I’ve written and self-published several romance novels, with pretty decent success) to writing a blog. For me, a lot of the decision came down to how it fit with the rest of my life and my goals. Writing is a hobby of mine, not my “9-5” job, and I really enjoy being active after work. When I’m trying to crank out 50k+ words and then edit, it takes away a huge amount of time from everything else I do. BUT, if the whole idea is to do things and then write about them, it’s encouragement to do more. Plus, I know I don’t want to write romance forever, and blogging is a good way to work on other genres. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll turn my blog topics into a book!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • And blogging is great for that as it allows us to write about anything and if you want to start writing blog chapters, you can! You can kill two birds with one stone in this way. But writing in general is great as we can do it on our own terms. Whenever we want on whatever we want. And now we have more than one way to write 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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    • It took a couple of years, however once I started to engage with other bloggers I noticed a lot more people paid attention to my blog. It really depends on how much time you spend getting your name out there! Consistency and time spent blogging is key.

      Good luck with the book!

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