5 Ways I Turn My Blog Into A Book

Are you a blogger? If so, you have the bare bones of a book, already. All you need are some simple instructions to pull it all together. Here’s what I do and you can too:

1. Theme your blog to a specific topic. It’s much better to create a theme for your blog. Theme it; instead of creating a catch all for every hot topic under the sun. Unless of course, if you are a current news anchor or journalist you might blog about current events and trends.

If not already, theming it is much easier. You can later create sections for each micro-sub-topic.

2. Be Consistent. I seek to blog consistently. My weekly blogs are always more popular than my occasional or even monthly blogs. When you blog more regularly, people can stay connected with you. In our busy lives, its easy to disconnect if they don’t hear from you on a regular basis.

So, whatever time frame you choose, set a schedule and stick to it. Your readers will love you for it. They will know when to expect to read what you have to say and become loyal readers of your blog and book.

3. Create Blog Series that become sections of a book. Since, I first turned a blog into a book, years ago, I’ve been creating blog series. Sometimes, I’m inspired by something outside the blog. But most times, I’m writing the blog posts and a certain sub-topic under that theme will stand out to me. I’ll say to myself, oh this will be a great series that I can write more on. I usually end up with at least four to five posts on that particular sub-topic. In other words, I don’t always know how many it will be. In that case, I write on that sub-topic until the inspiration dries or another spark comes.

Form a habit of creating blog series. You may end up with a book sooner than you thought.

4. Setup a folder to put blog post together. When I have at least five to ten themed posts, I file them in a physical folder, labeled with my overall theme. Then, I file them into a computer folder. Most times, I do both. If you decide to just file it in a computer folder without a hard copy backup, be sure to make a backup copy on disc, jump drive or pocket drive.

Gather and organize your blog posts. If you’ve started creating blog series, you can create and label at least four sections and plug your posts.

5. Create a computer file to organize your post into one document. After I have at least ten posts, I create a Word .doc file or Wordpad .txt file to list the post in, named with a potential book name. I usually start with the .txt file version of the list of posts. This way, I don’t have to be concerned about formatting. In this file, I can organize the sections I created from the blog series, earlier. Sometimes, I organize and re-organize until the flow feels right. Other times, it flows almost immediately. I simply plug in the posts into the sections and voila, I have a rough draft book.

Create a document that will become the rough draft of your book manuscript.

Don’t wait around any longer. I just laid out a simple version of how I take my blogs and turn them into books, frequently. For example, a couple of my blogs, every year or every other year, I turn the posts into a book to celebrate. I, then offer it to my readers as a gift or as an incentive gift to new readers to help raise awareness of the blog and my other theme related works. Now, it’s your time, go turn your blog into a book that you and your readers love.