Blogging for Creatives: How Designers, Artists, Crafters and Writers Can Blog to Make Contacts, Win Business and Build Success

Citation

du Preez, M. (2012), "Blogging for Creatives: How Designers, Artists, Crafters and Writers Can Blog to Make Contacts, Win Business and Build Success", Online Information Review, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 931-932. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521211287972

Blogs are a form of online journals, websites consisting of time‐stamped articles organised in reverse chronology so that the visitor always sees the most recent post first. When blogging services first became available, bloggers required some knowledge of HTML to blog. Since then, blogging technology has moved very quickly and is now more accessible to anyone wishing to have a web presence. However, an interest in blogging is not necessarily enough to get started, and the large volume of information on the web about blogging also is not necessarily very helpful. This is mainly because people are often uncertain about choosing among the web resources and as a result find it difficult learning from web sources. Furthermore, they might never feel they know enough to become a blogger. It is with this need for blogging training in mind that Robin Houghton has written this book, which aims to give bloggers as much practical advice and inspiration as possible to support their developing expertise.

Each of the 13 chapters advises prospective bloggers on a different aspect of blogging. The introductory chapter focuses on explaining what blogging is. The following chapters advise bloggers on finding their niche in blogging and on determining what type of bloggers they are. Thereafter different blogging tools and technologies and their uses are introduced. This is followed by advice on setting up blogs and on creating eye‐catching blogs.

Blogs without an audience seem to be a waste of time and energy; therefore Chapter 7 advises on building up a blog readership by linking to external websites and blogs. Since the web is about people, blogs also are about being social. This implies blogs are about sharing and openness so Chapter 8 offers pointers about establishing and effectively managing a social web presence, on connecting a blog to other online social networks and on encouraging and nurturing interaction. Furthermore, the social nature of blogs also make them good tools for building public relations, monitoring blog performances and even turning blog visitors into cash. Chapters 9 to 11 describe how.

Copyright infringement is an increasing problem, so Houghton takes some time to create an awareness of legal aspects that bloggers might encounter. These include copyright and attribution, disclosure and privacy. He also spends some time in advising on how to deal with some of the key issues bloggers might confront.

Blogging for Creatives teaches prospective bloggers everything they need to know about blogging. The book is a valuable resource filled with tips, tricks and motivational stories from bloggers who have started from scratch. The book is an accessible, non‐technical guide and one the serious blogger should definitely not be without.