How to Build a Local Writing Community Online by Clarissa Southwick
[caption id="attachment_5359" align="aligncenter" width="925" caption="Idaho, home of the Gem State Writers"]
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Creating a group blog for local writers can be a great way to build a sense of community, share writing experiences, and showcase hometown talent. With a bit of planning, it can also draw a wider audience of readers, writers, and publishing professionals from around the world.
The following tips are based on our experiences launching the Gem State Writers (GSW), a successful Idaho writers’ blog. When we first started blogging, we knew our remote location gave us a unique perspective on the publishing world. With less than 1.5 million inhabitants spread over 83,557 square miles, our state offered the excitement of vast, unexplored territory and a handful of writing groups that rarely interacted. Our goal was to bring local wordsmiths together and create a blog that would be interesting to novelists everywhere.
I won’t go into the details of organizing a group blog since I’ve covered that previously. Today, I will only cover tips specific to building a local writing community:
Start with a dedicated group of talented writers. For a local blog, you want to be as inclusive as possible, reaching out to all the different writers’ groups in the area. The more diverse your writers, the larger your audience will be.
Agree on the rules before you launch. This is especially important in a group where geography may be the only thing the members have in common. Romance writers and children’s book authors may have different ideas of what’s appropriate. Rate your blog like a movie—probably G or PG---and make a list of taboo topics before you start.
Illustrate universal ideas with local details. The best articles are those that speak to all writers, wherever they live. But it’s the local details that make your blog stand out from all the rest and catch the eye of your neighbors.
Post lots of local photos. No other writing blog will have the same photos and it offers the writing community a view into your world.
Use local events as a springboard. At the Gem State Writers, we try to cover local events. If there’s a writing conference, workshop, or book signing in town, we ask the organizers and speakers to do a guest blog. But the goal here is not just to promote them. We want to provide information that is useful to all writers, local or otherwise.
Welcome the rest of the community. When it comes to guest bloggers, don’t limit yourself to local authors. Experts in any field can provide information that’s useful to writers and interesting to the general public.
We’ve had booksellers and forensic experts guest blog at the GSW. Our posts have covered rock bands, school events, and local myths and legends. These “slightly off-topic” blogs have captured the attention of our neighbors, and brought us many readers who might not have followed if we’d only been talking about character arcs and plotting.
Reach out to the world. Now that you have a truly unique group blog, backed by your local writing community, don’t be afraid to advertise it to the farthest ends of the earth—or the Internet as the case may be. You may be stunned by the depth of your audience, and the number of out-of-state authors anxious to participate.
Have you ever participated in a local writers’ group blog? If so, I would love to hear your words of advice.
[/caption]Creating a group blog for local writers can be a great way to build a sense of community, share writing experiences, and showcase hometown talent. With a bit of planning, it can also draw a wider audience of readers, writers, and publishing professionals from around the world.
The following tips are based on our experiences launching the Gem State Writers (GSW), a successful Idaho writers’ blog. When we first started blogging, we knew our remote location gave us a unique perspective on the publishing world. With less than 1.5 million inhabitants spread over 83,557 square miles, our state offered the excitement of vast, unexplored territory and a handful of writing groups that rarely interacted. Our goal was to bring local wordsmiths together and create a blog that would be interesting to novelists everywhere.
I won’t go into the details of organizing a group blog since I’ve covered that previously. Today, I will only cover tips specific to building a local writing community:
Start with a dedicated group of talented writers. For a local blog, you want to be as inclusive as possible, reaching out to all the different writers’ groups in the area. The more diverse your writers, the larger your audience will be.
Agree on the rules before you launch. This is especially important in a group where geography may be the only thing the members have in common. Romance writers and children’s book authors may have different ideas of what’s appropriate. Rate your blog like a movie—probably G or PG---and make a list of taboo topics before you start.
Illustrate universal ideas with local details. The best articles are those that speak to all writers, wherever they live. But it’s the local details that make your blog stand out from all the rest and catch the eye of your neighbors.
Post lots of local photos. No other writing blog will have the same photos and it offers the writing community a view into your world.
Use local events as a springboard. At the Gem State Writers, we try to cover local events. If there’s a writing conference, workshop, or book signing in town, we ask the organizers and speakers to do a guest blog. But the goal here is not just to promote them. We want to provide information that is useful to all writers, local or otherwise.
Welcome the rest of the community. When it comes to guest bloggers, don’t limit yourself to local authors. Experts in any field can provide information that’s useful to writers and interesting to the general public.
We’ve had booksellers and forensic experts guest blog at the GSW. Our posts have covered rock bands, school events, and local myths and legends. These “slightly off-topic” blogs have captured the attention of our neighbors, and brought us many readers who might not have followed if we’d only been talking about character arcs and plotting.
Reach out to the world. Now that you have a truly unique group blog, backed by your local writing community, don’t be afraid to advertise it to the farthest ends of the earth—or the Internet as the case may be. You may be stunned by the depth of your audience, and the number of out-of-state authors anxious to participate.
Have you ever participated in a local writers’ group blog? If so, I would love to hear your words of advice.
