Help! Which Blog Series Do You Want To See Me Write?

I don’t really do “blog series”, but I’ve had a few ideas stewing in the back of my mind that I think would make for good short series. But I need your help! Read and vote, my friends, on which series of posts you think you’d enjoy most on my blog over the next few months:

1. Out of Time Series “spoiler” series.

The books are out. The series is complete. Is it too early for a “spoiler” series? In this series, I’d take a lot of reader questions and answer them in blog posts about each book. I’d also share why I did some of the things I did, what directed the story certain ways, etcetera.

What do you think? Sound interesting? Or is that boring? (It’s okay if it is.)

2. Book marketing series

For this, I would have one to two posts a month on book marketing. I have SO MANY THOUGHTS on marketing and would love to share them, but only if you want them. Some things I would cover:

  • Newsletter tips
  • Garnering reviews for your books
  • Social Media balancing/marketing (Instagram, Twitter, FB, etc.)
  • How to throw Facebook parties
  • Street teams / Launch teams

Obviously this blog series would be a bit more targeted toward writers, so it wouldn’t be every week. I would space these posts out to one or two per month as I do with all of my author/writing-related posts. Thoughts?

3. Bookish talk and reading recommendations.

We’re all bookworms and we get slightly rabid sharing our book recommendations (can I get an amen?) Authors are not excluded from this. So I was thinking of a short blog series covering my favorite recommended books from certain genres. Posts like “My top 10 favorite YA series recommendations” or “My top 10 fantasy recommendations” or “My top 10 sci-fi recommendations” or “My top 10 time travel recommendations”, you get the picture.

blog post series book recommendations bookshelf

But I know this has the potential to tip over your already towering TBR pile. Still…thoughts?

4. Personal story series

This would be a series just sharing stories fro my life. (Hopefully not boring ones.) I’ve been realizing how wild of a life I’ve lived and, even though I do the Adventuring Author posts, those tap into the small amount of adventures I have during the current year.

These personal stories could be anything from something fun (the day I found the key to a secret library) to something deeper (spiritual growth in college) to something pretty much everyone can relate to (when I tried to get my driver’s license…in a stick shift. On icy roads.) to my personal writer’s journey (when I attended my first writing conference) to something comical (when my family left 8-year-old me behind in Wyoming…we lived in California) to…you get the picture.

 

I need your vote.

You only get to vote once, so make it count. 😉 If the poll isn’t working for you, then just comment below with your top choice! (You can include your second choice if you want. 😉 )


Okay, so tell me…which one are you most interested in and WHY? 

Have a different idea for a blog series that you want to see? TELL ME BELOW. I will give you Oreos.

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About Nadine Brandes

NADINE BRANDES once spent four days as a sea cook in the name of book research. She is the author of the award-winning ROMANOV, FAWKES, and the Out of Time Series. Her inner fangirl perks up at the mention of soul-talk, Quidditch, bookstagram, and Oreos. When she's not busy writing novels about bold living, she's adventuring through Middle Earth or taste-testing a new chai. She and her Auror husband are building a Tiny House on wheels with their Halfling children. Current mission: paint the world in shalom.
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48 Comments

  1. I’d love a marketing series! I mean, all of them would be cool. But since I’m starting to publish myself, I’d love to know all the things you’ve learned about marketing and such. 😀

  2. Personally stories sound like they’d be heaps cool!! (I’d love to hear about 8year-old you left behind in Wyoming :P)

  3. Oh GRACIOUS you made it hard to choose! But I voted for a book marketing series (mostly because I’m trying to learn more marketing strategies, since I’m going to try and get my book published in 2018) – though a book recommendation series is my second choice 😉 .

  4. Personal stories, yeah! I love when you tell stories about little (or not so little) Nadine. You make them so fun. 🙂

    The book marketing series is a close second, though.

    Honestly, all of these are nice, but I feel like I could get the “book recommendations” one on any book blog, you know? Obviously not your spin on it, but that’s why I picked the one that ONLY YOU can do. If that makes sense. 😛

  5. I vote for personal stories! It’d be awesome to hear some of the stories that led you to this point in your life, not to mention how fun it is to see God’s hand at work through the years! 🙂

  6. Oooh, I’d love to read the book marketing series! It’s something I always struggle with. 🙂 My second choice would probably be bookish talk, because I loooove talking about books and reading others’ thoughts on them. The spoiler one sounds really awesome, but I haven’t gotten to read all of the books yet, since I can’t buy A Time to Speak yet. 🙂

    • Thank you for sharing your preferences! That is super helpful. And I’ll be sure to do the marketing series at some point (it’ll just happen sooner if it wins all the votes! 😛 )

  7. Can I pick three? 🙂 If I could, I’d choose the Out of Time spoiler series and the marketing series AND the personal stories series. But I couldn’t, so I chose the Out of Time spoiler series because A. It’s awesome, and B. I’d love to know “why I did some of the things I did, what directed the story certain ways, etcetera.” Sounds fascinating. I love learning how different authors create their stories.

    But I also want tips on marketing and personal stories, so… 🙂

  8. There are umpteen-thousand book marketing advice blogs on the web … yours might be better and more interesting, but I’m not sure it’s necessary …? And while personal stories would be fun, fun, fun … I need book recommendations. And since I trust your taste, that would be most helpful to me. Since you asked. ^_^

  9. All of them! These are fantastic ideas! And I like the picture you included. 🙂
    But definitely Spoiler Chats.
    Or definitely Bookish Talks.
    Or—you get the idea.

  10. As a writer myself, book marketing from someone like you seems the most beneficial, followed by book recommendations.

  11. All of them! ?

  12. Emileigh Latham

    Honestly, I would love you to do ALL of them.

  13. Oh these are all such good ideas, mostly a toss up between the last two options oh and also the first, ahh. Book recommendations are good, but life stories can be so fun to hear and inspiring and I’d love to hear you answering more out of time questions, and marketing could be interesting but not so relevant for me atm.

  14. Veronica Lynn

    Too many wonderful choices! After narrowing down the choice #2 and choice #4, I left it up to The Fates and decided with the flip of a coin.
    Personal Stories won the day! 🙂

  15. Brenda Paulsen

    I would love to learn more about you.

  16. I’m with those who vote for all of them. Just do them one after the other LOL. AHEM so I would love advice on book marketing, mainly because I have seen that you are successful, and though there are other marketing blogs out there, it’s actually really nice to ‘know’ the author who is writing the marketing advice, to know their work, their success, their specific genre and honestly, there are few and far between christian authors offering marketing advice to the CHRISTIAN MARKET. There’s general advice all over the place. I’m sure most advice is applicable to all markets….but still. 🙂 2ND CHOICE OUT OF TIME SPOILERS would be super awesome! I love digging deeper into behind the scenes of book series.

    • I know what you mean! I always appreciate the marketing blogs from authors I follow and get to observe on a more day-to-day basis. And you’re right–there’s a difference between just marketing and marketing as a Christian to readers of Christian fiction (as well as General Market readers.)

  17. Why, oh why are you making me choose? So many of these sound like something I’d want to see!
    I need book recommendations right now, but I’d also really like to see personal stories… And Out of Time spoilers… Wot. YES.

  18. Polaris Northstar

    Number 1) Marketing (because total necessity), and 2) book recommendations (because who does not love watching fan-girl all over books?!?). But seriously, Marketing IS TOTALLY #1!!!!! =D

  19. Why must you make me choose?? *sobs because decisions are hard for an indecisive decision maker* All are excellent ideas, my dear dancing delight, and I hope you won’t discard the other blog topics because another gets voted in instead. They’re all too good to pass up!

  20. The mysteries of marketing, if you please! But a pinch and dash of the other topics sprinkled in would be GROOVY

  21. I love the idea for book recommendations… that’s my favorite thing to talk about! I voted for that. Although the personal stories would be fun, too, that would be my second choice. 🙂

    I just started reading “A Time to Die” and I’m about 25% through it. I just found out about you the other day. I LOVE books, so I was trying to find some new book blogs to read to find some new books to read, etc… long story short, I read a recent post on My Lady Bibliophile’s blog about how excited she was to find your books… so I checked out your website, and ended up buying A Time to Die.

    And it’s fantastic so far!

    • I, too, love talking books and recommendations! 😀 And I’m THRILLED you’re reading A Time to Die! Hurray! Thank you, my friend! You must tell me what you think when you finish it! *points to “contact” button in the top right corner.* 😛

  22. Hannah Gaudette

    OOO . . . Definitely the marketing series!! 🙂

  23. Rebecca Morgan

    I would love a blog series on bookworm recommendations and personal short stories. 🙂

  24. I agree with Faithsong and others, each of these series would be wonderful to see! I did end up choosing Book Marketing, because I really need help and advice in that area. But your personal short stories would be fun to read too. (finding a key to a secret library? Must know more!) 🙂

I love hearing from you!