From Blogging to Published Author

Did you know that writing a blog is a great way to test content for a book? I discovered this by accident myself.

In 2006 I was writing a blog on a topic relating to women working at home, based on The Proverbs 31 Woman from the Old Testament. My intention was to test the Wordpress software and get familiar with it so I could offer this as a service to some of my clients. During the course of writing this blog, a journalist discovered one of my posts which was really an instruction to a leader about the use of alcohol and how it can affect judgement in rulership. There was apparently a senator at the time with a drinking problem and the journalist used my post and the Old Testament passage to support his article. Suddenly I was getting visitors by the thousands visiting my blog and they continued to visit as I continued writing.

Some of those visitors wrote comments or emailed me personally, seeking advice and direction for their lives. I had been pushed into a position of authority, backed up with my own personal experience and knowledge. When I shared with my business coach about this new activity in my life he encouraged me to consider writing a book and over the next few months he continued to encourage me and ask me how it was progressing. And then I got booked to speak at a business women's conference for 2007 and that event became the launch date for my new book. It was really going to happen!

There was still a lot of work ahead of me - the blog posts became the start of each chapter and I had to commit to writing a certain amount of words each week to meet my deadline. It wasn't just getting the book written, but it also had to be proofread and edited, I needed to find a publisher and finally get it published, but it was achieved and there is a certain amount of exhilaration in achieving something like that. Even today I can hold my book in my hands and marvel that it really did come to fruition!

So, what do you need to do if you'd like to follow this path?