Guest Post: Tess Woods, author of Love at First Flight

Unshelfish extends a warm welcome to Tess Woods, author of Love at First Flight

Guest Post
Tess Woods – 60 BLOG TOPICS FOR AUTHORS

What is it with writing blogs that turns authors into jibbering wrecks? We seem to have no issue writing a one hundred thousand word book, but ask us to write three hundred words for a blog post and our legs give way!

Blogging should be easy. There are no rules for blogging and as long as you’re not malicious or inappropriate (no racist rants!), you can pretty much write about anything. Blogs can be short or long and as personal as you like. You don’t just have to write about topics related to your book either, your readers will love getting to know more about you no matter what you write about.

I hope these blogging ideas help you out for your next book release and make things easier for when you get those dreaded emails from the sites promoting your new book containing those hateful eight words “can you please write us a guest blog?”

10 OBVIOUS BLOG TOPICS

Okeydokey, so let’s start with the no-brainer blog posts. Here are ten ideas to get you started on a blog tour that are so easy to write they could write themselves.

1. What inspired the story?

2. Your journey to publication.

3. How has your experience as a published author been so far?

4. Who would you like to see play the lead roles in the movie version of your book?

5. What was your writing process like and how long did it take to write this book?

6. When did you realise you wanted to be a writer and what made you take the leap to start writing?

7. Are you a plotter or a pantster – was this particular book plotted? Did the story change from how you originally planned it?

8. What tips from your own experience can you share with aspiring writers?

9. Share your best and worst reviews and discuss how much or how little good and bad reviews affect you.

10. What do you want readers to take away from your story?

50 NOT SO OBVIOUS BLOG TOPICS

Once you’ve exhausted the easy options, here’s another fifty ideas to keep you blogging and blogging…

1. List your favourite things and talk about why you love them – food, shows, colours, things to wear, things to do, songs etc.

2. What you would take and why if you were stranded on a deserted island?

3. Share your most memorable childhood experience.

4. What was the first grown up novel you ever read and how did it shape you?

5. Which authors have most influenced you and what are the books they’ve written that you love?

6. Write your fantasy dinner party guest list.

7. If you could bring back one person from history to hang out with you for a day who would it be?

8. If you had half an hour with God how would you spend that time?

9. How much is your personality reflected in your star sign?

10. Your wedding day – all the quirky details.

11. Your most memorable holiday and why it was so amazing.

12. The one place you are dying to visit and why.

13. How you juggle writing and work or writing and being a parent.

14. Real life experiences that influenced your fictional story.

15. A list of random/funny facts about you that you haven’t shared publicly before.

16. Alternative book titles you thought about and how you ended up choosing your title.

17. How you named your characters –what process did you use to choose names?

18. How have your family/friends/work mates reacted to your book. Does anybody think it’s about them??

19. Your most embarrassing experience ever.

20. Your most epic fashion fail (include photos)!

21. The best birthday/Christmas present you ever received.

22. Take photos of your writing space, discuss your writing routine and why you like to write there.

23. Take photos of your pets and say anything you like about them – everyone goes gaga at pet photos.

24. What did you do to celebrate finishing writing your book?

25. Your first kiss – who, what, when, where, how old were you, are you still in touch?

26. What do you find the hardest about writing?

27. Share things you know now that you wish you knew before you were published.

28. Describe a typical day in your life.

29. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

30. Write your main character into a famous movie scene.

31. Write an open letter to your thirteen-year-old self.

32. What is your favourite genre to read and why?

33. Do you have another great passion apart from writing? (e.g. are you also a passionate cook?) Write about your other passions.

34. What would you do with five million dollars if you won it?

35. How do you research for your books? Is research something you hate or enjoy?

36. List the five things you love the most about the city you live in.

37. What is the best advice you were ever given both as a writer and as a person?

38. What are the ingredients of a really good story? And what kind of stories turn you off?

39. What do you do when you get writer’s block?

40. If there was to be a movie made about your life, who would play you?

41. Share the back story of how your book cover came to be.

42. Share your favourite recipe or your main character’s favourite recipe.

43. Review five of your all-time favourite movies.

44. Share ten inspirational quotes and say what they mean to you.

45. Who have been the major role models in your life and why (this could range from family members to movie stars to political figures from history).

46. Write about all the different houses you’ve lived in and share the best/worst/funniest memory from each one.

47. If you had one chance to enter a time machine, which era would you go back to and why?

48. Write any step-by-step guide for aspiring authors – e.g. how to submit to publishers or how to market your book.

49. Choose five photos from different stages of your life and caption them with a little back story of each one.

50. Do what I just did and write a list about something – anything! People love lists. True story!

About Tess Woods

Tess Woods is a health professional who lives in Perth, Australia with one husband, two children, one dog and one cat who rules over all of them. Love at First Flight is her first novel for HarperCollins. When she isn’t working or being a personal assistant to her kids, Tess enjoys reading and all kinds of grannyish pleasures like knitting, baking, drinking tea, watching Downton Abbey and tending to the veggie patch.

Find out more about Tess at her website and connect with her on Facebook and  Goodreads.

About Love at First Flight

Looking back on it now, I can see it was instant. The second we locked eyes. Boom. Just like that. The me I had spent a lifetime perfecting began its disintegration from that moment. And despite the carnage it brought to all our lives, I still don’t regret it.

What would you risk to be with the love of your life? And what if your soul mate is the one who will destroy you?

Mel is living the dream. She’s a successful GP, married to a charming anaesthetist and raising a beautiful family in their plush home in Perth. But when she boards a flight to Melbourne, she meets Matt and her picture perfect Stepford life unravels as she falls in love for the first time ever.

What begins as a flirty conversation between strangers quickly develops into a hot and obsessive affair with disastrous consequences neither Mel nor Matt could have ever seen coming. Mel’s dream life turns into her worst nightmare.

Love at First Flight will take everything you believe about what true love is and spin it on its head.