Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Blogging for Authors is a non-fiction instructional text written by Barb Drozdowich. The author is a book blogger and a consultant specializing in WordPress and social media. Her book is designed to guide authors through just about every phase of the blogging process. She doesn't make any assumptions about the technical savvy of her readers and begins with a basic definition of what blogging actually is and how blogging can help an author build up and maintain a motivated readership for his/her books. She demystifies terms such as Branding, Keywords, Analytics and Tags, and she outlines the essential steps in creating a blog post. Drozdowich builds WordPress sites for authors, and she discusses the different options in WordPress as well as some of the other blogging platforms, and sets out the pros and cons of each. She also discusses site maintenance, backups, automation options, affiliate programs, and copy writing. Drozdowich includes a Technical Help appendix that includes an extensive collection of links to instructional videos for WordPress, Amazon's Affiliate Program, and management of visuals in your blog. Also included is a detailed guide to customizing the WordPress dashboard.

Barb Drozdowich's non-fiction instructional writing/publishing text, Blogging for Authors, is an invaluable guide for authors and anyone considering blogging. While she suggests that some of the material may be a bit basic for some readers, I found something new and useful in just about every section of her book, and I consider myself to be relatively tech-savvy. This is a book to read through, start setting up bookmarks on your laptop as you read, and then settle in to get working with at your leisure. It's packed with information designed to get your blog up and running, fine-tune an existing blog, or to help you decide if you want to seek some assistance in any step of the process. Even if you are in the latter category, this book helps you understand what you want in a blogging site as well as how to use it. Many will consider that the setup process is best left for those intrigued by the technical aspect, but Drozdowich provides ample instruction and links to videos to delight those, like myself, who relish the challenge of learning new tech tricks.

I loved reading this book, set up some marvelous bookmarks, and happily subscribed to the author's YouTube channel which is filled with Technical Help videos. I was so impressed with the tools, knowledge, and guidance I found in this well-written and easily accessible text. Blogging for Authors is most highly recommended for tech-savvy and non-tech authors and bloggers alike.