After the success that Julie Powell had writing a blog as she cooked all the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook, there has been an increase in attention from mainstream publishers looking to make blogs into books. Quite a few people have taken their blogs and turned them into successful books. And, many people have taken their books and increased their sales by blogging about one or more of the topics in their book.

I'd like to start with the idea of setting out from the beginning to Blog a Book. Before you begin your blog you can set the stage for success by following some proven tips and tactics. I will address how to blog an already published or written book, and how to turn an existing blog into a book in future articles.

First and foremost you want to establish that there are a large number of readers looking for the topic that you want to blog about. The best way to do this is to use Google.com and search for your topic. Look to see if there are books listed in the search results, or other blogs. Are there a lot of articles, or article websites that have your chosen topic covered? If so, you probably have a viable topic.

The next step would be to use a free keyword tool, (do a Google search for this) and see what volume of monthly searches are done on your topic. You want your topic to have at least 10,000 monthly searches.

The next step is to use a mind map, a spreadsheet, or a word document to list out all the different aspects of your topic that you want to cover. Start with the main topics as headings. Once you have them all written down, go back and list out smaller topics or tips under each heading.

This process will show you where you have gaps in your ideas. Once you can see where you have a lot of ideas for topics and subtopics as well as where you need to fill more in, you can begin to round out your topic by filling in all the gaps.

Once you fill in the holes you will have taken a lot of the stress out of developing a regular writing routine.

Next, sit down and count the topics as well as how many subtopics are in each one.

For example, my old cat lover's blog had 12 main topics and 10 to 15 subtopics for each one. I multiplied my 12 main topics by 15 to see what the maximum number of subtopics I had. 12 x 15 = 180. So I knew I had a minimum of 180 blog posts I could write. This was my basic frame to work from.

Once you know your own figures you can then take them and organize them into chapters and content inside of each chapter for your book. Now you have a basic blueprint to follow as you begin your blog.

By following a blueprint like this you will know how many blog posts you need to write each week to have your topic covered in time to release your book. You will also be able to determine if you will write once a week or multiple times a week.

A good rule of thumb is to publish three blog posts a week, if your schedule allows. If it doesn't, make sure you are publishing at least one blog post a week.

The last area to cover is your content. If you want to have a publisher publish your blog into a book, then you will have to have at least 20% of the content held back and not published on your public blog. However, if you want to self-publish your book, then you can post all the content to your blog first.

Watching readers feedback as you blog will also help you to see what your readers are enjoying and what they are not interested in. You can add and subtract content as readers give you feedback to mold your book to your ideal audience which will increase your book sales.

Happy creating!

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