Book Reviews: The Blogger Trailmap by Chivi Frost

Happy Tuesday, readers and writers! I had a doozy of a weekend. The deadline for the first feedback session in my master’s program this year was early yesterday, and I was bedridden all day Saturday with a crippling migraine. That’s for another post, though. Right now I want to talk about a fairly handy (and short) book I came across recently, The Blogger Trailmap: How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level in Easy Steps by Chivi Frost.

The Blogger Trailmap takes readers through a step-by-step guide to creating a successful blog. Whether your goal is to make money off your blog or just raise awareness for a subject you’re passionate about, Frost’s advice will help you to optimize your blog’s potential and navigate the often confusing world of SEO, affiliate marketing, and e-mail harvesting. Visual aids and free resources through zavesti.com supplement the experience and expand the book’s reach to visual and hands-on learners as well as traditional learning through reading.

I’ve read more than my fair share of blogging resources. After all, I’ve been working at building and strengthening The Writer’s Scrap Bin for over a year now. Most of them highlight the same tips for running a blog: finding a niche, posting on a regular schedule, SEO optimization, engaging with readers, etc. In that way, this book is like most other blogging resources. However, The Blogger Trailmap provides a new perspective on these well-worn topics. It is a concise guide to the marketing and personalization aspects of blogging and clearly lays out each step from launching your blog to building your community and selling physical and digital products through your blog.

The most unique element of this book is the personalized approach it advocates. Of course, almost all tips to blogging emphasize giving your blog its own identity. They all talk about choosing the right topics for your posts, creating a presence on the right social media sites, and so on. Frost, though, takes this idea a step further and recommends personalizing your blog for not just your brand but also for your audience. For example, Frost explains that if your readers are mostly senior citizens, you should make your blog easy to navigate with a slightly larger font and closely watch out for e-mails asking for helping getting around your site. This book shows that a blogger cannot just think from the writer’s perspective; they must put themselves in the reader’s shoes as well.

The most helpful part of The Blogger Trailmap, however, would have to be the visual aids and free resources scattered throughout the guide. While I learn very well through reading, I usually do better in these cases when I have a visual aid and/or some sort of template that I can use as an example and modify for my own needs. Frost seems to understand this idea very well and by teaming up with the marketing site zavesti.com, The Blogger Trailmap is able to create an experience which benefits all kinds of learners.

If you are more of a vlogger than a blogger, you can still benefit from perusing this guide. Frost oscillates between discussing things from a blogger’s—so textual—perspective and discussing things from a vlogger’s—videos and photos—view. As Frost explains, in today’s world blogging and vlogging are flip sides of the same coin and often become intermingled, so it is almost impossible to explore one without considering the other.

Overall, Chivi Frost’s The Blogger Trailmap is a very useful tool for both novice and veteran bloggers/vloggers. At only about sixty-two pages, it’s a quick read and easy to skim through after the initial read in order to find the information you need to access. While Frost recommends following each step sequentially, bloggers who are already established can find where they fall on the trail map and pick up from that point in the book without any problems. The only issue I really take with this guide is that it could use further proofreading. I noticed multiple grammatical errors, but those who aren’t already writers and/or editors might not notice them, so just proceed knowing that you may encounter these.

Youcan buy The Blogger Trailmap by ChiviFrost as an eBook on Amazon. Also make sure to check out zavesti.com for more free resources and help related to marketing, blogging, and self-publishing.

Ifyou are looking for a broader view of blogging, including snagging a domain andthe technical side of running a website, be sure to also check out Writer’s Market Deluxe Edition 2017.

Do you know of any books I should read? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com and let me know!