Photo by nate steiner, via Flickr

All of those are perfectly acceptable options. But what if you want to do something different? What if you look at the options above and your brain just screams, “BORING!”

I have two more options for you: binding your own books (paperback or hardcover) or writing a “blovel”—a blog novel.

Hamish MacDonald was the first person I heard about who was doing his own book binding for his novels. He currently offers four books for sale, all hand-bound by him. He also offers a series of podcasts for the DIY novelist. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Kvasir House Press is another great resource for learning bookbinding and for other information related to self publishing. The owner, Chad Muller, offers an excellent two-part tutorial on how to bind your own books. The directions are excellent, and I honestly can’t wait to try them out myself.

No Media Kings offers a great comparison of self-publishing options that includes instructions for creating your own book press and for binding your own books. Definitely worth a read, though be aware that not all of the information in the self-pub options is accurate (mainly the assertion that POD books are only sold at retail price, which is false).

The other viable option for publishing your own books is to go the ebook route. But instead of going through SmashWords or the Kindle store, why not publish your novel on a blog? Serialized novels used to be quite popular in newspapers and magazines decades ago. Why not due the same thing on your blog? With one chapter released per week (or day), it gives readers a chance to come back to your blog on a regular basis. If you pair this with releasing a print copy of your book, you’re likely to see more sales than you would otherwise. And don’t forget to put a donation button on your blog so readers can support your work!

JungleG has a wonderful post titled “Procrastinating on that novel? Write a Blovel instead.” It gives a basic outline of what their approach to a blovel would be, though there’s plenty of room for customization.

We CAN! Promote Our Books has a great article on experimenting with the whole blovel idea (this time with a YA novel written entirely in poetry).

This idea has become so popular that there’s now a site dedicated entirely to providing authors with a space to write their blovel: Blovel Spot.

I’m sure there are plenty of other unique ways authors are self publishing their books. If you know of any, please share them in the comments below.

But choosing a theme can be overwhelming (I think it took me about six weeks to decide on the theme for this site). There are thousands of themes out there. And while there are plenty of great themes, not all of them are particularly well-suited to the blogs of writers, which tend to be text-heavy and image-light.

So here is a collection of WP themes particularly suited to writers, along with links to try them out and download them. A few things most of them have in common:

• They have light backgrounds with dark text. Reading large blocks of white text against a black or other very dark background can be trying on your eyes. Since most writers want their blog visitors to spend plenty of time reading their work, a dark background can be counterproductive.
• They put the emphasis on the text. Again, you want people to read your work, not spend hours admiring your design.
• They look good even without adding tons images to every post (some require at least one image per post, especially for featured posts).

When looking for your own themes, keep these guidelines in mind. The goal is to have your work read. You don’t want to do anything that may jeopardize that.

Bold and Graphic Themes for Writers

BlogTheme

Vector Flower

Black Pearl

Curious

Notepad Chaos

Desk Mess

Wilderness

Bus Full of Hippies

Simple and Minimalist Themes for Writers

miniBlog

Typogriph

The Latest

TransGravita

Chara

Equilibrium

Oulipo

(I think this one might be my favorite on this list)

Manifest

Satorii

Undedicated

Magazeen

Notepad Theme

Brilliance

Modicus Remix

The Erudite

Pristine

Evidens White

Doc

Cypher

Mixtape

Too Newsy

Blass

Arthemia

(Arthemia is the theme used for this blog)

Photo by AMagill, via Flickr

Now, growing up I always dreamed of being a writer. I wrote and read constantly. My teachers said I had talent. I did writing workshops and summer programs. I wrote a lot of (really bad) poetry in high school, along with some short stories. In college and immediately after I wrote screenplays. I got involved in my first-ever writers group website (Zoetrope.com, run by Francis Ford Coppola’s production company, American Zoetrope, and still a great place to go for critiques if you’re a writer). I got reasonably good reviews there, too. And I even had my screenplay requested by a production company (they’d seen it on the Zoetrope site).

Then I had the most severe case of writer’s block for about five or six years. I wrote very little in that time. I made a few attempts at starting a novel but nothing really worked.

In the summer of 2006 I started looking into blogging. It seemed like a great way to get my name out there and maybe make a little money on the side. So I started a WordPress.com blog, GreenStyle Magazine (which I still have, though it’s currently on hold until I have more time to focus on it). It went well. People visited. I decided to migrate to a self-hosted WordPress blog so I could run ads on my site. I posted like crazy, sometimes posting six or eight posts in one day. I was working full time, spent two hours a day commuting to and from work, and then came home in the evenings and wrote blog posts for another two or three hours (scheduling them to go up the following day, every couple hours).

I got more traffic. I read everything I could about blogging, including how to get more traffic, how to make money, designing blog themes, linkbait, and anything else I could get my hands on. I started looking at the ProBlogger.net job boards to see if there were other blogs out there I could write for. I applied for anything that looked like it might be a fit.

And then I got lucky (no, not that kind of lucky, get your mind out of the gutter). Mashable.com was looking for bloggers. At the time, I think they were ranked somewhere around #10 or #11 on Technorati’s 100 most popular blogs list (they’re now #5). I sent off the requested information in an email. Not long after I got an email from Mashable’s founder and CEO, Pete Cashmore. He wanted a writing sample. We bounced ideas around and finally I submitted an article to them on web design tools. That article was published on July 24th, 2007. I’ve written on a semi-regular basis for Mashable ever since.

I almost landed a great job with a startup blog after I started writing for Mashable, but sadly that fell through before it even got started. I’m still hoping it might get going again someday, and that the owner of that site will still be interested in bringing me on board.

My next paid writing gig came a little more out of the blue. I was looking to do more paid blogging last fall. Since I turned to writing full time, I had the time available. So I looked through the list of the top 20 or 30 blogs on Technorati. I brainstormed some ideas for a couple of them, and went to their sites to see if they were actively seeking writers. Smashing Magazine had instructions on their site for becoming a writer for them. I submitted what they asked for and within a couple days was working on my first blog post for them. I’m now writing regularly for them, too.

I’ve also just landed my third paid blogging gig. This one happened in a completely different manner. I was contacted through this site by someone looking for articles similar to what I’ve published. My first article for them will be done next week. I don’t want to disclose who it is yet, but I’ll add the article to my portfolio as soon as it’s up.

I’ve also played around with some other paid writing sites (like Helium.com). I’ve had very little luck making money with them and treat them more like practice sites and usually only write for fun (or to add writing credits). If someone was willing to invest more time in it than I am, I can see where you could make a nice supplemental income (and hey, it’s better than slinging burgers for a part-time job).

Here are some of my tips for making money blogging:

• Start off with your own blog. You need to build up some writing credits, prove that you can do this long term, and otherwise show you know how to write. You don’t need to build this into a huge and popular blog to land jobs with some great websites. But make sure it’s professional and regularly-updated. I was blogging for nearly a year before landing my first paid gig.
• Don’t sell yourself short. I see a lot of ads for blogs looking for writers who are only paying $5 or $10 a post. Unless that post is just a quick link and a couple of sentences, it’s not worth the time. Good blogging is hard work. It’s no different than writing an article for a magazine or newspaper. Would you write a feature article for a magazine for $5? Probably not. I’ve never blogged for so little pay (well, except on my own blog. That probably averages out to more like $.25 per post). I don’t want to disclose what I get paid per post, but I’ll put it this way: if I can write four or five posts in a week, I’m doing really well (posts take me an average of 3-6 hours to write, plus another hour or two for editing sometimes).
• Write great content! This one is really important. You have to write good content if you want to make it as a blogger. While it doesn’t need to be Shakespeare, it does need to be coherent and offer up information your readers are looking for.
• Read other blogs. You need to see what others are doing and what they’re writing about. Make sure you engage with other bloggers, too.
• Use WordPress! There are a lot of free blogging programs out there. WordPress is free (whether you choose to go with a WordPress.com blog or host it on your own server). It’s easy to use. It’s incredibly powerful. And there’s a great support community, thousands of free themes you can use, and plugins to allow you to do just about anything you could dream of.

There are plenty of other things to do as a blogger, but there are entire blogs devoted to those topics. Here are a few your should read if you’re thinking of starting a blog.

• ProBlogger.net: This blog focuses mostly on how to make money with your own blog and offers up great general blogging tips. It also has an awesome job board for finding paid blogging jobs.
• Daily Blog Tips: They offer up information on a daily basis about how to be a better blogger.
• Dosh Dosh: This blog is devoted to making money online and has a ton of resources on blogging (and marketing your blog).
• Adii Rockstar: Adii is a WordPress theme designer and entrepreneur. He’s got some great info for blogging and the Internet in general.
• John Chow dot com: John Chow makes a ton of money online. Blogging is only one part of that but he offers up plenty of information on how he does it.
• Northxeast: This blog focuses entirely on creating great blog content and becoming a great blogger.

If you have additional blogging tips or other ways to make a living writing, please share them in the comments.