Kurt Vonnegut’s Eight Principles on Successful Blogging and Affiliate Marketing

I was writing an essay on 20th century American literature yesterday when I came across Bagombo Snuff Box, a collection of early magazine stories from Kurt Vonnegut, of Slaughter House-Five fame. Inserted within this short collection of stories was a list of eight rules for creative writing.

Vonnegut is one of my favorite writers and he’s spot on about most things in life. Alas, he’s too much of a Luddite to own a blog so I’m going to take the liberty of adapting his creative writing tips to the wonderful world of blogging and affiliate marketing.

Words in bold are from Kurt Vonnegut. Comments after each line are from yours truly.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

According to Vonny, this is the important point when it comes to writing. Add value for your readers by providing them with a great reading experience or by giving them free information they can use in their professional or personal life.

It’s not about under-promising and over-delivering. It’s about making sure that your audience comes away with something after visiting your website. Don’t just sell. Provide experiences that help you sell.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

Be more open about yourself. Readers can’t completely relate to your content, product or service if the author was nameless, faceless and bio-less. Fatten up your ‘About’ Page and welcome your reader. Remember, familiarity breeds comfort. And comfort leads to reader and consumer loyalty.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

You need to have an opinion or a voice. Sitting on the fence is safe but safe isn’t attractive. Declare your opinions on how you want something to be changed or different, even if your thoughts are different from many others.

Ambition and a strong authorial persona are powerful motivational magnets which attract readers and buyers.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.

Your content should reflect your authentic opinion on a topic or show more of the persona you have created for your blog. Each sentence must persuasively pre-sell the ultimate meaning or objective of your content. Write to the point and don’t meander around by wasting words on irrelevant topics.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

Write with a goal in mind. What do you want your reader to get out of the post they are reading? What is your thesis or argument? What are you trying to explain or push/sell/promote? Keeping these factors in mind makes your article and website purposeful and relevant.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

This is about building reader and customer empathy. Easiest way to do this is to share life experiences (especially the horrid ones) with others.

Creating emotional bonds with your audience is the easiest way to build a longterm relationship with your readers and a consistent consumer base.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

Don’t write in order to make everyone happy. It’s a futile effort which makes your writing feel stunted and forced. Don’t even try to manage the myriad number of different reader expectations, all of which are fickle or susceptible to change.

What Vonnegut means is that if you can just relate to one reader, you can relate to the entire world. Write in first person to evoke trust and build direct relationships with your audience. Use “yours” and “you” instead of “his” and “hers”.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Make your website as complete a resource as possible in order to encourage bookmarking, blogrolling and return visits. Don’t make your readers search elsewhere on the internet when you can easily provide one or two extra links that’ll enrich their understanding of the topic.

You want to empower them so they’ll share your vision or perspective as much as possible. This is crucial when your success is very much dependable on their level of involvement or active support.