Blogger to Author (2)--making an interview/guest post shine

Blogger to Author is a bit of an advice column for authors with tips and suggestions about working with bloggers, blogging in general and making the most of the platform.

Am I the be all and end all of bloggers? ::snort:: Hell no. But after near 3 years of blogging I've noticed trends and methods I think can help or harm authors and their goals and wanted to put something together to hopefully create better author/blogger relations and help authors who may not be bloggers present themselves if ways that may show them off better. It's all based on interactions that have happened here on herding cats & burning soup over the years. From sending requests to guest posting and what works best on the blogger side of things with this or that. While it might not all apply to every author/blogger it will hopefully give a bit of a starting point for discussions. 

Annnnd we're back with our second Blogger to Author chat! This time it's all about guest posts and interviews. Posts that can totally charm the reader or wind up being a little bit flat. I read somewhere that the average blog visit lasts less than a minute with people deciding if they're going to stick around and read the post within 10 seconds. That's...a lot of pressure. And how you start out a post/reply to questions can have a lot to do with keeping people on that page to see what you have to say.
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I'm going to focus on those being interviewed for this post but a lot of this applies to those interviewing as well. And while I think these are good universal rules there are also, of course, exceptions to the "rules".

Jumping in...Obviously you don't want things to be flat. Just like in books...in interviews or guest posts if it's flat...it's gonna make eyes glaze over and not grab anyone's attention. You want to get people engaged, interacting and wanting to read more from you and the best way to do that is to snag their attention and make them comfortable. Where they finish the interview or guest post and instantly want to grab up the book or whatever it is because you've made such an impression on them.