Blogging for Authors—Lesson #3
While some might argue that blogging does not present a worthwhile activity for writers or authors, I heartily disagree, as I noted in my first post in this series. In that post I focused on three main reasons to blog—a blog provides you with a website, makes you and your work discoverable and connects you to social networks. Today, I’d like to discuss in further depth the other five+ reasons I mentioned in that post, which I feel provide writers, and especially aspiring and published authors, necessary tools for their trade. (I also wrote about one more reason writers might want to blog—earning potential—in the second post in this series.) I’ve distilled these down to four more reasons I think writers and and authors should blog.
Blog to Build Author Platform
This reason has been discuss ad nauseam in many places, including on this blog but bears repeating…again. Blogging remains one of the most effective platform-building tools, or pre-book release promotion activities, in a writer’s or author’s tool box. It’s an easy on to use because it primarily requires that you write, which you are good at. A blog makes all other forms of platform building easier. Here are just a few reasons why:
- You can share your content on social networks, thus building platform on those networks.
- You can tie your blog into social networks to encourage connections on those networks and increased fan base.
- You can use social sharing tools so other people can share your content and connect with you on social networks.
- Your content is filled with keywords with helps you and your blog become “searchable” and “discoverable” on the Internet.
- You new content gets cataloged by search engines helping you become more discoverable.
- The more discoverable you are, the more people (fans) find you and connect with you on social networks or via your blog.
A blog, all by itself, with enough readers or subscribers, serves as an author platform. Add to it a mailing list you build from loyal blog readers, and that becomes another platform element. Add to it the people that connect to you on social networks because of your great and consistent blog content, and that’s several more platform elements–all because you decided to blog.
Blog to Promote Your Book
A blog offers you an efficient way to promote your book for many of the reasons just mentioned. In particular, a platform makes post-release promotion easier and effective. however, the more you write about…
- your book
- the topic of your book
- the theme of your book
- current news that relate to your book
- anything that possibly can be related to your book
…the more discoverable you make your blog for anyone searching on the internet using related terms. And people search for everything on the internet these days, including authors and books–or just topics in which they have an interest. If they find your blog, they may also discover your book. (It should be featured on your blog.)
If you have a blog, it becomes easier to do a virtual book tour, get found by reviewers and even land interviews.
You can promote your book while you write it by blogging your book. Write your book in post-sized bits on your blog and promote it at the same time, thus creating a built-in readership for the finished product when you release it in pbook or ebook format.
Blog to Develop Expert Status
According to a recent survey conducted by Technorati.com, an aggregator of blogs, 56 percent of all bloggers in their study said their blog helped them establish a position as a thought leader within an industry. In addition, 58 percent said they are better known in their industry because of their blog.
The more you blog in a focused manner on any one topic, the higher up in the search engine results pages you and your blog will rise. When someone searching for information on a particular topic on the internet discovers that you dominate that subject area, they will consider you an expert. If they also see that you have written a book—or are writing a book, your authority level rises even higher in their eyes. (That’s why blogging a book or blogging an ebook also can work well.)
Blog to Build a Business Around Your Book
A blog provides a wonderful place to build a business around you books. Face the facts: Your book or books likely won’t make you rich. You can, however, make some additional money by creating products and services related to your books. Many authors have done this with:
- Ebooks
- Teleseminars
- Webinars
- Home-study courses
- Membership sites
- Online courses
- Consulting and coaching
If you go to my www.howtoblogabook.com site, you’ll see that in conjunction with my bestselling book, How to Blog a Book, I offer blogging and blog-to-book coaching and coaching groups through my main business site, Nina Amir, Inspiration to Creation Coach, for instance. You can find products and educational offerings, like classes and audio courses, there as well. Soon there will be a membership site as well. I also make money by speaking and consulting, not to mention by editing and critiquing writer’s manuscripts and proposals.
These days it’s very easy to create products and services if you are nonfiction writer, but even fiction writers can apply the same principles to their work by pulling out themes and subjects and blogging about them. Of course, the more you blog on these subject, the more of an expert you become. That makes it easier for you to build a business around your book.
If one or two of the reasons I’ve covered in the first three posts of this Blogging for Authors series hasn’t spoken to you, then maybe you just aren’t cut out to become a blogger as well as a writer or author. If they have, please fill out the form below to be notified when my new FREE membership site, Blogging for Authors, is up and running. It will offer you many more tips and tools to help you become a successful blogger. And watch for the next post in the series!
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