By D’vorah Lansky, M.Ed., Author of Book Marketing Made Easy: Simple Strategies for Selling Your Nonfiction Book Online.
As an author, having a blog is essential to your online book marketing success. Your blog is the hub of your online world and provides you with a platform from which to share your message, sell your products, build community, house your membership site, show your videos, and share your knowledge. Create an attractive, interactive environment where people will want to visit often. Your blog is not just where people go for content; it is where they go to connect with you. With your blog, you build community, you build credibility, and you create interaction.
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| By D'Vorah Lansky |
• Use the footer section of every post to invite readers to subscribe to a special offer or follow you on a social network.
• Respond to comments! Authors who respond to comments generally get a lot more comments than those who ignore their readers.
• Use social media to promote your blog posts. Announce your new posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites. There are plugins, for WordPress for example, that allow you to automate the announcement of new blog posts to Twitter.
• Add images to your blog posts as that will engage your readers and encourage them to read through your post.
• From time to time add audio or video to your blog posts. This will captivate your audience and they will be encouraged to come back often.
• Share a sentence or two from key blog posts, in your email newsletter. Invite your audience to visit your blog to read the full article.
Your blog is a place where potential customers and publishers come to find out more about you and your book. Your blog provides you with a place to share your message and to share your work. You can have articles that you write in support of the material that you discuss in your book. You can share weekly tips or articles on the topic of your book, include audio clips from your book, as blog posts, post your interview and book tour schedules and much more.
10 Things to Blog About
1. Share an update about a recent book reading or interview you have participated in.
2. Write a post based on an idea inspired by a comment from a reader of your blog.
3. Comment on a news event and on how it relates to your field.
4. Write a how-to post.
5. Tell an entertaining and educational story, related to your topic.
6. Address common frustrations in your industry.
7. Compose a detailed, step-by-step tutorial on how to do something that your blog readers would benefit from.
8. Invite an expert in your field to share his or her insights and wisdom with your readers. Write and introduction to the article and invite comments.
9. Make a list of FAQs (frequently asked questions) that will appeal to your target audience. What are common questions people have and what are your answers?
10. Review a book on your topic area and share your opinions on what the author has to say.
Make your blog attractive and brand it with the colors of your business or your book. Display a video book trailer on the home page of your blog as that will invite people in and help them to make a connection with you.
Your blog also provides an easy way for people to purchase your book. You can sell your book directly from your site by providing a link to Amazon, as well as by offering special pricing or a special promotion for signed copies of your book.
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| D'vorah Lansky |
~D’vorah Lansky, M.Ed. and Marketing Wizard has been marketing online since 1994. She is the author of the Amazon bestseller, Book Marketing Made Easy: Simple Strategies for Selling Your Nonfiction Book Online. Visit her blog at: www.BookMarketingMadeEasy.com Get your free guide to Guest Blogging and check out D’vorah’s upcoming course on Virtual Book Tours for Authors at http://VirtualBookToursMadeEasy.com
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:
Thank you for hosting me Carolyn! I am honored and look forward to interacting with your readers.
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
D'vorah
Very interesting article. It's always good to take a minute to think about what we're doing when we use of blogs. Good suggestions!
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to comment, Nancy. It's always good to get input from a real pro like D'vorah, too! (-:
ReplyDeleteBest,
Carolyn
Great advice, D’vorah, especially the footer section tip which could be used in all blog posts including those you do for others. I like the idea of the blog being the hub - which means all of our diverse author activity could be gathered and synthesised there.
ReplyDeleteGreat tips. I'm lacking on a couple of the initial tips, like occasionally adding video or audio to my blogposts.
ReplyDeleteI think it's because I'd much rather read info than watch it. With text I can copy and paste, highlight, and reference often is it's info I find valuable.
But, there are so many people who prefer video and audio that it is something that should be incorporated into a well-rounded blog.
Thanks for sharing!
http://KarenCioffi.com
Karen, I find that I am doing so much it's a temptation not to do the little "extras" like video and podcast. One of the ways I get around that is to post a permanent (or semi permanent) video in the gadgets that blog services offer. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing!
ReplyDeleteAnd, Maggie, I agree that most of us don't think about our blogs quite this way. I'm going to reform. (-:
Best,
Carolyn
Hi Ladies,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. Karen, one reason to add audio or video is because your readers may prefer that mode, even though you prefer reading. The more ways we can provide content, the more people we'll reach. An easy way to create video is with the free program called Jing Project - great tutorials too - http://jingproject.com.
Another great program for easy, professional looking video is Animoto - http://animoto.com
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Maggie, I find that it helps to have a text file on my computer with my blog "signature file". That makes it quick and easy to cut and paste. I also keep all my published articles in a "published" folder, with sub folders by category. This has provided me with great content for courses or the framework of future books.
Here's to your book marketing success,
D'vorah