Your Blog As A Promotion & Branding Tool

I am super excited to welcome Nina Amir, Inspiration to Creation Coach, who inspires people to combine their purpose and passion so they Achieve More Inspired Results. She motivates both writers and non-writers to create publishable and published products, careers as authors and to achieve their goals and fulfill their purpose.




Nina's new book
How
to Blog a Book, Write, Publish and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time is of special interest to Becca and I as we go about transforming some of the most popular blog thesauri here into books! 




Do you ever wonder if all that great content you write about each week can and should be converted into a book? If so, this is a very good resource to check out--Nina knows her stuff!









How a Blog Allows You to Promote as You Write

By
Nina Amir




Writers write. That’s what we do. That’s
what we are good at. And that’s why we balk at promoting ourselves and our
books.




We don’t do promotion. It’s not our job. It’s not what we are good at.




Here’s the rub. If we don’t promote
ourselves and our books we:




Don’t get book publishing contracts.
Don’t sell many self-published or traditionally published books.
Don’t get many freelance writing jobs.
Don’t make as much money.





That leaves you and me with a few options. If
we are stubborn, we can maintain our position: I don’t do promotion. I’m a
writer. Period.




Fine. Then ask yourself: Do I want to
become a successful writer? If so, define what success means to you.  If success means selling more than the
average 250-500 books per year or earning more than a four-figure income per
year from writing, you must change your attitude and embrace promotion.




Don’t fret! You can do so simply by writing.
You can promote yourself and your forthcoming or published book with a blog.

What
to Blog About




Yes, a blog involves a different type of
writing in addition to your other writing, but it’s writing! You simply need to
commit to writing a short blog post—250-500 words—a few times—2-5—a week. That’s
not so bad.




And there are so many things you can write
about. I came up with 20
things aspiring and published authors could blog about. Book marketing
expert John Kremer came up with 101.
Look at the topics you feel passionate about or your forthcoming and published
books and come up with a list of possible topics. Make a content plan for each
month, if that is easier for you.




Or pick a theme and stick to it. In the
process, you’ll become an authority.  You
can even do this on many topics. This will help you land more book contracts
and writing assignments—and added bonus of blogging.




The
Blog as an Author Website and Branding Tool




Still having trouble wrapping your busy writing
fingers around this concept? Consider this: Do you write morning pages? Keep a
journal? Spend time emailing friends? Blogs began as online journals. Take on
blogging as an author website where you can brand yourself by revealing the
many aspects of who you are as a writer. Connect with potential readers, let
them know more about your through your posts, and show off your awesome writing
talent for potential book, newspaper and magazine publishers. (And, of course,
feature your published works.)




Simply start your daily writing period with
30-45 minutes of blog writing. Compose a short post about whatever is on your mind
that day. You can even add in your own photos and videos easily created on your
iPhone or other android phone. Have fun with your blog. Make it a creative
statement. 





The
Blog as a Writing Machine




If this still seems like a superfluous
activity, then get down and dirty with your tactics. Use your blog as a way to
write a book. Indeed, blogging a book is the quickest and easiest way to write
your book and promote it at the same time. You’ll hardly know you are promoting
your work at all!




When you blog a book, you publish your
writing regularly and consistently on the internet as you create your first
draft. This allows you to garner a loyal following of readers—fans—for your
book as you write it. These fans then purchase the finished product. They also
help promote your blog and the book when it is published. Plus, if your blog
becomes popular, you might land a publishing deal in the process.




Here are the basic steps for blogging a
book:




Pick a topic. Choose a topic you are passionate about and can blog about for
a long time
Determine if your
book is viable. Your book idea should have a
large enough market and be unique among existing blogs and books.
Map out your book’s
content. Brainstorm all the content that could
be in included in your book and organize it a table of contents.
 Come up with a content plan. Determine what content that
will appear in the published book but not on the blog.
Break the contents down into posts-sized pieces (250-500 words). Each post should have a title. 
Write and publish posts on a schedule. Write
and publish 2-7 times per week for the first 6-12 months; then you can reduce
the number of times you post.
Create a manuscript. Write your posts in a word
processing program, and then copy and paste them into your blog.







Go ahead. Write. And blog. In the process, promote
yourself and your work by doing what you do best. 




The author of How
to Blog a Book, Write, Publish and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time , Nina has also self-published 10 short books. A sought after editor, proposal consultant, book and author coach, and blog-to-book coach, Nina’s clients’ books have sold upwards of 230,000 copies and landed deals with top publishers. 




She is the founder of Write Nonfiction in November and writes four blogs, including Write
Nonfiction NOW!, How to Blog a
Book, and As
the Spirit Moves Me. Sign up for a free author, book or blog-to-book coaching session with Nina or receive her 5-Day Published Author Training Series. You can find more about Nina at her website, or follow her on Twitter, Facebook.