How Your Blog Helps Your Books Taking Off
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A blog is one of the most valuable tools to show you and your work to readers. Your blog is part of your platform and your author brand. Your blog has endless benefits, such as higher “Search Engine Ranking” on Google, better visibility, and to separate you from mainstream writers. Blog reader surveys found that blogs are building trust, and are influencing buying decisions. Let’s have a look at the benefits of your blog and best practices:
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Write Regularly
Static websites don’t attract many new clients or customers. However, a regularly updated blog can
produce a constant stream of new readers from all around the world. Blogs have so much
influence on purchase decisions. When readers sign up they expect to be able to read new
content from you at least once or (even better) twice a week.
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What Shall I Blog You Ask?
Start with what you have already written: tiny snippets of your book, added by research findings you
found before writing. For example: you wrote a scene in your novel. Explain your readers more
about the place, the time, weather, landscape or history that are involved in the story. You can even
write about restaurants that the protagonist used to patronize: FREE, Brilliant Book Marketing
You can also re-write or spin a short chapter of your book or elaborate on the people you thanked
in your acknowledgements.
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Prequels
Use your blog to write about your next book, write one or several prequels.
A prequel can be one story or a dozen. However, it should be an irresistible preview of the book itself,
short, but with a revealing scene from the draft manuscript of the novel, and a great teaser for the
upcoming work. The author’s goal should be: to make the reader want more… It is never too early
to write a prequel. You might write it even before starting to write your book, and your blog is a great
place to do just that. However, keep it to 1,500 words max. and don’t reveal too much. It should be
only a teaser for your next book.
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Create Web Content Without Writing
No time to write? No problem! There are so many ways to create content for your blog:
Photos
Videos
Podcast
Re-blogging
Slide-Shares
Guest posts
Info-Graphics
Lists
Snippets from your book
Polls / Surveys
Curating other blog articles
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Your Blog is Your Inventory
Use it! When it comes to updating your blog, the more frequently you do so the better. Set a schedule for blogging, every Monday and Thursday, for example. Read other related blogs, comments on posts, forums or books to get ideas. And writing down your own experiences in writing or publishing and answers you found when looking for solutions.
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How to Promote Your Blog
Number one to spread the word about your blog are directories, here just a few:
http://blogs.botw.org/Arts/Literature/Publishing/
http://www.bloggeries.com/Writing_Publishing/
http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/entertainment/books/
See all 20 Blog Directories to submit your blog
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Document Sharing Sites
Scribd, a social publishing site, where millions of people share original writings and documents.
Convert your original article to a PDF file and upload it to Scribd. Unlike article directories Scribd
allows you to incorporate links within your content. You can upload anything onto Scribd as a way to
grow your audience, just like on your personal blogs. Choose copyright settings, among many
other options, making your documents most searchable. Authors are uploading e-books for sale
on Scribd, and keep 80% of the profits.
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Social Media Sites
On Google+ you can easily post your article, if it is under 500 words – if it is longer, just add a link to
the rest of the article. There are certainly more social media sites (Google+ can be conected with
Twitter, saving you time and your post is automatically tweeted). On most Social Media sites you
can add images and a link back to your website or blog. Here is an article about Social SEO
Strategies for Start-Ups. Read also why Google+ authorship is so important.
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Learn to Write for the Web
Web visitors are not reading, they are scanning text. Learn how to write for the web: lots of bullets,
headlines, sub headings, images and using the “inverted pyramid”, explained in this blog article.
Write interesting page titles that grab the attention, structure your text and write summaries at the end
of each chapter. Readers spend more time on pages with valuable information, structured and
easy to read content – and lots of links.
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Let Your Content Go Viral
There is so much you can do to let your articles and blogs go viral on the Internet. It takes a little bit
of effort, but the results in a couple of months will be rewarding. And as longer and more often you are blogging
, as easier it gets. As Robert Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad) said: “The richest people in
the world build networks. Everyone else looks for work.”
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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
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Tagged: blogging creates trust, blogging is content writing, let your blog go viral, what shall I blog, where to submit your blog, why is blogging important for writers
