Everywhere you go, the “experts” advise authors to blog. Only, others say blogging is no longer the way to go.
It makes sense to set up a blog, since, essentially, blogging is a type of marketing that you do to promote your book(s) and/or your expertise. And traditional publishers are more likely to consider you, if you have built a following and are likely to work at the promotion of your book, because they aren’t going to put much into marketing your book for you.
Jane Friedman notes, however, that blogging is easier for nonfiction writers than for fiction — she also points out that your posts can have another life in another format or within another publication. Unfortunately, she also notes that fiction writers generally gain a large readership only after their book(s) is successful while nonfiction writers can gain that readership before their book is published. It’s one reason why Friedman says that advice that blogging is a “requirement” for success is confusing.
Friedman describes blogging as online writing you do for free, or — better yet — an online content strategy where you create interesting articles, columns, interviews, etc., that get shared on social media and discovered through search.
Still, you gotta market yourself, if you want to sell your books.
Kimberly Grabas notes that “websites with blogs get 55% more traffic than websites with no blog. As well, having a blog creates fresh, additional pages of content which is great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).”
What to Do
The decision(s) you need to make includes:
- Is the idea of blogging of interest to you?
- Grabas is one who believes in short blog posts — and using relevant images — images that help make the page more interesting visually and it helps fill up the page
- Are you a fiction or nonfiction writer?
- It can make a difference in what you write about:
- Non-fiction authors can blog about their specialties — one blogger blogs book reviews and author interviews because they help connect with readers
- Fiction authors can blog about events they’re attending, new book releases, your writing process, where your ideas come from, etc.
- It can make a difference in what you write about:
- How often are you willing to blog? Can you be consistent timing-wise?
- Engage in literary conversations through writers’ Facebook groups, book launches, or weekly book club lectures
- Keep your blog on your author website!
What to Write About
A big trick for most considering blogging is what to write about. Again, Friedman has some ideas that range from easy to easy-to-medium to medium (behind the scenes) to difficult.
Friedman suggests checking out other bloggers in your field of interest. See what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and how often they blog.
Some topic ideas include:
- Exclusive, unpublished content, short stories, inside information, and downloadable extras, like sample chapters
- Your thoughts on anything you find engaging and exciting connected to your author story or journey
- Updates about your writing journey
- What you’re been reading or what you’d recommend reading
- Creates an opportunity to engage with your readers — use the blog comment section and encourage interaction between your readers by encouraging them to comment or reply to each other’s comments
- An opportunity to network with and support your peers — a great way to get inbound links — other sites linking back to your site increases your SEO
I’ve noticed that the newsletters I get from various authors usually include something about their personal life as well as information about their books — they have a new cover for a previous one, the audio edition is coming out next week, they’re almost done editing the next book up, etc.
The Benefits of Blogging
The most obvious benefit is garnering interest in your work and building an audience that is likely to buy your books. Besides make you more interesting to a traditional publisher.
On a more mercenary end, you can:
- Gather contact information (their email address, phone number, and/or name) addresses to whom you can send emails/newsletters about new books and events
- Create freebies you give out to new subscribers, such as:
- Trial subscriptions, samples, white papers, e-newsletters, and free consultations
- Create freebies you give out to new subscribers, such as:
- Promote author merchandise
- Exploit those blog posts on social media — Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, etc., to gather attention there
- Consistent blogging keeps you in front of your followers
Behind-the-Scenes in Blogging
Your article/post should be around 500 words, although longer is better. Google likes content with a substantive nature, which means higher SEO.
Social media is a better choice for a short post — quick shares, brief commentary, or short statements.
Before you start blogging, do consider:
- Your blog title must be clear about its subject matter
- If the title is your name, include a tagline that makes the subject matter clear
- Make it readable with:
- A decent size for your text with adequate space between words and paragraphs
- Ensure good contrast between the page background and the color of your text — no, do not ever use white type on a black background! And reconsider using gray!
- Make each post easy to navigate — use those heading hierarchies!
- Keep ads clear and ensure they don’t interfere with navigating the post
- Always include at least one attention-grabbing image — ideally at the top. It will be pulled and used on social media.
- Enable comments — it’s your choice whether you’ll insist on approving every comment (that spam!!) or allowing all comments but checking them frequently. Do consider allowing commenters to chat to each other.
- Active comments are a signal of engagement for search engines and thus contributes to better search ranking for your blog
- Ask a question at the end to kickstart commenting; ask people to share something specific about their knowledge or experience
- Make it easy to share your posts on social media
- Include a way to search for older posts:
- Add an archive — I separate my posts into Author Resources that is further divided into Self-editing (Word Confusions, Grammar Explanations, Properly Punctuated, Formatting, Linguistics), Writing, and Building Your Blog and my Book Reviews
- Consider including a sidebar that showcases your most popular posts
- Install Google Analytics, if you’re self-hosting.
Exploring More . . .
You may want to explore “Introduction to Book Marketing“, “Create a Custom Email Template in Apple’s Mail“, and “Create a DMG Package for Client Installs“.
The homepage for “Building Your Author Website” may also be of use.
Marketing Help & Resources is . . .
. . . what any author needs to know about promoting their work. The various social media platforms, book launches, behind-the-scenes analytics, how to use your website, why you should consider blogging, offbeat ideas,
So, yeah. You gotta market yourself if you want to sell your books.
As Marketing Help & Resources is in no way complete, I would appreciate suggestions and comments from anyone on marketing with which you struggle or on which you can contribute more understanding.
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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which website issues are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix the . . . and we’ll all benefit!
Satisfy your curiosity about other Marketing posts by exploring its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Building Your Website, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Word Confusions, and Writing Ideas and Resources.
Resources for Blogging for the Writer
Some of these links may be affiliate links, and I will earn a small percentage, if you should buy it. It does not affect the price you pay.
Bidilică, Mihaela. “How to Get Noticed as a Writer — Before and After Getting Published.” PublishDrive. 21 Mar 2024. Accessed 4 May 2024. <https://publishdrive.com/how-to-get-noticed-as-a-new-author.html>.
Friedman, Jane. “How to Start Blogging: A Definitive Guide for Authors.” Jane Friedman. 23 Apr 2020. Last updated 18 July 2023. Accessed 3 May 2024. <https://janefriedman.com/blogging-for-writers/>.
Grabas, Kimberley. “11 Author Website Must Have Elements.” Your Writing Platform. n.d. Accessed 23 May 2024. <https://yourwriterplatform.com/author-website-elements/>.
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