I attended the California Writer’s Club Self-Publishing conference in Fremont, CA yesterday and heard a couple of people talk about the importance of blogging to promote a book. I learned a lot at the conference, so wanted to share some of the goodies.
1. Frequency! Blog 2-3X/wk for one year to establish your audience. It’s hard to find readers, so you need a sustained effort. Readers expect frequent updates, so don’t disappoint them. It’s hard to get readers and easy to lose them.
2. Use keywords! It turns out that Google provides free access to the most commonly used keywords. Just search on “Google keyword tool” and you’ll get to a page in Google Adwords that let’s you enter a search term and the tool provides a count as to the most likely searched terms. Very cool!
3. Attract Readers! Joel Friedlander of www.thebookdesigner.com (Joel has a popular blog, so check it out!) provided his tips:
- Provide irresistible content: Solve problems, provide unique, engaging or memorable content, and use great headlines.
- Search magnetism: Use keywords to attract search engines.
- Networking for success: Allow guest posts, or provide information for events & product launches.
4. Blogging Conferences! Yup, there are conferences just for bloggers. The one I heard mentioned was Blogworld Expo. It looks like the next event will be held in January 2013 in Las Vegas, NV.
5. Test Marketing! Blogs are a way to test market a book. If a blog attracts readers, then a book by the same author should also attract readers. The opposite is also true.
6. Books to/from Blogs. I learned two new expressions “blogging a book” and “booking a blog.” The first expressions refers to blogging about a published works to attract readers to the works. The second expression refers to using a blog as a basis for a book. Books and blogs are sometimes co-dependents to attract a reader base.
7. Blogging Platform. WordPress and Blogger were mentioned as popular blogging platforms. This blog uses www.Wordpress.com. WordPress is really easy to use and it only took me a couple of hours to setup and get started. It’s also free!
I hope that you enjoyed the tips!
kelleytjansson 