When was the last time you were a guest blogger? Most of you would have to answer this question by saying, “never.” You haven’t gone in search of blog sites related to the topic of your book, have you? You haven’t used these sites to learn more about promoting your book, to discover new promotional ideas, to make contact with folks who can help you promote your book, to discover resources to help with book promotion and you haven’t asked to be a guest blogger at these sites.
So what are you missing by neglecting this area of possibilities? Book sales, perhaps; most definitely, exposure as well as the opportunity to meet key people, learn about valuable resources and make some important connections.
Why haven’t you pursued guest blogging or even blog hopping? Because you don’t know how to go about it? Because you weren’t aware of the value in this activity? Because you didn’t consider it a priority? Well, now that you know the value of this activity, maybe you’ll make it a priority and I’m going to tell you how to go about it.
Sign up for Google Alerts at http://www.google.com/alerts or another notification service. Use keywords related to your book’s genre and topic. You can set the alerts to arrive in your email box daily, weekly or as it happens. Some of the alerts that come in are news items related to your topic(s) and some are blog posts.
This is just one way to discover blog sites where your topic or genre is being discussed. You can also do web searches using keywords, “blog” and your topic, for example.
When you discover a blog related to your topic or genre, visit it and study the posts. Read the comments and leave one. Where appropriate, ask to be interviewed or to be a guest blogger.
Once you get a gig, expand on the publicity by writing about it at your own blog site and/or by sending an email to your list. Be sure to report back to us here at the Publishing Blog, as well. Now, not only are you reaching the thousands of people who visit the original blog, all of your blog visitors/email pals are now aware and the thousand, or so, people who stop in at my blogsite every day will also learn about you and your book.
Take advantage of free promotional opportunities while they are available. You never know when they will go away. I’m sure that most of you are aware that Amazon.com is probably going to remove one of our promotional opportunities from their site—one that we’ve taken for granted for several years. Up until now, we could post reviews at other authors’ book pages at Amazon while promoting our own books through our bio at the bottom. Amazon is currently in the process of removing some of those reviews.
From what I understand, some people consider this removal process a good thing. Evidently, mean-spirited people sometimes leave negative reviews and, up until now, no matter what the victimized author did, Amazon refused to remove the reviews.
So, the lesson for authors today is, use some of the many free promotional opportunities to the fullest while they are available because you never know when they will be taken away. And, since blogging is so popular now, it’s a good place to begin.
If you are still working on your book manuscript, don’t start showing it around to publishers and certainly don’t publish it yourself until you’ve had it professionally edited. I am a freelance writer, the author of 29 books (11 of them related to writing and publishing) and I edit works for other authors. Learn more about my services and qualifications at http://www.matilijapress.com/consulting.html
How comforting it is to work with an editor who is also an expert in the field of publishing and book promotion.