Almost every author has a blog. It hardly seems credible to claim — as I do — that the blog is the most important marketing tool for publishers and authors. Why, if it’s so important, doesn’t a blog automatically translate into sales?
It’s not magic — or how blog marketing actually works
It’s not the willingness to blog or the act of blogging that leads to success. Authors and publishers who succeed with runaway sales on their books — as proven by dozens of our own writers — are those who take a three-pronged approach to blog success (hence Web 3.0!) The proven tactics are:
• Create multiple blogs, at a minimum twelve or more, each on separate themes
• Blog daily and power-blog weekly
• Guest blog and blog tour on high-profile blogs and on social networks (Myspace, Facebook, Goodreads, Authorsden.com, and as many as you can manage).
Blogertizing, it’s a beautiful thing—no cost (other than time) and it works
Okay, I’ll come clean and admit Blogertizing is my own trademark and a book releasing to major buzz and print run in fall 08 (Blogertize: A Leading Expert Shows How Your Blog Can Be a Money-Making Machine — http://www.kunati.com/blogertize/ .) But I’ll share, step-by-step, some important quick-start top-level tips here, and invite you to visit http://www.blogertize.com throughout the year to learn more.
First — why blog at all?
Most publishers cannot commit the time to provide blogs on behalf of authors. It’s really up to authors, to empower their own success. The most a publisher can hope to do is coach the authors to develop the daily blog habit. The key reasons to blog at all:
• No cost — other than time. Most blog services are free
• Editorial-style credibility: where a website is often viewed as an online ad, a blog is more often thought of as an “E-Zine” (online magazine, for those who don’t speak web lingo)
• Google and other search engines automatically rank blogs higher than websites (in part because they own many of the free blogging services, but mostly because blogs offer “timely” and current content)
• Blogs encourage return visits, subscribers and loyalty if the following techniques are deployed
• While it makes no sense to have multiple websites, it makes plenty of sense to create multiple blogs on various themes to mine readers from different interest groups
• Since the ultimate goal is to sell books, blogs allow hundreds or thousands of opportunities to direct traffic to book pages on online stores via “inbound links” (more on this nifty concept in a moment.) Websites might offer, at most, dozens of links.
It’s all about “inbound links”
If you haven’t heard of this nifty term, make it your mantra: inbound links drive success, inbound links drive success…
Inbound links are almost the sole driver of Google Page Ranks. Google, and most search engines, rank sites based on how many quality inbound links are offered TO your site or blog. This means I, and all your other friends, associates and supporters, have to embed a link TO your site (usually in return for likewise consideration from you.) Since links are “online referrals” they weight higher than any other consideration. People visit sites — and buy books — based on referrals.
As a goal, in your first year, focus on a minimum of 6,000 inbound links. To find out how many you have now, go to Altavista.com and type in LINK:www.yourwebsite.com (substituting your website name, of course).
Google Page Ranks — the true measure of success
To measure your success, as it stands right now, install the Google Toolbar on your browser. Once installed, you’ll see the all-important Google Page Rank on the top right after you land on a page. You can get this mandatory tool here:
• http://toolbar.google.com
If it seems like I’m plugging Google, I’m not. The reality is that Google drives the internet these days. A Google Page Rank tells you all you really need to know. Now, check out your author or publisher blog and your website.
If you see a 1/10 rank or a 2/10 rank — or the all too common 0/10 rank — you now know why your blogs haven’t translated into sales. It’s unlikely you achieve much above a 3/10 or 4/10 in one year, since the rank is incremental, but this should be your minimal goal. A 4/10 rank means you’re selling books. Any less, you’re definitely missing sales.
The 6,000 inbound links I mentioned above probably translates into a 4/10 Google Rank. And a lot of books sold.
Equity and content rules in blogs and books
You’re building equity in your blogs through inbound links and page ranks. It will take months, but as your rank climbs on your various blogs, your book sales will as well. Content rules on your blogs. Talk about yourself and your book at your own risk. People want information, news, tips, commentaries — but not a synopsis of your book.
The best way to do this — and to create more and more audience subscribers — is to have multiple blogs. Since they are free on services such as http://www.blogger.com, it costs only time. For example, most books have multiple themes, whether non-fiction or fiction. For example, my current novel, MADicine (http://www.kunati.com/madicine/) has several themes that can each be turned into interesting topical blogs:
• The dangers of genetic research
• The global power of pharmaceutical giants
• The evolving dangers of super viruses (perhaps talking about bird flu, and so on)
• The stupidity of reality television
There are four blogs, to start. Add to this an “author blog” for a more “commercial” push on the novel, and there are five. Then, drill down to the smaller topics.
Editorial content is the key to success
The critical aspect of this is to write the blogs as you would an article or and editorial for a magazine. If it’s informative, researched or helpful, readers will find you through the almighty power of Google. Since the goal is daily short blogs, and a weekly “major” piece on each blog, you have to diversify:
• How-tos are popular (something like this blog topic)
• Feature stories on any of your thematic topics. I advise you too create a Google Alert for each of your keyword topics so that you’ll have daily fodder for your stories. You can set up Google alerts here: http://www.google.com/alerts)
• Snippets of other people’s news with links to the sources
• Editorials (opinion pieces, but not usually rants)
• News — for example, on “the stupidity of reality television” theme mentioned above, I might announce and review a new reality show
• Reviews of other people’s books on the theme.
Guest blogging and touring
Without question, the above techniques — thematic blogs, many of them, editorial content — will incrementally grow your sales, audience, fans, and page rank. In the meantime, you need faster results, right?
The secret to fast results in Guest blogging and blog touring. It’s simple, free, but time-consuming. The advantages include:
• Driving immediate traffic to your blogs and book pages if you embed links in your guest blog. For instance, here’s a link to the Amazon page with my novel MADicine, mentioned above: http://www.amazon.com/MADicine-Derek-Armstrong/dp/160164017X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204041923&sr=8-1
• The inbound links created improves your long-term page rank
• You can sell books instantly if you seek out the high-profile, high-traffic sites.
Unpaid freelance writing
To succeed in a Blog Tour — the most important type of author tour these days — you’ll need to query the blog owners as you would a magazine editor. The query must be valid, well-written and offer something to the blog owner’s audiences. Most blogs have a contact email for this purpose.
Finding candidate blogs is a little more involved. Search your theme’s keywords — for example, for MADicine, I’d search: pharmaceutical, genetic research, reality TV — on the popular blog engines:
• www.technorati.com/blogs
• www.blogsearch.google.com
• any of the dozens of other blog search sites.
It’s all in the page rank
Since query writing takes time, and your only payment will be publicity and inbound links, choose carefully. This is where the Google Toolbar comes in. Go to the sites referred on Technorati and Google Blogsearch, and view their page rank (top right of your browser if you installed the tool.) Include in your query list any blog with a page rank of 3/10 or greater. 3/10 might not sound like much, but it indicates a maturing site with a nice-sized audience. Each rank up from there is at least a “doubling” of rank, so 4/10 is twice the value of 3/10.
Guest blogging without permission
You can also be a guest of all the high profile blogs without asking. Comment on blogs, even the high profile ones on Variety Magazine, ForeWord Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times. To avoid being “moderated” keep your comment informative, add statistics or useful tips and bury a link to your blog at the end. Mention all your important keywords in your comment: name, book name, publisher name, ISBN, web address. Most of the time, you will not be screened out unless you overtly spam. “Nice post, visit me at www.mysite.com” is spam. If you create a thoughtful comment, you’ve created an inbound link to your site on one of the biggest blogsites on the net.
Finally, some Tips
Whether you’re guest blogging or writing for your own dozen or so blogs (which soon will have GPRs of 4/10 right?), you’ll want to keep these tips in mind:
• Keep your posts informational: news and content drives traffic and links
• Write a daily post in each blog, even if they’re short
• Write personally, in the first person. Use I, you and we.
• Work hard on your headline and be sure to include all your keywords so that audiences can find you
• Provocation helps. My most popular blog title, still going strong on several sites, was:
Are Readers and Movie-Goers Addicted to Sex and God-Killing?
• Work equally hard on perfecting your first paragraph and be sure to ask a question that must be answered
• Don’t preach or proselytize
• Be truthful, honest and sincere. You hurt yourself with any form of exaggeration.
• Write your best prose. As a writer or publisher, your writing style will be evaluated based on your blog
• Link liberally to other blogs, especially your other blogs
• If you can’t break news, provide a fresh point of view on the what’s happening
• Be chatty and conversational. Blogs are editorial, but more conversational than a magazine feature article
• Tell as story
• Be useful
• If you rant, do so with good humor and provide facts. Don’t whine
• Allow commenting on your blogs to increase your page ranks and inspire audience participation. To prevent spamming go to your blog settings and turn on moderation
• You don’t have to remove negative comments (except for racist, sexist, or rude comments) as long as they are intelligently argued. Construct a reply that is equally thoughtful and you’ve created a conversation
• Only write how-tos if you’re an expert. Otherwise, be helpful and simply point people to the experts
• Write a major feature a week on your blogs, and a daily short post. Monthly, plan on a killer post that will drive new audiences
• Use your important keywords in every post.
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