6 Ways Blogging Will Help You Sell Books

By Kim Dushinski - Jun 29 , 2007

Having a static website for promoting your book is simply not enough anymore. You need to do something to stand out, to build reader loyalty, and to create a network of associates who can help you sell books. Blogging is the perfect tool to help you accomplish these lofty marketing goals.

Let me give you six specific ways that being a blogger will help you sell books.

1. A blog will help you get more traffic to your website.

Because the search engines give a higher priority to sites that have frequent updates and more incoming links, you are more likely to get search engine ranking with your blog than you are your static book site. However, search engines are not even really the best traffic source for your blog – other blogs are.

By being a blogger, you join a group of people who, by definition, connect other people to resources, such as readers to your book. It is like being in a crowded room of people who are constantly introducing everyone in the room to everyone else. And there’s a steady stream of new people coming into the room all the time.

2. You will forge relationships with your blog readers who are then more likely to become readers of your book.

Let me ask you this–isn’t it much easier to sell a copy of your book to a friend than walking up to a stranger on the street? Of course it is. Well, a blog reader is like a friend, while a website visitor is like a stranger on the street. You have to give a pretty hard sales pitch to get the stranger to buy on your first meeting.

3. Your blog will help you build a community of people interested in your niche/genre.

Working in a coordinated effort with other people often yields better and easier results than a solitary person can on their own. Your blog will attract readers who will comment and interact with each other. Your blog will attract other bloggers who, in addition to being readers, could be evangelists for you. None of this happens with a static website.

4. Blogging will keep you active in your market – connected and up to date.

Since there is more frequent and regular communication through blogs than websites, you can expect to know what’s happening all the time. You’ll know the latest goings on with books and publishing deals in your genre. You’ll see the latest industry news right when it’s breaking. You’ll know who the new and influential players are.

Blogging is all about connecting. You’ll be connected.

5. Build your Share of Mind with your blog.

Michael Drew wrote a great three-part article about the PR Performance Equation. (If you haven’t read it yet, do it now. It is brilliant and explains so clearly why some book promotion efforts work and some don’t. Don’t be discouraged by the equation and sub-equations; Mike walks you through them.) Anyway, in the article he talks about Share of Mind – the ‘mental equity’ your name carries in the minds of the audience compared to the names of your competitors.

And having a bigger, better Share of Mind means you can spend less effort on your promotion and need less repetition than an author who is not a blogger (or otherwise more famous than you.)

Being a blogger increases Share of Mind. If you don’t believe me, ask Time’s Person of the Year for 2006.

6. Blogging will increase your chance of getting picked up by a publisher for your next book.

Editors actively seek out new authors in the blogosphere. If you’ve got a great blog and promote it, there is a chance you will be courted by a publisher for your next book. Failing that , you at least have the blog to add to your book proposal as an example of what you’ll do to help market and sell your book. Either way, it’s a good thing.

Here are a couple of blogs you can look at to see what’s out there–

• Non-Fiction Book Blog – Freakonomics — Notice how they have a blog and a static website – the way they’re tied together is excellent.
• Fiction Book Blog – The Lipstick Chronicles — This blog has several authors and links out to all their static websites. Well done.

Resource about Blogging – Blog Profits Blueprint – Free 50-page report about blog building. So good you won’t believe it’s free.