What is a blog? Put simply, it’s a series of articles designed to start conversations with people who have similar interests to you or the themes in your book. You can share information, promote events, develop your opinions and report back on your work in progress or research. Blogs can take several formats and they can even be recorded as videos - or vlogs - for YouTube.
Why write a blog to promote your book?
These are the top three reasons why writing a blog is a great idea for authors:
- Once you have an author website, a blog provides an opportunity to drive more traffic to your site. By giving your articles clear titles, they will appear in the search engine results if the phrase is used as a search query on Google. Statistics from Hubspot show that blogging every week gives you a greater chance of generating leads, and the more often you write, the greater the benefit.
- Blogs can reach a wider audience - introducing new readers to your work once they see your blog shared on social media or a platform like Medium or Reddit.
- It gives you the opportunity to practice your craft. If your writing is not flowing, writing something completely different can provide a distraction which ultimately gets you back on track with your book writing later in the day.
You can even use your blogs to develop your characters, write short stories, share poems or promote your products, if your book is part of your business marketing.
How to come up with blog ideas
If you’re struggling with what to write about, here’s how to prepare yourself for a blog planning session.
- Think about your readers. Who are they? What are their interests? What challenges do they face? What can you offer them? How will reading your blog help them? Or will it purely entertain them?
- Reflect on what you want to be known for and your values in life. Who are you? Why are you writing this type of book? What can you offer your readers? Which themes do you want to talk about regularly?
- Think about your journey as a writer and what lessons you’ve learned along the way.
- Review your diary. Check which events you’ll be attending, what the content might be and how you’ll connect with people after the event.
- Plan a list of follow-up actions - if someone reads your blog, do you want them to read another article, buy your book or another product, or contact you.
Once you’ve done the preparation, get a sheet of paper and divide it into four. Put four topics as headers in each section, then have a think about the sub-topics which would relate to those headings. Very soon you’ll have twelve topics to cover one a month. From there, you can write ideas as they come to you - but remember - you can always share poems or short stories as an alternative to opinions or factual blog posts.
Templates for your blog posts
To help you write a variety of different articles, there are some common templates you can follow.
- List - top ten reasons why authors procrastinate; eight ways to boost your energy; nine things to love about Yorkshire.
- How to guide - provide a process for how to solve a problem or learn a new skill.
- Controversial question - pose a question and answer both sides of the debate in your blog post.
- Opinion or thought leadership piece - report on something you care about, writing your thoughts down to invite discussion.
- Lessons learned - tips about an experience you’ve had and what helped you through it.
- Character development - give the back story to a particular character in your book. You can also do this with non-fiction books, creating an avatar of an ideal client or people who would benefit from reading your book.
- Chapter or story deconstruction - take an extract from a book (yours or someone else’s) and break it down, giving your opinions about the writing and style.
How to focus your writing on a blog
Here are some practical tips for your blog writing sessions:
- Have a drink before you start - water is best, but anything will help.
- Take a blank sheet in your notebook and write the first note that comes into your head - so it doesn’t stay blank for too long!
- Talk to a client or reader - preferably one who’s going to benefit from this article - or someone who will recognise the problem. If that’s not practical, draw a sketch of them and remind yourself of the things they’re facing in their day ahead.
- Extend your ideas by mapping them out on your notebook - focus on questions the reader or client might ask and your answers to them.
- Start typing subheadings to help you write the full article.
- Get going on your paragraphs - treat the blog as you would a conversation.
- Figure out your conclusion - what’s the last thing (which may be a repeat of your first point) for them to take away from your blog?
- Add a call to action - what’s the next step they could take? Buy your book is the obvious one.
- Go back and add a title for the article, using Google to help you find keywords or phrases.
Write a bank of articles in advance so that you always have material ready to go live on the Blog page of your website. Articles could also include sharing your business expertise, or extra stories about each of your book characters, your work-in-progress writing the next book, a roundup of a recent event or interview you did, or your thoughts on recent local news issues. Then you can plan a campaign, with a supporting series of social media posts, to promote your blog articles. It’s important to share them as widely as you can to grow your readership.
Looking for ways to promote your book?
Exclusive to SilverWood authors: schedule a Book Marketing Consultation with our Marketing Consultant Debra. Drop us a line here to find out more, or check out the more detailed Personalised Book Marketing Plan below.
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Personalised Book Marketing Plan
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