such as how many followers and readers the author has, what the author platform presence includes, where and how the author shows up in person, the possibility of video or audio, and how many followers they have in each venue. The reason publishers ask us to find writers who have an established audience applies equally to self-published authors: It’s purely business. The larger the established audience, the better it’s ensured that when the book is published, there will be buyers.
Authors expand readership by consistently increasing their own presence through blogs, then showing up in comments and contributions on others’ networks. When I find you, a potential author to present to a publisher, I expand your audience by plugging you into our agency following, and then with the publisher who has their own following, and then with the bookstore buyers who have large book buyer databases. By starting a blog, you automatically begin to expand your reach by tapping into the reach of others; by commenting on others’ blogs and exchanging guest blog posts, you expand your reach even further.
Side Note: Over decades I’ve searched for and found many hundreds of author clients online now signed to book contracts, proof that publishing contracts can and do appear “out of the blue” for subject matter experts who can write and have an established audience. By following the 14 steps in building your author platform outlined in these pages, you are putting yourself in a position to become the next author discovery.
Blogging Is Beyond an Advantage, It’s Essential
Recent surveys of book blog readers indicate that over half of all buyers buy books primarily based on the influence of the authors’ blogs! Consider the power of doubling your own audience, that is, those who pay attention to author web journals, by connecting to who you are, your behind-the-scenes thoughts and preferences, what you think and feel, why you’re a writer or subject matter expert, and the value add you are bringing to them. A major advantage to your blog, then, is the sheer fact of writing it, giving the inside scoop on you as the leading force of your book and opening the door to dialogue through comment boxes.
It’s a fact that businesses that blog get more web visitors and interest than businesses that don’t. Blogs create a loyal community of users that leads to higher sales, and businesses with blogs attain 20% more business than businesses that do not.
The Edelweiss searchable catalog created by Mark Evans at edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com correlates book mentions on blogs with point-of-sale information and ranks the results. The correlation between blogs and increased book sales is dramatic.
Once you’ve created your author website as described in Chapter 1, the most important task facing you is defining your blogging strategy and execution. Your author blog, created well, is the single best promotion avenue to supercharge sales of your books.
In the first decade of my publishing career as an editor for two major publishing houses, I believed that idea is king and that every move should be predicated on just the integrity of ideas. It took more than a decade for the reality of the book industry to catch up with my awareness; publishing is an industry that creates a product like any other business. This was a blow to realize, and I have seen authors with great ideas get shocked that their book did not get published, or that once published, did not become an instant top seller! I’m hoping this awareness will boost your own author career: A book is merchandise in the form of bound pages and a glossy cover, with a price tag, and must sell in large quantities to be successful.
Your author blog jump-starts the proving ground: that is, the existence of your readership community; the readers who comment who are likely to buy your book and tell their friends about how great your book is; and the potential numbers in your expanded network of those who will buy your book. And just as a crowded restaurant looks more attractive than an empty one, community starts taking off on its own once it reaches a threshold size. In today’s chaotic publishing climate, with increasing numbers of books being traditionally published and self-published, authors must attract a community, and maintaining a blog creates an important place to do it.
Here’s a basic all-purpose author blog strategy to get started:
1 Start your hosted blog, following the steps in this chapter.
2 Choose a blog type from the list in the next section to suit your subject matter interest and expertise.
3 Commit to a blog schedule and stick to it. Do not stop. Daily blogging is excellent, but twice or even once a week is fine as long as you are consistent.
4 Encourage comments and respond to every single comment and question, the same day if you can. For us, our morning coffee is the optimum time for audience interaction.
5 Ask guest bloggers for added posts and become a guest blogger for others.
6 Promote your blog. Link your blog to every personal and web presence you have: sites, social networks, training, speaking, etc. Post your blog URL on your business card and in your email signature line.
There is a tremendous freedom in blogging in that you make every decision about what you want to blog about and you can use any format under the sun. That said, tremendous freedom can and does bring tremendous chaos. Create a method of organizing your blog and your blogging at the outset. Just as chapters organize a book, posts organize your blog and present best in a format similar to consecutive articles in a published journal. Whatever method you choose, be consistent with your formatting and the level of your interactivity.
Three types of blogs are used by most of our author clients or are used in combination:
Blog as “DVD extras.” Movie DVDs carry a lot of extras: outtakes, directors’ cuts, deleted scenes, that is, everything behind the scenes. The same goes for author blogs: Many of our author clients use this leading blog format to keep audience interest. The very successful blog by Waterside author David Meerman Scott can be found at webinknow.com. David’s blog, titled Web Ink Now, is ranked in AdAge Power 150 as one of the top marketing blogs, a combination of topics that his readers are interested in that does not directly promote his book. Waterside client Bill Evans also uses the DVD extra–type format for his blog at billevansbanjo.com/blog. Note that both of these blogs speak to audience interests in an interesting, consistent, and short format with accompanying visuals.
For fiction authors, the outtake is a great format for behind-the-scenes looks at the books and movies you like with accompanying reviews, information about your characters, plots, locations, and themes of your books. Or print a segment of your book on your blog and add comments along the lines of directors’ cuts on DVDs. Mine your own database for original sources of writing you’ve done to post in your blog: letters, diaries, random observations, poems, or travel observations.
Blog as Question & Answer Forum. This format is the definite winner in terms of blog type, used by successful authors, in nonfiction and also in fiction. The Q&A format can be used not only to teach how-to’s and skills but also has the benefit of reaching behind the scenes for readers to ask and find out the inspiration for a story, how the writing process works, what inspires a writer, etc. The Q&A
