For the March version of our #BBchat Twitter chat, we asked Joel Friedlander, book dressmaker, blogger, and the author of A Self-Publisher’s Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish, for his mind on how to interact with readers, construct a targeted listing of subscribers, and blog efficiently. Joel prefaced this month’s chat with a guest submits at the identical problem titled “Blogging For Authors.”
Who’s with us today? Please introduce yourself and allow the communique to begin! Thank you! Excited to be here and looking forward to your questions.
Do you encompass social media, forums, and engagement on different sites as a part of your writer platform? I use the “hub and outpost” approach to organize my social media advertising. In this method, you set up your weblog as the “Hub” and then set up outposts on the social media websites in which your readers may be determined. The point of this is to attract people you meet on social media again for your blog, where you could better interact with them. It all counts towards your “writer platform,” but those who go to your weblog are much more likely to have interaction with you, sign on on your electronic mail listing, or want to follow your paintings. Keep in mind I’m a nonfiction creator, and running a blog plays a specific function for fiction authors. If you’ve got a successful presence on one social media website, brainstorm thoughts to attract those people again on your internet site or weblog. If you technique ebook publishing as a commercial enterprise, your electronic mail listing is paramount. On the opposite hand, if you are trying to create “buzz” or locate the readers who reply to your work, they are on social media. The massive distinction is that to your weblog, and you have to do several paintings to get people to visit. In social media, they are already there, and you have to locate them.
What do authors stand to benefit from promoting traveler engagement on their weblog? Engagement strategies begin with writing content material that compels human beings to interact properly from the beginning through your comments. Further engagement is signing up for your weblog articles or your email listing. You can also get humans to interact by using walking surveys, requesting remarks on specifics like an e-book cover, or staging live occasions. For instance, I’ve used define for a WIP to solicit critiques and was given a great reaction that turned into actually beneficial to me.
For those simply starting to construct their email listing, what forms of incentives do you endorse presenting to inspire sign-ups? This all entails the know-how to use a “Call to Action” even on your weblog posts, so human beings understand HOW to engage. A survey might function the characters, term, civilization, or geographic area wherein your books are set. For fiction, a survey might be more for enjoyment. Best tip for starting bloggers: work on basic content first. That’s fundamental content approximately your field that’s now not going to trade—for example, terminology, description of procedures, that sort of thing. When I started my blog, I wrote a number of this article. Some of them are large generators of site visitors through search. It would help if you certainly had an incentive for human beings to join up. Your email incentive should preferably qualify the people entering your list, considering who those human beings are.
How do you discover the keywords associated with your area of interest to apply for your blog posts? There are several gears for keyword research, but my favorites are both from Google (they ought to know key phrases, right?) The main tool is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. It’s interior Adwords, but it’s free to enroll in, and it can come up with masses of perception. For instance, I observed that the keyword “publishing an e-book” had a 50% greater extent than “submit an ebook.” Who knew? The other “tool” I use is Google Predictive Search. That’s what indicates up when you start typing stuff into the search bar. Also, while you search on Google, scroll all of the ways to the lowest and take a look at the “associated searches” for extra keyword ideas.
Do you have got any SEO tips or tools to share with those who are unfamiliar? Twitter chats are remarkable if you can locate an appropriate one. I use Hootsuite to arrange my Twitter streams and posting; it’s a terrific tool. I use both AWeber and MailChimp for my electronic mail. I’ve been with AWeber for 6 years and propose them. Many authors don’t have any idea of SEO. Consequently, their articles can be terrific but don’t rank nicely with Google. A clever approach is to research your keywords, then write every article around simply one of these keywords. Make certain your keyword is in your headline if possible. However, it ought to be in the first paragraph for certain. Tags are just like the index on your weblog: classes are like chapters in a book. Every email you ship must have a call to action, and maximum weblog posts, too. There are many ways to try this. Categories and tags additionally help a whole lot of you are using your weblog for blogging a book. They make the company rational.
Why shouldn’t authors weblog approximately their book? What do you suggest instead? Another precise query, and one we’ve touched on. Write about your situation, don’t write about your book. For example, I commenced my blog writing about the way to create and publish books. Now, I can without difficulty put up books on this subject. Related posts plugins make the experience, and I’ve used them in the past. If you acquire a readership on the subject, humans might be happy when you inform them you’re publishing an e-book at the difficulty. The goal is to establish your authority, agree with, and likability, and a blog is best for that. There are masses of overlap because you’re writing about one subject matter often. I actually have 1500+ articles on my weblog. Lots of overlap!
Do you recommend doing visitor posting on different blogs associated with your niche? What are the blessings of doing so?
Guest posting is a wonderful manner to grow the readership of your weblog. However, it does take paintings. If your weblog is new, studies the pinnacle 10 blogs on your discipline, the human beings who have the readership you need. These top blogs have already executed what you are attempting to do, and on the proper occasions, will “mortgage you the microphone.” Start with bloggers who’re your peers, and as you get higher at it, maintain aiming better. Bloggers love visitor articles that enchant their readers and make certain to stick around to respond to reader comments. When I started, I did a ton of visitor blogging to stimulate traffic to my weblog. Guess what? It worked!
What varieties of content/stories carry out nice in blog form for your revel in? I’ve seen some human beings get desirable consequences through posting the start of a piece of writing on Facebook, with a link to the whole article. Still, the maximum popular sort of article is a list of “The top 7 stuff you need to recognize about . . . ” Part of developing a hit blog is studying a way to gift your content material to the first-class impact. For instance, you would possibly want to go returned and upload bullet lists, numbered lists, block rates, and subheads to make it extra attractive. Other popular publish sorts are Q & A posts, product/ebook evaluations, news about new merchandise, and offerings. Also, the controversy will stimulate visitors. Boldly country an unpopular role, for instance, and watch what takes place. Link posts, where you curate content material for your readers, are also very famous when considering that they store readers the time doing it themselves. Social media websites like Facebook are remarkable for finding your readers: bring them to your blog to engage with them.
Everyone is short on time, so what number of words in line with day/week do you recommend writing? This is a hard one. Some weblog posts are quick, like 2 hundred-three hundred phrases (product opinions, as an example). Mine tend to run 1,000 words. Why do I write posts which are 1,000 phrases? I don’t realize. However, that’s where the articles appear to want to quit. It would help if you discovered what’s right for you and your situation and your readers. If you need to develop your readership, I recommend you publish at least two times a week. Three instances every week is higher. Basically, the extra you publish, the more traffic you may entice, but with one condition: the condition is that you need to marketplace your blog. Most authors are completely ignorant of this, unluckily. Maybe find a weekend wherein you can write some, then agenda them in the future. Set up your hub and outpost so that your blog feed (RSS) populates the websites you operate most. My weblog feed goes to Twitter, Facebook, my Amazon Author Page.
What are a few ways to overcome creator’s block and accelerate the content material writing process? Okay, this query is proper up my alley, and the answer for me became unfastened-writing. Do what this is? Free-writing is writing speedy, to a spark off, for a fixed time frame. You don’t prevent writing until the bell is going off. Free-writing will build your writing muscle quicker than something else, I realize. Write quicker than you observed. In, unfastened writing we supply ourselves permission to write junk as it’s all first draft fabric. I spent 2 years unfastened writing each day earlier than I started my blog. In the first 2 years, I posted 6 times per week! I’m running on a path on free-writing for authors proper now, and I wish to have it out with the aid of the quiet of the 12 months. Keep in mind that a weblog is a media website online: you could launch information, do interviews, and offer plenty of other content material for your readers. If you think about it, blogging and self-publishing are truely facets of the identical coin. In each blogging and self-publishing, we take over the publishing system on our personal with no gatekeepers. That’s one of the motives I suppose self-publishers need to take to blogging, specifically nonfiction authors, clearly. In fact, at this point, it appears that evidently, almost each nonfiction writer absolutely needs to have a blog. Fiction authors might be capable of use a creator page or a few book landing pages for their books. Don’t forget about the Call to Action! For every motion, there ought to be a response.
