31 Recent Blogging Insights

From a blogging seminar and Writer's Digest article:

1. Be extremely specific/niche. Find what's not already published on Amazon.

2. Blog about what you love.

3. If you need to make money off it, find a topic where "Something You Love" meets "Something People Will Pay For." You may love to write about your cat and the cutesy things he does. But will people pay for it? (I think this is one of the most overlooked insights in people trying to make money with their blog. It's not just, "blog every day with quality content." You've got to ask if you're putting out information that people are willing to pay for in some fashion.)

4. Break up copy with bold headlines, subheads, etc.

5. Have several beginnings of posts on your blog home page, where they can click for more.

6. Headline Tips:

• Be Concise
• Use full names of people and places
• Include key words and phrases
• Include story details.
  

7. Choose your own domain name, cheap from godaddy.com.

8. Link back to earlier posts = 2 page views.

9. Ask for input - engage your audience!

10. To build a following, post every day for 30 days, then 2 - 3 x per week.

11. Comment on other blogs and track back.

12. Wordpress Direct (wpdirect.com) is search engine optimization on steroids.

13. Set up supporting blogs that link back to your main blog.

14. Reciprocal linking is suspect to Google - looks like an arrangement.

15. Try www.hootsuite.com to manage several of your social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) at once.

16. Pre-populate your tweets and blogs to save hours.

17. People and search engines love "Top Ten," "How to..." and Videos.

18. Embed the video on your blog rather than just link to youtube.

19. Put your blog address on the video.

20. Try live streaming free at ustream.com, to connect with people in real time.

21. Monetize with e-books. The blog is the jumping off point.

22. Monetize with "Donate" button. "If anything I've written helped you, donate now." Just set up a merchant account with PayPal and embed the code.

23. One person with an airline insider weekly e-mail asks readers to donate once a year. It's enough to make a living. The average donation is $50 per month. He works at it full time.

24. Monetize with premium resources. So you have lots of free resources available, which lets them know you do quality stuff. Then you sell e-books or a members only section.

25. Monetize by being an Amazon Associate. When you recommend a book, you have a link to Amazon. If someone buys, you get a cut.

26. Monetize by selling ads. But you have to have a lot of traffic to make it work. You might do better approaching a compatible company than just going with Google Ads.

27. Approach other blogs with posts they could use. That gives you links coming back. Some successful bloggers get most of their traffic from other blogs.

28. Write guest posts for another blog or publication. One blogger writes a monthly column for her state's main newspaper. It gives her respect and brings people in.

29. Use 1.5 spacing. More inviting.

30. Go to Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends) to find hot topics and hot searches. Other sources of trends = Technorati, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit.

31. Submit appropriate posts to article marketing directories such as http://ezinearticles.com/ or http://www.associatedcontent.com/.

32. Do clear calls to action: "Sign up for my newsletter," "Buy my book."

"Blogging is just like networking - the one with the most friends wins!"
"We need 1,000 eyeballs looking at our writing!"

Networking Miracle

Get out there. Keep meeting new people. Take an interest by asking what they do. Offer your assistance or help. It's called networking, and there's something very mysterious about it.

So last night I almost skipped a networking event - a local alumni gathering for the university my wife attended. But I went because I always seem to meet someone I need to meet at these type meetings. Also, they offer free food.

So the first few people I met were interesting, nice, and I felt like I was able to encourage or offer some direction in their pursuits. We exchanged business cards. It's always fun to be useful to someone.

The fourth and last person I met was a financial planner, so we naturally hit it off - my latest book is on personal finances. He mentioned that he was raising two boys, trying to help them toward independence, so I mentioned that getting my own 7 boys independent inspired my recent research and writing. Finally, I offered him a free copy, thinking he might find it useful. And, who knows, he might could recommend it to clients or when he teaches seminars or something.

So he says, "Hey, my wife works with a textbook distributor to schools. I'll let her see it."

I thought, "A textbook distributor to schools? A TEXTBOOK DISTRIBUTOR TO SCHOOLS!!!"

It just happens that my top marketing goal for this year is to figure out how to get my book into schools. I don't have a distributor to schools. I need one.

This is so bizarre that it almost defies imagination. On the way home, after giving him a copy (always, always, keep copies of your books in your car), I looked at all the lights of stores in Kennesaw and thought, "Out of the 30,000 people in Kennesaw, Georgia tonight, what are the odds that one of them works for a book distributor to schools? And what are the odds that I would meet that person's husband at a random event that had nothing to do with book marketing, and that the meeting would occur in the very month I was prioritizing marketing to schools?"

Coincidence? Because of my faith, I have to believe that this was a God thing. As someone once said, "a coincidence is when God works a miracle and decides to remain anonymous."

On the other hand, there tends to be a human part in miracles - someone prays, someone is out helping the needy, then God shows up. Networking gurus would say that miracles tend to happen more around people who are out there doing something, rather than to people who are sitting on the couch eating nachos and watching TV.

Whatever you make of this, I think it pays to get out there and meet people. I help them; they help me. That's when miracles happen.

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books."
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html

On Marketing and Social Media: "Go Where People Are Already Gathered"

This concept, found in a Ning book marketing discussion, caused me to question the conventional wisdom on both social networking and book signings. An author was relating what was working for her. Rather than trying to gather a bunch of people to talk to them about her books (like traditional book signings), she chose to talk to civic groups and other pre-existing meetings that already had followings and publicized their own events.

When I did a recent book signing, I had to publicize the event, e-mail folks, etc. About 10 people came and I sold several books. Perhaps more will sell since I left some at the place of business to try to sell. But that was a lot of time and effort to try to draw a crowd and sell a few books.

Yet, there are many civic organizations and universities that have budgets to bring in speakers. They'd probably pay me something and allow me to sell books in the back afterwards. They already have loyal attendees and they do all the publicity. They gather the crowd and I just show up to speak. That sounds like a great use of my time.

Applying "Go Where the Crowd is Already Gathered" to Web-Based Social Networking

This makes sense and perhaps has application to our use of social media to get the word out about our books.

It seems to me that since social media (and the experts I read) is a "social" thing, where there should be ongoing discussions between people, that any marketing strategy involving Twitter, Facebook and a personal blog would be a pretty time consuming task. I'd not only put out information regularly (perhaps daily?), but would additionally follow others who follow me (time reading) and occasionally comment on their comments. And over time, that may or may not pay off in sales.

In a timeless world, where I could continually add things to my schedule, trying to gather a following would be a no-brainer. It's another way to start conversations about my book, gain a following, etc. But in a time-limited world, I have to think of this versus other ways to get the word out.

Now this goes against the prevailing wisdom of some of the marketing people I read. Feel free to reply if you think my reasoning is off.

Applying This to Writing a Newsletter

According to most marketing gurus I read, we should prioritize collecting e-mail addresses and sending out a regular newsletter. I understand the benefits of this and believe that for an author who has both the time and the passion for it, this can be a good thing.

On the other hand, sending out a quality e-mail can take lots of time and effort. And the newsletter can't likely promote your book every issue, so will the number of resulting sales be worth the effort, if your primary reason for starting it is to sell books? (I publish two quarterly newsletters, but they're not primarily to market my books. If that were my sole intention, I probably wouldn't publish them.)

Applying the "go where the people are already gathered" principle to newsletters, consider contributing to other people's successful newsletters. I just sent a post on a successful networking experience I had to John Kremer, one of the most respected names in book publishing. No telling how many people receive his regular e-letter or follow his blog. But he's putting my article on his blog, linking to it from his newsletter, and putting a link back to my site. All these people will then know something about my book.

Book marketing gurus like Kremer, Poynter and Jud probably each have many, many more people than I could ever gather for a newsletter. By helping them with their newsletters, I expose all of their lists to my books. And what about all the newsletters out there that target family life, personal finances, etc. I could keep myself busy for a year getting publicity through just newsletters!


Applying This to Writing a Column

Some publicists recommend that I try writing a column for a newspaper on my topic. Hey, it gets me out there, helps build a following, and who knows, I just might get syndicated and appear in newspapers around the country!

But writing a great column takes loads of time. And with all the competition out there, what are the odds that I'd win out over all the MBA's in professional writing who are pushing to write the same column?

And even if I win at this game and write a popular column that's syndicated, I can't talk about my book very much, or I become irritating.

I got to thinking about this problem, so I visited the Amazon pages of books written by some of the most popular syndicated personal finance columnists in major newspapers. Their Amazon rankings were 328,000, 612,000 and 353,000. That compares to my Amazon ranking of 132,000! That means that I'm selling many more books than these popular columnists (at least on Amazon). Perhaps it's because I'm going to places that people are already gathered, and each time I go (unlike a financial columnist), I can talk about my book, or at least put it with my signature.

Applying this to social networking, one person on Ning said that she has Google Alerts set up to alert her when anybody's writing on her topic. She clicks through to the the articles or blogs or online newspapers, reads the articles, comments and adds to the discussion, then signs it with her name and a link to her book on Amazon. She said that whenever she does this, she notes an increase in sales. I tried it yesterday with two comments, one on a newspaper and one on a blog. The person replied to the blog, "Thanks for the comment. I look forward to reading your book." Hmmm...that was a pretty quick return. And I didn't irritate anyone. And I didn't have to wait a year to gather a following. And I didn't have to spend many, many hours writing unique, informative blogs.

This blogger was delighted that I commented on his blog. (Bloggers live for positive comments, assuring them know that people are actually reading their stuff.)

This applies the "go where people are already gathered" concept to social media. Rather than spending my days trying to attract a Twitter and Blog and Facebook following that may or may not be interested in my book, a strategy that just might annoy my "friends" if I keep bringing up my book, why not simply go to the blogs and online media outlets that are already discussing my topic and join in the discussion? I get links back from many significant sites. And for the ones that don't allow links back (like many major newspapers), just sign it with your name and the name of the book.

So, regarding social networking, I'm concentrating on "going where the people are already gathered" rather than "trying to gather people". In a timeless world, I could do both. But the tick-tick of my wall clock reminds me that each second has a period after it. I've got to concentrate my limited time on the most likely payoffs.

Your thoughts?

Is Twitter and Blogging Worth an Author's Time?

A recent blog by the CEO of Thomas Nelson (Michael Hyatt) recommended that almost anyone could build a platform with social networking:

"But today, by starting a blog and making use of tools social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, you can build a big platform with little more that the investment of your creativity and time. I’m not saying it is easy, but I am saying it is within reach. (By the way, I consider my blog to be my “homebase” and Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, etc., to be “outposts.”)"

I think that this can be true in some cases, but I'd like to know some hard data on how many authors actually start off as "nobodies" and successfully build a platform that sells books by these social networking tools, even if they put a lot of time into it and do it right.

Don't get me wrong. I'm blogging and I tweet. And I'm sure that many sales have been made through authors Twittering. But that doesn't mean it's for everybody. In my opinion, we need to question the prevailing wisdom that promises all authors that they can build strong platforms through twittering and blogging.

Here are some of my reasons:

1) It appears to me that the ones who build a platform with Twitter, Blogging, etc., are often special cases.

a) Some were already famous (already had a platform) and thus many people wanted to follow them. The president of Thomas Nelson is a prime example. It's a great way to expand his platform, since many people already look to him as a thought leader. I and many others care what the CEO of Thomas Nelson says about publishing. A comparatively minuscule group cares about what I say about publishing. With limited time to read, if we were publishing about the same subject (I'm actually blogging about a different niche than Nelson), would you rather follow Hyatt or Miller?

b) Some do well because they're blogging about themes attractive to bloggers. Someone who becomes a thought leader in blogging or social networking in general will build a following because so many of the people interested in their thoughts search and redistribute blog posts and link back. Also, people need to subscribe to these thought leaders because the industry is developing so quickly. People want to know the latest ideas in fast-moving industries. The same can be true of the publishing industry, which is experiencing such a revolution. But with so many thought leaders out there in these areas, good luck becoming one of the top leaders!

Let's say you're a young writer, hoping to get published. Publishers keep telling you, "I like your writing, but you have no platform! We don't think we can market your book, since you have no platform." So someone advises you, "Go start a blog and start twittering and build yourself a platform!"

So, what will you blog about? Thousands of authors are blogging about their writing experiences. What's unique about your blog that would make people follow you? If you can't answer that question, lower your expectations about getting a following.

2) I don't see any hard data about what percentage of writers achieve significant sales by blogging and tweeting. (If you know any hard data, please let me know!) Sure, I hear many stories of people who made a great contact or made a great sale, but we can't conclude from these success stories that anybody can succeed by replicating what they did. I think it's called "success bias" - we hear the stories of the successes but don't hear from those who worked hard at blogging and reaped nothing. Thus, we assume that it should work for anyone.

Let's imagine that we collect 50 stories of authors who made significant contacts and sales while riding trains. Does that mean all authors should start riding trains? Hardly. Similarly, tell me 50 stories of people who are selling a lot of books through their blogs and I've still got to ask questions such as:

• "Why are they doing well through blogs?
  
• Are these people like me, starting with no significant platform?
  
• Are they targeting a niche subject that they've become a recognized expert in?
  
• Do they put hours a day into blogging, twittering and commenting on other blogs?"
• Can I easily replicate what they're doing with their blogs?

3) My track record of sales through Twitter and my blogs has been, well, underwhelming. I think I've achieved approximately 0 sales so far through those efforts. (I've sold many through review articles in newspapers, etc.) (For an article by a person with much more blogging experience than me, echoing my experience, see the article, "Why Blogging Won't Sell My Books." The author concludes: "In terms of visitors received and books sold for the time I put in writing, blogging is the worst return on investment I get."

4) A marketing professional reported dismal results. In a recent article , a twitter marketer, who tracks what happens to his tweets that he sends to his 55,000 followers, reported that his potential sales were rather dismal:

"Now, 6% of them are all I can get to click on a link, and I must assume that if I have anything I wanted to sell to these folks, I would be lucky to sell 6% of them (using 6% as my new social-networking constant). That gives me almost 0.4% from my total “mailing list” of followers, which is about one-fifth of what you get from any real-world direct-marketing effort. This is hardly a revolution in marketing. But it might be what you can expect from the average social-network marketing schemes. And it isn’t much."

5) Blogging and Twittering experts say you have to blog and twitter very often to attract a following. Do we really have that kind of time? A responder to the above article said,

"Three or Four Tweets a day will do absolutely no good. You have to do 30 tweets a day. The life expectancy of a tweet is less than 15 minutes. You need to have a network of twitter accounts that can get your message to over 500K users - not one single account."

So let's see, that means I Twitter something every 30 minutes of my 16 waking hours.

Similarly, I've heard that if you really want to build a following on your blog, you should blog about seven times per day.

That's a huge time investment! So this morning I took a son to school, planned for supper, got my 103-year-old granny up and took her for a doctor visit. I'm raising 7 boys, the flowers in the front yard need watering, I'm setting up a book signing, sending books to reviewers, planning articles to send to magazines. My main business is running an educational resources organization. I need to read more, exercise more, write more books, write more articles about my books, set up more signings, pray more, and water the dying flowers in my front yard. And someone's saying a good use of my time is to put up 7 meaty, relevant blogs each day and twitter every 30 minutes!

None of us have unlimited time. I own an older copy of Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Now with web-based social networking, let's make that 1002 ways. So if I'm blogging and twittering all day, when will I find time for some of the other 1001 marketing tools?

The Bottom Line

I blog about once a week for several reasons: 1) I blog about matters that I will later write books about. 2) Blogs are great ways to get out important information. 3) Blogs can help establish me as an expert in a field, leading to speaking opportunities, a platform, etc. 4) My blogs store important information that I want to refer back to later. 5) My blogs are part of a small web of links from my sites, blogs and other social networking sites - helping me to raise my search engine rankings for my books on Amazon.

I twitter to let people know I've published a new blog or link them to important articles. I'll twitter something once every few days.

Will I ever sell any books through these efforts? Perhaps. But I see them more as parts of my online presence that will pay off in the long-run, since I'm using them for several purposes, not just sales.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start a Blog Campaign

So someone's told you that, in order to sell your books, you should start blogging to build your following. Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

1) Does the topic of your blog lend itself to bloggers? If your topic isn't a passionate one among a significant niche of people, then don't expect regular readers.

2) What's your competition? So you're an unknown who's writing your first mystery and you start a blog about writing mysteries. How many other mystery writers already have blogs? Why would people follow your blog rather than the writing professors with blogs and the famous mystery writers with blogs? What are you offering that people can't get better somewhere else?

3) Do you enjoy blogging? Would you do it even if it didn't result in many sales? Life's too short to invest a lot of time doing something you hate.

4) Do you have the time to pursue it? I justify posting a blog about every other week. I know that this isn't frequent enough to get a big following, but there are only so many minutes to go around. Additionally, I honestly don't have enough to say of significance on my topic to post more often. To add more posts would be to add fluff.

5) Are you prepared to do the research and writing it takes to become a true expert (thought leader) in your field? If you don't plan to become a thought leader, fine. If you aspire to being a thought leader, you don't get there by posting what you ate for breakfast. You'll need to keep abreast of the top books and periodicals in your field, reading the the most respected bloggers in your field and interacting with them. You don't become a trusted expert by proclaiming yourself a trusted expert. You earn that trust by putting out consistently accurate, helpful, thought-provoking posts. That takes research. That takes a passion for your field. That takes time.

6) Are you already a recognized expert? If not, it may take a lot more than establishing a meaty blog to establish yourself. Most of these folks (recognized experts) seem to speak widely and establish themselves in other ways besides just blogging.

7) How intimately tied to your book is the topic of your blog? My character education site has thousands of subscribers and attracts from 500 to 600 visitors per day. But sending them an e-mail about my book on personal money management provoked very little interest. The fact is, few of my subscribers are teaching personal money management.

So you're writing a mystery and your blog is about writing mysteries, which attracts other mystery writers. Even if you get a steady following of 100 people, or even 1000 fellow-authors who are interested in writing mysteries, how many of them will actually want to purchase your mystery? Probably some, but is it worth the vast amount of time it takes to gain that following?

8) Where do you want to be within the next 5 or 10 years? Does your blog fit into that picture? If, beyond selling books, you see yourself pulling together your blog posts to publish books, or using your blog to show a school that you're the right person for teaching that writing class, then blogging may be for you. If you see it as a quick fix to sell some books, you'll likely be disappointed.

9) Have you defined your expectations for your blog? If you expect hordes of people to start buying your book, simply because of your blog, you've probably got the wrong expectation. Choose one of Kremers other 1001 ways to market your book. First, if you constantly blog about your book, people won't follow you. They'll see you as advertising rather than informing. Second, blogging seems to be more about helping people and establishing relationships than directly selling products. Sure, the resulting relationships can result in setting up a speaking engagement that sells books, but define those expectations beforehand.

In Sum...

With my present state on knowledge, I'd advise authors to blog if they enjoy blogging, have enough time to blog, and have other reasons to blog besides just selling books. If you don't already have a platform and don't relish blogging regularly, don't just gut it out to try to get sales. There are probably other things you could do that would have a faster and more likely payoff.

What do you think? (Feel free to post your thoughts.)