Promotional Book Blogs – Keys To Success

Using a blog to promote your book should be an automatic step in the book promotion process and it can be a very powerful approach. However, there are some elements that you should bear in mind to make sure that it will be as effective as possible:

• Give your Blog the same title as your book: that way, when you are promoting the book via the blog or simply promoting the blog, you are still always focusing peoples attention on the key thing you want them to remember, your books title
• Use the same domain name too: for exactly the same reasons, make sure that you buy the domain containing your books name and develop your blog there. You are writing the blog on a specific subject and for a specific reason so make sure that you have a specific domain too. You’ve probably seen film companies use the same concept to great effect with websites to promote their films.
• Make sure it is linked visually with the book: take the graphics from the cover of your book and build these into your blog so that the two are instantly associated. This will really help from a branding point of view and, when someone sees the book online having visited your blog, then it will trigger their memory too.
• Make use of the layout and design: just like a general business blog, make sure that the layout and design works for you to achieve your business goals in this case, promoting your book. For example, get your newsletter sign up box and your RSS subscription logo (we recommend both) prominent on your blog to encourage signups and then use that information to grow your supporters
• Incentives and Promotions: remember that incentives work – if you’re not convinced then pick up a copy of Freakonomics and see why you should reconsider. They do! So, perhaps you can give a chapter away free as a taster, or offer an eBook which develops on some of the themes you discuss in the book. You could even go as far as Seth Godin did when he gave away his book the IdeaVirus in eBook form … this in turn catapulted the paper copy into the best sellers list!
• Use your blog marketing opportunities: just as you would do with any blog, use the mainstream blog marketing opportunities to spread the word about your book. As a starting point, comment on other relevant blogs, submit your blog to blog directories, use links and trackbacks and get your RSS feed into RSS Directories.
• Don’t forget other online and offline marketing resources: the more targeted traffic you can generate, the better so don’t forget to use other methods which will benefit you.

Of course, you need to make sure that you can deliver the content – but this should be the easy part, you are the books author after all! Take the opportunity to expand on the themes that you covered in the book, talk about adjacent areas that lead into the subject matter of your book and talk about background areas which will be of interest but which you were unable to include in the book itself.

Visit 52 ways to promote your blog for more great ways to self-promote your new book blog today.