The big trend lately is effective blogging and that’s a topic many authors who write romances are unable to grasp. We tend to deal in hard fiction, as it were and thus we tend to spout off on whatever random topic seems to come to mind without throwing a care to SEO or the mechanics of Google ranking. Worse yet, we tend to talk about things that don’t really matter as they don’t forward our career.
The problem with this is that it may show us having versatile interests; it doesn’t always draw attention to our platforms. When we speak of author platforms, we’re really trying to show how diverse our writing abilities are in a manner that does one of a 
few things. Either our blogs need to reflect our writing style as an extension of our brand, or they need to show more depth of who we are as authors.
So many blogs I’ve seen do little to help the author. Yes, in some instances we’re trying to strike controversy but does that help us? Take it from the KING of bad publicity (gay fish, anyone?) when I blog about my favorite oral fetishes on some romance blog, even if my language is appropriate for that blog, all I’m really doing is capitalizing on the short lived success of controversy. When I discuss cross dressing on my own blog though there is more relevance there due to my varied writing in erotic romance.
Be clear about our content. Ask yourself about the voice of the blog you’re writing for. Is it fun? It is quirky? Is it serious? Does it require a modicum of professionalism? Tailor your voice to suit that of the blog. On the Midnight Seductions Authors blogs for example, I tend to write about the process of writing from the standpoint of an established author. I have been writing longer than any other author in our blog aside from some of our guests. I have a lot of sage advice to offer.
Examine what topics you’re blogging on and why. When I put out a post on cross dressing, my point at the time was to use SEO tactics in hopes of capturing some traffic for affiliate marketing. I targeted that post to the few blogs I appear on where it’s appropriate.
Spend some actual time learning the delicate yet simple art of SEO. In this case I’m going to suggest you target your blogs to sites with a ton of traffic as I’ve learned from Student4Ever and a few others that back links from sites with a lot of traffic give Google the impression that you’re an expert. Learn proper link placement. It doesn’t make sense to use my name as a keyword. Nobody’s going to search for Sascha Illyvich the author, my analytical tools prove this. Sure I get hits based on that but it’s usually when I’ve said something of value.
These days blogging is still a needed form of promotion. Perhaps I'll cover that in later posts but right now I'm down from post con exhaustion, and I still have one more trade show to do!
Thanks for the advice! I've been debating on doing a personal Blog or not, and this gives me more to think about.
ReplyDeletehugs, Kari Thomas, www.authorkari.com
Yes, it helps to have a plan when you post.
ReplyDeleteMorgan Mandel
Interesting. I think it's good advice, largely. I only blog two places for the most part--both 'as writer networking with other writers' and approach it as myself, making friends and getting to know people. It seems to work, but then... I am still pre-published.
ReplyDeleteI DO have guest bloggers with some regularity though, and I KNOW the posts that are most successful are the people who've gotten to know the place and really talk to my readers. it's a play place, largely, and anyone coming in too serious is seen as 'dull', I think.
Good advice. I will try to keep it in mind when I'm posting on my own blog at http://katheryn-lane.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteThank you
Katheryn
Interesting take on blogging. I see blogging as more of a networking opportunity I guess than as actually reaching readers. I think that realistically, any blog with followers can expect 1% of them to amount to actual sales (maybe has high as 10%) but that's the ceiling. Your talk on tailoring your blog to a certain voice I think is geared toward mostly finding readers to buy your stuff, right? But does that actually work? I dunno. I haven't seen any facts backing any of this up and I want cold hard facts and numbers. I say just blog what you want to blog about and that allows people who visit to get to know you as a person so that you can network with them. More than nine times out of ten they won't buy anything you write anyway. However, they can help you market someday.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteyeah it does actually work provided you A: have something of value to say and B: are interesting and C: do your SEO. You wouldn't believe the number of stupid blogs I've seen by authors who just don't get it. Example: My traditional audience does think my kilt is hot but many of them are NOT into my cross dressing. So a post about my lingerie shopping habits may get them on the fact that I'm marketing to women anyway (and who doesn't like lingerie?) OR I might alienate my readers by weirding them out.
Remember, the blog is just one aspect of promotion as a writer.
Btw this advice all comes from the Adult word where competition is FIERCE. Those guys DO make bank from their blogs and it's NOT just because it's adult content.
Very good points. I've been blogging about random topics simply hoping for traffic and then book sales. I'll certainly be rethinking my strategy now.
ReplyDeleteThere's the rub but it'll be interesting to see what I come up with.