7 Reasons The Almighty Blog Is A Vital Weapon For Every Author’s Arsenal
As an author, you have an enormous number of marketing tools at your disposal, all of which can help you connect with your audience, build your personal or business brand, and ultimately, share your creative talent with the world. In this ever-changing digital age, one medium has risen above the rest when it comes to impact and accessibility: the blog. Whether you consider yourself a professional author or an aspiring writer, it’s in your best interest to create, maintain, and market your very own blog. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits that await you.
Display Your Writing Abilities
Writing is in your blood, or at least your job description. Either way, you must be pretty good at it if you’ve decided to write a book. Blogs equip you with a platform to display your writing genius. Blogging consistently provides your potential audience the chance to enjoy your unique writing style, voice, and storytelling skills. Think of it as a hook that turns potential readers into fans of your work, which in turn helps you position yourself to sell your current book and any other book you may write in the future. Put your best work forward via your blog and show your audience why they’ll love your writing.
2. Engage Your Audience
Your readers are an integral part of your journey as an author. Make it your goal to communicate with them as much and as early as possible. Your blog is an excellent opportunity to interact with readers. Cherish the opportunity to engage with them in the comments. Answer questions, respond to comments, even host a discussion regarding specific aspects of your book that you’d like more feedback on, like your book’s cover, characters, or plot. When used correctly, it’s the chance to elicit useful feedback from people who are already interested in what you have to say, as opposed to attempting to do so on social media, where people are more interested in socializing than reading. You have the ability to develop the comments section of your blog into a mutually beneficial conversation with readers who will become loyal fans who are invested in your work.
3. Build Your Platform
Authors often hear about the importance of building an author platform, and blogs are an integral part of this endeavor. A well-maintained blog with a consistent posting schedule can serve as the hub of an author's online presence. Your blog can be easily linked to social media accounts, author websites, and book listings, thus increasing visibility and credibility in the literary world. Every author is different.
The value you bring will be unique to the stories you tell, the way you tell them, and how you wish to deliver your message. There are millions of blogs out there, but don’t let that discourage you. There’s an audience out there for every author. There’s a Facebook group of over a million people who pretend to be ants in an ant colony. TRUST ME, you can definitely find your audience.
4. Transcend Time and Space
Well, not really, but kind of. Blogs have no geographical constraints. You can reach readers all across the globe from the comfort of your living room. Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques empower authors to attract organic traffic to their blogs from readers all over the world, thus expanding your reach. Blogs are still the most popular form of content on the internet. There’s a global conversation happening with or without you. When you choose to get in on it, everyone’s better for it.
5. Illustrate Your Expertise
No one knows more about your subject matter than you. Okay, maybe that’s not completely accurate, but that doesn’t really matter. You possess information your audience wants. Your blog is a way to supply the information people are searching for. No PhD required. Add value to your audience by writing about what they care about from your unique perspective. Using your blog to discuss topics that resonate with your audience provides you credibility. You become an authority on your genre. Plus, it adds depth to your brand as a writer and helps you captivate readers who share your interests.
6. Promote Your Book and Strengthen Sales
Maybe you’re in the camp of writers who HATE book marketing. You’re in it for the art, not the sales. I truly applaud you, but…it would be nice to sell books. By all means, use your blog to engage and attract readers to your creative work, but the only way to get them to read your book is if they know it exists. Anna David said it best, “If no one reads your book, you’ve written a journal.”
No one will be more passionate about your book than you. Don’t leave your book’s marketing solely in the hands of someone who doesn’t know it like you do. Use your blog to announce your book release, share sneak peeks, offer exclusive content to subscribers, and offer giveaways. Blogs are an effective way to boost sales and create a buzz around your creative work.
7. Improve Your Writing Skills
You’ve probably heard it said before, but writers should write every day. Consistently writing blog posts further develops your writing skills. The discipline of regularly producing content while incorporating the feedback received from readers can lead to ongoing improvement in writing quality, storytelling techniques, and editing abilities.
In an age where digital presence reigns supreme, a blog is an essential tool for you as an author. It offers a plethora of benefits, from showcasing writing skills and engaging with readers to building an author platform and expanding reach. Blogging not only helps you connect with your audience but also fosters personal growth.
If you're an author or an aspiring writer who desires the benefits of having a blog, but has neither the time nor desire to write one yourself, consider hiring a ghostwriter. It may sound spooky, but a ghost writer is simply someone who writes copy for another individual who is named the author. A really great ghost writer is masterful at writing in the author’s voice and style so that the reader has absolutely no idea it wasn’t penned, or typed, by the named author. It happens more than you think. And guess what? I happen to know a gal. If you’re interested in learning more about blogging and ghostwriting visit www.thekingdomcopy.com or email me at kristen@thekingdomcopy.com – it might just be the key to unlocking your literary success.
