Guest post by Vanessa Jones

In today’s digital age, the publishing landscape has evolved dramatically. With the rise of self-
publishing platforms and the ever-expanding reach of the internet, traditional and self-published
authors are presented with unprecedented opportunities to connect with their audience. Among
the myriad book marketing tools at their disposal, one often-overlooked gem stands out:
blogging.

A well-maintained blog can serve as a powerful marketing tool for your books. You can use your
blog to:

• announce new releases
• promote book tours/events
• share excerpts and sneak peeks
• run giveaways
• introduce fellow authors
• and more.

Setting up and regularly updating a blog can be a game-changer for authors. Here’s why:

1. Platform building

A blog serves as your virtual home on the internet, providing a platform to showcase your work
and writing, share your thoughts, and engage with your readers. It’s your space to establish
your author brand and connect with your audience on a deeper level.

2. Increasing visibility

By consistently producing valuable content on your blog, you can attract more traffic to your
website and expand your reach. ‘Blogging increases website traffic by up to 6x for companies
that actively blog.’

This increased visibility can lead to more book sales and opportunities for collaboration and
promotion.

Plus, it means you can be easily found for those all-important speaking, presenting, and
teaching opportunities, which are foundational to building your brand as an author. And with a
strong brand comes credibility, and with that comes more book sales. Which is the ultimate aim, right?

3. Establishing authority

Blogging lets you demonstrate your expertise and authority in your genre or niche. When
readers see you regularly sharing insights, tips, and behind-the-scenes glimpses into your
writing process or information about your book’s topic, they’re more likely to trust you as an
authority figure in your field.

It turns out that ‘81% of customers trust advice and information from blogs.’

4. Building relationships

Blogging is a unique way of creating and fostering a community of like-minded people who are
or will be your target audience. Meaning, the very people that buy your book and go on to tell
others to buy your book.

By responding to comments, participating in discussions, and incorporating reader feedback into your content, you can foster meaningful relationships with your readers and turn them into loyal fans and supporters.

5. Google searches

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the marketing practice of making sure your website ranks
as high as possible in Google. Ideally, you want to rank on the first page (top ten results) for
relevant keywords, as nearly 70% of people only click the first three results on Google
after they search. It’s imperative that you can be found on Google because ‘59% of shoppers
use Google to research a product they plan to buy’.

Whilst there are a number of factors that play into the puzzle that is SEO—it is reported that Google considers up to 200 different signals—having and maintaining a blog is a powerful feature of creating effective SEO. ‘71% of bloggers agree that optimizing [sic] for search engines is the best way to get more traffic to your website.’

According to SEMrush, an average of 27,000 people per month search the word “books”, and
9,900 search “Kindle books”. That’s a lot of potential readers!

6. Keep people hooked

One of the suggested factors influencing SEO is ‘time on page’, which means the amount of
time people spend on your website pages. This tells Google that your site is valuable and
important. A great way to entice people to stay on your site for longer is to create engaging
reading material in the form of blog posts.

7. Bulk out your marketing

Blogging has the bonus of being able to tie in to the rest of your marketing activities. Have you
ever sat around trying to come up with more ideas of what to post on your social media
platforms? When you regularly blog, you have additional content that adds value to your
audience.

One blog post can help create multiple social media posts by simply incorporating quotes, statistics, key points, and images.

Final thoughts: should you have an author blog?

It does take time and dedication to keep your blogging consistent. Ultimately the best reason to have an author blog is if you genuinely enjoy and want to write one, and can offer your readers something useful, entertaining, or new. There are a range of tools in the marketing kit for authors, and blogging is just one—if you do enjoy connecting with readers by putting your energy and focus into a blog, it will help keep you motivated.

If a blog is the right choice for you, there is no reason why you can’t batch your content—meaning you write a whole lot of blog posts and schedule them to be published over a period of time. If you can write a book, you can certainly write a collection of posts.

It won’t take long before you start seeing the positive results of your blogging efforts. At the very least, it will keep those writing muscles strengthened!

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Vanessa Jones is a copywriter and marketer who has worked with some of the most recognisable brands, including Pinterest, Mitsubishi Motors, Hannah Gadsby, Australian Institute of Business, Southern Cross Care, Flinders University, TAFE SA, and many more. As the former Marketing Manager of Writers SA and an author of ten books, she has a unique relationship with marketing and writers.