Author Blogging for Success: Build a Community and Sell More Books!

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Author blogging is one of the best ways to connect with your readers with the added benefit of increasing your income; however, understanding what blogging is and how to use it to build your author platform can be challenging without the proper guidance.

Below we’ll break down what blogging is with insight on how to do the following:

• choose whether running a blog is right for you
• walk through the process setting up a blog
• decide on the best style for your blog
• discover ways that you can market yourself and your blog to gain readers
• learn how to convert readers into engaged customers

Whether you are looking to improve your author blog or begin a new one, you’ll find helpful links throughout this article to help you continue to build your blogging knowledge

Author Blogs—Getting Started
The Blogging Mindset
Why Blogging is Like Book Publishing
Should Fiction Authors Be Bloggers?
Finding Time for Blogging
5 Steps to Author Blogging Success
The Profit in Persistence
The Evolution of SPAM

Choosing the Style of Your Blog

When getting started with author blogging, it is important to find your blog’s style. Your blog’s style will set the tone for your reader’s overall experience, so choose carefully. You can view the style of your blog like the style of your home. You want it to be a reflection of you, but you also want your visitors to feel comfortable.

Your blog’s style could be casual and friendly where you always greet your guests with a smile, an invitation to stay awhile and something interesting to talk about. On the other hand, if you are a thought leader or expert in a particular field, your blog style could be more formal where visitors can expect to learn something new or discuss relevant topics.

Whichever type of blog style you choose, try to keep it consistent so visitors know what to expect when they drop by.

• Blog Design
• Blog Infrastructure
• Why Your Blog’s “About” Page Matters
• 8 Blogging Styles You Can Use Today
• Who Are You Blogging For?

Creating Content

So, what should you write about?

When first beginning your blog it can be useful to begin by creating some foundational posts, such as biographical posts about your background, why you write and/or your place in a particular industry.

A general FAQ posts that answers common questions your readers may have is also a great place to start. These posts are useful because they are evergreen—i.e. they will be useful to your readers now and in the future, and because these posts serve as a gateway for your readers to find your blog when they type similar questions into Google.

Once you get your foundational pages set up, creating a writing schedule and deciding on what you’ll write about is the next step.

• How to Create Foundation Posts for Your Blog
• Why You Should Be Blogging Your Origin Story
• Converting Posts into Resource Pages
• 7 Formats for Winning Blog Posts
• How to Create an Endless Stream of Blog Post Ideas
• Presenting Your Content

Finding Your Readers

Finding your readers can be a slow process, but it’s worth it if you stick with the process. Ultimately, you want to build a community around your author brand, but this doesn’t just happen. It takes planning, outreach and a willingness to be consistent, patient, and thorough.

To begin finding readers for your blog, start where your ideal reader hangs out. This could be on social media, in online and offline groups, and industry associations. The idea is to put yourself out there authentically with a willingness to share and be a part of other communities. When you’re genuine, people can feel it, and you’ll find that others are willing to support you when they feel that your intentions are good.

A few ways to participate within different communities include:

• commenting on posts of other similar blogs
• trading guests posts with other bloggers in the community
• following others on social media and adding useful comments
• give free advice when you think it will be useful

Blend into the community. Don’t just go there to get people to visit your website. People will see through the facade.

• Where Are the Readers?
• The Holy Trinity of Abundant Blog Traffic
• Top 7 Strategies for Blog Marketing
• Direct Marketing, Scottsdale Arizona, and Why a $10 Ebook Can Change Your Life

SEO for author blogging

SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is the process of raising your site’s spot on the list of Google’s search result when someone looks up a term relevant to your blog. The closer your blog is to the top of search results, the more visitors (traffic) you’re likely to get. 

Brush up on your knowledge of SEO by reading through the links below.

• Simple SEO for Authors, Part 1
• Introduction to SEO, Part 1
• Introduction to SEO, Part 2
• Keyword Basics
• SEO Writing Explained

Although the first step of this process is engaging your readers, the second (and sometimes much more difficult) step is getting your readers to comment on your posts.

In short, getting your readers to engage with your blog leads to revenue for you from ads, affiliate links, and people purchasing your book or anything else from your site. Therefore, it is incredibly important to have your readership engaged with your content.

These posts will teach you how to transform your small readership into a base of engaged fans.

• A Community Means Getting a Response
• How Do You Know Whether Your Blog is Working?
• Author Blogging 101: Listening
• How to Make Your Blog Readers Into Rabid Fans
• Writers’ Blogs: 5 Essentials for Engaging Your Readers
• Secrets of Blog Posts that Get Tons of Comments
• 22 Ways a Blog can Sell Books
• Creating Income by Recommending Resources

Putting It All Together

The principles in this article were written to help you to become successful at blogging. Author blogging is a long game, but the benefits of an author community are worth it in the end. Check out the articles I have linked below, or our Author Blogging 101 tag if you are looking for more information about author blogging.

• Do You Know How to Avoid These 3 Blogging Mistakes?
• 11 Reasons Your Blog Isn’t Working
• 3 Ways to Turn Blog Failure Into Success

Before you start blogging, make sure that your website is in order by downloading our Author Website Checklist. It gives you an easy-to-follow blueprint for getting your website set up for success.