Writing for Your Wealth

I’ve talked a bit about using a blog to make money through advertising and affiliate programs, since that’s how I make my living, but what if you’re an author trying to sell a book? Can a blog help you?

Of course!

A blog can be your personal sales machine, selling your book while you sleep. Sure, you can still go to those local book signings, hoping against hope that someone will show up so you don’t feel silly all by yourself behind the stack, but the Internet means you can sell your book without getting out of your pajamas (I suppose you could go to a book signing without getting out of your pajamas, too, but it might be harder to pass yourself off as an authority in that setting).

Here’s the strategy:

Start a grown-up professional blog. Just to set the record straight, a professional blog does not…

• reside on LiveJournal, Blogger, or any other freebie blog hosting service (read this if you don’t know why).

• talk about the funny thing your cat did last night.
• moan about your struggles with the writing process.
• look like an ongoing conversation with your writer friends.
• let people know they can contact you at wordjedi273@gmail.com.
• tell everyone who you think is going to win this season’s Survivor.

You may laugh, but I’ve seen all of these! There’s nothing like a goofy email address to destroy someone’s authority figure facade.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that this blog isn’t about you and your life–it’s about your readers’ wants and problems and how you can help.

Yes, it’s okay to share stories and anecdotes from your personal life, but they should serve a purpose (make a point, share information related to your niche, help people understand why your book may be a good match for them, etc.).

Your professional blog should cover the same topics as your book does. It’s job is to…

• attract your target audience.

• provide information and advice.
• establish yourself as the right kind of expert.
• get visitors to sign up for your mailing list.

That was a tad terse, wasn’t it? Let’s go over how these blog goals will help you sell your book.

How a blog works to attract your target book-buying audience

When you wrote your book, you probably had a target audience in mind. You knew just what kind of people would be most helped by reading your book. Maybe it’s people who need to lose weight. Maybe it’s people who want to learn to draw. Maybe it’s people with dogs that are chewing the legs off their chairs even as they browse the Internet…

These people have problems, and your book can help. Unfortunately, until you start your blog and start posting helpful advice for them, there is little chance of them finding you and your book.

However, once you start posting articles, your audience will be able to search for terms related to your niche and find your blog entries. You want your target audience to find you through the search engines, because that means they were out there actively looking for the kind of information you provide. They didn’t randomly stumble upon your site. They are exactly the people you want to reach (and sell to!).

Remember, you don’t want to attract everyone to your blog–you just want the people who are right for your book.

Use your blog to provide information and give advice

Okay, you’re into the idea of attracting your target audience, and you’re willing to write some blog posts to get them, but how much should you really be giving away for free? Should you be holding back the good stuff?

If you’re trying to sell a book that teaches people how to buy land and build a home from scratch, you may find it strange to write articles that tell people how to do those things on your blog. After all, when you’re trying to sell the cow, you don’t give away the milk for free, right?

Or do you?

If you give away a lot of quality information for free, people tend to assume the stuff you’re charging for is even better.

Also, people buy books for their permanence. Books can be taken on the road, dragged around the house, read in the hot tub, loaned to friends, etc. There are a lot of people who will buy the book just to make sure they always have access to the information you’ve written. You can dig around five years later and find them if you need to reference them. Good luck finding an article on the Internet you read five years ago.

If you’re still worried that people won’t buy your book after you’ve written dozens or even hundreds of blog posts on your niche, then you can take the stance that information marketers do: give them the what-to-do information for free and charge them for the how-to-do-it knowledge.

Use your blog to establish yourself as the right kind of expert

On its own, publishing a book lends you a great deal of authority. Even when you self-publish, there is the assumption that if you wrote a book, you must have some idea what you’re talking about, so people may naturally assume you’re an expert in your field. But within a field, different experts have drastically different viewpoints.

For example, think of all the different advice there is out there on investing. Whether you’re drawn to a book by Suze Orman (invest in Wall Street for your future) or one by Peter Schiff (the dollar is collapsing so buy your gold now) is going to depend on your experience and what you believe. Getting a book by one of those experts might please you whereas you’d be rolling your eyes at some of the stuff the other says.

Putting out a blog is an opportunity for you to share your values, beliefs, personality, and writing style before someone pays $20 for your book. If visitors are into what you’re portraying on your blog, then they’ll know they’ve found the book for them. If they’re turned off by what you’re saying, then they won’t buy. Believe it or not, that’s a good thing.

You want the customers who will leave positive reviews for you and who will tell their friends about your book and who will mention your book on their blogs. And it’s better that the people who aren’t right for your message walk away before buying a book they’ll end up being disappointed in. Disappointed people leave negative reviews and return books. You’ll have less angst in your life by encouraging only your true target audience to buy your book.

Having a professional blog that is a representation not only of yourself but of your book helps people figure out if you’re the expert for them–before they buy.

A blog is the easiest way to build a mailing list

What’s that? You don’t have a mailing list already?

Well, it’s time to start one. Here’s why:

Most people don’t buy something the first time they’re exposed to it. Marketing experts will tell you that it takes an average of seven exposures to an item before someone decides to buy.

While some people become big fans of blogs and bookmark them and add them to their news readers, a lot of people will land on your site once, like what they see, and… completely forget about it.

By placing a newsletter sign-up on your blog, you have an opportunity to remind subscribers to come back again and again. You can also remind them to buy your book (and the next one and the next one…).

Of course, for a newsletter to be effective, you need to put some quality information in it, just as you are doing with your blog. Your visitors have to have a compelling reason to sign up for it, but we’ll talk more about creating a mailing list in future posts. For now, just start thinking of implementing a newsletter as a means of snagging those people who aren’t going to buy your book right now, but might in the future.

These are some of the key ways a blog can help you sell your book, but there are certainly others.

Authors, are there any strategies you’re using on your blog that you’d like to recommend?