A lot of people think that once a book is written, the work is done. Often times, especially if you are a self-published author, the work is just beginning. After the brainstorming and drafting, writing and revising, editing and publishing comes the… selling.

There are only so many times you can say, buy my book! But the fact of the matter is, you need to continue placing your book in front of your audience if you have any prayer of selling copies. To help, I’ve come up with a list of ten ways you can blog about your book.

I am breaking this article up into two parts, so read on for the first five suggested ways to blog about your book and then check back in next week to learn the second set of ways to increase your book sales through your blog without being pushy or annoying.

The Inspiration

Every story has to start somewhere. If you write about the inspiration behind the story, you don’t even have to wait until it’s published to engage your audience. Readers will feel like they are getting a behind the scenes sneak peek at your work in progress and endear them to the project right from the start. In this post, I shared all about how I turned my friend’s reality into inspiration for a fiction story.

Writing Tips 

Another topic you can talk about before you publish are the techniques you are using to write the story. For example, for my most recent book, I wrote about outlining, writing sprints, and using YouTube for research.

First Chapter and Cover Reveal 

A few weeks before you publish, give your readers a little teaser by revealing the cover and also the first chapter. This will create a big buzz of excitement for your forthcoming title and also let people know in a non-aggressive, non-annoying way that THAT THING YOU HAVE BEEN WORKING ON will soon be ready.

Music Play Lists 

Mark Parsons wrote Road Rash, a “band-on-the-road” story about growing up—and growing into yourself. There probably isn’t a better scenario on the planet for a novel playlist. Being both a writer and a musician, Mark wrote this article for Huffington Post: 10 Best Road Trip Songs.

Your book doesn’t have to be about music though to pull this off. Wisconsin based author Valerie Biel created playlists for her YA historical fantasy novels. Playlists are a great content addition to her website and also an excellent way for readers to create the atmosphere of the book to enhance their reading experience.

Book Trailers

Another way you can engage readers is by creating and sharing a book trailer.

“As authors, we want to give readers as much information as possible about our books so they can decide if it’s worth their precious time and money because let’ face it, this is a busy and expensive world. A book trailer can do this in 60 seconds or less using visuals and music. If a picture says a thousand words, adding tone and music says ten thousand.” – Teri Case, author of the award-winning novel Tiger Drive and forth-coming title, In the Dog House

Once the trailer is finished, you can write a post about the creation process, including how you chose the images and music, how you scripted the video and any tips and tricks you’d recommend for other’s looking to give a book trailer a try.

Okay! That’s it for today! Be sure to come back next week for the second half of the list!!

(Click here for Part 2)

Bio
Amanda Zieba is a self-proclaimed word nerd, college writing instructor and author of eight books. She also blogs weekly on all sorts of word nerd topics, is the creator of a six-week fiction writing program called Story Seedlings and presents writing workshops across the Midwest. You can connect with her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/amandazieba/ or via her website. www.amandazieba.com