It’s no secret that marketing is among an author’s least favorite professional tasks. It feels pushy, impersonal and foreign to those used to spending most of their time surrounded by artistic endeavors.

Whether you’re familiar with the tools and strategies needed to promote your work or not, the attitude around marketing is almost always the same: “I know I need it, but it’s not my thing.”

Today, perhaps more than ever before, authors need to be invested in their own brand. For published authors, you know that the efforts put in by your publisher can often fall way short of your expectations. For aspiring authors, catching the eye of a publisher can be next to impossible if you don’t have an existing audience to sell to.

The value is undeniable, but the hesitation is real.

You don’t want to feel like the car salesman of your books, but you want your books to sell, of course.

Retain your artistic soul and initiate your marketing by starting off with this one perfect tactic.

A Marketing Solution Made for You

You may hate me for saying it. I know you hate hearing it. But any author who is not blogging is missing the biggest marketing opportunity at their disposal.

Blogging, and content marketing, should be a match made in heaven for authors, and yet so few utilize this strategy.

As a She Writes reader, you obviously have a leg up; but are you posting with regularity to your own audience of readers?

Probably not.

And I know why. Most authors have the same reasons for not blogging:

  • “I don’t know what to write about.”
  • “I don’t get how this will bring me more readers. Won’t writing more books do that?”
  • “I don’t want to brag about myself. No one likes an author with an ego.”
  • “I write fiction. Fiction doesn’t work with blogging.”
  • “Blogging is what my teenage niece does. I’m a professional.”

These misconceptions about blogging are making authors miss out on a huge chance to reach out and touch readers. The avoidance boils down to two main issues: a) the value of blogging is unclear and b) the strategy for what to blog about is undefined.

The Value of Blogging as an Author

Everyone says “you need to be blogging” and I don’t mean to add to the endless chatter, but does anyone ever tell you why you need to be blogging? Businesses do it, individuals do it, celebrities do it . . . but why should you?

Identity

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but authors (new and old) tend to be nameless, faceless members of a huge crowd. According to The Future of Ink, 3,500 books are published every day in the US. What consumer could possibly be familiar with even a fraction of those authors?

In the avalanche of books and content that hit the market every day, you have to create an identity beyond your name printed on the cover of your work.

With a blog, readers will get to know your personality, your passion, your history and by way of knowing you, they will want to know your work. This is why celebrity memoirs and ghost written celeb novels are such a roaring success. Everyone wants to read something written by someone they know.

Reach

Blogging is the best way to get new visitors to your author website. Hands down. Right now, the only people who go to your website are those who hear about you first and seek out more information.

When you blog, you are telling search engines like Google and Bing, “Hi, I’m here, I exist, send me people interested in what I do!”

Blogging is how you go from “known only to those who know you” to “discovered by those who care about what you care about.”

Richness

No, you may not make money directly off of blogging. And even if you do, that’s not what this point is about.

Blogging gives you the opportunity to enrich your readers experience with your work. How many times have you finished reading a book and wished you could know more?

You have an amazing opportunity to do that with a blog. Rainbow Rowell, for example, does an amazing job answering questions about her beloved characters and pulling readers closer to her books.

If you focus your books on mental illness in teens, you can discuss experiences that inspire your novels. If you have written a memoir on motherhood, you can continue sharing stories beyond what your book has done. Odds are there is so much more to your story than what made it to print; take it to the next level through blogging.

The value of blogging doesn’t come from simply having another place to share events and celebrate a book release. Make it the way your readers and colleagues can peek behind the curtain and fall deeper into your work.

Where to Start

Once you have the platform itself (which may take a little help from your web expert), there are dozens of ways to unearth blog topic ideas. Here are a few any author can start with:

  • Answer questions readers have asked you in the past
  • Give insight into the creation and publishing process
  • Post as your characters
  • Shed more light on your works’ biggest themes
  • Explore questions that arise throughout your creative process

But it’s not the idea generation that will make you a successful blogger and thus a successful marketer. It’s the skills you innately possess that make blogging the biggest marketing opportunity for you. Because blogging is all about storytelling. You are telling your own story and the story of your work. You are a writer, and this is the chance to use your writing to market and sell your books.

Emerge from the crowd of authors hoping to get noticed. Tell the world “I am here” by taking your first leap into blogging.