Belle's writing tips this week.

BLOGGING. 22.4.2012

We spoke last week about promoting your blog. However, after a time advertising and marketing your blog, it will inevitably became stale unless you really are a 'professional blogger.' I am a writer and not a blogger really. I am in the early stages of learning about blogging and will undoubtedly re-visit this subject. Anyhow, after a period of 4 months where our book blogs peeked over 4,000 hits and our Whatisatee book 15,000 through an advertising format, the inevitable tidal wave of interest waned and with it book sales. So how to increase a blogs flagging viewing.

a.We tried it Locke's way which is to stick to blogging on the limited subject of our writing material. Check out John Locke's blog.  He advocates writing headline gripping blog posts that hook readers with nostalgic or interest generating comments that link to the e-book being sold. We think that Locke makes it sound too easy. You really have to be savvy about your market to do this and Locke is a professional in this area. We think our problem is not nailing our demographic market.

b. Become an expert - I have learned alot about writing which we are happy to pass on hence I write here. check out Joe Konrath's blog.

c.Become a specialist - Either blog about something that interests you intensely. say Mysteries, or thrillers. (ie become a sort of media guru)

d. Begin to link your blog to others. This is hardwork, it requires hosting posts, interviews etc. Making a name for yourself using other peoples blogs. Getting involved as blog tour partners,
setting up blog circles with other bloggees who are interested in your subject.

We will keep you posted on our success with (c) in the coming weeks when we host a Goddess Fish Blog Tour book.

e. Make  your blog a niche in your subject.

Keep up the good work Belle.

Don't forget you can download my book, Hoxton Kirby Vampire Investigators  Free on Amazon Prime or buy it for a modest few pennies by clicking on the book icon to Amazon or going to our Buy Us page on the bar.




ENHANCING YOUR PROFILE ON TWITTER AND ENHANCING YOUR BLOG PROFILE  15th April 2012.

As I mentioned in my previous blogs it is essential to build authentic relationships on twitter so I only add people with interests in common, that way they are more likely to tolerate you when you do have to advertise your work. I mentioned earlier Toby Neal's book Building an Author Platform that can Launch Anything and I heartily recommend it. Toby used Triberr as a method of building her platform.

My method is to find tweeters with common interests and then add other members of their group. So I essentially hop through my tweeters and add their friends who have common interests with my twitter and what I find is that eventually I create a circle of people who gradually add each other and build a common platform.

The next stage, which I have not got to yet is to list tweeters by interests. (Toby is big on this)

I am quite ruthless with tweeters who do not bother to participate in my group of friends, and use TWEETERKARMA and TWITCLEANER and HOOTSUITE to order my group so that I am aware of people who either do not participate or post spambots that waste good tweeting time. It takes time for friends/tweeters to engage and trust you as an authentic tweeter rather than a publicity seeking time waster, so participation is essential.

PIGGY BACKING BLOGS.

I have three blogs. Two on indie books and one on twitter trends. I intend to add other ones. This is piggy backing. I do this to ensure that I can engage a variety of potential readers and maximise my profile. So Belle's writervamp.blogspot.com leans toward paranormal books. Indie books at Shardpubs advertises all mine and my writing partners work and Whatisatee.blogspot.com is a periodic twitter trend blog.

I find that Whatisatee, when I am up to par, can attract thousands of visitors and therefore although it does not directly advertise my books it does so indirectly with discreetly placed. My books therefore come to the attention of a much wider readership. It is quite useful to do this. For example, recently I have not been able to up -date Whatisatee and have had a substantial drop off in readers, this has had an adverse effect on my sales.

An absolutely fantastic book on this subject is Get out While You Can by George Marshall, which has detailed information on how to build and maximise blogs.

A word of caution, Google ads and other ad platforms have been rumbled and it is much harder to get noticed than it was. The scope of this advice does not cover making money from blogs which is another subject.

I am currently considering another blog on some of my artistic endeavours soon.

NEXT WEEK INVOLVING OTHERS IN YOUR BLOG.