What Can Nonfiction Authors Blog About?

4 ideas for blog
Nonfiction authors recognize the importance of blogging as part of their book marketing efforts but don’t know what to blog about. Here are a few ideas:
  1. Write a series of blog posts based on the chapters in your book. They can be direct excerpts from the book or additional information you gathered when writing your book that didn’t get included in the published manuscript.
  2. Contact people you could interview on the topic of your book. It can be a written interview that, with their permission, you could post as a blog.
  3. Compile a list of other blogs that write about similar topics and write a sentence or two about each one and why your readers should check those blogs out too.
  4. Share your favorite books in your niche written by other authors and why you recommend them.
Your blog posts don’t always have to be about you, your book, your business. Share information about other people, their books, and business. Your readers will appreciate your insights and keep coming back for more.

Grow Your Nonfiction Author Business in September

This month’s tip to grow your author business:

Pitch an article idea to an industry blog or website.

Even better – write a series of articles and pitch a column idea. If your articles don’t get picked up, you can publish them yourself on Medium.com.

Do you write regularly for an industry blog? Share the link in the comments section so I can check it out.

The Series

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Persistence and Regularity Are the Keys to the Marketing Marathon

Watching traditional advertising all our lives, we’ve learned the lie that marketing = big splash.

Advertising, a small part of marketing, can benefit from a big splash.

We’re talking about marketing, your ongoing efforts to connect with people who’ll benefit from and appreciate your message. Like any relationship, it takes time.

More than that, it takes persistence and regularity. No friendship ever came from a single interaction, or meeting three times a year apart. Close connections come from regular contact and conversation. It’s work. That’s right, having relationships is work (you knew that) and marketing is about relationships, therefore, marketing is work.

You knew that, too.

Show up every day. That doesn’t mean blog every day, or do any one thing every day. Blog regularly. Weekly is better than monthly. Chat on Twitter, Facebook, wherever you hang out. Ping an old client or another author who writes like you. Give away a book at the coffee shop. One of yours, or someone else’s even.

Persistent regular activity is the endless dripping that makes marketing effective.

Do You Really Need to Be Online?

The Dream

Every time social media as a marketing tool for authors comes up, someone mentions that famous author who doesn’t blog, the rich author who has no online presence whatsoever. The argument is that you don’t need an online presence, blogging, social media, to become rich and famous, or succeed in whatever way you define success, as an author.

Back to Reality

Yes, it’s possible to become a best-seller, rich and famous, without ever going online.

It’s also possible to cross the ocean in a rowboat. I’ve read about it. It’s not fun.

If you truly deeply hate social media, find other ways. But if you just don’t want to do the work of blogging and interacting online, or if you’re just being contrary, you’re making it so very hard on yourself.

Speaking in absolutes is always counterproductive (oh, I see what I did there.) But as a general rule, it is best if an author has a blog and posts regularly. It is best if an author has a social media presence and engages there regularly. It is best to make use of the tools that will engage with your potential audience where they are: online.

Catch Up. Reset. Continue.

As you can tell from the 4 week silence, our travel interrupted our blogging. Work went on, clients were pleased, clients were acquired, all those aspects kept on rolling.

It’s tricky, isolating priorities and staying focused. Entrepreneurship is a juggling act; there’s not a single day where you get everything done. (Sue keeps saying “I have so much to do and I’ll never get it all done!” and I keep saying “Good; that’s how the bills get paid.” I am an expensive dependent so I need her to stay busy.)

Now that we’re home (okay, now that we’ve been home for 13 days) I’ll be making sure one of us posts something at least weekly (instead of posting weakly. Yes, I crack me up.)

Sue spent some time filling the pipeline with a pair of live events. Check ’em out: