Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Sometime
in the last few days, this blog hit a million views. That seems like
a lot - until I remember that I created Beyond Romance more than ten
years ago!
Still,
an average of one hundred thousand views per year... not too bad for
an obscure author of smut. Some people, at least, are paying
attention.
I’m
always trying to figure out, of course, how to attract more of them.
Blogging
is my primary form of online promotion. I don’t do Facebook or
Instagram, and spend only a few minutes per day on Twitter. This is
partly due to privacy concerns, partly because I’m in a different
time zone from most of my readers, so real-time engagement doesn’t
mean much. The blog lets me accommodate my irregular work and travel
schedule by setting up posts in advance. It also permits me to be as
long-winded as I desire. No obscure, hash-sign-laden snippets for me!
These
days I know that some people view blogs as incredibly antiquated. The
typical attention span seems to have decreased to the point that
nobody wants to read more than headlines. A few thousand words is
just too much work. The Oh Get a Grip group blog recently shut down
after more then ten years, because we felt like we were writing for
nobody but ourselves, and I suspect that other authors are
considering whether blogging is worth the effort.
For
me, the answer is obvious. Aside from the convenience issue I raised
above, blogging offers many advantages not provided by other forms of
social media.
Blogs
are persistent. If I post an excerpt from one of my books, I can
link to that material in the future, for instance when I release the
next book in the series. When I post a review, I can include
references to previous reviews by the same author. It may seem like a
lot of effort to create a blog post, but once it has been created, it
doesn’t evaporate into cyberspace.
I
can blog to suit my mood. If you browse Beyond Romance, you will
find a wide variety of different material: essays reflecting on my
life or my writing career; discussions of sexuality and society;
articles about the writer’s craft or about publishing; humor and
parodies; flash fiction, short stories and poetry; posts about my
favorite charities; book reviews; and of course promotional posts
highlighting my books. The blog is my personal notebook, my soapbox,
my playground. The content and format are totally up to me.
The
blog helps me network. I usually host two or three guest authors
and promotional tours per week. This gives me the chance to connect
with other writers, who are often willing to reciprocate by helping
me promote my work.
Hosting
other authors brings new readers. Every time I share information
about a colleague’s books, that becomes an opportunity to draw her
fans to my site and introduce them to my work.
Syndication
increases the blog impact. A standard Internet protocol called
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) makes it possible for other sites to
easily republish blog content. In my case, I use RSS to feed my blog
to my Amazon Author Page and my Goodreads Author Profile. I also use
Triberr to extend the reach of my posts. This is a collaborative
social media platform where “tribes” (in my case, groups of
authors) commit to sharing each other’s content. Beyond Romance
feeds to all my eight tribes, so my blog posts get liked and shared
on many people’s Twitter and Facebook streams. As far as I know,
no other form of social media provides this sort of syndication.
Blogging
can earn you money. I don’t
have ads or affiliate links on my blog, but many authors do. I have
no idea how lucrative this might be, but if you couldn’t make some
cash, nobody would do it!
Of
course, blogging requires a certain level of commitment. You don’t
need to post every day, but you have to post regularly. Go a week or
two without any posts, and readers will lose interest.
Hosting
other authors adds some stress. It’s awful to realize that you’ve
scuttled a colleague’s tour by forgetting her post, publishing it
on the wrong day, or messing up the format.
However,
blogging allows more flexible time management than other forms of
social media. As long as you plan ahead, you can set up your posts
during the days when you have time, and let them do their work for
you while you’re busy with other things. Since I’m quite busy
Monday through Friday, I usually spend Sunday preparing the week’s
posts.
Are
there other, more effective ways for me to be spending my scarce
marketing time? Maybe. If you know of any, I hope you’ll share! For
me, blogging seems the most practical way for me to have a presence
in the online world, while still managing the demands of my real
world existence.
