You’ve heard it. I know I have… the mantra, “Content is KING!” And it’s true. If you don’t have quality content, your promotions will go exactly nowhere. So let’s start today with that core principle.
What kind of content do you produce? Do you have a book or several?
In promoting that book, do you write articles on blogs (yours or other people’s)?
Do you do interviews and reviews? Do you have some of your own?
What are you best at creating?
Create Your Content
If you are just starting out, think smaller rather than bigger at least until you get going. If you’re going to do a blog, commit to once a week for a month. You won’t start out with bunches of visitors and viewers but at first that’s okay. Learn to use the software and to find your voice.
Most of these articles will be primarily pull articles. You will either be maintaining your audience through them so that they are getting great content and staying connected between books, and/or you are searching for new visitors and viewers. You can do all of this with articles.
As your content grows, you may want to add other types. So maybe you start out with articles for your site and then branch out into reviews. Or maybe you start out interviewing other authors and then guest posting on other blogs.
In my journey, I quickly found the value of creating content for other people’s sites. For me, creating content is like breathing. So after I wrote my first three articles (before blogs) to post on other sites, I wrote a few more and a few more until I literally had 100′s of articles. It didn’t happen overnight, but consistently focusing on creating great, timeless, valuable content has been one of the best things I’ve done for my promotional efforts.
Find your voice
As you begin to write articles, it’s important to find your voice. Don’t try to write about everything, and unless you are a multi-pubbed author with a huge following of other writers, don’t write primarily about writing. What you want to attract are READERS!
So what do you have to offer readers?
What topics light your soul on fire and you just have to share your thoughts on them? Do that.
Spread the Work
If you are really scrambling for things to write about, consider doing some posts of reviews and interviews with others. Utilize guest posts. This will take some of the pressure off of you.
Come up with a Schedule
Last for today, come up with days to post on your blog. Maybe you’re going to do Monday and Thursday. Monday could be for recipes and Thursday for Gardening tips.
Or Monday could be for reviews and Thursday for your own musings.
Whatever it is, remember two things:
1) Stick to it
2) But be flexible
As you learn, you will probably want to do more and try more. That’s great! Leave yourself some room to grow and give yourself permission to advance with the changes you feel work best for you.
Until next time, happy promoting!
These are great lessons. The only thing I need to do here is schedule my posts. I don’t think that will happen for awhile, But I suspected recently I need to do it. Thanks for giving me this goal!
Would love to follow this Stacy Stallings blog, but where do I find the sign up? Thanks.
Susan,
The marketing blog was designed as a “sprint blog” — posting only for a short time. So there’s not really anything to “follow.” It’s all basically here. Click around and read what you think will help!
If you want to follow me on FB, you can Like https://www.facebook.com/TheIndieAuthorsUltimateGuides I post tips and tricks and things I find there.