Blogs are perfect for helping you write the book you’ve always wanted to write … but just haven’t.

Here are 5 ways I think blogging your book rocks:

1. You know someone is reading it (even if it’s your mom). Still, it helps knowing someone at least might be reading it for motivation’s sake.

2. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. This is the mantra that got me through my final year of my bachelor’s degree and I’ve savored its wisdom for a lot of things. The same principle applies for blogging your book. Thinking about one big massive project overwhelms me. But chipping away at that thing one post at a time … well, that helps put it all in perspective.

3. Build a readership for your book. If you want to write a book and aren’t building your email newsletter list to announce the book, I think you’re missing a great opportunity. Think about it … you pitch your book idea to a publisher and tell them you’ve got 1,000 built-in potential readers of your book on your email newsletter!

4. It helps get you found in the search engines. Once your book is actually in print and you begin to sell it on your website, you’ll want people to find you (through your topic’s keywords aka buzzwords) in Google and Yahoo! A blog is a great way to start talking with them about it!

5. Once it’s finished, you can sell it online. The web is a great place to sell your book (or ebook). If you’re blogging your blog and getting content up regularly, you’ll have a great platform to peddle your pulp.

She’s also got a really effective website as well called Kristal Sells Denver.

This is an exceptional example of using blogs to market yourself and your services. She’s got relocation information scattered about her blog, pictures of Denver events, links to other Denver bloggers, and a beautiful photo header of the Denver skyline.

The biggest thing I’d suggest doing differently though … and worth mentioning … is hosting her blog on her domain name, versus the hosted blog solution.

The reason for this is that by hosting on your own domain, you invest in the value of your own domain versus anothers.

For instance, she’s bound to be getting inbound links (links from other people) to her blog.
Links, in the search engine world, are like votes. They help you rise to the top of search engine rankings. Right now, links to her blog aren’t helping her awesome website.

So if you’re spending time and energy on writing a blog in the first place … be sure you’re pouring your efforts into your domain name. It’ll benefit you and your company in the long-term!

If you’re a real estate agent … you should be blogging about your business!

Looking at Kristal’s example, you could be:

• Blogging about relocation information and giving useful links
• Blogging about how neat it is to live in your city and “the burbs”
• Posting photos of events using Flickr & the beauty of your city
  
• Showcasing your expertise and teaching others about real estate and your market
• Ranking higher in the search engines for your city’s relocation information
• Getting inbound links from your city’s other bloggers
• One of the first people those who are relocating to your city meet (you’re a real face, a real person that they know - virtually - in your city)

There are so many implications to what I’m doing online with The Long Tail.

But the immediate one that occurred to me was the Long Tail of Blogging.

Here’s my personal experience with this …

On my main blog, I have written more than 600 posts to date. Only half of those posts were written with search engine traffic in mind. (I learned from trial and error.)

After one year of blogging, those 600 posts, along with WordPress and some of these essential blog tweaks, I now get 60% of my traffic from Google alone.

The bulk of that 60% traffic is going to older posts, single posts — those on the Long Tail of my blogging trail.

Although some of those posts account for maybe one unique visitor a day at best … but group them together and it eventually will add up to some really great traffic and momentum.

And here’s the kicker … I wrote those posts once … and I’m still reaping the Long Tail benefits of them months later.

Moral of the story: Post good, broad content in your topic niche consistently, with search engine traffic in mind (i.e. writing titles with phrases that people are searching for) … and ride your own little wave.

I sure do love the Long Tail …

And I think blogs, in particular, those run by WordPress, are easy, affordable tools for marketing your book and writing skills and niche to a worldwide audience.

Here are some ideas for designing a better author/writer website:

1. FOCUS ON THE BOOK.

Obviously, all book authors want to sell books. But what I’m talking about here is showcasing the book and its contents in ways that actually SELL the book.

As an author, your book should be an integral part of the design, not an afterthought.

You should also include downloadable and easy-to-print resources related to your book, such as a table of contents, excerpts or sample chapters and a question and answer session for the press and your readers.

2. PUSH PEOPLE TO AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER.

Email newsletters are integral parts of my blogging strategy. I push all my clients to start email newsletters for a number of reasons.

Email newsletter are beneficial to authors and bloggers because::

They make your website or blog sticky. Blog stats only tell you where your readers are from. With an email newsletter, you can know their name or any other information you request.

They boost return traffic to your website. I call this residual traffic. There is still a major portion of the blog-reading world that doesn’t know how to operate that big, orange feed button. They don’t know how to use a feedreader. But most do know how to subscribe to an email newsletter. Building a good email newsletter database and then sending them a regular, value-packed email newsletter, listing some of the best content you’ve added recently is a great way to get them to come back to your site.

Publishers must love them. I’m not a book author, but I have to believe that pitching your first or even second book to a publisher and being able to tell them you have 2,000 people subscribed to your email newsletter (which you control) is going to help sell your book proposal. It shows you’ve done work to build a platform in which to sell your book.

3. SHOWCASE YOUR QUALITY CONTENT.When I first started this website back in 1999, I had to do all the heavy lifting of updating my site as I added new content. But with blog software, it instantly took all this and put it all at the click of a “Publish” button so that I could concentrate on writing, instead of maintenance.

You don’t even have to call it a “blog” … just use the free technology to produce an “articles” section of your site. And with WordPress Pages you can use it as a content management system to manage your entire website.

Using blog software, you have an easy way to archive, search, tag your great content and keep readers coming back for more … or help sell your book.

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