As writers, most of us don’t have a background in marketing.  If self published, it’s unlikely that we hired a large public relations firm, editor, or anyone else for that matter, to help market and sell our e-books.  Instead, we’re doing it on our own.  Self publishing is stressful, and watching the sales numbers slowly climb definitely takes a toll on us.

So what do we do?  We turn to social media.

Last week, we shared how Twitter can help us increase our e-book sales by using this simple equation:

1/4 Socializing + 1/4 Promoting Others + 1/4 Promoting Our Products + 1/4 Provide Information = Twitter Success

Now, let’s focus on another form of social media to increase our e-book sales: blogging.

Before we start blogging, we have to answer a few questions.

Question: What do we blog about? Unfortunately, this question leads immediately to two other questions:  What do we enjoy?  What do other people enjoy?

What do we enjoy? When we blog about things we enjoy, the writing flows naturally.  When the writing is not forced, we stress less.

What do other people enjoy? When we blog about things that other people enjoy, we build a following.  If people can relate to us or like what we have to say, they will return for more blog posts.

Question: How many times a week do we blog? As writers, our number one goal is to write and sell books.  If we blog every day, we’re taking valuable time away from our manuscripts.   But, blogging increases book sales, so we need to do it.  Right? Right.

Blogging with consistency and utilizing our time management skills to the best of our ability are two of the most important things to remember when blogging.  As our readership grows, so will the expectations.  So, why not start blogging with a plan?

Step One: Make a list of twenty, forty, or even a hundred blog topics that we’d like to write about.  This list will eliminate wasted time staring at the computer screen day-dreaming about our next blog post.

Step Two: Designate a theme.  By using themes, a writer’s time is better managed by having the ability to focus in on one specific topic, versus getting lost in the sea of general ideas for his or her blog posts.  With themes, we are also encouraging our viewers to come back and to look forward to certain blog posts on a regular basis.

Step Three: Start small and grow.  How many days a week we blog definitely relates to our comfort level.  If we’re new to blogging and we’re not all that comfortable with the idea, start with one or two a week.  Once our comfort level rises, add a day.  Most successful bloggers publish three to four posts a week, but the correct answer to how many days lies solely with each individual blogger. 

Question: How do we promote our blog? Regardless of which blogging platform we use (WordPress or Blogger to name two), every publishing page provides an area for tags.  Tags are words or phrases that help search engines locate our blog posts.

For example, we have just written a blog post about how Digital Content Center helped us convert our manuscript to an e-book.  Tag words we’d consider using are Digital Content Center, conversion, manuscript, and e-book.  Each time someone searches cyberspace using one of our tag words, the likelihood of our blog post generating on that search engine page increases.

Question: Will blogging actually increase our e-book sales? YES!

Digital Content Center customer and fiction author Jillian Dodd recently started blogging.  She doesn’t blog about the craft of writing or about her book, instead she blogs about men, philanthropy, and movies.

In just a matter of weeks, Jillian has seen her e-book sales more than double.  She’s found an entirely new group of readers in the blogosphere that like her voice, her style, and her writing in general; and because of this, she’s sold more e-books!