Author blogs can help to increase book sales. Creating an engaging author blog is a good way of generating extra book sales. Although this is not guaranteed it is worth doing, even if you only sell one more book. It is beneficial as it will most certainly increase web traffic and hopefully sales. The only difficult choices are what to write about and when to write. Blogging should be an addition to your witting; you do not want it to take over any valuable writing time that you have, so if you have spare time to blog then go ahead and if not, then you may need to rethink your strategies.

The next question to ask is what do you blog about? This depends upon the type of books you write. Blogging is a very different world for the fiction and the nonfiction writer. In some ways it is easier for the nonfiction writer to blog as they already have a specific interest on which to write about. So, for example, the nonfiction writer who has published a book about special needs children can write on this topic. They can blog about any latest news stories, medical developments, or their thoughts and feelings about new therapies that have been introduced. The people reading the blog will already have an interest in the genre, and by finding out that the blogger is also an author this will help prompt them into finding our more about the author and their books.

For the fiction writer the way to approach blogging is slightly different. So, for example, if you are a writer of romance this is what you need to focus upon. You can give your thoughts about the latest top selling romance novel, your favourite romance writers, and any new developments in the romance literary world. You do need to keep the blog current and up to date and the same is true for the nonfiction author. This will help to engage your readers.

For both the fiction and nonfiction writer the key is to be personal, the reader needs to feel as if they are getting to know you and this is crucial if you want them to become interested in finding out more about you and where they can purchase your books. In relation to this, you need to make sure that your blog includes details of your author website so that visitors to the blog know how to find and buy your books. It is also a good idea to include a list of fellow authors’ blogs similar to your own genre for people to access. Hopefully by your doing so doing, fellow author will return the favour and post a link to your blog on their blog.

Blogging is a subtle way of promoting your book, but the key word here is subtle. Don’t under any circumstances start to plug your book and tell readers how wonderful it is.