I was talking with somebody who’s trying to build traffic for his fiction e-book. He needs reviews, he says. He asked me how to use social media, specifically blogging.
I suggested traffic first; readership. You can’t just write about your own book. You can, however, write about some related or tangential or contiguous subject that interests the same people who might be gatekeepers related to the marketing of your book.
What is that subject? That’s a critical question. The somebody in this case is a talented writer. Maybe the new blog is about writing, or fiction or e-book publishing or the specific genre. That, I don’t know.
But it does seem logical. The way to find readers is to write about something that interests them. That’s not a guarantee of anything, because you can build a great blog without ever having anybody go there. Without it, however, you have nothing to promote.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
