Building Traffic for Author Blog
Building Traffic for Author Blog
June 26, 2017
Get to Know Other Authors Online
Reach Out to Other Authors
Have you ever heard the story of the man who had this dream that he went to a place where people were sitting in a banquet hall and their arms were tied so that they could not reach their own mouths with their forks. In the one room they were all sad and looked thin because they were starving to death. Then he saw another scenario where the people were sitting in the same room and instead of trying to feed themselves, they were using their forks to feed the person next to them. These people were laughing and joking and they were healthy and well fed. The first one, the man was told was a picture of the selfish people in hell and the second represented the giving nature of the individuals in Heaven.
The same idea can apply to authors. There are those who try to market their books alone. They are like the starving people of hell. However, the authors who do better are those who help other authors. These authors are like the people in Heaven. Not only does this help the other offer, but it benefits the author who doing the helping as well and creating a win-win situation.
If you’re an online author, you want to get to know other authors. It benefits you and it benefits them. You introduce your readers to this other author and this other author introduces their audience to your following. So, how can you build this kind of synergy?
Find out about each author’s online presence. Talk to the author on direct messages. Connect with them on social media sites other than where you met them. Find out what you have in common in addition to the fact that both write books.
Offer to Do a Guest Blog on the other Author’s Blog
Once you get to know another writer, its time to find a way to help the other author. One thing you can do is to do a guest post on the other author’s blog. This gives the other author’s readers a change of pace and a slightly different perspective.
Start by offering to do a guest blog for authors who already do guest blogging. Suggest a topic that relates to that author’s blog, but allow the other author to make the final decision about what you will write about on the blog.
Write the best post possible. Turn it in well before the blog is to be posted so that the other author can look it over and suggest changes if needed. Be sure that you include links back to your blog on this author’s blog.
Once you have one guest post under your belt, move onto your next. If you continue writing good content on your blog, readers of the other blog will check out your blog too.
Offer to Allow Another Author to Be a Guest Blogger on Your Blog
Another thing that you can do is to ask the other author to do a guest post on your blog. In this case, it gives your readers a change of pace and a slightly different perspective.
Once you have done a few guest blog posts, ask other authors that you know to write guest posts for your blog. Alternate your own blog posts with posts of other authors. You might consider having one guest blogger write for you per month if you have been posting weekly.
Do a Blog Tour
If you have just launched a book, doing an online book tour is an awesome way to introduce your books to numerous other authors’ followers.
A blog tour is basically numerous blogs done in a succession where you call it a blog tour. There are numerous things you can do to make the blog tour fun.
Again, be sure that you are willing to do the same for other authors in your circle of author friends. Always make sure the fork goes both ways or you’ll end up starving yourself.
I will talk more about blog tours at a later date.
Where Do You Find Other Authors to associate with?
I have numerous contacts who are also authors, so finding these authors on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter is something that I have already done. I have a pretty good network to work with.
However, if I was just getting started, I would go to Amazon Author Central and look up authors in my book’s genre. If the author has a blog posted there, I would go to that website and comment on a few posts over a couple of weeks and then I would find out as much as I could about that author.
After a couple of weeks, I would send an email to the author telling him/her about how much I enjoy his/her blog and what I enjoyed most about his/her work. Tell him/her about yourself, but don’t ask for anything. Make it a point to reach out seven times both in comments and email before asking the other author for anything even offering to guest post.
There are of course other ways to draw followers to your blog, but exchanging blog posts is definitely a very productive start toward building your blog audience.
If you are an author interested in doing a guest blog or having me guest blog for you, please contact me at cygnetbrown@gmail.com
Author Cygnet Brown 
Been there, done that, continue to do it…great info, Donna!
Would you consider exchanging guest blog posts with me, Bill?