#362: Publish with a Purpose: 3 Reasons to Consider Blogging Your Book

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Welcome to this episode of Publish With a Purpose. My name is Shelly Hitz and today we're going to talk about three reasons to consider blogging your book. So what does blogging your book mean? It just means that you're going to release the content of your book little by little in individual blog posts and then you're going to combine or compile that information into, into a book later. So there's a few different reasons you may want to consider doing this. The first is it gives you a micro goal. So writing a book is big. It's even a short book, it can feel daunting. And so just saying, okay, I'm just going to get this one section done and I'm going to release it as a blog post. And then there's also that feeling of I don't know if it's dopamine or whatever chemical in your brain. It's like that you finish something, you released it to the world. You get used to clicking the publish button because I just had a one on one coaching session yesterday with a Christian Book Academy member and he has a book ready to publish and has not clicked that publish button yet. Now there's different reasons that that's happening for him, but you know, it's easy to get to that place and be hesitant to, you know, press that publish button. But if you've been pressing publish in all of these blog posts over the months or weeks that you've been creating, then releasing them, it's going to be much easier to do that when the entire book is ready. So number one, it's a micro goal. Feels like you're completing something and you get used to clicking publish. Number two, accountability. So if you're self publishing or independently publishing, then you don't have a publisher giving you a deadline. And it's so easy just to keep putting it off, putting it off, putting it off. But if you're releasing content little by little to your audience or on your blog, and then sharing it on social media or your email list or wherever you are active, then it's almost like you feel like, okay, you know, they're waiting for the next one, they're waiting for the next one and you don't have to do it in order, you, you can actually release it in the order that you feel inspired to write it. But there's this, just this built in sense of accountability, like I'm going to be releasing this to my blog once a week or once a month or however often you're able to do it. And it helps you just across that finish line. The third reason is search engine optimization. So with marketing, there are three key ways you can market your book to a new audience. One of them is search engine optimization, which means people are searching for something in Google, your website, or your blog post comes up. Um, search engine optimization can also happen on YouTube or Pinterest. Another marketing option is other people's audiences. So doing a guest blog post or getting interviewed on podcasts, being featured in a speaking engagement, all of those things. And then the third is paid ads, which for authors. Amazon ads are what I typically recommend. But so SEO is a huge part of how you can find new people. And this is what we did in the very beginning that, that really grew our business to, to where it is today. But we used SEO and it just means that you're finding keyword phrases people are searching for, and then you, you optimize that blog post for that phrase. And over time, Google can then put you in the search engine standings and all of that. So it's a whole topic on its own. But when you're blogging your book, you now have all of this content out there that you can optimize for SEO to help find your target audience when they land on that blog post. Once you publish your book, make sure to go back to all those blog posts and add a link for them to buy the book. If they're already interested and they want to solve that problem or they want to get something more from you, they can do that. And so this is really powerful to not only get your book done by breaking it into smaller micro goals, getting accountability to just keep moving forward, but also building an audience and as you write your book. And I just know how important SEO can be for a long term marketing strategy that doesn't require a ton of energy. Now, there's no guarantee that your blog post will ever be found in the search engines. And you know, there's all sorts of things that go into it. But I really recommend if you do have a blog or you have a website, to consider optimizing at least your most popular blog posts and to consider this as one of your main marketing tactics. Now, like I said, it takes time and it happens over time, but I asked Heather Hart to put together a course for you on this. It's called SEO for Authors. And Heather and I, we actually first got to know each other because she found me and my website for teen girls through SEO through search engine optimization. She was searching for something, she found me, we connected. We ended up partnering together for years and we have created so many trainings for authors over the years. She's now focusing on her writing for Christian women and some other things. I'm focusing still on authors, but she agreed to put together this training and I just hope that you will take advantage of this and learn more about search engine optimization. You can find the link in the show notes and really just get more information about it. But I really consider, I really encourage you to consider blogging your book. I have done this several times. My very first book, I did it and I didn't even know I was doing it. I was writing articles for our website. About a year later a friend told us about self publishing. He showed us his self published book and I found out about print on demand technology. And a month later I took those articles I had been writing for teen girls and I compiled it into a book and our first book was born in 2008. Then I did the same thing with our book self publishing books 101. Those articles or chapters started as blog posts or articles on our websites over the years and I have done that for one of our books, Unshackled and Free. We released the different stories and the different chapters on our website and blog as we were writing it and those are no longer available now so that we would have the ability to use KDP select and all those things. But I have used this in multiple ways over the years and so I encourage you to consult consider it. And also if you have a website or a blog, consider getting Heather's course that she created just for you, SEO for Authors. Swipe up and check out the link on the show notes and I will talk to you in the next episode. Bye Bye. Would you like more? If you are enjoying this podcast but want more, I have something exciting to share with you. We have released what's called a private podcast. So a private podcast you will not find by searching in Apple. You have to know specifically how to subscribe to it. It's more private and exclusive and it just can be more relaxed behind the scenes. And my new private podcast is called Hits Blitz and it's wisdom for writers that you're going to learn from my 18 plus years of experience in publishing and online marketing so that you can move forward in God's call to write. I am best known for injecting energy and enthusiasm into everything I do and inspiring those around me to take action. So I encourage you to listen in to this exclusive private podcast. It is free, 100% free. You don't have to pay for it and be prepared to be inspired by my next Hits Blitz so you can sign up@trainingauthors.com hits blitz and if you have any other writing friends that you think could benefit from it, definitely share it with them. They can go to the Same link training authors.com forward/hits blitz to get access. Again, this is a private podcast so you cannot get access to it any other way. It's completely free. All you have to do is sign up and then you'll get all the information on how to add it to your podcast player of choice. So I can't wait for you to join me over there. I share a lot of things behind the scenes and more content just in a real time basis. So it's more like chatting with a friend or following someone on stories on social media. Except you don't have to get caught up in any of the algorithms. You'll just have this in your podcast player and be able to listen in wherever you're at, whatever you're doing. Some of the listeners told me this week that they were listening while waiting in the Target parking lot, while brushing their teeth. You can fit this into the pockets of time that you have. So I hope you'll join me. Come over to trainingauthors.com hitsblitz.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer have a specific to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.