Are you a blogger or a blagger?

We all know that blogging is one of the best ways to promote yourself as a writer and spread the word about your latest book. But how are you at blogging? Do your posts truly engage with your audience? Or do they get trashed unread? (if your finger is hovering over the delete key right now, don’t even think about it… )

If you have a little money to spend, one way to improve your blogging skills is to get some training from an expert, by signing up to a program such as Write Like Freddy, which has been created by Danny Iny from Firepole Marketing. It’s an online course in which Danny teaches the system he’s used to write more than 80 successful guest posts for major blogs such as Copyblogger, Problogger, Freelance Switch, and others.

If you’re stony broke or prefer to get your advice for free, try reading this useful advice on blogging success for authors by book marketing expert, D’vorah Lansky.

You’ll see that this post by D’vorah has been written as a guest blog on another website. Guest blogging is a brilliant way to reach a wider audience and increase your own following. But how do you get yourself one of those groovy guest blog gigs? Here’s my take on the best way to succeed:

Tip 1 – Know the blog you’re pitching to

In order to convince a blogger to publish your guest post, you’ll need to show him or her that you are familiar with the content of their blog and who reads it. Check out the latest posts on the blog and read the archived articles. You can find out which of the posts were the most popular by looking at the number of comments they generated. These comments will tell you what kind of people follow the blog, which will help you to write a guest post that is relevant and appealing.

Tip 2 – Start small

When you start out as a guest blogger, it’s wise to target smaller blogs first. They are still a great opportunity to reach a wider audience and gain more followers for your own blog. Create the very best posts you can and analyse what works well, and what doesn’t. If a post proves to be hugely popular, ask yourself why that is and then do it again! Your confidence will grow with each guest blog you write and you’ll soon be in a position to pitch for a guest spot with one of the bigger blogs. That’s when you can really maximise your exposure, attract more followers, get more guest blogging invites and more opportunities to promote your book.

Tip 3 – Demonstrate your credentials

Let the blogger you’re pitching to know why you’re the right person to write a guest post. Let the blogger know your area of expertise. Don’t just say “I’m a writer.” Say: “I’m a travel writer,” “I write short stories”, “I’m a romantic novelist”, or “I write for children and young adults”. Let the blogger know where you’ve been published and how the post you’re planning to write will benefit their followers.

Tip 4 – Be honest, friendly and reliable

You know how time consuming blogging can be, right? Don’t waste the blogger’s time – make sure your pitch gets straight to the point. Be friendly, but cut out unnecessary chit chat. Your email pitch should say who you are, what your guest post will provide, and when you can deliver it. Let the blogger know that you will write a post that is unique to their blog and that you will deliver it on time.

Tip 5 – Include your links

Make sure your guest blog includes hyperlinks to your own website, blog and to the Amazon page for your book. Guest blogging won’t necessarily result in an immediate upturn in sales – it can sometimes take a few weeks (or even months) for sales to filter in. Your prime aim with guest blogging is to build your list and get more people signed up to receive your newsletter or blog posts. You can then build a relationship with your readers and, once they get to know and trust you, they may well decide to buy a copy of your book.

If you’d like to write a guest blog for writingnetwork.co.uk, please email janebettany@aol.com.

Read more about Write Like Freddy here.

What are your highlights?

I’ve just discovered a really cool tool from Amazon (thanks to Shep Hyken’s article in Publishing Poynters News). It’s a feature that allows you to find out which parts of your Kindle book (or any book) have been highlighted by Kindle readers.

Go to Amazon Kindle, log in with your Amazon user name and password, and type the name of your book into the search box. Click on the link to your book and it will list the popular highlights (if there are any).

By clicking on the ‘Most Popular’ tab at the top of the main Amazon Kindle page, you can also view the most highlighted Kindle books of all time. The Holy Bible is currently number one (no surprises there). Second is the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson – the most highlighted line of that book is ‘Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are’ (3,748 highlights).

That sounds like good advice if you’re one of the people who have marked out what is the most highlighted passage of all time in Kindle books, which is: ‘Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them’ (13,983 highlights). That line is from the teen fiction book Catching Fire the Second Book of the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

This tool is a great way to find out which of your words are resonating with your readers. Checking the most highlighted books and passages will also help you understand which writing styles are striking a chord with contemporary readers.

eBook sales increase by 117% in 2011

A report by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) has shown that ebook sales (excluding religious titles) grew by 117% in 2011 and generated revenue of $969.9 million, compared to $446.3 million in 2010. 2011 is the third consecutive year in which ebook sales have grown by more than 100%.

The AAP report also confirms the decline of the print book. Sales of adult trade titles in 2011 fell by 17.5% (hardcover) and 15.6% (paperback). You can read a summary of the full report here.

Whilst these are sales for the US market only, and only include data for the publishers who report their sales to the AAP, it is proof of the fast-moving trend towards ebooks.

The burning question is how this trend will affect writers. Will it make us more likely to self-publish our work as ebooks, or will we continue to yearn for a traditional publishing contract? Self-publishing a book through Kindle and other ebook stores generates royalties of around 70% (depending on the price of the book). According to this article on the Future Book blog, the royalty rate being offered by some publishers is just 17.5%.

So, should publishers should increase author royalties for ebook sales? Or are writers better off opting for the self-publishing route? What do you think?

The continuing rise of eBooks

I thought you might be interested to read about Kerry Wilkinson. He’s the self-published writer who’s become the best selling author for Kindle UK.

In less than a year, Kerry has written four crime novels and is working on a fifth. Even though the first novel in the series sells at just 98p in the UK on Kindle and 99 cents in the US (giving him a 35% royalty rate), he’s still earned over £50,000 in less than a year.

I guess he’s the UK equivalent of the US’s John Locke, author of the bestselling Donovan Creed series, who self-published and sold more than a million eBooks in under five months. You can read how he did it in How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 months!

With more and more titles selling as eBooks and the sale of Kindles and other tablet devices sky-rocketing, it’s clear that eBooks and self-publishing are a fast growing trend.

I’m a Global eBook Awards judge!

Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Awards has appointed 247 judges so far and I’m pleased to say that I’m one of them. I’ll be evaluating books in the Writing/Publishing non-fiction category – so this is my chance to read about a couple of subjects I love!

“The one thing the volunteer judges all have in common is that they each love the category they are judging.” says Dan Poynter, the founder of the awards. “The Award judges range from book bloggers to reviewers, librarians, book club, and reading circle members, as well as professional critics and subject matter experts in the category they’re judging.”

The great thing about the Global Ebook Awards is that judges are able to retrieve the books they want to read from Smashwords.com and can choose between PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Sony, and Nook formats, so they get to read the books on their favorite device. This also means that the global Ebook Awards headquarters doesn’t have the expense of shipping heavy paper books to the numerous judges – which is also good for the environment.

The awards offer plenty of categories for writers and publishers of fiction and non-fiction eBook titles and offer a great way to promote your book. Judges who are bloggers and reviewers are also encouraged to review the books they read on Amazon, B&N.com, Midwest Book Review and other review periodicals – so this is a genuine opportunity to get valuable feedback on your books. And, if the reviews are good, you’ll get the ‘social proof’ you need to convert eBook browsers to buyers and increase your sales. You still have time to enter your eBook – the deadline for submissions is 12 March. You can read more about how to enter on the Global eBook Awards website.

My other news this week is that I’ll be reading the books I judge on a Kindle… yes, I’ve finally bought one! I’ve been using Kindle for PC and, after months of dithering… wondering whether I should wait for the Kindle Fire to become available in the UK, I decided I’d go for the basic £89 version. It’s on order from Amazon and is due to arrive tomorrow! I can’t wait to get my hands on it and start reading some of the books I’ve been downloading.

I’ll be sharing some of my reviews of writing and publishing eBooks with you over the coming weeks.

Have you broken any resolutions yet?

Happy new year everyone! I hope you’re all looking forward to a productive and successful 2012.

Traditionally, 1st January is a time to set goals and make resolutions. Right now there are hundreds of blogs and websites crackling with advice on how to achieve your goals and stick rigidly to those ever-so-difficult-to-maintain resolutions, but – I’ll be honest – there’s nothing new I can say on the subject. I’m no expert. I made a resolution a long time ago not to make any more resolutions.

What I will say is that goal setting and new year’s resolutions don’t always work as a positive motivator. Breaking a resolution or failing to achieve a goal can leave you feeling disillusioned and negative.

Don’t be tough on yourself if you do falter. For instance, if you’ve set yourself a goal of writing for at least one hour every day for the whole of 2012, don’t worry if you fail to achieve that goal on day five. Stuff happens. Life has a way of messing up our plans. Instead of holding your head in shame and saying: “That’s it! I’ve failed,” why not say: “I haven’t achieved my writing goal today, but it’s not the end of the world. I’ll aim to write for an extra hour at the weekend.”

Don’t set yourself rigid targets. Be flexible. If you want to fit in an extra hour’s writing every day, be willing to give up something else to free up some time.

Write because you want to, when you want to, and because you have something to say. Relish the sense of achievement and creativity writing can bring into your life, and allow yourself some freedom once in a while. Don’t be afraid to take a day off to think out an idea or come up with a new storyline, or simply to take a well-earned rest.

Try not to get hung up about resolutions. If you’re really a writer, you’ll find the time to write. You won’t be able to help yourself.