Want More Readers? Write More!

As an author, I spend a great deal of time reading materials from others. I have lots of ideas but I also want to make sure the opinions I give have some substance. I am constantly asked questions about marketing books and how to do it effectively. Although there are hundreds of things you can do to market your books, one of the main ingredients is to write more.

Now this may seem counter productive but think about it. You have written a great book and are ready to market it heavily. As with most authors, marketing comes as an after thought instead of part of the writing process. So what can you do to get that book out there? Start with writing more to get more readers.

Here is what I mean:

Have a great website that is constantly changing in content and audience interaction.

Use graphics whenever possible to talk about your book. People are very visual and like quotes, infographics, and other forms of visual media. Use these to Pin on Pinterest or perhaps you like to use Instagram to get messages out.

Write interesting articles that have a good resource box to drive traffic back to your website (a great marketing tactic). In my case I use EzineArticles with a plugin in WordPress that makes my blog writing and my article writing much simpler.

Create a book trailer and post it to YouTube. This will educate your audience as to the contents of your book and once again have that link handy so people can get to your website. The writing will be geared toward the script and you do not even have to record a voice). Creating book trailers is not difficult, there are many tools you already have on your computer you can use to create a book trailer. My daughter wrote a trilogy and created her book trailer in one evening without any knowledge of how to do it. You can see her trailer as an example on Facebook (chroniclesofmyriad).

Find blogs that allow comments from you (an Author), and also allow a link back to your website. Your comments need to be helpful and not a sales pitch. If you are too salesy, your comment will be deleted.
Join associations relevant to your genre. Add value to other members by offering free advice. The search engines love helpful people!
This is just the beginning of the list. If you think that your writing should only be working on your book, then do not expect to get more readers. By writing more about your expertise in your field (or genre) and sharing that information, you will start to gather more readers! Writing is a marketing tactic, use it to your advantage.

You may be wondering where you will get all the extra time to do this writing and that may be an issue of how you are managing your time. anything that hits the editing floor? You might find great pieces of writing that no longer fit in your book. Keep them all, they may be useful for adding content.

Remember, writing more is the key to getting more readers. You cannot afford to be obscure.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. is a speaker, author (over 170 books, articles, and publications), and consultant. She has provided marketing, sales, business development and training expertise for companies such as Peet's Coffee & Tea, Varian Medical Systems, Accenture, Avaya, Cisco Systems to name a few. Dr. Daoust has also done extensive work with authors in developing their recognition and marketing strategies.