An enormous amount of people have the desire to become authors. In fact, 81 percent of all Americans say someday they will write a book, but someday only arrives for about two percent of that population.

More and more people become bloggers each year, not necessarily because they have dreams of becoming authors. In fact, currently you can find 1,302,286 different blogs cataloged on Technorati.com, an aggregator of blogs.

Each time those bloggers write a post and hit “publish,” however, they become both authors and independent publishers. In a survey conducted by Technorati in 2011, 61 percent of the respondents said they spend more than three hours blogging each week and 33 percent said they update their blog at least once a day. That means they write consistently; some have a daily writing practice, whether they call it that or not. That’s more than can be said of a lot of would-be authors.

Blogging a Book is Quick

Most blog posts are short, usually just about a computer screen’s worth of copy or so. That’s 250-350words, 500 words tops. If you are a fast writer, you can write a post in about 30 minutes to an hour.

If you blogged an average of 350 words a day for 52 weeks, you would write 127,400 words. That’s two decently sized books in one year. And you’d only need to commit to one hour per day (or less) of writing time to accomplish this goal. You could write one book in six months.

Bloggers “Book” Blogs

A lot of people realize they have produced a book’s worth of content—or more—after they’ve been blogging a while. They then decide to repurpose their posts into a book. This is super idea that author and designer Joel Friedlander calls “booking” a blog. It can be time consuming, though and overwhelming if you have a lot of content.

Or their blog becomes wildly popular, and they get “discovered” by an agent or publisher and offered a book deal based on their blog. The most famous blog-to-book story is, of course, Julie Powell whose blog ended up the bestselling book and movie Julie & Julia. But there are many more, like Pamela Slim’s Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur, Brett McKay’s The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man, Christian Lander’s Stuff White People Like, The Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions, and more recently Martha Alderson’s The Plot Whisperer, Jill Smokler’s Confessions of a Scary Mommy, Dmitry Samarov’s Hack, and Jill Abramson’s The Puppy Diaries.

None of these bloggers set out to blog a book. They simply blogged and created a popular blog in the process. Then they went back and booked their blogs.

Writers Blog Books

If you are an aspiring author, you can do better. You can blog a book. In so doing, you can move into the two percent club—write your book—and do it quickly and easily. Simply decide to write a blog post a day, but not just any blog post. Write a blog post that is one part of your manuscript. Here’s how:

After spending some time actually evaluating your idea to decide if it is marketable and unique, map out your book’s content. Once you have a table of contents and an idea of what material will fill each chapter, break this material down into post-sized bits. The easiest way to do this is to write a headline for each post. (Think of these almost like subheads.)

You can also use questions if you are writing nonfiction. For fiction and memoir, write titles for each scene. Next, decide how often you will post on your blog; the more often the better. Then commit to writing and publishing a post—a small bit of your book—that often. Create a manuscript off-line at the same time, though, so you have a document to edit later. Continue writing and posting on your schedule, and you will create a book and a readership for your blogged book.

When you are done blogging your book, edit the manuscript and self-publish it. Or submit a book proposal to a traditional publishing house—if you weren’t found by a publisher along the way. And, of course, you can keep on blogging—and blog another book.

About the Author

Nina Amir, Inspiration to Creation Coach, inspires people to combine their purpose and passion so they Achieve More Inspired Results. She motivates both writers and non-writers to create publishable and published products, careers as authors and to achieve their goals and fulfill their purpose. Nina is the author of the bestselling How to Blog a Book, Write, Publish and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time (Writer’s Digest Books) and 10 self-published books. Her next book, The Author Training Manual, (Writer’s Digest Books) is scheduled for release in 2014. She writes 4 blogs and is the founder of Write Nonfiction in November, also known as National Nonfiction Writing Month. Receive her FREE 5-Day Published Author Training Series by visiting www.copywrightcommunications.com. For more information on Nina, go to www.ninaamir.com.

But many authors get frustrated with blogging. It takes time to build an audience, generate comments, and convert those visitors into book buyers. Following are some strategies to help you fire up your blogging activity. Give it a year and monitor your traffic. Blogging can definitely have big pay-offs for authors.

1. Share with Social Media – Each new blog post that you write should be shared across your social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest. Be sure to share the blog title with a link to continue reading on your site.

2. Submit Your Blog to Directories – There are many directories where readers can find your blog. Here are some to get you started:

• http://blogcatalog.com
• http://blogflux.com
• http://technorati.com
• http://blogarama.com
• http://bloghub.com
• http://networkedblogs.com

3. Promote in Your E-newsletter – Summarize your recent blog posts in your newsletter by including the title, first paragraph, and a link to keep reading.

4. Write Captivating Titles – The most important element of any blog post that you write is a captivating title. You want to hook potential readers so that they will click through to keep reading. Study blog titles on popular blogs to see how they make them more enticing.

5. Understand Your Audience – A big missing component for a lot of bloggers is a failure to understand their target audience. You need to first define who your audience is and then what their challenges are. Then you can write content that appeals to their needs, challenges, and interests.

6. Share Your Link – Make sure your blog link is listed in your online profiles, your bio on social media sites, and in your email signature.

7. Host Giveaways – Offer free items from your blog periodically. For example, you could give away a sample chapter from your book or a special report. You could also enlist others to donate items to give away to anyone who leaves a comment.

8. Hold a Contest – In addition to frequent giveaways, you can also hold contests where one or more winners are selected. Prizes can include a copy of a book, a brief consultation with you, attendance at an event you are hosting, a gift card, or anything else your audience would find valuable. You can also enlist other companies to donate prizes.

9. Increase Blog Frequency – Studies have shown that site traffic increases exponentially as you add more content to your blog on a consistent basis. Ideally you should be updating your blog at least two to three times per week, though remember that more content will lead to more traffic.

10. Retweet Past Content – If you have an archive of past blog posts, you can still tweet them out as long as they are still relevant. WordPress users can also install the Tweet Old Post plug-in, which will automatically tweet out your past blog content based on parameters you set.

11. Feature Guest Contributors – Invite others to contribute content to your blog, including industry experts and peers. Once their post is featured, ask them to share with their networks. To streamline the process, create submission forms on your site like the ones we have here at BusinessInfoGuide.com.

12. Develop Theme Days – Author Karl Palachuk features “SOP Fridays” on his blog at Small Biz Thoughts. His audience knows that each week Karl will share important Standard Operating Procedures for the IT industry (his target audience). This series has been wildly popular, bringing a tremendous amount of traffic each week.

13. Optimize Your Pages – Make sure that your blog posts and all pages on your website are optimized for the search engines. Identify a keyword phrase for each page of your site and incorporate it into the page title, page link, the header on the page, and then repeat it two or three times within the body text of the page. Google looks for keyword concentration to understand what a page is about so make this a habit when writing each new blog post.

14. Include Social Sharing Buttons – Make it easy for your readers to promote your blog posts by including social media sharing buttons. The major blog platforms each offer free plug-ins for these.

15. Ask for Comments – One of the biggest complaints from bloggers is that they don’t generate many comments. The vast majority of visitors won’t take time to leave a comment, but you can encourage them to do so by simply asking! At the bottom of each post, ask a question or simply invite readers to respond in the comment box below. It’s amazing how this simple request can yield results.

16. Respond to Comments – One of the big benefits of a blog is that you can engage with your audience. Respond to all comments and let your audience know you’re paying attention, even if you simply say, “Thank you for taking the time to post.”

17. Comment on Other Blogs – When you write a comment on another blog, you get the opportunity to include your photo, name, and a link back to your own site. Get known within your industry by being a power contributor to other industry blogs. And be sure to leave compelling comments. A good comment contributes to the conversation by adding another tip or expounding on something the blog author mentioned. Provide value and fellow blog readers will find you. (By the way, if you want your photo to appear when you comment on a blog, set up a free profile at Gravatar, which is where many sites collect this information.)

18. Link to Other Blogs and Websites – When writing blog posts, add relevant links to any resources that you mention. Not only will readers appreciate this, the companies you mention may also take notice. You might be surprised by how those same companies end up referring to your blog in one of their posts.

19. Include Photos and Graphics – Images make blog posts more visually appealing to readers, and will make your posts look more professional when shared on social media sites. Make sure to use royalty-free images though a site like Clipart.com. Also, be sure to add a keyword phrase to the alt tag and description within each image to boost search engine optimization.

20. Cross-Reference Past Content – When writing new posts, include links to related posts that you’ve written previously. Links keep readers engaged, and they are also good for search engine optimization across your site.

21. Feature Related Posts – At the end of each new blog post, it can be beneficial to mention other blog posts. You can summarize these yourself or WordPress users can install the Yet Another Related Posts plug-in, which will automatically serve up links to related content based on keyword tags.

22. Write Guest Blog Posts – Contributing to other blog sites, especially high-traffic sites, can help you build an audience of readers who want to know more about you. Make sure your bio features a link directly back to your blog.

23. Review Your Site Design – If you want your blog to be taken seriously, it should be professionally designed, formatted for easy reading, and visually appealing. Look at your blog objectively and compare it with others in your field. When in doubt, ask some professional contacts to give you constructive feedback. Often times a simple redesign can increase readership dramatically.

24. Build Your Social Media Audience – Simply having a presence on the major social media networks isn’t enough; you need to actively build your audience. That means importing your contacts into LinkedIn, following the people you want following you on Twitter, investing in Facebook ads to increase page likes, and adding people to your Google+ circles. Social media is not a passive marketing activity. If you want it to be effective, you need to take an active role in building your audience and engaging with them, while also sharing great content. Together these activities can drive plenty of traffic back to your blog.

25. Do More of What Works – Pay attention to the activity generated by each of your blog posts, noting which posts get the most comments, retweets, etc., and which ones fall flat. Do more of what works!

Stephanie Chandler is the author of several books including Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business, Booked Up! How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book to Grow Your Business, and From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur: Make Money with Books, eBooks and Information Products. Stephanie is also CEO of http://AuthorityPublishing.com, specializing in custom book publishing and social media marketing services, and founder of the Nonfiction Writers Conference. A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she has been featured in Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, and Wired magazine, and she is a blogger for Forbes.

Inspiration hits. The light bulb goes on. You’ve got a passion, and you pursue it. You see a need, and you fill it. There’s a question, and you answer it. You have a purpose, and you fulfill it.

These are all great reasons to begin writing a nonfiction book. And most writers, when struck by a good idea and the desire to write, simply begin writing. However, an even better reason exists to take a bit of time before you beginning writing to evaluate your idea—at least if you want your book to be successful.

Evaluate? I can hear you groaning. No one wants to evaluate anything, especially that book idea you are so psyched about.

If you simply want to write the book of your heart and you don’t care how many copies you sell, great. Go for it. If you want to write a successful book, meaning one that sells to lots of readers or to a traditional publisher and to lots of readers, however, it behooves you to take the time to consider if your idea is a good one by industry standards.

To do this, I suggest you discover nine things about your book idea. Once you have this information, you’ll know if your book has a chance of success.

1. What Your Book Will be About and Why Would Someone Would Want to Read (Buy) It: You’d be amazed at how many writers cannot tell you in 50 words or less, or in 30 seconds or less, what their book is about. They also may not be able to list the benefits their book will provide to readers. Before beginning to write your nonfiction book, hone your topic and its angle. Figure out why someone would want to read your book rather than someone else’s book on the same topic. Write a pitch or elevator speech, a short statement that describes the essence of your book, and follow it with some bulleted points—the added value readers will take away from its pages. Think of this exercise like writing back cover copy. What might you say or write about your book that would make someone carry it to the register?
2. Who Wants to Read Your Book: Make sure you know your average reader—that one person you are writing for—as well as the size of your book’s market. Who wants to read your book, and where do you find them? How many of these people exist in the world? Are there enough of them to justify writing your book? This market research tells you if anyone is out there to read (buy) your book and helps you know for whom who you are writing.
3. Whether Your Book Will be Unique and Necessary: Make sure the book you plan on adding to the mix is not only unique compared to the other books in your niche or category but also necessary before you add one more title to the staggering number of books in print. Take a good hard look at what other authors have already written and published. Is what you want to write different—different enough to make someone purchase your book rather than an established title or a book by an established author? And is there a need for another book on the subject? If no books have been written on the subject, why? Is there a need for even one book on the topic?
4. If You Have Enough Content to Fill a Book: Sometimes writers think they have enough material for a book when really they only have enough for an article, or a couple of articles. Or they think they know what content they are going to include in the book, but when they finish the first draft, they discover they produced a manuscript that is scattered, rambling, misses the point, or leaves out essential information. Avoid these problems by mapping out your content first. Actually do a mind mapping exercise, which entails brainstorming while creating a large diagram of all your possible content and then organizing all these ideas into a table of contents or an outline. When you are done with this process you’ll know if you have enough content to fill a book, and you’ll know what content you plan to include in the pages of that book.
5. How You Would Describe Your Book’s Content:  Bring your book to life with a short synopsis for each chapter. This accomplishes two things. First, when you couple this chapter-by-chapter synopsis with your table of contents, your pitch and list of benefits, you will have the best writing guide possible. Second, when you have finished the synopsis of all your chapters, and you have completed the previous four steps, you will suddenly have a clear picture of your book and feel ready to write your book. Why? Because it will seem real to you. If you can see it and it seems real, if your idea stood up to all the prior steps, it’s likely a viable book.
6. How You Will Ensure You and Your Book Succeed: Whether you self-publish or land a traditional publishing deal, you will need to promote your book. And promotion does not begin after the book lands in your hands as a finished product. It begins the moment that light bulb goes off in your head. Spend some time considering all the options you have to build awareness for yourself and your book as you begin the writing process as well as after you launch the book.
7. Why You Are the Best Person to Write This Book: Most nonfiction books are written by experts. Decide if you are the expert on your topic, how you will become the expert, or if you might need to bring in other experts (maybe a co-author, contributors or experts to interview). Also, does writing this book fulfill a sense of mission for you? If so, you might want to consider how to get that message across in the book and in your promotional efforts. Plus, in this step, it’s important to ask yourself if you have what’s called an “author’s platform.” Do you have a fan base or a large, loyal following of people who know you in relationship to the topic about which you plan to write? If not, you need to consider how you will begin building that built-in readership for your book.
8. If This is the Only Book You Will Write on This Topic:  The more books you write, the more books you sell. That’s why it’s a good idea to spend a moment brainstorming other “spin-off” books on your topic. This is especially important if you want to create a business around your book or attract a traditional publisher. As an expert author, if you have more books, you can create more products and services to sell to readers. And publishers like to take on multiple-book authors.
9. How You Want to Publish Your Book:  At this point, if you decided your book is marketable and has a chance of succeeding, you can begin writing your book—with one caveat. You need to know what publishing route you plan to take. If you plan on self-publishing, you can go ahead and write the whole book. If you plan on approaching traditional publishers, you only need to write 25-30 pages, or about two chapters, but you also need to write a book proposal, which includes all the information you just compiled. You then will submit the proposal to agents and publishers.

Armed with this information, an assuming you discovered your idea is a viable one, you’re ready to take action on your inspiration. Turn your idea into a successful book.

About the Author

Nina Amir, Inspiration to Creation Coach, inspires people to combine their purpose and passion so they Achieve More Inspired Results. She motivates both writers and non-writers to create publishable and published products, careers as authors and to achieve their goals and fulfill their purpose. Nina is the author of the bestselling How to Blog a Book, Write, Publish and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time (Writer’s Digest Books) and 10 self-published books. Her next book, The Author Training Manual, (Writer’s Digest Books) is scheduled for release in 2014. She writes 4 blogs and is the founder of Write Nonfiction in November, also known as National Nonfiction Writing Month. Receive her FREE 5-Day Published Author Training Series by visiting www.copywrightcommunications.com. For more information on Nina, go to www.ninaamir.com.

Guy Kawasaki is the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web, and a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple. Kawasaki is the author of twelve books including APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur – How to Publish Your Book, What the Plus!, Enchantment, Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Dan will describe the new ways to promote your book and will provide you with the necessary tools. All specifics, no generalities. This presentation is full of supporting statistics and scenarios.

The voluminous handout has all the (take home) details.

Doesn’t your book deserve publicity?

Dan Poynter is an author (130+ books), publisher (since 1969), speaker (Certified Speaking Professional). His seminars have been featured on CNN, his books have been pictured in The Wall Street Journal and his story has been told in The New York Times. The media come to Dan because he is the leading authority on book publishing. A professional speaker, he travels more than 6,000 miles each week to share his book plan. Dan is a past vice-president of the Publishers Marketing Asso­ciation. He lives in Santa Barbara.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Poynter

We will look at the basic strategies and benefits of blogging as a process for building an engaged audience, and how that translates into sales of your book, both now and in the future. As well as content, we will also look at the vital design choices, and the minimum you need to know about the changing landscape of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Chris Garrett is the co-author of the Problogger book (Wiley), founder of the Authority Blogger course, and is VP of Educational Content for Copyblogger Media.

http://twitter.com/chrisgarrett

http://chrisg.com

http://probloggerbook.com

So how can you take the same information and turn it into something that creates value for your customers but also becomes another stream of income for your business?

In this talk, you will learn:

*  How to decide on what products to create and test your ideas

*  Structuring your product effectively

*  Creating text material as the basis for the product

*  How to produce video content with screen capture and live segments to make your information come alive

*  The best way to use audio in your product

*  How to sell your product online and ideas on pricing

*  PLUS/ all the tips and tricks you need to do this in the most cost effective way

BIO:

Joanna Penn is the author of the ARKANE thriller series as well as the non-fiction book Career Change. Joanna’s site for writers www.TheCreativePenn.com has been voted one of the Top 10 blogs for writers 3 years running and offers articles, audio and video as well as online multimedia courses on writing, publishing and book marketing. Joanna also teaches others how to turn their ideas into cash here.

Connect with Joanna on twitter @thecreativepenn

Pinterest is a social media site built around the concept of sharing photos and videos. Pinterest users can “pin” photos or videos to their boards for sharing with other users. With a predominantly female audience, Pinterest is a popular place to share images for wedding planning, home redecorating, recipes, vacation destinations, and books.

Here’s how to get started with Pinterest:

1. Apply for an account. Pinterest operates by invitation only, though this is a minor technicality as they attempt to prevent spammers. After you log on to http://Pinterest.com you can submit a request for an account and you should receive a confirmation within a day or two.

2. Create your pin boards. When defining your boards, consider what topics and images would be of interest to your target audience. You can create multiple boards with various themes and should avoid using the default board titles that Pinterest suggests. Instead, rename your boards with descriptive, keyword-rich titles to help Pinterest users find your content.

3. Download the Pin It button. Pinterest allows you to download a Pin It button to add to the toolbar on your web browser. This makes it easy to get in the habit of pinning interesting content to your boards.

4. Start pinning content. One of the great benefits of pinning photos to Pinterest is that a link is automatically included back to the source of the pinned photo. So if you pin a book from Amazon, the image will be linked back to the book’s page on Amazon. You can also add descriptions to each photo that you pin to your board so be sure to include a descriptive title. Here are some examples of content you can pin to your boards:

• Books in the same genre as yours, including your books of course. For example, you could create a board called “Favorite Travel Books.” Since Pinterest automatically links back to the source of the photo, be sure to pin your books either from a sales page on your site or a sales page on one of the online retailers. For extra assurance that visitors will click through to buy your book, you can also copy and paste the sales page link into the description for the image.
• Blog content from your own blog. Make sure you add a photo to each new blog post from a royalty-free site such as www.Clipart.com. Then, for each new blog post, pin its associated photo to a board you have designated for your blog. Pinterest will automatically link back to the source of the photo so that visitors can easily click through to read your content. For example, you might create a board called “ABC Publishing Travel Blog – How to Travel Through Europe.”
• Photos from events including book signings, speaking engagements, launch parties, etc.
• Themes from your books. If your books are set in a specific city, you could pin photos of various city locations. If your book includes recipes or food-related topics, pin photos of food with links back to the recipes online. Look for interesting ways to promote visual elements from your books.
• Photos from readers. Ask readers to submit photos of themselves reading your books and have some fun pinning these to a board. If your book has a pet-related theme, you could ask readers take pictures of the book with their dogs and cats! Or ask readers to send photos of your book from their vacation destinations. Have some fun with this and get others engaged in the process.

5. Build your audience. You can cross-promote your Pinterest presence with other social networks by periodically sharing links to your boards on Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can also integrate Pinterest with your Twitter and personal Facebook accounts to automatically share your new pins there—just be careful not to share too often or you could risk annoying your followers. Also, be sure to add a link to your Pinterest profile from your website alongside your other social media site links.

6. Engage on Pinterest. Spend some time visiting Pinterest boards created by other users where you can choose to follow a user, leave a comment on a photo, like their photo, or repin their photo to one of your boards. As with all of the other social networks, the more you participate, the better results you will see as other Pinterest users begin to return the favor.

7. Add a Pin it button to your site. To encourage website visitors to share your content on Pinterest, install a Pin it button across all pages and blog posts on your website. WordPress users can easily install the Pinterest Pin It button plug-in or add the button from the ShareThis social media plug-in (search plug-ins in WordPress to locate these).

8. Get creative with your pins. Start paying attention to the content you come across online and pin interesting articles, news, info graphics, short stories, poems, or products to a board on your site (you can always create a new board if needed). As long as the content appeals to your target audience, anything goes. You might be surprised to discover how many others will begin to engage with you, visit your website, and repin your content as a result.

Stephanie Chandler is the author of several books including Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business. Stephanie is also CEO of http://AuthorityPublishing.com, specializing in custom book publishing and social media marketing services, and http://BusinessInfoGuide.com, a directory of resources for entrepreneurs. She is also a blogger for Forbes.

Amazon.com sold more than 1 million Kindle e-reader devices per week in December 2011 (Business Wire). Sales of the Nook reader from Barnes and Noble are up 70% over last year, and hundreds of thousands of Kobo readers have been activated every day since Christmas Eve (PR Newswire). That’s not counting all the tablets and smartphones with e-book readings apps on them. Sales of eBooks have skyrocketed, and already outstrip sales of print books in some categories.

The eBook revolution lowers the barriers to publication while offering better royalties than print books and drastically reducing the production and distribution costs associated with producing physical products. Flexible pricing structures put an end to the requirement to wait until you have 50,000 words or more to publish, allowing you to be timely and topical.

Mark Coker will cover:

• How to publish, distribute and sell an eBook
• How to package your smarts into a scalable, sellable eBook product
• The best practices of the most commercially successful eBook authors.

• Give editors what they need the way they need it
• Maximize the value of your book before you sell it
• Build your platform–your visibility with readers
• Excite agents and editors about your book
• Create a career out of an idea
• Choose the best publishing option for you and your book
• Find the agent you need
• Sell your book yourself

You will get a perspective on why now is the best time ever to be a writer, learn how living ebooks will transform publishing, and have the chance to ask questions and start a critique group.

Born and educated in New York City, Michael Larsen worked in promotion for Bantam, William Morrow, and Pyramid (later assimilated into Berkley). He and his wife Elizabeth Pomada started Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents in San Francisco in 1972. They are members of AAR and have sold books to more than 100 publishers.

Mike is eager to find nonfiction books that will excite big and midsize houses: how-to’s, self-help, business, personal finance, popular culture, biography, current affairs, history, health, medicine, spirituality, inspirational books, trends, technology, the future, and other books with practical, social, or literary value.

He is the author of the third editions of How to Write a Book Proposal and How to Get a Literary Agent. With Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman, and David Hancock, he is co-author of the second edition of Guerrilla Marketing for Writers: 100 Weapons for Selling Your Work. Mike is also co-founder of the San Francisco Writers’ Conference and offers consulting service for nonfiction writers.