Publicity is one benefit of blogging for writers. Building readership of your blog can translate into name recognition and hopefully, book sales. That's a somewhat relational approach to blogging publicity.
The opposite of being relational would be topic driven. Someone finds your blog via a search engine. (You could even get into "Search Engine Optimization" and intentionally create posts to be more easily picked by the search engines.) Perhaps they were looking for info on a topic you cover. Maybe they found your blog because of something you briefly mentioned. Either way, they found your blog. If they like what they read, perhaps you'll land a book sale.
Another way to use your blog and others as marketing tools is a blog tour. This is what author Mary E. DeMuth is doing for six weeks. (Here's the schedule of blog stops on the Authentic Parenting Tour.)
Mary was one of the first blogging writers I discovered, way back in 2005. Upon finding her blog, Relevant Blog (I think it was Relevant Girl back then), and her Relevant Prose newsletter I quickly subscribed to both because of the easily digested info for writers. I thought it was so cool to be able to go "behind the scenes" in a writer's life because of technology. The blog tour is another example of how she's using the internet to reach new readers and communicate with fans.
If you're interested in knowing more about blog tours, Mary's blog tour director, Tina, has some questions to consider before doing your virtual tours. She's also available for blog tour consulting.
You can go to Amazon for more info about the book. I've also written a quick post about it at LexicalLight. Finally, check out Mary's site, Relevant Prose, for more info from her and about her.
About the blog tour:
I've received a complimentary copy of the
book from the publisher in return for writing a few posts about it. For
a list of other blogs on the tour, go here. Thanks.
Thanks for being a great addition to the blog tour. I appreciate your slant. The tour's been really fun!
Posted by: Mary E. DeMuth | August 09, 2007 at 09:34 AM
Your welcome, Mary. I enjoyed the book.
Posted by: Lexie | November 10, 2007 at 04:33 AM