Your book marketing sucks. Use mine instead.

I’ve written a lot about book marketing. Some people read my books and learn how to do it right.

Other people are lazy, so they just wait for any old offer to appear.

Something I see being done far too often, is the invitation to write a guest post for a small blog with low PR and not much traffic.

Bloggers love this because it means they don’t have to do any work.

Authors think guest posting on another blog is good marketing (it’s free, and why not?).

The problem is, a lot of small blogs have a low PR (page rank) which means even if you write a great article with a great headline, nobody is going to find it because it won’t rank well in the search engines.

The only people who will see it are the followers and friends of that particular blogger.

A lot of people will point out here that “page rank doesn’t matter” anymore, and that’s kind of true – this blog gets about 800 visitors a day and has a PR3. My book covers site has a PR4 and gets 600. My DIYCovers site is a year old with a PR2 and gets 1500 visitors a day. So PR alone doesn’t necessarily mean traffic.

But I still believe getting links back from high PR sites is valuable in terms of ranking and SEO. So for guest posts, you want to be posting on a site that has traffic AND a high PR, and is also growing quickly by posting LOTS of content.

Before jumping on every offer to be featured on somebody’s blog, take a look at their Twitter and Facebook profiles, as well as the other articles on their site. How many followers do they have? How many comments do articles usually receive? Even if they have 50 very active readers, it’s far more powerful to put your article on a site with more traffic so that thousands of strangers will find it, for years and years to come.

Also – most small blogs are simple, not well designed, cluttered, and random. Having your amazing article appear on a poorly designed blog actually weakens your authority and makes people less likely to trust you as an expert.

What to do instead

But guest posting is a really great way to do book marketing. It’s a great way to build your author platform. It’s a great way to cement your role as a trusted expert (as long as you write helpful articles). But if you’re going to spend time doing it, post on a clean, nice looking site with high PR, so that it will get more traffic and raise your credibility.

Ideally, you want to look for opportunities to guest post on the type of blogs your ideal readers are reading.

Putting articles out on other high PR blogs will also help your own website rank well (because you’ll get a bunch of high PR backlinks pointing towards your site, which makes Google trust you more).

Wait a minute, isn’t guest blogging BAD for SEO?

If you really follow Google and SEO tactics, you might have seen Matt Cutts’ article The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO, and if you don’t read it carefully, it sounds like he’s saying guest posting has become a terrible, spammy practice. If you’re doing it so much you’re using article spinners to crank out crap content, or if you let just anybody post shit on your websites, then yes, guest blogging is not great for SEO.

But if you write great content, sharing a high quality article on blogs with more traffic can bring you a flood of new readers, and doing it repetitively can explode your author platform. I know dozens of people who got started with only a few articles on their own site, a great email optin offer, and then started doing dozens of guest posts – they got hundreds of thousands of email signups and sold a ton of books.

And it continues to be the #1 way that bestselling authors promote their books doing a book launch

For years I’ve been committed to helping indie authors succeed, so recently in 2014 I bought a whole bunch of high PR websites that you could use for book marketing.

A lot of them are genre-specific book review sites, because one of the most powerful marketing tricks is to write book reviews (or book ‘lists’) about other books in your genre, so that you’re attracting highly targeted traffic who are “pre-screened” and likely to be interested in your book as well.

I spent just under $2000usd setting these up, and you can use them for free.

The value of community

Rather than posting an article on your own blog, sharing it on social media and hoping people like or reshare, these sites are meant as community blogs (think Huffington Post or Beliefnet). Lots of bloggers writing together around a niche topic, and each author promoting their articles, means a cumulative effect on traffic that is considerably stronger than what you’d be able to bring in on your own.

As of right now (2015) I still haven’t gotten around to finishing some of these, because I have too many projects to do, and I don’t need any of these sites for my own platform. I bought these for you, but I need your help in building them up. If you want to market your books but you don’t know what to do, commit to writing an article a week for some of these sites in addition to blogging on your own platform.

Articles should not be used to promote your own books. You’ll have a byline at the end with links to your site and book – you need to write great content so people will trust you, and then they will be motivated to click your links and check out your books. If you just write a post to promote your book directly, people won’t trust the content. We want real articles – not just bait and switch lists with bullet points and unsubstantial content. There is no word limit – write as much as the article needs to be complete.

Check the sites out and let me know if you’re interested in becoming a contributor, and how you qualify (experience writing in the genre, publishing experience, links to your books, etc.)

2025 book marketing updates!

There’s a good chance nobody will see this article because it’s ancient… I’m just cleaning house and adding some notes. Over the past few years I’ve written a few more books on book marketing, and crossed six-figures from book sales.

It’s true that my blogs and websites don’t make much money – I do better on youtube, not just for views but also driving traffic to my offers and email list. I get about 3000+ signups a month and very poorly convert some of them to low-priced offers. There’s a ton of things I could be doing better.

I’m aware that advertising on facebook or KDP is more direct, and works best… but only if it works.
In the meantime I’ve built a very large, bloated infrastructure that costs a lot to run and doesn’t really do anything.

So why bother?
Because the only way to build a relationship is through repeated exposure, and warm leads costs less than cold leads. With all the big google and SEO changes coming as new AI tools destroy the internet, I need to protect and safeguard my platform – and the truth is, while there is still a bunch of debate about the value of backlinks, they can still really work. It’s better to have something rather than nothing.

I don’t like spam or paid for backlinks, so I need to create my own hobby sites just for fun and talk about relevant topics, and then use those sites and pages to link back to my main, core things.

It’s not perfect, but it’s something I can take action on, start and complete, that may hold me above water for longer. That said… it’s hard to manage all these sites at once. Some of them, I gave up on and let die out slowly. But I’ve recently picked up a handful more and need to figure out how to put them all together.

I used to offer that people could publish their guest posts on my site, but honestly that’s messy… and backlinks are valuable. So these days I’m more interested in reciprocal links: I share your good stuff and you share my good stuff. I only recommend things that provide genuine value, but I also really need to start linking to my own resources, which can often go unnoticed.

If you’re a new author setting up an author blog or wordpress website, I have some online courses that will help you build an author platform, with a ton of recommendations about what to do (and what not to do). But even having a pretty site with great content isn’t enough – you need Google to know you exist, and you can’t toot your own horn, which means other people have to link to you.

Getting those links is like getting book reviews: difficult and frustrating. You can go viral, but I prefer to add value. And even then, sometimes it’s easier to just give yourself or your friend a little support. Now that Creativindie is a medium sized-writing blog with a pretty decent web authority, I try to link out to all my author friends and buddies and the cool projects they are working on.

I’ve basically given up trying to convince authors that guest posting is good for them, but I might try to make it all easier somehow. In the meantime, here’s a short list of some of my websites which I’m actively either building or destroying.

PublishingInsider.net

Publishing Insider covers topics relevant to self-publishing and indie authors. You can guest post about something you’ve researched, review a tool or website you’ve tried, write ‘how-to’ guides on some aspect of publishing, or comment on publishing related issues. Authors with books about publishing, or providers of publishing-related services, will obviously profit the most – but any author with experience learning how to self-publish will have useful content to offer. Even if you write fiction. Doesn’t matter. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s OK – focus on what you learned today.

OffTheShelf.info

This is a general book review site, for all genres – non-fiction and fiction. It’s a great place to write “list” type posts, such as “the 10 greatest archers in fantasy literature” or “10 inspirational books to motivate you this summer.” You can also review or critique books one by one – there are special tools for reviewing, adding stars, and linking to the Amazon page. (Still working on this one, but it’s going to be very powerful. Why not just post reviews on Amazon or Goodreads? Because those sites aren’t set up to feature your profile and link to your book or website).

EdwardCullenSucks.com

The tagline for this one is “Searching for a Better Paranormal Paramour.” It’s for dark fantasy, supernatural fiction and paranormal romance of any kind (angels, demons, vampires, werewolves, aliens…).

It could also be rants like “10 overused plot-developments in YA Paranormal Romance” or commentaries on related themes (reviews of movies based on books? Similarities between two or three major books? Author interviews?) I’ll also be using it as a hub for travel writing and research as I explore Romania next year.

If you write paranormal romance and want to help turn this into an awesome paranormal romance review site, get in touch.

WebWiseWriter.com

This is a site for inspirational, spiritual or motivational books – both fiction (The Alchemist, Celestine Prophecy, The Prophet, Way of the Peaceful Warrior) and non-fiction (The Secret, Awaken the Giant Within, Better than Good, the Power of Now). It could also be a place for guest posting thoughtful, reflective articles about life, happiness, spiritual wisdom, finding peace and being joyful.

Creativinfluence.com

All about creativity, the writing process, etc. Not sure if I’ll allow guests posts yet on this one, I have two writers who are doing  a great job on it; it needs to be more high brow, intelligent content like BrainPickings.

I also have a few other sites that I’ll probably turn into standalone businesses, like

www.readipress.com (a publishing company I may or may not launch…)

www.publishxpress.com (a membership site for publishing tools)

www.wriye.com (a one year email sequence to help writers finish their books)

And we’ve just started www.marketingforwriters.com, in case you have book marketing tips to share.

To wrap up: I need writers

What I have is a collection of targeted sites that bring in niche traffic. This year (2015) I’m going to focus on growth and platform building, but I need more content. In exchange for your content (articles) you’ll get a link back to your book and you can leverage my growing platforms.

I’ve hired 3 full-time writers and social media experts recently who are going to build everything up and focus on getting a ton of followers/fans. Think you can be useful? Want to help me grow these sites, get more exposure, become recognized as a trusted expert, bring more traffic back to your own blog, and sell more books? Just get in touch and I’ll set you up.

Guest Posting SEO websites

Let me know in the comments what you think. Unless you plan to be mean: if you don’t think this sounds like a fair deal, you’re free to continue building your own platform without any help.

Here are a few recent projects I’m developing, mostly just for fun!

• mydeskblog.com
• crazy4study.com
• screenwritersfederation.org

Derek Murphy

Derek Murphy has a PhD in Literature, is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and has spent over a decade helping authors write, publish, and sell books through Creativindie. When he’s not critiquing manuscripts or building writing tools, he’s probably in a castle somewhere with cats.