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Just the title of this post stuns some of you, right?  Advertise your blog?  Yes, advertise your blog.  Why? 

Advertising your blog brings readers to your website!  Once at your website, readers take their time, poke around, check out your excerpts, get to know your name, and buy your book.  It’s back-door promotion that works–and is less expensive than you think.  Pull new readers in with an active, entertaining daily blog and those readers will stick around long enough to be drawn to your books far more than a straightforward advertisement for the book.

Now you know the why, here’s the where, the when, the what, and the how.

Where:  Choose blogs that attract an audience that is similar to the type of audience that enjoys your books.  In most cases, this will mean a blog that attracts women.  If you write inspirational romances or books with rural settings, you might want to choose blogs with a Christian slant or country living blogs.  If you write comedies, look for humorous blogs.  If you write family-centered stories, advertise on a mommy blog.  If you write suspense and adventure, you might choose a blog with a contemporary edge to the writing.  And so on.  Analyze the writing style on the blog, the audience it attracts, and advertise accordingly.  Look at a blog’s traffic.  The more traffic a blog has, the more response (click-throughs) you’ll get, but the more traffic a blog has also tends to increase the price.  Advertising on a major blog is one way to go for high click-throughs, but another strategy is to put the same money into advertising on multiple smaller blogs for less money per blog.  Either way, you’ll reach a big audience for the same price.

When:  Anytime, but especially around the time of a book’s release.

What:  There are many types of advertising platforms.  Some I’ve used have included Adbrite, Federated Media, and BlogAds.  Visit their sites and use their systems to narrow your blog searches by categories that complement your writing style. 

How:  All of the above-mentioned platforms accept text ads, which are the simplest ads to create.  An example of a text ad I’ve used with great success is: “Visit a writer’s daily farmhouse journal for recipes, crafts, fun and country living.”  Notice I don’t advertise a book!  I’m advertising entertainment–free entertainment–to get them in the door.  BlogAds also offers the option of adding an image, which I find preferable in increasing click-throughs as images attract attention.  I use the image of a barn with chickens, alternating with an image of a funny sheep.  These images are designed to capture interest and reflect my Chickens in the Road country living blog.  (And I write stories in “country” settings, so this also attracts an audience geared toward my books.)

You can see examples of BlogAds on numerous sites including Crazy Aunt Purl and Biblical Womanhood Online.  You can also see BlogAds in action on my own website, Chickens in the Road, where I publish BlogAds as a side income.  See the “Become a Sponsor” links in my sidebar?  I offer three ad positions at varying price points for any budget.  You can find host blogs for BlogAds either through similar links in their sidebars or by visiting the BlogAds website and searching for blogs.

Promoting your blog instead of or in conjunction with your book, and using blogs as an advertising strategy, is the newest, smartest way to fast-track your traffic and your sales outside the box and bring in readers who might never hear about you otherwise.  Have fun–and let me know what you think!

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Tags: Marketing //