Publicity Tip #54 ~

One of the best ways to get the word out about your upcoming or just released book is by guest blogging. Now, this is similar to what you may know of “the virtual book tour” in that writing/author sites will ask you for unique content (articles) for their site in return for telling their followers a bit about you.

When you’re on a blog tour though a lot of the contest revolves around you as a writer, interviews, book synopses & blurbs as well as the occasional giveaway — it’s all about you and getting the word out about your book.

Guest blogging is the long-term up keep for maintaining a presence online between book blasts or tours.

It’s not about you and your work (although sometimes that can be a catalyst for an article as long as what you’re writing is informative) but what your knowledge and experience can offer readers.

For example:

A book tour article title –

How I wrote My First Science Fiction Novel

A guest blog article title –

6 Things to Consider When Writing Sci-Fi for the First Time

I’m sure you see the subtle difference between the two titles. They are NOT the same article with a different title; they share a common element, Writing Sci-Fi for the First Time, but one focuses solely on introducing you to to the online public as an author with a new book while the other is a helpful article where you pull from your experiences to help others making a similar journey.

Okay, now that you know the difference between the two methods of publicity the big question is “How do I find sites to Guest Blog on?”

First, if you’ve done a blog tour return to those sites and submit queries for articles. Second, do a search online with your genre or topic(s) in mind and see who’s out there: Guest Blogging on/for Writing Sci-Fi. Third, you can do a general search for blogs centered around writing and publicity.

The first blog I’d like to introduce you to this week is WRITER’S RELIEF.

They are looking for articles on:

• Writing craft (books, poems, stories, essays)
• Marketing and promoting
• Social networking
• Web issues for authors
• Getting an agent
• Self-publishing
• Making quality submissions
• Inspiration and encouragement
• Networking
• Conferences
• The writing life
• Any topic related to creative writing

Writer’s Relief is a company that authors can hire to do the grunt work for them: send out book queries, find journals and magazines to submit your poetry and short stories to, reach out to potential literary agents, etc. You do not have to be a ‘client’ in order to submit an article for consideration to be posted on their website. There is no fee for these submissions as you are not hiring them but are requesting they consider your work for their own site. They have a reach of 30,000+ subscribers and friends on their social networks.

You don’t get paid for these articles in cash – but you do get a bi-line and a couple of links back to your website(s). The more often you can get your name and your website out into the ether-net, the more SEO starts working for you… and if you link back to those guest blog sites from your website you’ll help raise your SEO and Google’s awareness of you for when people do random searches on line.

You want people to find YOU and not the other guy 🙂

Categories: Publicity

Tags: article writing, articles, author, finding an audience, guest blogging, pubicity, pubicity help, publicity advice, self-publicity, SEO, staying connected, writer, writing, writing between books