Using Blogs To Promote Your Book

The St Louis Publishers' Association is bringing in David Strom from the Strominator to talk about how author can use blogs to promote their books.

It's at the lodge in Des Peres at 6:30 on May 14th.  An excerpt from their site:

A blog is the fastest way to set up your Web site and the easiest method to get the word out about your book and yourself as an author. In this hands-on session, Internet author and professional speaker David Strom will show you how to set up, maintain, and flog your blog for little or no cost. He'll discuss the things that you can do to make your blog more popular in Google searches, without having to hire a "search optimization expert".

We've had a few clients in this arena, but the cost of hiring a professional usually far outweighs what an individual author is willing to do, or what a publisher is willing to pay.  That said, it's crazy for an author not to be online in some capacity, and a blog is the easiest to manage, and most SEO effective way of getting your name out in front of the masses.

It's an excellent chance to learn, but remember this - it's easy to get started, but blogs don't magically bring results.  You have to put yourself out there, and that means more than just writing.  Blogging is about interacting with your community, so if all you want to do is flog your book, chances are you're not going to get far.  If you want to build and communicate with a fan base, blogs are the best, and the cheapest way to do so.