Writing guest posts on blogs is a worthwhile way to attract an audience to your writing. Once the post is published, you and the person who owns the blog can Facebook the post, Google+ it, or Tweet it. If you are lucky, your connections become like dominoes.
Carla, a well-known author in Italy, gave me my first opportunity to write a guest post. Through the article I posted on Carla’s blog I met Max, who lives in Italy. Max liked what I wrote and clicked on the Web link provided. He has become one of my most devout and supportive fans.
Max belongs to a group called Effortless English (EE) which is composed of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students who follow a program developed by A. J. Hoge. Hoge’s method of teaching English is to have students read authentic English material – books written for young English speaking students.
One of the great thrills of my life was the day Max contacted me on Facebook to say he was lying in bed reading the first book in my science fiction series. What a rush! A total stranger reading my sci-fi book in Italy.
Max introduced me to AJ. AJ invited me to appear (virtually) on his Internet show, broadcast from San Francisco. That interview is permanently available on the Internet. We both retweet it on occasion. The two interviews I have done with the EE folks have been viewed more than 1,000 times.
My friend Damyanti, in Singapore, is another example of the domino effect. She reviewed my fantasy book, 'James & the Dragon,' on her blog. She contacted me on a Monday to say it was posted. On Wednesday she contacted me to say some of her readers were leaving comments on the blog. She said I could hop on and answer them.
When I went to the site, I saw that most of the comments were on how intriguing my dragon, Farloft, sounded. I decided to answer their comments in the persona of Farloft. The readers on her blog ate it up and Farloft had a blast.
On Sunday, Damyanti contacted me again to say she was posting a new review and would miss Farloft. She suggested he should have his own Twitter account.
The dominoes really toppled that evening as people from all over the world kept me up until midnight, insisting Farloft get his own Twitter account, Facebook page and blog. I tried to discourage them. All I could see was more work, trying to maintain two sets of everything. After two days of heated debate I gave in and said Farloft could use my account the last Friday of the month. That day a star was born.
Farloft is a mouthpiece for my books, a way to advertise without being intrusive. He is loved so much that folks create and post fan art and they ask his advice because he is a very old and wise dragon.
One domino topples another. The next step you take in marketing your books in the indie world might just be the one that takes you over that tipping point into sales and success. Take advantage of all you can because you never know which domino might topple next.
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| Star Traveler Series |
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