Blogging - Let's Talk About It - Part II

Blogging is certainly one way to be published immediately, but there's other reasons to blog. Let's talk about the dream of being a New York best selling author. For a publisher to buy your book, they need to know they can promote it and you. This means you have to be able to hold your own and do interviews on television and radio, book signings in every kind of environment and more. When I say hold your own, I mean be articulate, be able to answer questions in a conversational way, and be good with people from all walks of life. All of this is true if you self publish your book in which case, this kind of promotion is much more difficult. Most writers believe their work will sell itself, that may be true, but you have to get enough influential people to read it first before it has an opportunity to sell itself. Truth be told, you have to have a great book and be a dynamic individual.

You can use your blog to build your author platform. If you are reading blogs and blogging, it's highly likely you are using social media sites such as facebook and twitter. Utilizing these free resources to connect with thousands of people and drive traffic to your blog will hopefully create a following of people who will be anxiously waiting to buy your book as soon as it's published. A publisher will look at this as a proactive approach on your part and it will also give them a real sense of your ability to write, your style, how you organize content and how many people think you have something worthwhile to say.

This is just one of the reasons to blog. There are bloggers out there who understand the power of blogging and make money by selling ads on their blogs. Can you imagine it, making a steady monthly income by doing what you love, writing? It's happening and to the tune of five figures monthly for some. Just like any business, you must understand all avenues to generating income, what would be expected of you personally, and how equipped are you to meet those requirements. If you didn't think blogging was a worthwhile use of your time, I would ask you to reconsider.