The most common question I get form authors is how can I compete with the hundreds of thousands of other books on the market? That’s a good question. After all, if you are an unknown author, how are you to get any sort of traction and notice in this new publishing arena?
First, I am going to assume that you have the following three items. If not, then do it now. It’s fast, easy and free.
1. A Blog or Website
2. A social Media account (facebook or twitter, or both)
3. Drive.
If you want to be successful, then you need to put in the effort. This can be as little or as much as you wish, but you should be doing at least one thing every day toward promoting yourself and your book.
The easiest feature is to write content or posts (articles) on your blog. When you write your posts be award of the keyword or words you are targeting. For example, if you are writing a post on romantic fiction, you main keyword would be “romantic fiction.”
The problem is all romantic fiction readers are targeted. You may say that is NOT a problem, but consider the competition. Romantic fiction has a huge audience and huge competition. You will have to do better to pull in readers to your site.
Create a Keyword Map
Delve into the meat of your book and pull items specific to your genre. Consider every possibility.
- Start with Romantic Fiction as your main topic
- Next, consider geography, careers, genders that are associated with your book.
- Continue to write more specifics until you have exhausted every possibility.
Example: General to Specific
You start with the general keywords “romantic fiction”. From this you may have gleaned:
- Montana
- Helena
- Florist
- Rancher
- horses
Combine these terms with your general keywords like this:
- “Montana romantic fiction”
- “Montana romance”
- “Western romance”
- “Romance in a Flower shop”
- “Helena, Montana romance”
You get the idea.
Branch Out
Once you have your keywords, you will find a variety of subjects you can write about and an audience to write to. In fact, you’ll have a better idea of your target audience and even more possible marketing avenues. You could even approach businesses in the setting of your novel (floral shops or western gear) and ask if they would be interested in carrying your book.
You can see that this simple exercise goes a lot further than simple SEO, it offers the potential for exponential growth.
