Many writers and entrepreneurs wonder why they should blog an ebook rather than write it the “old-fashioned way.” I can think of many reasons, the first of which is that you can publish as you write.
That means you become an author and a publisher the instant you hit the “publish” button on your blog software.
Not only that, your writing gets read, which really represents the most important aspect of writing a book.
While at Blog World Expo (now called New Media Expo), I listened to a speaker ask a room full of bloggers how many were published authors. A small number of hands went up. The man on the stage said, “Each one of you should have raised your hand. Every blogger is a published author and a publisher.”
The Benefits of Publishing as You Write
Indeed, each time you write a blog post and hit the “publish” button, you publish your work, and that makes you an author and a publisher. If you choose to blog an ebook, before you upload a manuscript to Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook or even Apple’s iBook, you become an author and publisher of an ebook in the process of writing and publishing it. And people start reading that book…before you even finish. No waiting.
If that’s not a good enough reason to publish as you write, let me offer a few more:
1. As you blog your ebook you improve your chances that more potential customers and clients will read what you write. When you blog a book you will notice your blog traffic increasing. The high-quality content focused on one topic is keyword and keyword-phrase rich. This makes it more-easily found by people searching for your topic on the internet.
Also, when you blog a book your blog page views will go up but your bounce rate will go down. That means more people find your blog, and once on the website they read more posts. That provides you with more opportunities to tell these potential clients and customers about your products and services.
2. You can build your expert status faster if people read your blog or ebook now—not later. A blog provides a great way to build expert status and credibility. However, a book takes your clout to a new level. Authors are always seen as authorities in their field, and if your readers know you are blogging an ebook your status will begin to rise in their eyes immediately.
If it’s taking you a long time to get that book written, or you simply aren’t finding time because you’re blogging and handling business as well, combine your blogging and writing activities so you can both blog and write your ebook—and build expert status now as you allow your ebook to get read (as you write it)!
3. Your blogged ebook may have more readers than the completed ebook. Today the average printed book only sells 250 copies per year. The average ebook on Amazon only sells about 150 copies per year.
A blog might receive 250 readers a day, 1,000 per week or 10,000 per month—or more. That means your blogged ebook potentially could garner you more readers than the finished ebook.
Create a Series of Blog Posts that Become an Ebook
That’s why you don’t just want to write any old blog posts. You want to write a series of blog posts that become part of your ebook. Plan out the content for a whole book, and actually blog the majority of an ebook manuscript—or two or three.
And let your blog readers know you are blogging a book. Provide an “about this ebook page” or some other “about page” with a table of contents so they can follow the posts.
Reap the Benefits of Your Ebook Before You Complete It
Most authors must wait to finish an ebook before it gets read and they reap the benefits of becoming an author. Don’t wait. Reap the benefits now…as you write and publish.
You’ll find blogging a book a thrilling publishing experience—one where the entire cyber world becomes your possible audience. You get to be in control of what you publish, where you publish it and when you publish it, which means when people read it. As a savvy entrepreneur, you will work smarter and start achieving the results you desire with your ebook (and blog) immediately.
And if you are more than just an entrepreneur—if you are writer—blogging your ebook will allow you to have what a writer really wants anyway: readers for your writing.
As a businessperson, that’s the point, too, isn’t it? You want your ebook content read so it leads potential clients and customers to your website and to you. A blogged ebook ensures that happens—now rather than later.
This article was originally published on The Future of Ink and is reprinted here in its entirety for our Magnolia Media Network readers.
