Blog reciprocity is your secret ingredient for publishing success
One of the biggest discoveries I made as a blogger is that blogging is not a zero-sum game!
Blogging, unlike traditional publishing, is not a zero-sum game. it is vital that you understand what this means.
The traffic for each participant increases as more people are involved in discussing a given topic.
Thus several bloggers discussing a topic will generate many more hits and relationships than they could possibly do alone.
We bloggers have an incredible advantage over almost any other communication medium when it comes to generating interest in a topic. Each of us who participates in the discussion draws interest to ourselves as well as the topic. The only proviso is that for maximum effect, we need to be linked to the discussion in every possible way.
A real-life example
When I started writing my Employees Handbook for Surviving Corporate Employment, I blogged the process and you readers made comments and suggestions which generated enough interest that I had to step up my production.
I displayed early versions of the cover and received more comments which prompted me to rename the book, Danger Quicksand – Have A Nice Day.
Bloggers thought the title was catchy and appropriate and started writing posts about it. My traffic grew and those who left comments and trackbacks shared in the increased traffic volume.
Other bloggers asked about self-publishing and that prompted a series of posts on the subject which is still running and will eventually become a book in its own right. My traffic continued to grow to the point where I began offering free downloads of the entire book for my readers so they wouldn’t have to wait for the printing of the paperback. Bloggers passed the word around and a thousand copies were downloaded in a very short time.
One of my readers, Avi Solomon, was instrumental in getting my book submitted to ChangeThis, which resulted in tens of thousands of free downloads. According to ChangeThis, with pass-along copies my readership of the free book has climbed to around 50,000 viewers. I now have a link to a ChangeThis site counter which shows the spreading influence of this book.
We are still very early in the game
When the book was at the printer, I began advertising on weblogs of my blogging friends. (You can see their names listed on the left sidebar.) I started getting pre-orders and a backlog of orders on the day the books arrived. My blogging friends discussed this and my traffic built further with book sales following suit.
With some help from Tallglassofmilk at Drink this…, I began using Blogads with quotes from other bloggers. My book sales took a noticeable jump and the traffic on Ripples and Bent Crow Press started climbing in earnest.
I was a little slow off the mark and didn’t realize that the quotes did not have links to the bloggers who so graciously provided them. Once I installed the proper links, Dwayne Melancon and Wayne Allen started getting traffic from the people who saw their names while visiting daybyday from Chris Muir, Overheard in the Office, and Iowahawk.
I know that more of you have written comments about Danger Quicksand – Have A Nice Day and I would like to put your comments and links in the Blogads I will be running in the future. This has an incredible 4-way payoff:
1. It is a huge benefit to me, because my ideas are spreading more rapidly.
2. Readers who see the ads get to see new and different comments.
3. You get more publicity, notoriety and traffic as a result of your exposure on several high-traffic weblogs.
4. More people are reading my book and getting the tools they need to deal with some very difficult working situations.
If you have written or would like to write a review or comment about my book, send me an email and I’ll get you the exposure you so richly deserve. Blogging is not a zero-sum game, it is a game that benefits every participant. Join me and get your share of the action.
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