What if I'm not bothered about making money?

[bwakeling]

I've just started a new blog, in which I post extracts from a book I'm currently writing. The main aims that I have are:

• Getting traffic
• Getting exposure
• Obtaining feedback

Ultimately, if no publishers like my book then perhaps someone out there will see my blog and offer me a book deal - BUT right now my aim is about getting as much exposure as possible, not about money.

What's the best marketing strategies for me?

B

[BarryJarvis]

firstly, can i just say i love what your doing here.
I have a 1 year old daughter, and i must admit that reading those pregnancy books aimed at women was just nothing short of shocking - i'm pretty sure it was the pictures that finished me off!

Anyway, i think a good place to start would be to get your own domain name instead of using the free blogspot one. Submit it to the search engines and make sure you've got your site keywords and description sorted... you know, the basics.

Once that's done, i'd get on to some forums that are aimed at blokes - for example menshealth.co.uk have a forum with a 'New Dads' section, places like that would be a good start.
Also, websites like Netmums - you'll be suprised how many men are on the 'mothering' sites

Do the normal stuff, like Twitter, Facebook etc and keep actively promoting on the internet.

For a project like yours, to get max exposure i would contact magazines, your local papers, and also tv stations etc
I know one of the women who started up a website called Moan About Men and they managed to get on Channel Five News, GMTV , featured in loads of magazines and papers, and been on various radio shows - they now have a book published too!

If you don't ask, you don't get

good look with everything

[amabaie]

Your own domain name.

You own Twitter account.

Comment on as many related blogs and forums as possible. Anywhere your target market can be found. Ebgage in as many conversations as possible.

Write articles, and submit to article directories. Tweet about the articles and then social bookmark them.

Be a bullhorn for your blog.

On the blog itself, make it as interactive as possible. Invite comments. Ask questions, Set up a poll. Then use articles and Twitter and other means to drive people to participate.

[annalaurabrown]

I also recommend setting up a facebook fan page for your book and then auto feeding your blog posts into it.

[Melody]

Originally Posted by bwakeling

I've just started a new blog, in which I post extracts from a book I'm currently writing. The main aims that I have are:

• Getting traffic
• Getting exposure
• Obtaining feedback

Ultimately, if no publishers like my book then perhaps someone out there will see my blog and offer me a book deal - BUT right now my aim is about getting as much exposure as possible, not about money.

What's the best marketing strategies for me?

B

I think it is great that you're not concerned about making money. There are several of us at bloggeries who feel that way.

Right now, my blog gets reasonable traffic is page rank 4 (I think?) and has no ads and doesn't make money. Nor do I have plans to make money off of it.

I will tell you that I have used twitter almost exclusively to promote my blog. But the process is slow. You can't open up twitter account and expect to drive blog traffic. I've been twittering for a little over a full year ago, and started twittering before I even thought of blogging. My goal in twittering was to connect with other people with the same niche (coffee fans). It's all been slowly developing over a full year.

I started blogging 5 months ago and had already been connecting with others who have coffee blogs, leaving comments on their blogs, and talking coffee on twitter. Ultimately, when I started promoting my blog, I already had a small audience of interested people. The first month I would regularly get about 75 visitors each day. The number has slowly grown each and every month.

But I should again warn you, this is all very slow. People want gratification too fast these days. No matter how you try to market your blog you should expect it to take some time.

In the end though, your content will eventually drive traffic if you have something unique and interesting that gets people walking in your virtual doors. (And I think you do have good content, imho).

Good luck.

[liquidgraph]

You have it one degree easier than most then. That's great. Focus on great content even more and reach out to fellow bloggers to review or comment on your work. Ask to write a guest post for another blog with a link back to your material. If you content is good, it will start to gain traction. Don't give up.

[knubbl]

As the others have already mentioned I would create a blog on your own domain. The next thing would be to get a nice design maybe one that will make your blog look like a book!?

Then of course start writing articles or as you've said copy parts of your book. The best way to get people interested in your blog is to comment on other people's blogs. You have to comment truthfully but if you do that you will get enough traffic.

You might also try to promote your book or blog via Twitter once you have a nice subscriber list.

[bwakeling]

Thanks very much for the advice!