Guest Post: Hand Selling Your Blog

By Emily @ What Book is That?

Greetings! My name is Emily, and my normal blogging locale is at What Book is That?, where I blog about all things paranormal romance, urban fantasy, historical, comedic, and interesting. Literally everything is fair game.

You may not realize it, but I just took the all important first step in spreading the word about my blog! Yes, introducing yourself and maintaining a presence is the best way I know of to spread the word about what’s happening in your corner of the blogging universe.  Whether it’s an awesome review that you’re really proud of, a giveaway you’ve spent a ton of time organizing, a rant that perfectly articulates your stance on an issue, or anything else that makes your blog unique, ostensibly you wouldn’t have written it if you didn’t want other people to read it.

Beyond that, though, networking and hand selling your blog is a great way to form relationships with other bloggers, authors, publicists, and many other people who share the same interests as you.  When motivated people share inspiration and collaborate, great things happen!

There are a ton of ways to show support for someone and what they’re doing in the blogging world. Follow their blog (for example, if you’re not currently following my excellent host today, A Book and a Latte, why not? Take a second and follow this excellent blog!) Comment on their posts. Tweet. Follow on Facebook. Enter their giveaways!

Another avenue for collaboration is by organizing a theme or an event for your own blog and inviting other folks to jump on board! It’s amazing how using a theme makes a whole bunch of seemingly unconnected ideas fall in line.

This is what happened with the event that’s currently going on at my blog- the 2011 Declare Your Independence Indie Author Giveaway Carnival! It’s been my privilege to work with thirty different independently and self-published authors to come up with awesome giveaways and reviews of books to share over at my blog. This carnival is all about bringing authors and readers together by spotlighting some great independent books, and hey, who doesn’t like to win things?

Many thanks to Jen here at A Book and a Latte for having me as a guest poster!