A blog works great as an extended media campaign, or as a simple promotional tool. This blog, for example, is a promotional tool for my pro blogging ebook.
When I discuss using blogs as a marketing tool in this way – for PR – I usually get blank looks, closely followed by “Yes, but – ” and a long explanation of why it won’t work for a specific need.
To which I always reply: “Of course you can use a blog to (fill in your specific marketing task.)”
You can use a blog to get a job, sell a house, develop a career, promote a company, sell a book to a publisher, promote your forthcoming (you hope) bestseller, promote a good cause, persuade other people to your point of view, propaganda, disinformation, promote your hobby, amusement, create a REAL Web site (yes, a blog is a Web site), etc. You can use a blog for just about any marketing or other purpose.
A blog is flexible. A blog is what YOU want it to be, and what you say it is. Unless you’re a 16 year old girl, a blog is not an online journal. Although it can be. 
I’m a writer, so the ways in which writers use blogs fascinate me. (The ways in which some writers and publishers resist blogging also fascinates me.)
Blogging PR for books – get known, sell a book or sell more copies
There’s a long, long list of books which started out as a blog. There’s even a name for these book/ blogs – “blooks”. So if you’re a writer, working on a book, create a blog.
Kate Mosse spent six years writing Labyrinth, which has now sold a million copies in US editions alone. From her site:
My name is Kate Mosse, creator and writer in residence of www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk. This website is an archive of a 6-year on-line experiment to see if it was possible, using the internet, to share the process of writing a historical novel – Labyrinth – and to encourage new directions in our on-line visitors’ reading and creative writing. I work with my husband, writer and educator Greg Mosse.
Labyrinth is a wonderful read, BTW, I was sorry to finish it because I become totally involved in it.
Penny C. Sansevieri’s book, “Red Hot Internet Publicity, An Insider’s Guide To Marketing Your Book On The Internet” provides a soup to nuts outline of the book marketing process. It’s an easy read, and if you’re promoting a book, it’s a sensible investment so you know what to do at all stages of the process.
So, what do YOU want to promote? Whatever your goals, a blog is a perfect tool for PR.
Technorati Tags: blogs, blogging, PR, publicity, sell a book, blooks, writers, Internet publicity
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