5 Tips for Successful Book Marketing with Bloggers

Blogger Relations – 5 Tips for Successful Book Marketing with Bloggers

“You need to do marketing for your book so it doesn’t get lost in the crowd!”

This is always so easy to say, but the implementation is not easy, as many self-publishers have neither the budget nor the contacts to start large-scale advertising campaigns. But you don’t need that at all. Maybe a blogger action is the means of your choice. There are many book bloggers who are passionate about reading books and thus reach many people. They enrich the book world in both non-fiction and fiction.
We will explain step by step how Blogger Relations – i.e. cooperation with bloggers – work.

Why Blogger Relations?
A good blog, no matter in which area, reaches a broad, interested audience and has a great influence on its readers: people build trust with their favorite bloggers. Bloggers are often regarded as opinion makers in their respective industries or communities. This is a good thing, because the huge range of offers and information, often makes the purchase decision easier if someone has already tried and evaluated the coveted product. This applies to books as well as to lifestyle products.

Bloggers help you to set yourself apart from the mass of publications through creative, joint actions and to market your book optimally. They often use many different channels such as Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, or their own website and reach so many people that you would normally never get close to as an author. The blogger thus lends you his or her reach for your appearance. Blogger relations can also be considered a business relationship, depending on how you approach it. A respectful and transparent approach is therefore desirable from both sides.

Blogger Relations – this is how it works
What to consider when organizing joint actions with bloggers – so-called blogger relations – we explain below in 5 simple tips.

1) Plan ahead of time!
Metadata is important for the visibility of your books if you don’t start planning your blogger relations until a few weeks before publishing, it’s usually too late. Very few bloggers have time at short notice to concentrate on their book and corresponding cooperation but need advance notice to read and plan.
You should consider this step and integrate it into your schedule right from the start. For this, it can be helpful to plan backward and consider when everything should be ready.

You should definitely include the following considerations:

  • How much time do you need to search for bloggers?
  • Do the bloggers have enough time to read your book and think about an action?
  • How long does it take to implement the ideas?
  • Be sure to also plan time for spontaneous ideas or failures so that you don’t get stressed and can enjoy your publication. Some bloggers are also happy if you already inquire while you are still writing your book and collect some ideas at the same time. This makes your work easier for you and the bloggers later on and maintains good blogger relations in the long term.

-> Extra: Find book bloggers and write to them
Searching for bloggers and communicating with them takes much longer than most people suspect. You first have to find suitable blogs, write to the respective operators and then coordinate with them. Above all, the search takes a lot of time, because they want to find blogs that are both creative and serious, and also fit your book.

Important: The search for suitable blogs and the right approach is crucial for successful blogger relations. To help you with this, we’ve written two separate articles that cover everything you need to know about these topics. We will explain to you how to …

find a good and suitable book blog.
successfully write to bloggers.

2) Expect professionalism!
When planning your actions and blogger relations, you should always keep the professionalism of the individual bloggers in mind. The quality of the contributions should be guaranteed at every moment, after all, they discuss your work. Maybe the bloggers can also exchange ideas with each other or read and critically evaluate each other’s posts?
Be sure to plan a uniform appearance of the blogs for your action. Here you can, for example, provide graphics and other information material that bloggers can use. It is important that you and your book stand out and remain in good memory with the readers.

3) The classic blogger work
Probably the most common form of blogger relations that you can claim as an author is a review of one of your books in exchange for a free copy. To do this, send the blogger either a paperback or an eBook of your work. They read and discuss it on their channels. They exchange copies for reviews, so to speak. Please note that bloggers don’t owe you writing a good review. Reviews should always be honest.

4) Blogger Relations – but please be creative!
When selecting bloggers, you should also rely on their creativity. Of course, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but always the same review contributions, interviews, or author ideas get bored at some point. So try to develop original ideas about your book and yourself as a person and suggest them to the bloggers. It is important that your book is interesting and appealing and that many readers discover it through your blogger campaign.

Below we have put together some suggestions for a blogger campaign:

  1. Video presentation on Youtube
  2. Practical applications (e.B. a dish from a cookbook is recooked)
  3. (Success) Diaries (especially suitable for guides)
  4. Background to the book and its creation
  5. Character ideas (for novels)
  6. In which time/world is your novel set? Is it worth introducing them?
  7. A virtual journey to the locations in the book
  8. A photo challenge on Instagram
  9. Puzzles, virtual treasure hunts, or sweepstakes

5) Be a team!
Not only the bloggers should reliably read, review or plan activities on your book. Your initiative is also in demand! Maintain blogger relations, show interest and actively offer your help in the implementation of the posts. The more personal your appearance and dealings with the bloggers, the sooner they will discuss your next books and come back to you as an author.

Many authors also set up targeted blogger teams, to whom they provide information on current projects, new publications, or collaborations at regular intervals – for example in the form of a newsletter.

Blogger relations are a wonderful opportunity to network and market your book. Dare to do it!