4 Crucial Reasons Why Indie Authors Need a Blog | Explained by a Professional Book Editor in the UK
Professional book editor in the UK explains 4 crucial reasons why all indie authors would seriously benefit from blogging on their website!
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I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you plan to self-publish your novels and forge a path as an indie author, you'd benefit so much from a blog on your author website.
Some writers roll their eyes at the idea of blogging, and I get it, you'd rather be writing your exciting stories, but I can't stress enough just how life-changing blogging can be for indie authors!
For example, blogging as an indie author can give you the following benefits:
Trust
Value
Returning Visitors
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Let's delve into these areas in more detail! 👇
1. Trust
Building trust with your audience as an indie author is vital if you want to sell your books and grow an audience for yourself.
Unlike traditional authors who are represented by a publisher with an entire sales teams behind them, indie authors have to build trust themselves without any help, but the BEST way to earn trust on your own is to give your audience, consumers, and writer friends something for free, and what better way to do that than via a regular blog?
As a passionate writer who's obviously serious about your writing career, you most likely have tons of advice about the writing process, so why not share that knowledge for free? The more of an expert in your niche you appear, the more people will trust you, and therefore return for more advice, and ultimately buy your books.
Consider Jenna Moreci, for example. She started an advice vlog for aspiring authors on YouTube and now she has thousands of subscribers with a few successful indie books under her belt!
By no means do you have to put yourself in front of a camera if you're not comfortable in that area, but as you can probably tell by my example, Jenna Moreci built trust for years, and she reaped the rewards when she self-published her first novel.
Look at it this way, if you don't trust a company, you won't buy from them, and it's the same with indie authors... ESPECIALLY indie authors, so blogging is a top way to build that trust.
2. Value
A regular blog, whether an advice hub for writers or a book review journal, is such an effective way to show potential readers your writing style and whether your novel could be worth buying.
You may write lengthy posts on social media, but a series of blog posts allows readers to really experience the way you write and construct your words, which is more likely to spark their interest in your novels.
Plus, if you can provide your audience some kind of value, they're more likely to remember you and bear you in mind for when they're looking for content like yours in the future. Overtime, this will definitely build the trust you have with your audience and help to get more book sales.
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3. Returning Visitors
It's super exciting to receive new visitors and readers, but if they don't return, you may need to re-evaluate your approach.
If you simply have the standard four pages on your author website - the homepage, about page, books page, and contact page - visitors will have no real reason to return because they have seen everything.
But if they see that you have an appealing blog that's regularly updated, you give them a reason to return.
Although a returning visitor may not become a paying reader immediately, the more trust you can build with them through your blog, and the more value you can provide, the more likely they are to become part of your loyal audience.
4. Increased SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
You may or may not be familiar with SEO, so if not, here's a brief overview...
SEO - search engine optimisation - is how well your website ranks on Google.
You'll struggle to find anyone who looks further than the first page of Google, so it's important to get your website onto page one!
If your website only has the four basic pages, as mentioned previously, it'll likely get lost in all the search results, but when you publish regular blog posts, you give Google another page to crawl and index. The more blog posts you have with relevant SEO keywords, the more Google will consider you a valuable source.
So, if you're new to the blogging world, consider picking 3 keywords you want to rank for and weave them into your posts.
For example, I always try to rank for: "book editing services UK", "copy editing services UK", and "manuscript editing services UK", but I'm always adding more keywords when I start making progress with the initial ones.
Wishing you the best success in your author journey,
Chelsea x
ABOUT CHELSEA
Hey! I'm Chelsea and I'm a professional book editor at Stand Corrected Editing, my independent editorial business in the UK. If you would like to have your manuscript thoroughly edited by myself, please get in touch!
With my book editing and proofreading services, I hope to spread my knowledge and expertise on how to make your novel a success, and be a mentor to others who desperately want to pursue a fruitful career as an author!