Top Tips for Effective Guest Posts #AuthorToolboxBlogHop

Guest posting has evolved from a way to manipulate rankings to become a useful tool for raising awareness of your work. This blog is visited by well over twenty thousand readers each month, (over thirty-six thousand last month) mostly with an interest in historical fiction, so it's a great way to reach a wider audience.

My broad aim now is to have posts with a one third book reviews, one third my own original posts and a third guest posts from other authors.

There are some simple things you can do to create the most effective guest posts:

• Be open-minded when choosing your guests. Although I write historical fiction, I like to include authors from other genres and open up my blog to a wider audience. I try to find guests whose work interests me and, unless they have a book launch deadline, make it an open invitation which they can attend to whenever they have the time.

• Develop a format which works for your blog readership. Mine has 'evolved' over the years into a layout with the cover of a book at the top with purchase links, then the guest post, and finally a short, third-person bio with a picture and links to the author's website and social media. (A short YouTube video embedded at the end also adds interest.) 

• Provide your guest-posters with guidance to save their time and make it more likely they'll send you something in the right format. I've developed a 'template' email which I customise for specific guests but only takes a moment to prepare.

• Have a set of generic questions for 'author interviews' which can be quick and easy for authors to answer. See this interview with author Emily Klein (Twitter @Ekleinfolktales) which has had 1,330 visitors this month so far.

• Share, share and share again. All posts on my blog are automatically shared on Goodreads and Google+ via RSS. I also share them at least twice to 28,000 followers on Twitter as well as Facebook to ensure they reach the widest possible audience.

If you are an author and feel your work would be of interest to visitors to The Writing Desk, please feel free to get in touch.

 

Tony Riches 

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Do you have some great tips on guest posting you would like to share? Please feel free to comment

The #AuthorToolboxBlogHop is a monthly event on the topic of resources and learning for authors. Feel free to hop around to the various blogs and see what you learn! The rules and sign-up form are below the list of hop participants. All authors at all stages of their careers are welcome to join in.