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Author Jennifer L. Jacobson shares an excerpt from her book “42 Rules of Social Media for Small Business” that is great advice for authors who blog:

While blog types vary, here are a few points to remember when writing a blog for your business:

• Keep your entries short. Generally, a blog entry is no more than a couple of paragraphs in length.
• Keep your entries focused. Find one subject and stick to it.
• Keep it consistent. Blog readers expect consistent content, so I suggest blogging anywhere from once a week to once a month.
• This way your readers keep coming back, and they generally know when you’re going to add a new blog entry.
• Keep it personal. Blog entries are a “behind the scenes” look at your business. Find a way to let blog readers and potential customers see the inside of your business, without giving away trade secrets, and you will find a balance that is worth treading.

A blog is a very personal thing and, if you have one, I suggest keeping in mind the persona from which your blog is written. Is your company a snowboard manufacturer, that has an edgy, super-cool blog voice, designed to glamour teens into thrashing the slopes through a wave of pure white powder? Or, perhaps your organic wine company is looking for the Über-Neo-Foodie voice entrenched in pagan culture, and opposed to anything that may block the very karma that holds all life forces together. Regardless, write your blog for your audience and expect that it will be read.

You can purchase the book “42 Rules of Social Media for Small Business” by clicking the link!

Here is another great article about marketing your book by Melissa Breau.  Melissa is a copywriter and editor and clearly has a lot of experience working with authors.  Read “How To Market A Book In 3 Minutes Or Less” here.

Examiner.com has a great article about marketing your book in 2013.  It really is a marketing plan that you can use to promote your books.  You can read the entire article here.

Book Marketing Buzz is another site for authors who need help marketing their books.  They offer articles, blog tours, book excerpts, book giveaways and book promotion tips.  This site has lots of great articles that can be a valuable resource.  You can check it out here.

John Kremer has created a collection of Twitter tips that can help both newcomers and old timer authors who want to leverage the power of Twitter to market their book.  You can download the e-book version or read the online version here!

Vincent van Leeuwen shares the lessons he learned at Startup Weekend in September 2010.    Our favorite lesson?  “Treat The Media As Your Friend.”  Apply these lessons to writing a book or marketing your company.  Read the entire article here.

If you have an excerpt of your book you can offer it on sites that publish free offers to readers.  Make sure that you include more than just your introduction.  Most freebie sites require the excerpt to include one chapter from within the book.  You can find these types of sites by searching Google.

Another marketing idea for your book is to find blogs on the topic of your book and offer to write a guest post.  You might be asked to provide an original piece that won’t be published anywhere else.  Only offer that kind of exclusivity to a blog with a large readership that may be interested in your book and include a  link back to the book in your biography.  Many authors have done well using this method.

Smashwords is a site that works with authors and publishers to help them get e-books published by online bookstores.  On this site you’ll find many excellent free resources to help you publish and market your book.  Our favorite is the newly updated Smashwords Book Marketing Guide.  Some of the information in the guide you may already know but we think you’ll learn a thing or two that you hadn’t thought of on your own.  Read the guide and let us know which marketing tactic you liked the best!

We love GoodReads.  It is a great resource for both authors and for readers.  We regularly run giveaways for our new books and we always get a good response so we are happy to see that Goodreads doubled in size in 2012.  To learn all the good news from Goodreads click here and let us know how you use the site to promote your books.