Do Book Blogs help sell books?

[DrDLN]

I have published on amazon for over a year. But I am comparatively new to book blogs compared to majority of the authors. 

I have not seen any dramatic increase in sales yet.

I am curious if Book Blogs have made any significant difference in sales of other authors.  Or it has simply taken us away from writing which most of the authors love to do.

I am talking about sales, not the social and entertainment aspect to hang around for a change. Thanks and wish you the best.

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"We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly":  http://amzn.to/dMBLWW

[Kalua Lauber]

I've discovered on here that most people need for you to review their books so it is more of a give and take.  For me, social networks like Facebook help more but I haven't been overwhelmed with sales.  It helps if you have a niche book like for me as an African American writer whose romance is interracial I've gotten sales in areas where it would be difficult for others to sell.  Book fairs can be cool.  One other thing that I learned from a writer who visited my school with his book on "Great Teachers", it is important to sell your book to local schools by calling to see if they would like a guest speaker at their school.  He had several book tours with schools to speak to staff as a professional development and our principal purchased it.  I tried it for  African American studies and I've had a few schools who were interested in purchasing and that got rid of the books I'd bought in bulk.  I priced it lower than it was on the website and people jumped on that.  I'm interested in reading your book and if it's an ebook I'll download it to Kindle.  So you have 1 sale here and if I like it I'll recommend it.

 

Kalua Lauber

 

[DrDLN]

Thanks Kalua. I do appreciate you sharing some marketing tips. You're right these social sites may be good places to make friends. I have found out sales depend on author efforts. That's part of self publishing. I am not just good at marketing. Most of my books basically sell at their own. Thanks for your interest. My books are available for kindle and printed editions at Amazon. Link in the note below. Thanks and wish you the very best.

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“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” http://amzn.to/dMBLWW

[shelly blomker]

I think that book blogs can help sell books if the person coming to you blog hasn't read the book and thinks what you've written about it might be something they are interested in. I've gotten many comments on my blog saying that either they've read the book and would say they were glad I enjoyed it or they would say they might just read the book because I thought it was a good book and I liked it.

I think that I've been very helpful to those that have come to my blog to read what I have to say. They also keep coming back to see what book I have read next.

My book blog is,

www.shllysbookclub.blogspot.com

 

 

[ManOfLaBook.com]

Book blogs and social media are like word of mouth and are part of an encompassing marketing strategy. There is no magic formula.

http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

[DrDLN]

I believe book blogs are more social net work that may lead to what we call authors helping authors. Everyone is not going to buy each others books, but can help with reviews etc. ..

I think all of us are looking for some logical approach to marketing and not magic formula. Thanks and wish you all the very best.

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Please check out and follow my blog when you get the chance, and I'll follow you back! Thanks! http://drdhillon.blogspot.com/

[Alison M.]

I think it depends on the type of book. Not every book (or genre) is going to have a strong book blog community or have readers that even follow blogs. I've noticed that fiction (specifically young adult) book blogs have a fairly strong community. A good portion of readers of YA books are also bloggers/blog readers. Because of this, a book that is featured on several blogs will cause more people to read the book.

If a book doesn't have a strong book blog community or a large portion of potential readers don't follow blogs, featuring the book on a book blog likely isn't going to do much in regards to sales.

Simply put, know your (potential) audience. If they generally aren't into social networking/blogging, try marketing in a different way.

[DrDLN]

Another reason can be the time one kind of authors can spare to socialize more than others. For example, many nonfiction books require specialized knowledge and it takes lot more to search the information. Many of the nonfiction are professionals who are short on time to socialize on these boards. Just something to think about. Thanks.

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Please check out and follow my blog when you get the chance, and I'll follow you back! Thanks! http://drdhillon.blogspot.com/

[Roberta Goodman]

Book Blogs has helped connect me to bloggers offering to review my novel and it's been a great place to help build up my blog, but I don't think for one moment that anyone on here bought my book. I honestly don't think writing on my blog has done anything to boost eBook sales either. I agree with Kalua that social networking sites like Facebook ultimately have more influence when trying to sell books. My novel was released in eBook format last October and almost all of the sales, which weren't that many, came from people I know on FB. I'm a debut author and ironically enough I wrote something today on my blog about the struggles I'm still going through trying to get somewhere with my book. It's frustrating, but that's life. I don't have a strong author platform at the moment and yes I feel that I wasted a hell of a lot of time promoting something that not many people chose to buy, but I can't give up. I encourage not only debut authors, but authors who have a few books under their belt to keep persevering.