Guest blogging is one of my favorite book promotion tactics for all authors because it’s targeted. The more targeted your efforts, the more likely you are to reach the people who will love your book.

Problem is, many novelists don’t write guest posts. And those who do usually contribute to their friends’ blogs or write for genre blogs.

And that’s all good.

But you know what’s even better?

Adding topic specific blogs to your list of potential sites for fiction guest blogging.

Look for the nonfiction nuggets

Novels are often built with or around a wide range of nonfiction subjects and themes. These are what I call the “nonfiction nuggets” in your book. They’re a tool you can use to expand your reach both with the press and topic bloggers.

You can usually find your book’s nonfiction nuggets in its:

• Professions
• Real-life settings
• Hobbies
• Medical conditions
• Industries
• Themes
• Conflicts

Once you identify your nonfiction elements (see the exercise below), you can match them to blogs on those subjects.

What does this look like in practice?

Here are a couple of real-life examples of how you can apply this approach.

I just finished reading Liz Alterman’s “The Perfect Neighborhood.” It has a key storyline revolving around a kindergartner walking home from school alone. The author could write a parenting blog post about what she uncovered during her research about how parents handle the walking-home-from-school situation.

She could also blog for a parenting site about how her experiences with cliquey school mothers informed her character development (because they probably did).

My friend Mollie Cox Bryan writes cozy mysteries. Her Cumberland Creek series is about a group of scrapbookers; the Cora Crafts books are craft retreat mysteries.

For the Cumberland Creek series, she can guest blog for blogs dedicated to scrapbooking because, of course, scrapbookers who read cozy mysteries are the people who are most likely to love her books. That logic applies to the Cora Crafts books, too.

There are so many possibilities for every book.

Complete this fiction guest blogging exercise

How do you apply this to your fiction? Try this exercise:

• Skim through your novel to find “nonfiction nuggets.”
• List them. I’m sure you can find at least three (and probably many more).
• Search for and list blogs on that topic by Googling the topic and the word “blogs.”
• If you’re not familiar with “pitching” bloggers, follow the instructions for doing so in my free report, “Virtual Book Tour Basics: How to Connect with Your Audience and Sell More Books Without Leaving Home.”

Then the fun begins: writing your guest post.

Download my free Guest Blogging Cheat Sheet now

As a writer, you know that guest blogging involves more than just determining what you’ll blog about and who will be interested in that. You know that you have to deliver a guest post that your host will be proud to publish.

Start by reading the tips in my free “Guest Blogging Cheat Sheet.” It details nine best practices that will keep you from making mistakes that undermine your guest blogging success.

This cheat sheet, which you can download as a PDF file immediately, will help you deliver the guest post your host expects. It’s your shortcut to looking — and acting! — like a guest blogging pro.

The simple and easy process of identifying your book’s nonfiction topics and matching them to topic bloggers could vastly expand your reach to readers interested in something that plays a role in your story…and help you sell more books.

What are the nonfiction nuggets in your novel? Share one here in a comment! 

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in February 2017. It has been updated and expanded.)

Author shares 5 tips for getting book publicity

By Michael Murphy

Authors ask me all the time about how I’ve managed to obtain so much media coverage for my novels. When my last novel, Scorpion Bay, came out in 2011, the Arizona Republic and the Glendale/Peoria Times interviewed me. I also appeared on the highest-rated morning news program in Phoenix, “Good Morning Arizona,” the day the book was released.

Ever-expanding social media outlets remain a crucial part of establishing a brand and reaching readers, but don’t overlook media coverage just because it can be time-consuming and frustrating. In spite of the apparent demise of the print media, even small local newspapers can reach thousands of people.  Compare that to the number of Facebook followers you have.

And, as Emeril used to say, if it was easy, they’d all be doing it.

Try these local media publicity ideas

Here are five publicity tips that have worked for me as part of an overall marketing and promotion campaign.

1. The release of your book is not news. More than a million books are published annually in the U.S. alone. Chances are you agonized for more than a year over every word in your novel. You may have spent another year waiting for your book’s release. Sorry, but to the media, it’s not news.
2. Identify what makes you or your book newsworthy. Before the release of Scorpion Bay, I arranged with the owner of Dillons Restaurant at the real Scorpion Bay at Lake Pleasant, Ariz., to have a launch party at the restaurant. A Scorpion Bay launch party at the real Scorpion Bay became the hook that resulted in the newspaper and coverage mentioned above.
3. Cultivate the media. Follow reporters on Facebook and Twitter. Compliment them on their columns or news coverage when warranted and leave comments on the online editions. Along these lines, because the lead character in Scorpion Bay is a Phoenix newscaster, local TV personality Scott Pasmore of “Good Morning Arizona” helped with the research.  He asked me to let him know when the novel came out . . . the result was my “GMA” appearance.  The timing — the morning of the launch party — was perfect.
4. Reporters love e-mail. Unsolicited press kits often go unread and phone calls might not be returned, but e-mails can quickly and professionally summarize your book and the reason you’re contacting them (the hook). E-mail addresses are often added to newspaper articles and columns. Find, save, and cherish them.
5. Update and maintain your media list. Does anyone in your local media review books, interview authors, or write about the subject matter of your book?  Add them to your list.

Did the media coverage help me establish my brand and result in sales?  Without a doubt.  I sold more than 50 copies of Scorpion Bay in two hours at my launch event. More than half said they attended after reading about the event in the newspaper or seeing me on television. More than a year later, people still mention the television interview.

Use these five tips. I’m using them for my return to Woodstock novel, Goodbye Emily with hopes of similar outcomes.

What publicity tactics have worked for you? Please comment and share!