Guest Blogging: learn to target the right blogs and write a good query
by Anne R. Allen
Most author marketing gurus will tell you that guest blogging is one of the best ways to promote your book. Beth Hayden wrote on Jane Friedman’s blog about the many ways guest blogging builds platform and sells books. She points out that it increases your authority as well as getting your name out there and increasing sales. And it’s right up your alley. You don’t have to be a great photographer or a telegenic public speaker. All you have to do is write. You got this.
And it’s FREE!
Some blogs even pay their guests. You can find a great list of blogs that pay writers at Erica Verrillo’s fantastic site, “Publishing and Other Forms of Insanity.” Follow her blog. It’s a goldmine for working writers.
A targeted “blog tour” offers a series of guest blogging opportunities to launch a book for an upfront fee. Blog tour companies simplify the process, but you don’t have to pay for a professional blog tour to get some good guest blogging spots. Just write good queries.
And you don’t need to be a published author to benefit from guest blogging. It’s a great way to get “clips” and put your name out there if you’re freelancing. And if you’re querying, a spot on a well-known blog can add some serious cred to your bio.
A lot of new writers know this, but most of them are totally clueless about how to query a blogger. Ruth and I get queries from guest blogging wannabes every day and 99% of them self-reject.
Yours don’t have to. Here’s how.
1) Think “Micro-Niche” to Target the Right Blog Audience.
Think first about where a guest post might reach the most potential buyers for your books. Where are your readers likely to be?
Genre is all-important.
Write Romance? You’ll reach a lot more romance readers at “Romance University” or “Romance Divas” than this blog, which is for writers of all genres. You’ll do even better if you target blogs of authors in your genre with a good reader following.
That’s because you want to go where the readers are, not just writers.
Visiting smaller blogs of a few Romance writers with a devoted fan base can sell more Romance novels than major blogs that target the general public.
Use your protagonist’s hobbies, interests, or profession.
Orna Ross of the Alliance for Independent Authors says the secret to writing success right now is “micro-niching.” That means targeting your audience with surgical precision.
- Maybe you write mysteries and your sleuth is a real estate agent. (There seems to be a growing subgenre of real estate mysteries.) Why not query a real estate site? You could reach people who’d never buy a mystery otherwise. That’s pure gold. Try a pitch to an in-house blog for a real estate network about a particular home sale problem your sleuth runs up against.
- Have a protagonist who’s caring for an aging parent? Try reaching out to caregiver blogs.
- Have a military memoir? Look for blogs about military collectibles or recent military history.
- Writing about a character with a disability? Reach out to bloggers who have that disability and network with others for support and exchange of information.
Setting can provide a goldmine of opportunities.
If your book is set in a particular place, reach out to travel blogs about the area of your setting. People planning vacations buy more fiction than people arguing about prologues or Oxford commas.
Do a search on your setting and start clicking.
2) Visit Each Blog Before You Query.
Read more than the one article that comes up when you Google a subject. Visit the blog and read several posts. Also read the comments. That’s the only way to tell if that blog attracts people who really might be interested in your book. There’s no point in blogging for the wrong audience.
Leave a comment on a post you enjoy. If you’re a regular reader and commenter on a blog, you’re much more likely to get a spot.
The best place to start querying is a blog you read regularly because you genuinely like it and have an interest in the topics it addresses.
But if you’re new to a blog, you can get a guest spot too. Just make sure you read it. And look at the topics it covers regularly. I wrote a piece about “Writer’s Block and Depression” on my old blog in 2011. A quick look around here will tell you this is not a mental health blog. But I still get 100s of requests from guest bloggers who want to use it to talk about mental health. They are not good for MY mental health.
Do your research. It will pay off, I promise.
3) Once you Choose Blogs to Query, READ THE GUIDELINES.
I’m going to repeat that. Read. The. Guidelines. Here are our guidelines for guest bloggers.
That would be BEFORE you query. I had one wannabe guest blogger promise he’d follow my guidelines IF I gave him a guest spot. Guess who didn’t get the gig?
“Guidelines” is kind of a misnomer. They are directions. Rules. Commandments. Follow them.
The guidelines on the actual blog are more important than anything you read elsewhere, even here.
I say a pitch can be one sentence, but if the blogger says she wants a four-page single spaced pitch, write a four-page single-spaced pitch. The blogger is the boss. If you want a job, show you can do what the boss wants.
4) Don’t Mass Query
“Hey Blogger” doesn’t land you a guest blog spot any more than “Dear Agent” gets you literary representation or “Hey You” gets you a date with that hottie.
Don’t treat people as objects or generic entities, or they’ll treat you the same way.
Mass queries are self-rejecting. They brand you as lazy and selfish and clueless. Take the time to impress a blogger with your knowledge and professionalism and you’ll stand out from the crowd.
And keep in mind that mass-queries usually go to spam. That means the mail program will get the message you’re a spammer. Then ALL your emails may go to spam. Getting branded a spammer can put an end to your career before it starts.
5) Send a Professional Query via Email
Write a note with proper paragraphing, punctuation, capitalization and spelling. Emojis…not so much.
This is true whether you’re asking for a review, interview, spotlight, or guest post spot. Be businesslike, concise, respectful, and don’t lie.
Seriously. Don’t lie.
Honesty will put you head and shoulders above 99% of the people who query. The rest of them seem to have read the Bad Guest Blogger Handbook.
6) Tell the Blogger Why you Chose that Blog
A blog query should start with a sentence explaining why you want a spot on that particular blog.
But don’t lie.
Yes, I’m repeating myself. But 99% of the queries we get are from people who are obviously lying.
I got one recently that said. “I’m a big fan of “annerallen.com” and I know how passionate you are about physical fitness, and that’s why you keep your body in tip-top shape.”
Anybody who knows me in real life will see why the query went directly to spam.
7) The Pitch(es)
A guest post query can have one pitch or several. I prefer several, so I can choose. Sometimes a great potential guest may have a wonderful idea, but we’re running a post on that subject next week, so I’ll want to see what else they’ve got.
Pitches don’t have to be elaborate. Just give your possible topics with a few sentences after each about your angle and why you’re qualified to write about it. A bulleted list works fine.
- How to Market Books on Snapchat. I’ve boosted my sales by 25% with this method. I’ll provide a step-by-step how-to.
- The Growing Romance Market in India. Amazon’s push into the Indian market has opened up a huge market for romance authors. I offer some do’s and don’ts for authors writing for Indian readers.
- 10 Cures for Writer’s Block. New research shows the burned-out brain can be reset into creative mode. I give 10 tips for getting your mojo back.
On the other hand, if you’re passionate about one subject and you have unique knowledge, write a longer pitch about that.
If you’re querying the folks at the Big Name Real Estate blog to promote your new cozy, Murder in Escrow, you might pitch a topic especially for them:
- How to Market a “Haunted” House. I have been a real estate agent for nearly twenty years, so I’ve sold my share of houses where someone has died. After seeing some “death” houses sell for way under value, I’ve discovered how to turn things around. I’ve found it’s best to turn your “defect” into an asset. I can list ten steps for drawing the kind of client who will actually compete to buy a “haunted” house. I’ll explain how I got 10% over asking on my last sale using this advertising technique.
8) Credentials and Awards
Here’s where you get to crow about awards you’ve won and bestsellers you’ve written if they’re relevant. If you were nominated for an Emmy or you’ve been on the NYT bestseller list, oh yeah, people are going to be impressed. That penmanship award in third grade…not so much.
I’ve been blown away by the credentials of some of the guests who have queried us. Gerry DiPego had a Golden Globe in his resume as well as about 20 wildly successful movies. Melodie Campbell is a college writing instructor as well as a well-known Canadian humorist. Lawrence Block is, well, Lawrence Block. And Terence Stamp is a #@%* movie star! Next month we’ll have a visit from C. Hope Clark, whose Funds For Writers newsletter I’ve been following since I was back working as a freelancer.
But you don’t have to be a bestselling author or an uberblogger to get a guest spot on a high profile blog.
We’ve hosted unpublished authors, too. If you have a unique subject, big blog following, or a fresh take on a popular topic, you have a shot at one of the 12 guest spots we have each year.
9) Your Online Following
If your work isn’t published in book form, but you’ve got a big social media following, that can actually be more attractive to a blogger than a major award or a big bestseller.
But don’t say in your query that you have a “very popular blog” if you don’t, because we can look it up.
Note: I’m talking about an online following here, not an email subscriber list.
When people tell me they have a mind-bogglingly huge email subscriber list, that doesn’t mean much for blog reach. Unless you can bring all those people to read your post on our blog, it’s irrelevant.
Stuff to keep in mind:
Alexa Rating
Blogs are rated by various ranking systems, the most common of which is Alexa, which rates all the websites in the world. #1 is Google. The average author blog is doing well if it comes in under a million.
But if you tell me you have one of the most popular writing blogs ever, and your Alexa rating is 20 million, I’ll know you’re another one of those people telling fibs.
There’s nothing wrong with having a small following. A powerful reason for guest blogging is to extend your online following. Just don’t lie about it.
Are you seeing a pattern here? I don’t know why 99% of people who query us are liars. I’d love some insight. Is it because on the Internet nobody knows who you are? I wonder if all businesses are seeing the same trend.
Your own readership
Make sure your following is compatible with the blog you’re querying. If you have a blog that’s very political, your followers will be bored visiting a non-political blog like this, especially if you post something here that’s apolitical and out of character.
They might try to start an argument in the comments which would make our peeps unhappy.
If your blog has a lot of stuff that’s NSFW, and my readers go over to find out more about you and get socked in the eye with an “F” bomb or a lot of nudity, I’m going to hear about it and it won’t be pleasant. Try querying Chuck Wendig instead (warning: NSFW). I think he’s brilliant but the language will fry your eyeballs.
10) Clips
This is where you talk about where you’ve been published as a nonfiction article writer. But only talk about the relevant ones. Include a few links to articles and guest posts you’ve written for magazines and high profile blogs other than your own.
In the old days, these were actual pieces of paper clipped from magazines or newspapers.
These days they’re live links to publications and blogs. But don’t fill the email with links. Three or four is plenty. So choose the most relevant, prestigious ones.
This is a writing blog, so if you’ve been published in a place like Poets and Writers or Writer’s Digest, that’s what you want to lead with when querying us. Writers are always impressed if you got published by a journal that pays you.
If you’ve been a guest of a big, popular writing blog like The Book Designer, Jane Friedman, Writers on the Storm, Fiction University, Romance University, etc. that’s a big plus, too.
But remember a clip is an example of your writing. Don’t simply offer another blogger a repost of the same material. You can offer to write for them on the same subject, but don’t simply offer a cut-and-paste. That’s disrespectful to both blogs.
11) Blog Tour Specifics if Relevant
If you have a time window, giveaways, contests, etc, and you want this post to be part of a blog tour, be sure to mention it.
In closing, writers planning a tour usually say, “I have a book on [writing craft/marketing/indie publishing] which debuts in [August 2019] and I’d like a spot in [Sept/Oct/Nov 2019]”
Make sure you will be available in that time window to respond to comments. Not all bloggers respond to all comments the way we do, but responding to comments is the way you make connections and sell books, so if you’re not available, you’re losing sales.
Obviously a blog like this one is most useful for authors looking to promote a how-to book, podcast, or service for writers. If your fiction involves writers, that can be a plus, too.
12) VISIT THE BLOG BEFORE YOU QUERY!!
VISIT. THE. BLOG. Read it. Browse the headers of a bunch of posts.
Do you see any book reviews? No? Maybe it’s not a book review site.
Don’t see any hot naked bodies? Maybe it’s not an erotica site.
See some guidelines? Follow them!
For me, a well-targeted guest blog spot can move 50 or more books. And all those buyers have friends who read too. It’s really worth the effort to do it right.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) January 20, 2019
What about you, scriveners? Have you used guest blogging to promote your work? Do you get queries from clueless wannabe guests? How do you handle them? Do you think more people lie on Internet queries than real-life queries?
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When Camilla is invited to publish a book of her columns with UK publisher Peter Sherwood, she lands in a gritty criminal world—far from the Merrie Olde England she envisions. The staff are ex-cons and the erotica is kinky. Hungry and penniless, she camps in a Wendy House built from pallets of porn while battling an epic flood, a mendacious American Renfaire wench, and the mysterious killer who may be Peter himself.
Here’s a great write-up of Sherwood, Ltd from Debra Eve at the Later Bloomer
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Available in paper from:
***
Stunning, really Anne. I look over your terrific list and realize, I would have ascribed pretty much every sin you’re talking about to a failure of Tip #4. People do still blast out messages to all and sundry and expect it will work for them. I get messages all the time through my modest little site, asking if I want to hire them to optimize the place. Obviously driven by bots, not a scrap of understanding what I post there, nothing. I don’t think I even have an Alexa rank!
I figured that was all there was to be offended at, until I saw your other great point here. That people lie.
And often it’s both isn’t it? As Twain said, if you always tell the truth you never have to remember anything. But to imagine someone who fabricates and then mass-markets? Wow…
Will–Mass emailing is like cold calling strangers at dinner time. It’s only going to work with a tiny percentage of people, and the rest are going to join the Do Not Call list and report you. I’ve just had gmail block all my promotional emails–even the ones I want that announce sales at my favorite shopping sites. They don’t put them in spam either. The emails have evaporated. That’s what gmail will do to us if we mass-query. We may even lose the ability to send an email to a friend.
I just checked, and you don’t have an Alexa rank. We need to do something about that. You’ve got a great blog! Do you have my book the Author Blog? It gives some SEO pointers that might help.
I love the quote from Mark Twain. So true!
Boom, baby. I do now!
🙂
Excellent tips! Yes, read the guidelines. Both my site and the IWSG site get queries for all sorts of things that just don’t fit. It boggles the mind.
Alex–I’m sure a high-profile blog like yours and of course the IWSG must get all the query spam we get, and more. These people are so relentlessly clueless, aren’t they?
Yes! Guest blogging is like being any other kind of guest. Be polite. Remember your manners. Don’t insult the host. Don’t be a pest. Send a thank you. 🙂
Ruth–So true! Imagine mass emailing a bunch of strangers and asking to stay with them for a week. That’s what these mass-queriers are doing. So clueless. Maybe they’ve never been invited anywhere, so they don’t know how polite humans behave. Sigh.
Hi Anne — No surprise that the rules are the same as they are in most of life. Do your research. Recognize others for who they are. Be kind. Be polite. Be honest. Have class. Wouldn’t it be sweet if we could all follow those rules all the time?
CS–Yes, it’s amazing how often the path to success just comes down to following the Golden Rule, isn’t it? And yet we see our leaders acting as if they’ve never heard of it. So I guess people feel they can be just as rude and moronic and it will work for them. 🙁
Someone wanted to see mattresses on my site. I kid you not. And the writing was awful.
Elizabeth–I’ve had queries from people who wanted to sell everything from pressure cookers to guides to dating in Tokyo. I do not know where they get the addresses of our blogs. And yes, very often the writing is from somebody with only minimal knowledge of English–or it’s been generated by a robo-translator. 🙁
Hi Anne – Excellent info as always. I’m not surprised at how many people lie about their credentials when querying you for guest posting. That seems to be true about human nature. Back in the police days, we had a BS detection standard that went, “Everyone’s a liar until they prove otherwise”. That might sound harsh, but it doesn’t take long out of the academy to learn that most everyone lies to the cops – crooks, complainants, victims, witnesses – even lawyers lie, if you can believe it 🙂 But every once in a while a straight shooter reaffirms that there is some honesty in some. Take your weekly blog for instance. I always look forward to great stuff that I can take to the bank. Thanks for all you do to help writers!
Garry–That makes me a little sad, but I can believe it. When you’re in law enforcement, you’re going to see a lot more of the bad side of human nature. Maybe it’s good to know that just as many people were lying before the Internet.
Thanks for the kind words. 🙂
Such a great post, and chock full of info both timeless AND timely. I’ll always remember when I re-launched my 3rd novel with a new cover in 2017, and queried you for a guest post here. You’d never heard of me, but after looking at my own modest blog, you replied, “It’s obvious that you’re a professional writer.” I created the best guest post I could.
I appreciated the opportunity, and launched my targeted blog tour with this site as the first stop on the tour. I’ve always felt that it led to more direct sales for the book, and have been more than happy to share your posts with my growing following. Excellent stuff, as always!
Mike–That’s right! That’s how we met. I was going to include some examples of good queries and thought of yours. But the post ended up being too long. But you did send me a great query, which enticed me to look at your blog, which also was very professional . I’ll be talking about that next month. Your post has been one of our more popular evergreen pieces that still gets lots of RTs and shares.
Thank you very much. Appreciate your support, and am delighted if that piece is still relevant and can help someone else!
Hi Anne,
Blogging is still a bit scary to me (Elfriede, Mike’s wife) but at the same time it’s beginning to make fun.
You have lots of great information and I have found tons of great advise in your archive of blog posts. We live in Canada and I tried to order your book “The Author Blog” as eBook on Amazon.ca but I got the message “Not available in your area”! That was strange. I will have to try it again sometime. Anyway, excellent information and I am looking forward to your next post. Best from the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Elfriede
Hi Elfriede–I apologize. That link in the sidebar only goes to the US site. Here’s the link to the Amazon CA buy page. https://amzn.to/2HkqsDv . I see it is $3.99 in Canadian dollars. 🙁 . Blogging can be a blast. Have fun!
Hello Anne, Sorry for the late response to your reply to my comment. I just figured out how the Notifications on WordPress work (Haha)! I will definitely check the Amazon.ca page to buy your book. Thanks again.
Well, just checked Amazon.ca and I still get the message “Kindle edition not available in your area”! Isn’t that crazy!!! We are in 2019 and I can’t get your ebook, I mean, I am just across the border from the US. Anyway, will keep trying. Thanks a million for your informative blog.
Nobody else in Canada is having that problem, so I don’t get it. ! It’s right there if you click the link above. It’s got prices in Canadian dollars for the Kindle edition, and a Canadian has reviewed it. Just click the link in the comment above. I got a screenshot of the page, but I can’t attach it to a comment. I’m pretty sure you’re going to the US page, not the Canadian one. Do try that link. It goes right to Amazon.ca. Here it is again. https://www.amazon.ca/Author-Blog-Easy-Blogging-Authors-ebook/dp/B077Y5DKP9/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549514896&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Author+Blog+Easy+Blogging+for+busy+Authors+Anne+R.+Allen
Hello Anne,
Finally figured it out that for whatever reason my Kindle account is registered with Amazon.de (Germany). I have no idea how that happened. So have to figure out how to change that.
Thank you for all your help. I might just buy the regular book for sake of time.
Elfriede–Mystery solved! I’m so relieved!! I hope you can un-Deutschify your Kindle!
Anne, Why do website instructions always have to be so complicated. I tried to change my Kindle Deutsch to my Canadian Amazon but I just could not figure out how to do it. Anyway, Good News though. Amazon.de let me buy your ebook. Now I just need to figure out how to download it onto my computer since I do not have a Kindle reader. However, I can read your ebook on the Kindle Cloud Reader. So, all good in a certain way! Take care.
Elfriede–I have a theory that all those tech nerds make things so impossible because they’re getting revenge on the world because they couldn’t get a date for the high school prom. 🙂 I’m so glad you finally were able to get the book. It might be best to have it on your computer, so you can reference it when you’re working. Best of luck!
Thanks for the great tips Anne. I had to Lol at #6 🙂
DG–Yes. As an, um, plus-sized woman, I had to laugh at the fitness guy. He had no idea!
I just had to laugh as the amount of requests I receive are so similar to your example. “I love your blog” – famous words, especially when I’ve never even seen their names in my orbit and no website even left to check out their credentials. 🙂 x
I get writers pitching guest spots on my blog and I hate it when they
a) don’t use my actual name or even the name of my website in the pitch (so it’s clearly copied and pasted) and
b) offer to write whatever I want on a topic of my choosing. I figure, if you’re going to pitch to write on my site, maybe take a look at what *I* blog about and send me topics that fit in with those?
It’s so sad when writers get it wrong!
Icy–I get those too. Often. I’m sure the same ones. They must blast off thousands of those things, saying they “love” our blogs and read them regularly and will write about whatever we want. I wonder if they ever get a positive response? You’d think they’d learn.
Hmmm, whenever you talk about guest posting, I get the feeling that I really should put myself out there. I actually did a small blog hop with a local writing group, but realized it was making me run short on what to post on MY blog.
So, now I’m contemplating things I can blog about that won’t detract from my own blog.
Can you offer to blog stuff that you’ve already blogged about on your own blog — maybe a new take that’s really 2 or 3 of your old posts melded together?
Or is it better to go after things tangentially related to what you blog about that’s a better fit for the other person’s blog?
Morgan–Yes! It’s great to pitch a post on a subject you blog about on your own blog. In fact I often ask guests to do just that. When I read a great post on a subject my readers ask about, I’ll contact the blogger and ask if they’d like to write a post on that subject for us. Often it’s exactly what you suggest: a composite of two or more posts from their blogs. Those can be some of our most popular posts.
This gives the guest blogger “authority” on that subject and is a win/win for everybody. If you get known as an expert on a subject, you can pitch guest posts on that subject to many bloggers. Good luck with it!
Oh good! I always worried that it would be looked at as almost plagiarizing my own work if I reworked my pre-existing blog-content. I’ve been hesitating to guest post because I wanted to be sure that my offered post would be actually a thing of value.
This may all be true, but even with very wide guieldines, I have a very hard time getting guests on my blog. Same is true for the SMFS blog which I run as President of SMFS. Despite the opportunity, some folks will still spend time on FB and elsewhere complaining about how nobody knows they exist.
Kevin–I was going to suggest that you link to this post from Kevin’s Corner, but I see you already have. 🙂 . Those people are morons. Their posts will be buried within a day on FB, but they’ll last forever in your archives and those of the Short Mystery Fiction Society–and both will get them into Google!
If Google doesn’t know who you are, nobody does. So writers need to get the attention of the search engines! How to do that? Guest blog! Both your blogs have reasonable traffic, so those people turning you down are stabbing themselves in the font! 🙂
Brilliant tips as always, Anne! Alas, my blog does not have an Alexa score. That service is a bit pricey for me, but I do track my site with Google analytics and my web host.
I must’ve followed your guidelines because two years ago you graciously ran this then-newbie author’s post on growing a social following. Still proud of guesting on your blog and most grateful for the opportunity……oops almost inserted a smiley emoji!
Cat–Alexa used to be free! I didn’t realize you now have to pay just to see somebody’s score. I don’t because I have Alexa stored on my navigation bar. But I got it about 5 years ago. I didn’t realize they now charge $150 a MONTH. That’s insane. I did check and you don’t have the traffic they now consider necessary to get analyzed, but as you say, Google Analytics does a fine job.
Smiley emojis are just fine on this blog. Just not in a business letter. 🙂
I’d quite forgotten about the Alexa rankings and though, for my little blog they only said I was 12 million and some, I’m on my way!! I offer an author guest post once a week, but it’s amazing how often I don’t have a guest to host. I always grab every opportunity, as any publicity when you are trying to sell your books has to be good. Great post with lots of good tips. Now to find the time to put them into practice – oh heck I’ll just give up sleeping at night.
Lucinda–12 million is not bad for an author blog. Congrats! Most author blogs don’t even get a ranking. Offering to trade guest posts with another author in your genre is a great way to get guests and increase your reach in the right demographic.
I advocate “slow” blogging for authors–only once a week or less. You might cut down on posts on your own blog and look to guest post on other blogs to increase your reach and decrease your blogging time. I have a lot more suggestions for how to blog smarter rather than harder in my book The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors.
I love the title of the post. Guest Blogging is really awesome. It gives you an opportunity to take the advantage of the traffic from other blogs. You just need to know the right techniques to ask for it.
Ely–Sorry I missed this comment earlier. I’m glad the post helps people understand why guest blogging is so useful.
A really helpful blog, especially for someone new to backlinking and guest blogging, This has given me some key points to look at, thanks for sharing.
Vickie–I’m so glad you find the post helpful. Best of luck guest blogging!