Why Blogs Have Become a Book PR Mainstay Both self and traditionally published authors benefit enormously from book publicity that promotes their work, and blogs play an increasing role. Ask anyone with experience in the publishing industry, from a literary agent to an editor, and they'll confirm the importance of marketing. Helping target readers discover a book is crucial to its success. Because they have niche audiences, blogs have a lot to offer. As exciting as it sounds initially to promote books to a mass audience, most sell more copies when news reaches highly interested audiences. Niche marketing is popular because it works. Given their success, blogs today cover a myriad of subjects and talk about anything you can imagine. Therefore, you'll be able to find blogs with an automatic interest in your book topic. You can count on the blog to have a loyal audience that shares the blogger's interests when you do. Most are driven by the interests of a single creator who fans connect with and admire. Reader engagement is high, with many followers reading all posts and often replying to them. Bloggers have trusted relationships with their audiences in more potent ways than media: readers will trust a blogger's opinion. Word-of-mouth promotion, one person recommending a book to another person, remains one of the most valuable ways to spark book sales. What bloggers do when they review or cover a book is essentially the same. They talk about it to their audience in what amounts to a recommendation if they enjoyed reading it or found the contents helpful. It's possible to get several bloggers talking about a book at once, and when the effects of their promotion are combined, you'll see sales rise. Their fans are also likely to give endorsements to their friends and family, and as a result, the buzz about a book gains momentum. If you want to kick your book PR outreach to bloggers into high gear, consider arming them with copies for contests and giveaways. When a blog runs a context alongside a review, their reader's interest in a book increases exponentially. It's less expensive than paid advertising and many time ends up being more influential. The point of all of these promotional tactics is to build your audience. Hopefully, the blog stories have links to your author's website that has a mechanism for collecting visitors' email addresses. Having an excellent mailing list is a cornerstone of digital marketing for books today. https://www.smithpublicity.com/2021/03/what-a-literary-agent-does/