If you are a Christian author that has tried or is thinking about trying the self marketing route and using Christian blog hops and sites that offer Christian blog hops. Be careful which blog hop that you use.
For those of you that do not know what a blog hop is. It is a group of bloggers that have agreed to post an article about your book on their site through a third party. How it works is that there are sites out there that offer to review your book and then post it on 25 sites or so. They charge you for the review ( which is ok ) and then send your book review to 25 blog owners for posting.
This might sound like a great idea and in some cases may be. However, I have reviewed many of these services and found the following negatives.
- Many of the blogs that have agreed to post the authors book review, do not, as while you find one author's book review on some of the sites in the list, it does not appear on others.
- Many of these bloggers have blogs with very poor layout. They just don't look good at all or thy are incomplete.
- Many of the blogs have little content on them and very spuratic content on them which is a negative when it comes to readership and online presence.
- Appearance. People are visual and especially with online content. If the sites doesn't look good, it will make your book look the same.
- Many of the sites are everyday any type sites or blogs, Just a site or blog that someone created and agreed to post content on for the sake of posting content.
- Association. When you allow just anyone to post a review or article about your book it then becomes associated to all the content on the site or blog. This is important to consider.
Yet overall in examining the sites, it is the layout, design and content that is the negative. You might ask why?
- It is important that you promote your book on sites and blogs that are Christian in nature.
- The sites or blogs that you promote your book on should be sites of integrity, well laid out and sites that promote your book professionally.
- Content. Content is king when it comes to building a readership, unique visitors, return visitors, page ranking, SEO and simply providing your readership with content that keeps them reading and coming back for more.
- Promoting your book on sites and blogs that also share other Christian books, materials, articles, ministries and the likes, is a must.
There are many other factors to take into considerations when using a blog hop to promote your book. So do your homework before allowing just anyone to promote your book or use an article about your book just to post content on their site or blog. Free marketing and cheap marketing might sound good, however, it can do more damage than good.
If you are looking for a well established professional Christian Book Marketing plan contact Smitty at CBM Christian Book Marketing and don't forget to read what other authors say about their services on the author testimonial page. For further information contact Smitty at kingdomexpansion1(at) gmail (dot) com