The “f” implies Fake for Fake Blogging. In truth, it’s simply ghost blogging – when someone writes a blog for someone else. Ethical? Practical? Smart Marketing? You decide.

My take is that it depends on the situation. If blogging is not a means of personal expression, then it’s either a revenue resource or a marketing tool. As a marketing tool, I can easily argue it requires a marketing mind and potentially paid marketing professionals to help the blog sing (or work to the company’s best advantage).

Ghost writing is an age-old profession that includes great well-known writers as in “as told to” stories, and many never known writers who have successfully maintained their CIA undercover status and are simply happy to cash client checks while remaining anonymous. Other bloggers are those who have adopted their own split personalities to either:
• Have the freedom of a second voice (such as presenting political ideas that may not match an employers)
• Do market research to test if a new voice or concept will resonate with a public.
• Create a second persona as in Men with Pens (written by a woman). The author claims she only got paid when, like George Eliot, she pretended to be a he.

In a recent panel discussion, the moderator asked the question if Flogging was ethical? Since social media is built on authenticity, it was easy to say “no,” but I deferred to reality. “I make a good portion of my living off flogging,” I noted. Hopefully, I’m correctly representing the by-lined voice, and helping them market their bona fide expertise.

If you are considering marketing your firm, a blog may be a great marketing tool. It might be an even stronger marketing tool if it’s included as part of your marketing plan, so you’re clear what voice and goals it needs to adopt and address. And, as with other portions of your marketing plan, it may be best implemented by your internal marketing department or agency. Call them floggers, if you will. I’ll call them your professional marketing team.

Launching a book on the Internet

Publishing a non-fiction book will usually make it easy for you to write a blog dedicated to your book. The non-fiction subject of your book and related topics can provide ample blogging material.

For example, if you wrote a book on cooking low-fat diets, you could post one low-fat recipe a day along with insider tips to ensure the recipe turns out well. Or if you wrote a book on new social media platforms, you could write each post about one new social media platform and probably never run out of new posts.

The problem of writing ongoing book blog posts really presents itself to fiction writers. If you’ve written a romance novel or a mystery novel, what are you going to write about in your blog posts?

With a little imagination (and you are a fiction writer, aren’t you?) you can come up with interesting posts for your book’s blog. Let’s look at some examples:

You write a novel that takes place in 1970 during the Vietnam War. Because the Vietnam War plays an important role in the novel, you could write posts about historical events that took place during that era or historical events that led to that era. And you could write about the military today fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan and about military families back home. There’s no need to mention your book in every post; the overall context of the blog is about your book.

Now let’s stretch our imagination farther. You write a mystery novel about a series of medical-related murders. You could write posts about deaths that were not murders but were actual medical mysteries. You could also write posts about new hospital procedures that are being implemented to reduce medical-related deaths. And you could write posts telling the family of hospital patients what to look for in suspected medical malpractice.

What if you’ve written a children’s picture book about family members learning to get along? Children are not going to read your blog and their parents aren’t going to read your blog aloud to their children. You could write posts about parent-child issues; if you’re not an expert, you can quote other experts. You could review other children’s picture books on similar topics. You could write posts about children’s literacy issues.

The truth is that you can cast your imagination net far and wide for subjects on which to blog. Just remember that every few posts you should mention your book in connection with that post. For example, if you were writing a post about children’s literacy issues, you could mention that a specific second-grader in your book could read long words but not short words and that her teacher suspected dyslexia.

Or you could quote an entire (short) scene from your novel to illustrate a point you’re making. And, yes, it’s okay that people reading your blog may not know who the characters and situation are. If you choose an appropriate scene, most readers will be able to understand the context of the excerpt.

Fiction authors should be as active as non-fiction authors in the use of blogs to market books. Give your blog readers interesting and well-written posts, and they will read your blog and hopefully buy your book.

Check out the teleseminar WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT LAUNCHING A BOOK ON THE INTERNET.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant whose company website MillerMosaicPowerMarketing.com has lots more useful advice like this. Download her free report on “The Top 3 Internet Marketing Elements” to enhance your own Internet marketing experience — download the report now from QueensofBookMarketing.com.

Symptom #1  You just don’t feel like writing

Remedy:  Schedule blocks of time specifically for writing and sit at the keyboard at the appointed hour no matter what.  Offer yourself a reward to reinforce your commitment such as “after I knock out this article I’m going to the gym/the store/the park”.

Symptom #2:  Experiencing stress or anxiety when trying to write

Remedy:  Get away from the computer for a few minutes.  Stretch, do jumping jacks, grab a snack, just give yourself a short break.  Examine the environment where you are writing.  Are you sitting at a messy desk?  Is there adequate lighting, a comfy chair, the computer at an ergonomic height?  When you look past the monitor what do you see? Is the the room supporting your creativity or is it challenging your concentration?  If possible, change whatever is distracting you.

Symptom #3:  Getting tired when  you sit down to write

Remedy:  Consider your natural body rhythms.  What time of day are you most energized?  Some people can be wildly productive early in the morning while others prefer working at night.  Figure out when you get your best writing done and schedule accordingly.

Symptom #4:  Not finishing a writing project

Remedy:  If you are working on an e-book or writing a novel, you might benefit by breaking down the chapters into manageable blocks of time.  Find yourself stuck on what to write for the next chapter?  Try starting at the end of the book and write backwards.  Having a vision of the project completed is another suggestion.

Need more assistance?  Check out the War of Art, by Steven Pressfield, highly recommended for getting beyond resistance and realizing your creative dreams.

Feeling

His method starts out with what you want the audience to feel. This should be an emotion that grips the audience and puts them in the right frame of mind to accept the action. Feelings include: anger, sadness, joy, excitement or dread. The trick is to pick a single emotion and focus your efforts on developing it. Applying this to blogging means that your posts should carry a tone that gets your readers ready for action.

Action

Once your audience is in the proper emotional state, it’s now time to prompt them to action. An action could be as simple as continuing their great work or more detailed like meeting their sales number. The action should be clear, doable and measurable. Preferably, your call to action will be a single thing that your entire audience can participate in. Resist the temptation of multiple actions since that will confuse and distract. Remember, you are going for an emotional connection that will resonate enough that your audience will equate that feeling to action. For bloggers, it might be a request to post a comment or visit your site.

Content

Now I know this sounds counter intuitive for us bloggers but when talking to a group of people (and extending that to your readers), content is not as important as the feelings and action you want people to take. Why? Well, feelings, emotions and actions will be remembered while content will not. The content is really used to reinforce your feeling and call to action. It has to be good and factual, yet in the end, most people won’t remember it. On the flip side, they will remember bad, poorly explained content, so you don’t get off that easy. As bloggers, we understand that content is king but remember that your content must be incapsulated into something that readers feel and want to take action on.

Your Call To Action

In the comments, put in your favorite blog post or speech that inspired you to action. What feelings did it arouse in you? What content sealed the deal? Was it the content or the feeling that you remembered?

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Author Bio

Jarie Bolander is an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature. He is presently VP of R&D at Tagent, a company working on breakthrough technology that will help reduce medical errors. Jarie also blogs about innovation, management and entrepreneurship at The Daily MBA and has recently published his first book, Frustration Free Technical Management. You can also follow him on Twitter @thedailymba