Top ideas for your blog and self-publishing novels.

Carly, a regular reader of this blog, asked: “why don’t you add ads to your blog? You create such great content; why don’t you monetize?”

This got me thinking. I’ve been blogging for 10+ years, and here are some observations how I’ve faired.

1. Included ads in my blog for a number of years, and made… about $13. Why is that? For my blog I like to focus on content that I personally like. This is not mainstream content, it isn’t about gossip, sex or even any single topic. This affects the number of hits, and also the number of times people click on an ad. At this moment in time, monetizing the blog isn’t worthwhile, and the ads distract the reader.

2. I have invested months in studying and implementing SEO, and I still follow most of the rules (although the effort is considerable). In reality, 90% of the referrals to my blog arrive from my tweets on Twitter, 7% from Facebook, and the rest from other channels – including search engines searches. So much for the impact of SEO!

3. Blogs compete for attention, and as more and more people are blogging, the tougher it is to stick out from the crowd. Better focus on content than on all the methodology and wild ideas to monetize. My main purpose is to sell my books, and for that the blog is useful; a single site to attract people to.

4. Talking about selling books. I write mostly SciFi adventures http://clemenssuter.com/books and self-publish. Intriguing observation: >95% of the books are purchased on iTunes. All other book formats such as Kindle, Kobo, and for other eBook readers as well as paperbacks make up the other 5%. I suspect it has to do with the genre. It also has to do with Amazon: Amazon does not allow the removal of a first version of my first novel. This confuses the hell out of my readers on this channel.

5. The challenge with writing a novel is that nowadays anyone with a laptop can be an author. Writing has been democratized, which is on the one hand splendid, on the other hand it is harder to rise above the noise. Perseverance and enthusiasm for the written word – these are the ingredients that will help you to be an author for a long time.

Two men reading one of my books on an iPhone.