Business Logs

Don’t Forget About Books as Sources for Blog Content

Friday, January 9th, 2009 by Dee Barizo

Aaron Wall’s post about books reminded me that books are great sources for content on your blog.

Many blogging experts advise beginner bloggers to follow the popular blogs in their industry. Then, they say you should write about what the other bloggers are saying. The same principle goes for reading the popular books in your niche and writing commentary about them on your blog.

Why should you write about books?

Well, for one thing, it shows that you are well read and are keeping up with the trends and developments in your industry. Also, many people are reading the books. They are searching the web to see what other people think about the books.

What kind of blog posts can you write?

You can write short blog posts commenting on the concepts and ideas you found interesting in the books.

Book reviews can drive traffic to your site since people often search online for reviews before they buy a book. Check out The Simple Dollar’s book review section for great examples of in depth reviews. You don’t have to write super long reviews, but if you call a blog post a review, I think it should be at least 500 words. Most people seem to expect reviews to be longer and more in depth than the typical blog post.

Surprisingly, outlining a book is helpful for many people. If you’re looking for good examples of book outlines, visit this a neat site: bookoutlines.

Reader Comments

3 Responses to “Don’t Forget About Books as Sources for Blog Content”

Nate Klaiber Says:

This is exactly why I created http://www.nkbookreviews.com (launched in December). It was my personal library of books I have read, will be reading, or am simply interested in. I store the book and it’s information, and all author information, and then my review will be attached to that book. My reviews are mostly lengthy, but that’s due to positive feedback from readers who like the length of them.

One of the main things I wanted to do was link to other quality reviews as well - because I want people to be able to make an educated decision before they purchase a book.

The key, for me, has been to just keep consistent with the reviews. I have a lot of data underneath the core that isn’t even in use yet - but will be with future updates. I only want to use that data where it will be helping the end user.

January 9th, 2009 at 3:37 pm