Top 10 book marketing posts from 2014

Reviewing Google Analytics to identify the year’s most popular book marketing blog posts is such a helpful exercise.

It allows me to not only identify what topics resonated the most with readers (so I can provide more content on those topics, perhaps), but it also helps me find patterns and what might explain them.

For example, I’ve discovered that half of the 10 most popular posts on my blog (according to traffic) were guest posts. I can’t be certain why they rank so highly, but I suspect that it’s because the guest bloggers shared the link with their networks and brought new eyes to the site.

I always welcome new visitors, so I’ll continue to solicit great content on relevant topics from guest bloggers who are generous about sharing the link to their post with their social networks.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 Build Book Buzz blog posts, starting with number 10. Click each title to read the corresponding article:

10. How to create a street team for your book

This detailed guest post by Meagan Francis outlines how she created and used a street team for the launch of her e-book, Beyond Baby: Creating a life you love when your kids aren’t so little.

9. Take these steps before your book release

I love this guest post by Michael Murphy in large part because it’s so detailed — he not only tells you what to do, but he tells you when to do it, too.

8. 10 ways authors can help each other with book marketing

I hope the fact that this post is popular suggests that authors are interesting in collaborating with each other instead of competing.

7. Use LinkedIn’s publishing platform to create book buzz

After reading this inspiring guest post by Flora Brown, I re-worked one of my popular blog posts and published it on LinkedIn, where it enjoyed 672 views and 22 comments. Woot!

6. 4 quick tips about book publicity

With this post, I tried to dispel a few common publicity myths.

 5. Social media data tracking for authors in 4 easy steps

One thing I really like about this awesome guest post by my friend Laura Laing is that she illustrates how to do it with an Excel spreadsheet that authors can copy and use.

4. Discoverability and books

I attribute the traffic to this post to the fact that “discoverability” is one of the industry’s newer buzzwords. I suspect that people were searching for the term, hoping to learn more about what it means for their books and how to make their books more “discoverable.”

3. What do Facebook’s new rules mean for authors?

This was a timely post offering information on changes many authors weren’t aware of yet.

2. Why you shouldn’t give your book away

This guest post by my long-time friend in real life, Rhonda Penders, has generated the highest number of comments ever for one of my blog posts — nearly 100. If you haven’t read this one yet about e-book giveaways, definitely check it out. Read the comments, too — people shared lots of truly helpful feedback.

And, the most popular blog post of 2014 is . . . . 

1. 3 cool things you can do as a Goodreads author

Most of my posts get very few shares on StumbleUpon and only a few more on Pinterest, but for some reason, this post snagged 2,500 StumbleUpon shares and 101 on Pinterest. I suspect it’s because authors are hungry for useful information about how to take advantage of Goodreads.

What do you want to learn about in 2015? What topic do you want to see covered on this blog? Please comment below.