This post was originally published on September 22, 2018, and updated for accuracy.
Since I started on this writing and publishing journey, from the concept to creation and distribution, I always had a holistic approach to building a children’s author platform. In the beginning, I wanted to work on different children’s book marketing strategies, but I never gave much importance to guest posting.
It took me time to come to terms with this reality. As authors, we cherish our most precious treasure: our writing.
As important as it is to champion our craft and work on improving it, we cannot neglect the other aspects that aid in the overall picture, in other words, working on our platform.
Building an author platform takes time, and some genres such as children’s and young adult books might take even longer. But as our goal is to grow it over time, we can plant the seeds by working on a small aspect of the writing business every day until we reach that objective.
An undoubted way you can grow your children’s author platform is guest posting. Guest posting is a practice that has been used for years. And as a matter of fact, at some point back in the day, this was one of the favorite ways bloggers used to bring traffic to their sites and build authority in their fields.
The problem was, like everything else, some people abused the system, and Google started penalizing sites that didn’t play by the rules. But fear not, if done properly, you can harvest the benefits of guest posting and give a boost to your platform in the meantime. Here are the reasons why:
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1. You can reach a wider audience.
By guest posting on someone’s site, you will have access to a completely new audience with which you can share your wisdom. This audience might be formed of a group of individuals who crave the type of stories you write.
Not only that, but if you sell products or services other than children’s books or books for the youth, they can potentially turn into customers or raving fans.
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2. You can grow your authority.
Whether you are a fiction or nonfiction author, chances are you have expertise in some particular area. In the world of children, you may have math expertise, you might be a child’s psychologist, or you might be a Special Ed professional.
You might be a master of storytelling. You have that compelling story brewing on your head, and you can’t wait to share. Regardless of the way, when you write high-quality content on an authoritative website, it is a way of sharing your knowledge while building your authority.
Just recently, children’s author Leonard Lambert shared with us how his work as a sailor and former US Coast Guard served as an inspiration for his book The Fish Who Could Fly.
3. You can bring more visitors to your site.
Guest posting gives you the chance to reach high authority websites—websites that receive a large number of visitors and views and rank high on Google search.
From an SEO standpoint, you are only up to benefit from it. Most likely the post you’ll write will contain your bio or other information about you, including links to your site and books (if you self-publish children’s books, this may be a goldmine!) and products. You may benefit even more if you have one or two links within the post.
But the point is that people who didn’t know you or your site before will have a chance to know you now. Consequently, more traffic to your site, the better to sell your books and services, and to build an audience.
4. You can collaborate with other authors and like-minded people.
This is a no brainer. Guest posting allows you to exchange experiences with the website host and its readership and who knows, this can even open doors for other types of partnerships.
You may be invited to become a contributor to the site. You can collaborate in other projects together, such as co-writing a book. Or you might even have the host guest post on your own blog.
The possibilities are limitless. But the fact is that’s a fun and rewarding way to exercise literary citizenry and support fellow children’s authors.
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Final Thoughts
If this is not enough reason to put that in practice, there are a lot of sites that are open for guest posting. Some blogs even have a big list of sites that gladly accept them.
If you are a children’s or young adult author looking to spread the word about your work, there is an opportunity waiting for you.
In the meantime, let us know about your guest posting experiences in the comments below.
