Part Three in my series on how to re-use your blog content. In my last article I looked at creating a video using existing blog content. Now I want to take a look at creating publications from your blog content.
Why Take Opportunities To Re-use Blog Content?
I set out the main reasons to re-use your blog content in Part One.
My main reason for re-using my own blogs is that I put a lot of time and attention into each blog. Often I conducted quite a bit of research in order to start writing. For example, my series of blogs on areas of London around Tower Bridge took a lot of time to research the history of individual buildings and landmarks. Creating the artwork was the easy bit by comparison!
So I want to make the most of all that effort by using each blog to its maximum potential as far as I can. And that means refreshing content and trying different ways to appeal to new audiences.
Creating Publications
Social Media Giveaways
It is always nice to have something to be able to give away to people. At a simple level you can create a PDF document that people can download from your site. This would work well for a blog with guidance on how to do something, with instructions, a recipe etc. Something that adds value to the person who downloads the document. I have several blogs that would lend themselves to this approach and are on my ‘to do list’.
Creating a simple PDF document is easy enough. Producing a document that looks really good and will act as a great marketing tool is something else.
I wanted to see how easy it would be to create a really classy document based on one of my blog posts. To get started and learn how to do this I produced I used Designrr. I created a publication out of one of my blogs just to see how it might look. I took my blog ‘When Dreams Of Horses Turn Into Unicorns’ as my trial document and created this document (click to open, note 2MB file): When Dreams of Horses Turn Into Unicorns
When using Designrr, I start with the URL of the blog and import it into the program. Then start editing to get it how I want it to look. When complete there is a preview facility and then I can go back to do some more editing if necessary before completing the document.
It actually took me quite a while to produce the document but I think with practice it could become much quicker. I think you will agree that the document looks good and was worth the time taken to learn how to do it? Now I just have to apply what I have learned to the blogs that really will make great giveaways.
If you do offer download giveaways like this, remember to warn people about the size of the document they are downloading (as I did above). The file I created above is 2MBs so it is not an insubstantial size.
Creating E-books
With new introduction and conclusion sections and a number of blog posts stitched together it is relatively easy to create an e-book that you can make available to download or perhaps sell through Amazon Kindle. I actually wrote some blogs with a view to them being put together as an e-publication in this way. For example my rescue cat stories, the cat short stories and my travel guides. These will all make great e-books. This is the main reason I am trialing Designerr. It provides a facility to stitch various blogs together to make one document.
In Summary Blogs Can Make Great E-publications
When I first started writing my blog I saw each blog as a standalone piece. Several years later I can see the value in planning blog series and writing with a view to future e-publications. Being able to provide polished social media giveaways is a definite marketing plus. Creating e-books gets your work out to a wider audience and also provides the opportunity for income.
In my next blog I will look at how you can re-use your blog content by writing as a guest blogger and also give an example of how you can pull all the ideas presented in this series together.
Before you go
My name is Dorothy Berry-Lound an artist and writer. You can find out more about my art and writing at https://dorothyberryloundart.com.
You can follow me on Facebook.
Thank you for reading!
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