How to get 10 blogs posts from 1 booklet: Editorial marketing by repurposing

7/8/2017

This post explores how editors and proofreaders can save time with content marketing by repurposing and recycling existing blogs, booklets or other resources.

Why marketing is sometimes a struggle

Here are two reasons why a lot of proofreaders and editors struggle with marketing:

They think it’s too difficult
They think it’s too time-consuming

Here’s an option that will solve both problems. I’m talking about something I bet all of you do rather well, and how you can get some efficiencies from it that will stretch your marketing budget (no Lycra required!).

What do you do really, really well?

I’ve not yet met one of my peers who couldn’t have a decent conversation with me about editing and proofreading – whether it be a technical or stylistic issue, or a business-development matter. You're all great at it.

And if you can talk about it, you can write about it.

And if you can write about it, you can offer that information to colleagues and potential clients.

And that’s marketing.

So, for those of you sitting in the too-difficult camp, you’ve no excuse!

And here’s a tip – solving problems is always good fodder for marketing. If you’ve read Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business, you’ll recall my discussion of Kevin Daum’s Differentiation–Empathy–Solution framework. The empathy part of the framework is where you identify the problems. The solution part of the framework is … well, it’s pretty obvious!

If you’ve read How to do Content Marketing, you’ll recall that I bang on non-stop about solving clients’ problems.

So write about all the problems you’ve ever been asked to solve and you’ll not go far wrong in terms of engaging with the audience who asked the questions in the first place.

Now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s look at one way you can save yourself time in the long run …

Recycling your content

Some years back, I landed a free ticket for the Summit on Content Marketing via content marketing masters Andrew and Pete.

One hundred speakers in twelve days. No, I didn’t listen to all of the webinars. And I was up until 1 a.m. frequently, just to catch what I could. But it was worth it because one of the sessions was by Gordon Graham, aka That White Paper Guy.

In ‘One White Paper, Five Ways: Stretch Your Content Marketing Budget by Repurposing’, Graham demonstrated how after creating one large, in-depth piece of writing (which can be used as a marketing tool in its own right) you can create additional promo pieces from it by slicing and dicing. More on that later.

Now, Graham specializes in the white paper – ‘A persuasive essay that uses facts and logic to promote a better way to solve a business problem’ – but we editorial pros can take the basic principles and use them to create our own problem-solving materials too.

Let’s put aside the term white paper and think in terms of booklets instead – ebooklets specifically, since we can post them on a blog and pages of a website, send them out to our mailing list or blog subscribers, email them to colleagues or clients who are looking for answers contained in that booklet, link to them in our social media posts, upload them to our membership forums, and so on.

What makes a great booklet?

Graham has some wonderful advice on how to approach a white paper, but I think these points are well worth bearing in mind for booklets too. I’m paraphrasing here but it boils down to this:

think like a lawyer
research like a think tank
cite like a scholar
write like a journalist
communicate like a person

We’re editors and proofreaders. That’s mostly nuts-and-bolts stuff that editors are paid to look out for, so I’m confident every one of us can do this.

Upside-down thinking

There was a time when I tended to think of my writing upside down. I might create several blog articles and then wonder whether, because they’re related (say, by topic), I can merge them into something more substantive. My first two books emerged, in part, from that mode of thinking.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. However, it’s not always the most efficient way of doing things; I tend to limit myself in terms of word count and perhaps omit information that I’d like to explore in more depth but choose not to because I don’t want to overload the reader.

And then, when I want to create something more substantive, I have to go back and rewrite large chunks of material to ensure the detail’s there.

By switching things round and creating the big piece first, I don’t limit myself or my ideas. I can put everything into the booklet, and then decide how best to slice and dice later.

Examples of white papers and booklets

Here are five examples of in-depth pieces – three from the publishing industry, and two from my own stable:

White paper: Reedsy’s The Lean Publisher: A Changing Freelance Economy
White paper: Digital Book World’s How Do Book Sales Stack Up – Genre by Genre?
White paper: The 2017 BookBaby Self-Publishing Survey Results
Editorial booklet: Audio-book production: A primer for indie authors from an audio-book producer

The slice and dice – how you might do it

Choose a topic you're asked about a lot
If clients are asking you about something frequently, creating an in-depth booklet will solve a problem. And when we solve problems we’re more likely to be trusted.

There are tens of thousands of people in the world offering editing and proofreading services. For the beginner author, with no prior experience of self-publishing, trying to find help can be terrifying. Is X trustworthy? Does Y know what she’s doing? Is Z worth the money he’s asking?

When we show we’re engaged with our clients’ problems, we begin to earn their trust, and they’re more likely to ask us to quote. So you're not only helping my clients, but also helping your business.

What do you get out of it?
During the process of creating it, you'll reflect on your knowledge, which will strengthen it. Your research may also suggest new ways of thinking, which means you're learning.

Why not just refer people to existing articles?
Because there’s tons of the stuff. And it's not all yours. And bits and pieces might be daunting for a writer who’s in the very early stages of developing their craft. Giving them something comprehensive will do what we all strive for: being helpful and solving authors’ problems rather than creating more for them!

And you want that content on your website. You want your authors to see that you're engaged with their problems rather than just sending them to someone else – someone they’ll think is more helpful than you.

How to handle research
Use the internet. Use books. Use existing articles. Research like a think tank and then cite like a scholar, so that your sources are attributed fully in a reference section at the end.

What about the format?
A PDF is a good option – perhaps like this one I did for an audio-book primer.

Landscape format works well on tablets and laptop screens. But, really, it’s a personal choice.

Create the cover image in Canva using your brand colours and fonts. Then use that to create a 3D picture.

How long will it be and how long will it take to write?
Who knows? When it comes to marketing and writing, it takes as long as it takes. It’ll be ready when it’s ready. It might take a week, or a month, or more. It depends what else is going on.

The thing is, once it’s done, you get to kick back and break out the chopping board!

The slice-and-dice-stage
Once you have the booklet written and the image produced, use it as it is – a substantive, useful and compelling resource that will help current and future clients. But you can also chop it up.

If you have 10 different sections, and each one’s around 1,000 words, you can easily create a series of 10 blog posts, each with its own core theme. That’s a lot of useful content to offer potential clients, and you can stagger the publication in whatever way suits you best.

Does that detract from the value of the booklet? I don’t think so. It’s about visibility and choice.

Regarding visibility, different people find answers to problems in different ways. So they might see a tweet about this booklet and think, ‘That’s useful. I’ll download that.’

But they might also place a longer question into Google or ChatGPT. Your booklet might not show up because its title doesn’t answer that question. But a blog post that looks specifically at that question might well end up in the results. It’s certainly far more likely to than the booklet title alone.

As for choice, the thing to remember is that not everyone can be bothered to root around on a blog for Parts 1 to whatever. Blog posts work really well when everything’s in one place, but once you start asking people to jump here, there and everywhere there’s a risk they’ll switch off.

So slice up the content into several posts but give the reader the option of downloading the full booklet at every stage.

Graham also suggests using some of the sliced-off articles as guest posts. This is a great idea because, again, you’re putting your resource in front of a new audience that might otherwise not have seen it.

Repurpose and relax

Any editor or proofreader can stretch their marketing budget using this recycling method. When we create an in-depth, research-based resource, we help our clients and we teach ourselves. That’s a win–win all round.

As long as it’s dripping with value, you should feel free to carve it up in whatever way suits you. Your clients aren’t homogeneous when it comes to finding solutions to their problems, which means you don’t have to be homogeneous when it comes to delivering them.

When you slice and dice, and deliver according to your audience’s preferences, you increase engagement, build trust and expand the life cycle of the story you’re telling.

What’s not to like?

Resources

Marketing Your Editing & Proofreading Business (Louise Harnby)
How to do Content Marketing (Louise Harnby)
That White Paper Guy
The Lean Publisher: A Changing Freelance Economy (Reedsy)
How Do Book Sales Stack Up – Genre by Genre? (Digital Book World)
The 2017 BookBaby Self-Publishing Survey Results
Canva Copy Special video and template (Andrew and Pete)
BoxShot 3D

About Louise Harnby

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.