Repurposing Content Guide for Authors | Creatively Sustainable

Reach more readers by repurposing your content. There are a variety of ways to do this. Read to learn more and see what would work for you.

Think about all the content you have created. While books may be your first thought (you are a writer after all!), expand on that. What about blog posts, podcasts (either your own or interviews on others podcasts), social media posts, and images used with everything. If you use my Content Master List, you can easily see just how much you have created.

Put this content to work by repurposing it. Think of the time you will save with your author and book marketing by getting your content in front of more eyes and ears.

There are many ways to repurpose. I have some resources listed below you can check out for ideas. For now, let’s take an overview of ways an author can repurpose their content.

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Books

How many formats are your books in? These likely include ebook and print. I want you to consider adding more. Having an audiobook is a great option, but they can be expensive to produce. What about reformatting for large print, especially if your book appeals to an older audience. (I’ll add that I’m in my late 50s and large print helps me a lot!) Are your books available throughout the world? Unless you are in Kindle Unlimited, get it listed in as many places as you can.

There are other ways to repurpose books. If you write non-fiction, could you produce a workbook, workshop, or course to go with it? And for fiction and non-fiction, if your book has been out awhile, maybe a new cover or a blurb rewrite would attract new readers.

Speaking of covers, you probably use your cover image for social media posts and other online marketing. If you have a large following, consider creating other merchandise to sell. Sites such as Zazzle and TeePublic can be used to set this up. Before you take this step, make sure you own the rights to do this!! You may need to contact your cover designer to find out.

Other Content

What other content do you have out there? Think blog posts, short stories, or interviews you did with others. Here are some ideas on repurposing these. Some of these work better for non-fiction, while others are good for fiction. See what would work for your content.

• Put blog posts in your newsletter or, if you wrote something just for your newsletter, turn that into a blog post.
• Record and audio/video version
• Pull quotes and create a graphic to share on social media. I like Canva.
• Create a trailer video. Lumen 5 is a good program to use.
• Create a slideshow.
• Collect a series of blog posts or short stories and turn them into a book.
• Repost on other websites such as Medium and LinkedIn.
• Submit as a guest post. Research websites that take previously published pieces.

Audio/Video

If you have a podcast or YouTube channel, you can repurpose the audio.

• Transcribe and use for a blog post
• Pull quotes for posts and graphics for social media.
• If you have a series, could you turn them into a course?

Where To Begin

That’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? Don’t worry, you don’t need to do it all at once. In fact, you shouldn’t try to.

Instead, consider these questions to help you decide on one thing to start with.

What do you want to accomplish? Non-fiction writers may want to lead people to a book, a course, or a consult. Fiction authors want to get people to read their books. Think about what would work to lead them where you want them.

Who are your ideal readers? Where are you likely to find them and what formats are they most likely to use?

What do you like doing? Focus your attention there.

What would you like to learn to do? If you are interested in doing more audio/video work, repurposing content you already have can be a great way to get started. Try out equipment you already have and see what works and what doesn’t. Learn a routine for recording so when you go for something longer, like a podcast or vlog, you have your equipment and systems down.

How much time do you have? If you can honestly only give 15 minutes a week to repurposing, choose some of the less time-consuming ideas and work on those. See how it goes. You may be able to add more later.

What skills do you have? If you already record a podcast, doing an audio version of your blog posts will be similar to what you already do. Doing an audiobook, however, is quite another undertaking. If you have a background in graphic design, creating images to post on social media would be an ideal place to begin.

Do you write fiction or non-fiction? What you choose to do can vary depending on your answer. If you write both (and many authors do), which one do you want to start with? Non-fiction lends itself to more types of repurposing, so I’d suggest starting there.

The idea is to select things you can do without too much time and effort, so you can market your book(s) while writing the next one.

More Information

For more ideas, take a look at these articles.

What other ideas can you come up with to repurpose your content?

What Will You Repurpose First?

Pick a piece of content you have created. Decide how you want to repurpose it. Put it on your schedule and do it. If you post it to social media, please tag me so I can help you celebrate getting it done!

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Originally published at https://creativelysustainable.com on November 4, 2020.