Guest Blogger Ruth Jacobs: The Soul Destruction Blog Story

Whilst searching for a literary agent to represent my debut novel, Soul Destruction, I took the advice of a friend and started a blog www.soul-destruction.com. That was at the end of May 2012. Now, a few weeks later in mid-July, there are nearly fifty people following the blog and it’s received over 4,500 page hits. This is how I achieved it.

Initially, when I started the Soul Destruction blog, I asked my friends on Facebook to post the link on their walls. On my Twitter account, which was redundant but previously had been used for work as a recruitment consultant, I had nearly 1500 followers. I tweeted that I was now using the account for my writing and if anyone wanted to unfollow me, I wouldn’t be offended. I didn’t notice a drop in followers and in fact, some of my Twitter contacts have let me know they’ve been reading my blog. I began reading other blogs and made contact with other bloggers, many of whom I am really enjoying getting to know. I have also joined writing groups on Facebook, from which I’ve made new contacts, many of whom have shared their experience and some have even helped publicise my blog.

I created a Soul Destruction Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SoulDestructionSeries , and on that, I post a link to every new blog. I also use Google+, StumbleUpon and Pinterest to publicise all my blog posts. I recently made a promotional video for the Soul Destruction series www.souldestructionblog.wordpress.com/video and my friends have kindly shared that on Facebook too. In ten days on YouTube, the video has received over 350 views. I also uploaded the video onto Metacafe and Flickr so it has exposure on Bing and Yahoo.

Pictures on the blog are important, not just for the visual but to help drive traffic to the blog from search engines. As well as posting the pictures on the blog, I also upload them to my Flickr account, which has a link to my blog. I tag the pictures with the relevant keywords for search engines, as I tag every post on my blog.

In reaching out to my friends on Facebook, one invited me to be interviewed on her radio show, GSOH Live. Others offered to put me in touch with publishing contacts they know. One of those contacts, a small publishing company, expressed an interest in publishing Soul Destruction as an ebook. However, due to other business issues they were unable to progress. Another friend, who I hadn’t seen in over twenty years, invited me to a literary event run by his sister. At the event, I met another writer who suggested I contact her agent. I made a submission and, in less than two weeks, they requested the complete manuscript of Soul Destruction. That was only last week. I’m trying not to get too excited but it’s hard not to.

The Soul Destruction blog www.soul-destruction.com

The Soul Destruction Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SoulDestructionSeries

Ruth’s Twitter www.twitter.com/RuthFJacobs

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Ruth Jacobs is a novelist, writer and blogger. She studied prostitution in the late 1990s, which sparked her interest in the subject. Her writing dispels the 'happy hooker' myth and exposes the reality of being a call girl. Her writing is gritty, her stories are gripping and her characters are authentic. She draws on her research and the women she interviewed for inspiration. She also has firsthand experience of some of the topics she writes about such as post-traumatic stress disorder, rape, and drug and alcohol addiction.