I teach authors to create content for their readers beyond their book. Most of us spend much more time online, watching video, or listening to audio than we ever spend with a book.

Go where your audience lives

I almost always suggest an author have their own radio show. Easy to set up, and adaptable to talk about any subject with any guests. I also suggest every author of a blog and social media pages about their subject.

And since you are the expert, you can guest post on other blogs, and share links to relevant content from anywhere on the web. Read and share the top blogs and sites in your field and you’ll get ideas for your own content, and a reputation for being a great source on your expertise.

Where do you find the time?

Well, fist off, it’s much faster than writing a book   And there tools cropping up that make it very ease to find and share with your readers on your blog, in social media and in your own media products.

Take a look at Scoop.it, one of the rapidly developing tools to filter out the noise and then easily share what you find: (video)

Some Curation  Ideas for Authors

1. Subscribe to the top blogs in industry. Be sure to comment on relevant posts. You are the expert. Your opinion matters.
2. Subscribe to active readers who comment on those blogs. Make sure you reach out them on their favorite social media sites. They may have their own blog, Facebook page, Twitter account.. you’ll find out by clicking on the link they use on their blog comments and then searching for where they are most active
3. Join the Facebook groups and pages in your niche. Connect with the top contributors and offer comments of value (not just a pitch for your own blog)
4. Do a search on Amazon for the top book in your category. Many of those authors will have a blog or active social media profile
5. Join your industry group on LinkedIn. Contribute and connect
6. Search for videos on your topic. If you find someone who is doing a good job posting, connect with them. If now (still likely in some niches) make plans to produce some videos on the basics

Once you have feeds from the blogs in your RSS reader (I user Google Reader, it’s just like reading email). Scan on a regular basis for posts and articles to share.

When you find an author, writer, or contributor you respect. Ask them to be on your radio show, or write a guest post for  your blog.

Each of these steps is easy. New tools like Scoop.it can really speed things up, but most of the time you spend on this activity will be the reading you do (which you would do as an expert in your field) and connect and having conversations with the other experts. Neither need any special skills, budget or cutting edge tools. The commitment from you is the key ingredient.

When I released Twitter Revolution, I didn’t do any of the book marketing and promotion campaigns we’d run before. Instead, I just used Twitter to reach out to other social media authors and speakers. It wasn’t long till I became known as and expert who added value to their goals and they were happy to review and share my book.

Who have you met by networking and sharing. Please add your success story to the comments below.