How to Utilize your Old Blog Posts Many businesses and people have entered the blogosphere in order to increase traffic on their website and increase their sales.  After you defeat the first step of running a successful blog, you start piling up your old blog posts.  What can you do with these old blog posts?  You could, and should, archive them on your blog so that your readers have access to them.  Another option that can generate some additional profit for you is to compile them into an e-book. Customers like to think that when they spend their hard earned money on something, the person they bought that something from is an expert on the subject.  Many businesses are showing their expertise on their blogs, but imagine what authority you can speak with when you have a book for sale.  Your customers will see you as the expert on that subject, someone they can rely on for the information.  You have already done the writing now all you have to do is compile the posts into a book format.  Once you publish the book you set the price and can sell it on your website. Publishing a book has never been easier than it is today.  There are several book publishers on the Internet that offer book publishing packages for a price.  Some of the prices are pretty hefty but they do come with marketing and promotion of the book.  If you are on a budget and willing to do your own marketing and promotion there are a plethora of sites that allow you to publish an e-book for free.   Create Space Create Space is the publishing platform from Amazon.com.  Create space has numerous free templates and cover designs you can use to create your book.  With Create Space you can publish e-books and print books.  The print books are sold as print on demand books so there is no large first run order to fill.  For a small fee of about $25.00 you can expand your sales platform to retailers other than Amazon.com. Create Space also has a fee based service that gives you more options.  The fees are generally based on the amount of options you choose but this service comes with design help and editing.  These are valuable options to have so don’t rule out paying the fee.  There is also a fee based service that will have your book copyrighted in the U.S. Copyright Office and placed in the Library of Congress.   Smashwords Smashwords, like Create Space, is a free e-book publishing service that takes a small percentage of your sales to cover their costs and create their profits.  This platform offers some things that Create Space does not.  Smashwords will distribute your e-book to every major book retailer except Amazon.com.  They have distribution channels on sites such as Barnes & Noble and through the iTunes store.   Lulu Like most publishing platforms, Lulu offers a free service in addition to fee based services.  The free service on all of these platforms is more than adequate to publish a good looking book that will sell.  It is wise, however, to consider the fee based services if you have specific design requirements or want help with promotion. The best part about Lulu is that you keep 90 percent of your profits. Lulu also boasts distribution channels with major book retailers with the two biggest being Barnes & Noble and iTunes.   The advent of e-readers such as Nook, Kindle, and iPad makes e-books extremely attractive to readers.  Lulu advises authors that you may set whatever price you wish for your e-book but they find e-books priced in the $0.99 to $2.99 range have the best sales and those authors receive the best profits.   Promoting Your E-book Once you have compiled those old blog posts and published them with a platform you need to think about promotion.  Unless you paid a fee ranging anywhere from $299.00 to $5,000.00, your promotion duties are going to fall on you.  Promotion of your book is important since you want to sell the book for profit, but more importantly you want the book to drive traffic to your site. Promote your book on your own website and blog.  Since you control the posts here you can say what you want when you want.  Create a Facebook page for you book and promote through there.  Invite readers to your blog and Facebook page to review and rate your book.  Or, use an internet advertising company to help you out. Blogs are a great way to promote your business and through numerous blog posts most people have compiled enough material for a book.  Take the time to compile those blog posts into an e-book and publish it. Not only is this free marketing, you could make a nice profit along the way. Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com, a local business directory.  ChamberofCommerce.com also connects local businesses to Chambers of Commerce in their area.