It’s difficult to say exactly which pieces drove sales and put royalties in my pocket, but one thing was sure: I wrote a lot of free material.

A chat with a writing colleague led me to approach the release of my second book a different way. We realized that even though essays and articles are traditionally used to generate income via book sales for non-fiction work, we know there is money to be made writing articles and personal essays.

We often use our lives as inspiration for writing, so why not use our books as a prompt for material we could get paid to write?

Here’s part 1 of 2 on how to exploit your novel for additional publishable material.

1. Location, location, location

Where is your novel set? New York, Teheran, Moscow or Buenos Aires? Wherever it is, chances are you can find something interesting about the locale and write an essay about it.

Keep an eye on the news coming out of that place, choose an angle that would connect that news to the action in your novel, and pitch away.  

2. Setting

Where have you set your scenes? Do your characters visit spas, go to museums, jump off buildings, or hide in caves? Wherever they are, you can probably come up with an article that could include one of your chosen settings.

How about “Ten most visited caves in the world”? Or “Spas made famous by novelists?” Or “Buildings that remind people of dragons”? You get the idea.

Travel and airline magazines can pay well for these kinds of articles.

3. Food

Chances are, your characters eat at some point in your narrative. Whether it’s a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs or an exquisite five-star Michelin dinner, you can get mileage out of any and all food mentions in your work.

Write a round-up of most common breakfast dishes in the world. Or create a listicle of hardest-to-get-into Michelin-starred restaurants. Or combine the two ideas and see if you can find Michelin-starred restaurants that serve breakfasts.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to food — and food-based ideas you can extract from your work.

Look for magazines aimed at food lovers — there’s no shortage of the latter, though pay can vary.

4. Accessories

Does your character like luxury brands? Do you write erotica and include adult toys in your narrative? Or is there perhaps a furniture theme?

Take a look at your novel and make a list of every accessory that makes a notable appearance. Brainstorm the angle you could take on those accessories. “Most popular high-end brands in fiction” or “Sex toys through the eyes of 10 characters” could make quite an interesting piece.

Consumer-focused websites for specific industries often look for these types of articles.

5. Your characters

Is your hero based on a real-life crush? Does an old boss make an appearance?

You don’t have to name names, but if there’s a story behind the story, there’s a market for it.

Whether you’re in hiding from the North Koreans because you’ve made fun of Kim Jong-un or your book centers on that time you were betrayed by your best friend, you can write a personal essay about it. (Just make sure you do it under a pen name so no dictators can put you on their A-list).

You may be able to look for publications that profile famous people. The higher the profile, the bigger the publication that might be interested.  

6. Your research

Not everything in your book came straight from your imagination. Some of it came from Google and other research portals.

Did you find yourself deleting your browser history in case the FBI wondered why you were looking up how long it takes someone to die of hemlock poisoning? Or are you now an expert on apple breeds in 18th century France?

If so, there’s a probably a publication out there on just that niche. Alternatively, it might fit into a more general-interest piece. If you went down the rabbit hole researching trivia for your novel, readers will be just as curious.

Sites like Mental Floss, Ozy and The Atlantic are full of quirky and interesting articles that may inspire a new way to share your research.

7. Lessons

Your characters learned and grew through the events you wrote for them.

Whether it was how to get over a broken heart, or fix their finances and get out of debt, or to make amazing cupcakes, those characters must have top notch advice for others wanting to do the same thing.

How-to articles, especially food-based, can find homes in all kinds of publications.

Do you have any ideas for themes and topics inspired by your books?

In part 2, we’ll show you how to turn you — the writer — into a source of money-making, book-promoting essays.

You hope someone, anyone, will write an all-important Amazon or Goodreads review that will boost sales.

But authors and self-publishers who adopt a scattergun approach risk putting their book in front of the wrong audience — and ending up with lukewarm reviews.

As marketing expert and author Paul Youlten told me, “Bad reviews can simply mean the wrong person is reading your book.”

I had been complaining to Youlten about the reviews my second book had been getting. He’s a fellow member of the writing group I attend, and one of the few of us who works in marketing.

Which means I frequently ask him for advice.

And, apart from when he insisted I send my erotic novel to his sister to read and she was so offended she didn’t speak to him for weeks, his insight has been invaluable.

What happens when you get the wrong reviewers

I know Youlton is right that there’s a wrong type of reviewer, because my publisher sent out my graphic, choose-your-own-adventure-style erotica to its pool of romance-book bloggers.

Not only was it hard to get those bloggers to review my book at all; those who did inevitably criticized it for not having enough plot or character development.

Many missed the point: In a book where the protagonist is “You,” the writer’s job is to create a space for the reader to fill with themselves.

“Do we even know her name?” one reviewer asked.

Others complained the books weren’t long enough, noting they are essentially a series of interconnected short stories. It was pretty frustrating to be judged harshly for something inherent in the concept of what I’ve written.

My publisher’s approach to getting reviews

I relied on the publisher’s expertise to help market my book in the right way to the right people, and I supposed marketing would start with the book bloggers and reviewers they approached.

But they aren’t focused on my books. They’re putting out as many titles as they can and hoping some stick. As long as, overall, they sell books, a few misses won’t matter.

“It’s the World War One approach to product development and marketing,” Youlten said. “Writers are just cannon fodder. Are you 16? Sign here. Upload your book here. Charge towards those reviewers over there. Good luck …Next!”

If you don’t want to end up a casualty, you need to find people from your natural audience to review your books.

Finding your own potential reviewers

Women in a certain age group isn’t a specific-enough audience. Think about what those women buy, what their hobbies are, and, Youlton noted, what online forums and groups they might belong to.

“Crime fiction authors can join Reddit’s Protect and Serve forum where you will find experts they can ask to review their novel or Agathie Christie forums for detective story fans,” he explained to me. “For erotic fiction, seek out reviewers on Nerve.com or FetLife.“

I have to admit this is where I wish I wrote crime thrillers because I’m not sure exactly what I would have to say in a fetish forum. I might write erotica, but my real life reads more like a chaste romance novel crossed with a baby survival manual.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as writing your first post in a forum to ask for book reviewers. “Zooming into a forum as a stranger with a finished book and asking for reviews isn’t the most effective way to work with communities on the internet,” Youlten warned.

“The key is to get the community involved at an early stage. Ask for feedback on the characters and plot and use the expertise within the community for research,” he said. “When you’re ready to find reviewers, you’ll be recognized as an interesting and creative member of the community. That’s more or less what EL James did. It can work for you too.”

Should you ask friends and family for book reviews?

It’s understandable that at the crucial release stage, you’ll want to enlist the support of friends and family, petitioning them for book reviews — even if it’s just a couple of lines.

Again, it’s best to be selective and only approach people who already read the kind of book you’re offering.

Even better, ask writers in critique groups who might be happy to review a book they helped shape in its earlier incarnations.

In launch week, you’ll have fewer reviews than later on, meaning prospective buyers are more likely to read all your reviews. If they’re mostly five-star, two-liners about how fantastic the book and the writer are with no commentary about the plot or characters, they could sound fake.

And Amazon apparently has ways of finding out if the reviewer is a friend and might even delete their support.  

At this point, it’s not sales you’re after, it’s the metric that leads to sales: Reviews.

And while a lot of reviews is a powerful thing, a lot of good, genuine reviews is the real dynamite.

Authors, what’s your strategy for asking for book reviews that will drive sales?