Tag Archives: Marketing

The Twitterverse Made Easy by Chicki Brown

Chicki BrownDeatri asked me to share about maximizing Twitter. I’ve heard a lot of authors admit that they don’t use Twitter or, even if they have ventured into the Twitterverse, they don’t tweet on a regular basis. Big mistake, in my opinion.

I know. You’re already overwhelmed with social networking and you don’t even want to think about adding another chore to your to-do list. But if you need to eliminate or avoid something, it shouldn’t be Twitter. Why do I say this? Because the literary community on Twitter is different from every other social network. The authors and readers are supportive and committed. In the year or so that I’ve been active on Twitter, I’ve discovered several things that make the difference when marketing your books.

The secret of Twitter is reciprocation.  If you follow other authors, bloggers, reviewers and readers and RT (retweet) for them, they will do the same for you. This means that your tweets will go to all of their followers.

The next most important thing about Twitter is the use of hashtags, those words preceded by a # sign. When you send a tweet without hashtags, it only goes to your followers. When you add tags, they serve to attach your tweet to a specific following – people with an interest in a certain category like #romance, #mystery, #newrelease, etc., and these tags are followed by multiple thousands of people. Here’s my personal list of popular tags for authors and books. I’ve separated them by category. It’s best to mix and match the tags that apply to your book and not use more than three. Remember, the tags will take up some of your 140 characters unless you’re using a Twitter management tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, which I’ll explain in a minute.

TWEETS OF INTEREST TO AUTHORS/WRITERS A Woman's Worth(interviews/craft/) –

#authorRT #Tweets4Authors @Writerlytweets @WritersRT @WritersRetweets

TO PROMOTE A BOOK –

#BYNR @promoteyourboo1 @free_book_promo @BookTweetTeam  @digitalbookend

TO PROMOTE AN INDIE BOOK –

@indtwt  @IHB6  @IndBk  @VoiceOfIndie @IndieBookTweet @IndieAuthorNews  @indiebookpromos  @IndieWriterSupp

FOR BOOK PROMOTION (GENERAL) –

@BooksandAuthor @A_Book_Shelf  @Writers_Cafe @Readers_Realm @AvidReadersCafe @GoodBooksBlog1 #lovetoread #bookworm #bookspotlight #WritersKaboodle

TO PROMOTE A ROMANCE –

@romanticpicks @ROMANCEONLY @ReadingRomance @RomanceinColor  @storiesoromance @allromance @JUSTConRom  @RmTwts

TO PROMOTE A NOOK BOOK –

@bnbuzz @nookbn @nookboards

TO PROMOTE A KINDLE BOOK –

@Kindle_India  @kindle_ch  @GoodKindles @kindle_promo @KindlePromotion @IndieKindle  @MadKindlePromos  @AmazonBookPromo

TO TWEET ABOUT SOMETHING OF INTEREST TO INDIE AUTHORS (not book promo) –

@IndieAuthorLand @IndAuthorSucess @IndieExchange @IndieAuthorAnon @IndieWriteNet @indiepubnews @IndiesUnite

TO PROMOTE A CHRISTIAN/INSPIRATIONAL BOOK –

@CEBTAuthors  @Christian_Reads

The other secrets of Twitter are the way you format your tweets and the frequency at which you post a tweet and the time of day. Formatting is simple. You want to get your point across using the least amount of characters possible. Always put your book title in all CAPS so it doesn’t get lost among the other characters. Abbreviate whenever possible, but never abbreviate words in the book’s title. You want people to be able to look up the book online without a problem. It’s not necessary to shorten the buy link to your book, because Tweetdeck or Hootsuite will automatically do it for you. Here’s an example of three tweets I might post in a day for my new release:

Love is the greatest healer. A WOMAN’S WORTH http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EUH6M3S @JUSTConRom @RmTwts @digitalbookend #BYNR @indtwt @IHB6

Marc is helping Gianne to heal her body. Why won’t she let him heal her soul? A WOMAN’S WORTH http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EUH6M3S @IndBk @MadKindlePromos

Why would Gianne Marvray move to Vegas 2 B with a man she barely knows? A WOMAN’S WORTH http://bit.ly/1dTlshd @bnbuzz @nookbn @nookboards

As far as frequency and time, it’s most effective to tweet three times a day. The optimum times are: mornings between 8 and 9 AM (after people get to work and get settled in front of their computers. LOL!) Midday between 12 Noon and 2 PM and evening between 5 and 8 PM).

That might sound like a lot, but there are ways you can type all of your tweets at once and schedule them to run hours, days, weeks or even months in advance. This is done by using one of the Twitter management tools like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. They are both free to download, and they will make tweeting a whole lot easier. I never use Twitter.com anymore. It doesn’t do everything you need it to do.

My last suggestion to maximize your Twitter reach, if you have a blog, is to join Triberr.com and sign up to be part of one or more tribes. Triberr was created solely as a way to increase your reach on social networks. The main tribe I belong to has a reach of 151,000 (the combined Twitter following of all the tribemates.) Every time you post a new entry, the link goes directly to Triberr and all of your tribemates will retweet it for you. Retweeting on Triberr requires no typing. You merely click. It takes twenty minutes tops.

I hope this wasn’t too confusing. I encourage you to take use of Twitter to promote your books. It’s fantastic!

Chicki Brown

Dee here: I hope you SHARE THIS ARTICLE with all of your author friends. I know I’m not the only one with Twitter issues and Chicki has made it so easy for us. Don’t be stingy, SHARE SHARE SHARE.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

Connect Your WordPress Blog To Your Facebook Fan Page by Stephanie Norris

EXIF_JPEG_T422Trying to figure out how to have your blog connected to your Facebook fan page can be frustrating and time consuming.  When I tried, it was almost an epic failure. I took to the Google search engine and typed; How to connect your wordpress blog to your Facebook Fan  page. Post after post after post told me how to connect my blog to my Facebook profile, but not the fan page. Other links I found gave me instructions but they were old, from 2010 to 2012. Now we all know Facebook does updates it seems like every month! So of course those instructions were not so helpful anymore. It took me a full day playing around with it to figure it out so I pass this knowledge on to you.

Dee here: The images that accompany this post did not show up well in blog format, so I created a PDF of the entire post: WordPress to Facebook.

Stephanie Nicole Norris is an author, website designer, and blogger of all things romance, drama, and suspense. She loves to support other authors and every week she highlights a different author on her WordPress blog. Stephanie currently has two books in print and ebook. For more information or to inquire about a spotlight feature on her blog email her at stephanie@stephanienorris.net.

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

Reasons Why It Might Be Your Fault that Your Blog Tour Sucked by Stacy-Deanne

Stacy-DeanneI see many authors complaining about the results of their blog tours. The common complaint is that they didn’t sell any books. Of course there are two sides to every story. Most of the authors I see complaining about a failed tour turn out to be the main reason the tour failed in the first place. Almost every author (lately) I’ve heard saying their tour failed, didn’t do a darn thing to help it have a chance to be successful. A blog tour is not some magic pill that will turn your book into an overnight success. They can and have done this for many books, but that’s not the norm. A blog tour is not something you set then ignore and expect things to fall into your lap. A blog tour takes hard work just like anything else. It takes dedication, making contacts, research, and patience.

At the time I’m writing this, I am about to start a blog tour in August to celebrate my upcoming book, The Wild Life. I am very excited and anxious to do the tour. I know it will be fun because with a blog tour you only get back what you put in. If your blog tour fails and you don’t sell books, it’s so easy to blame the blogger or to say that blog tours just don’t work. I know it’s hard to look at yourself and see that you might’ve done something wrong, but once you do this, you will have more success down the line.

We all make mistakes. We all screw up but how we deal with it is the key. I just don’t want people to cave to the negativity they might hear concerning blog tours. Blog tours are a blessing that authors should take advantage of. There are pros and cons to everything but if you take the steps to ensure your tour will be successful, the good will outweigh the bad.

So for those who’ve had a sucky tour or for those who might wanna try having a tour, I’ve outlined reasons why it could be your fault that your blog tour wasn’t successful. Now I’m not doing this to make you feel bad or to poke fun. I’m doing this to help. Most times when something does not work out, it’s our own faults. Maybe my reasons will help authors to approach blog tours in a more productive way.

1.      Picked Blogs with Low Traffic

I know it might be hard for a new author especially to get placement on high-traffic, or middle-traffic blogs but low-traffic blogs will not help you on a blog tour. You’re just wasting your time. In order to have a decent blog tour, you have to pick the right blogs. These should be blogs that cater to your genre, and blogs that have decent viewership. You don’t wanna have a blog tour with a bunch of blogs that lack traffic. If they don’t get traffic anyway, why do you think that would change just because you stop by there? No. You want a blog to help maximize your exposure. If it can’t do that then there’s no point. Your best bet is to reach out to blogs that can get your book in front of readers.

2.      Didn’t Have a Giveaway

Why do you think some bloggers require authors do giveaways with blog visits these days? It’s because authors who do giveaways get the most traffic and viewership on their tours. Readers want some reason to pop in and even though you might be as adorable as the Pillsbury Doughboy, you are not enough. You want to give your tour the best shot it can get at being successful so you need to have some type of giveaway. I think giving free copies of your book to people who pop into the tour is good enough, but some authors give out gift certificates, and even e-readers! Bottom line is you gotta make readers wanna come in and check you out. All of this will lead to exposure for your book. So you should at least consider giving away a copy of your book.

3.      You Were Disorganized

It’s your responsibility, not the bloggers’ to make sure you get all your materials and anything else you need to the bloggers in time. If you work with a tour organizer, you should be proactive and keep up with them to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. If things become chaotic it’s gonna be you who looks bad and no one else.

4.      Did Not Promote The Event

If you’re setting up your own blog tour it’s your responsibility to promote your blog tour. Bloggers will likely promote too, but don’t count on it. Every blogger is different and assuming a blogger will promote your tour is Blog Tour Mistake 101. This is your responsibility as the author. Sure you can ask the blogger to help promote just to make sure it’s not just you, but sitting back and assuming a blogger is gonna promote your event is irresponsible. They’re being kind enough letting you be on their blog so promoting you would be a bonus.

Tips: Ways to promote include getting with your publisher if you have one. Publishers should be willing to help you promote your tour and even make promotional materials for your blog tour. Don’t be afraid to ask your publisher for help. If you are self-published, you might benefit from working with a blog tour organizer or cross promoting with other authors. Also you should start spreading the word long before the blog tour begins.

5.      Did Not Participate in the Event

The main authors I see complaining about having an “unsuccessful” blog tour are the ones who sat back and didn’t participate. You must show yourself on the day of your event and you should come through more than once. This is your day. You are the one that should be initiating the conversations and keeping people interested. There’s nothing worse than checking out a guest blog post and seeing the author never bothered to show up. That’s rude. It’s like throwing a party then never coming through to greet your guests. Not only does this rub visitors the wrong way, it will kill your chances of bloggers inviting you back to their blogs. If you’re not interested enough to participate in your own promotional event, why should others be?

6.      Boring Content

Most bloggers let authors choose the type of content they wish to post. You should mix things up. You can do interviews and book spotlights here and there but not for your entire tour. That gets boring fast. It’s best to do guest posts and this way you can talk about different things. Don’t forget to showcase your book. This is not just about you, but the book. Make the book the star on every blog you go to. Whatever happens, it’s a sin to be boring on a blog tour. This is also why it’s important for an author to participate in the event so they can keep the conversation going.

7.      Provided the Wrong Content

Once again the book should be the star. Your posts should be of interests to readers. If you are promoting your new mystery or New Adult book, don’t post about how to write a book or how to sell a book. These are not posts readers wanna see. They wanna know more about your new book and why they should get it. Posting writing tips when you are trying to promote your novel is the kiss of death and readers won’t stick around.

8.      Skipping Blogs that Can’t Promise Reviews

This is a big mistake. I see many authors skipping bloggers who say they can’t review. You know what? You’ll be skipping many bloggers because many bloggers are full when it comes to reviews. That’s the way of the world now. But this is no reason to cross the blog off as a potential blog tour stop. You can still get exposure by doing guest posts. You don’t have to have reviews done on a blog tour. All you want is to get the word out and to get people engaged. Just appearing on the blog will give you good exposure. Also, this is why giveaways are good. If you give away free copies of your books to people, you most likely will end up with some reviews down the line. But don’t ignore the exposure that being on a blog can give your book whether they review it or not.

9.      You were an A** and Treated the Blogger Like Crap Because They Made a Mistake

The blogger is not your slave or minion. Don’t bark orders to the blogger. Don’t make demands. Remember a blogger who allows you to come to their blog is doing you a favor. It’s free promotion that they don’t have to give you so you should respect that. Also, if the blogger makes a mistake, don’t get upset with the blogger. Everyone makes mistakes. I’ve worked with many bloggers and a few have made mistakes when it came to my blog visits. Sometimes a blogger will have you down for the wrong date, or they will forget to even put you down. They might forget to give you materials to be featured on their blog. Remember that bloggers are humans too. Sometimes authors are so selfish we act like our books are the most important things in the world. A blogger making a mistake is not the end of the world, but you treating a blogger like crap could be the end of you ever getting promotional opportunities again. I don’t mean just from that blogger, but from many because bloggers travel in packs if you haven’t noticed. They make sure word gets around. If you’re rude and arrogant, that blogger is gonna tell her blogger-friends and they won’t want anything to do with you.

10.    Not Contacting Author-Bloggers

Don’t skip out on contacting other authors who have blogs for your tour. Author-bloggers love to host other authors. Many authors are also reviewers. Authors are the most supportive of the blogging community so this is why they most likely will roll out the red carpet for another author on their blog. It’s a beautiful thing. Cross promotion is the ticket so it’s important to guest post on blogs of authors in the same genre. Their audience can potentially become your audience. The more popular the authors the better for your tour so especially reach out to your popular author friends. While it’s great to score a visit on a big review blog, don’t underestimate the level of exposure you can get from a fellow author’s blog.

11.  Tour Too Short

I see authors arranging blog tours for a week or two. You should give yourself the best chance of exposure and unless you’re hitting the biggest blogs on the net in two weeks, or are a famous author, two weeks is not enough to get things rolling for your book. Your tour should be a month at least. You should be visiting blogs at least two times a week. Some authors visit a different blog every day. You should go with what’s best for you but I’d try for two blogs a week and a tour that’s at least a month. You want your book to saturate the blogosphere. The longer the tour, the wider your reach will be. If you do a week-long tour people will forget about you the minute your tour is over. Remember, exposure is the whole daggone point of the tour!

I hope my post helped those who might’ve had bad experiences but didn’t know why. If you did everything you could for your tour to be successful and it fell flat, you can’t control that. Nothing is guaranteed but you need to take planning a blog tour seriously. Stop measuring the success of your tour by how many books you sell. Blog tours don’t sell books directly. The main purpose of a blog tour is for exposure, not sales. If you present your book to your target audience, you should get some sales in the end.

Meanwhile join me on my tour! Check out my site for details: http://www.stacy-deanne.net

Be sure to check out Setting Up Virtual Book Tours by Deatri King-Bey

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

 

 

Setting Up Virtual Tours by Deatri King-Bey

DeatriOutside of writing a downright excellent book, two keys to expanding your loyal reader base are mingling with your current readers and being introduced to potential new readers. Back in the day, authors would go on tours to bookstores, conferences, reader events… to accomplish both of these tasks. Thanks to the electronic age, authors have additional options to accomplish this goal. One of my favorite ways is the virtual tour.

In essence, virtual tours work the same way as traditional tours, except your stops are online. You may visit blogs, participate in chats and online conferences, organize a sale with other authors… Anything to expose you to readers via the web.

So you want to do a virtual tour. The first thing you need to decide is if you will pay a service to organize the tour and/or organize it yourself. Whether you hire a service and/or organize the tour yourself, you’ll still have to write the blog posts, participate in the chats and such.

Paid Virtual Tour Appearances

Personally, I’m against paying a service to organize virtual tours, but what works for me may not work for you. Find what works for you and go for it. Here are a few advantages of paying a service to organize your virtual tour:

  • Many authors are shy and/or don’t know who or how to ask to make an appearance on someone’s site (a stop on the tour). The service does this for you.
  • The service sets up the appearance dates (stops).
  • Often times stops also include a review
  • The stops are varied. For example a reader who likes to blog about books is different than an author who has guest authors visit, is different than a website that caters to readers….

Again, just because paying for a virtual tour is not my cup of tea, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t indulge. If you are interested in paid virtual tour appearances:

  • Be sure to look at the virtual tour company’s clients. Do they write your genre? Will this company have the connections to get your book in front of readers in your genre?
    • Don’t pay companies to expose you to ANY reader. You want to be exposed to readers who actually enjoy your genre. For example, if you write horror, ensure the service is setting you up to visit virtual locations that specialize in horror. Not romance. Not historicals. You want to get the most bang for your buck, so you need to be where the most people who read your genre will be.
    • Many companies will not tell you the places they will be booking you until after you’ve paid (Understandable. They don’t want you to organize the tour on your own).  No problem. Ask the company exactly how many of the stops they are planning for you focus mainly on your genre. If it isn’t at least 70% of the stops, then I say skip this company. Don’t get me wrong. There are sites out there that attract a wide array of different types of readers. Those are great places for the other 30% of the tour.
  • Be sure to look at the virtual tour company’s current clients’ sells. Hop on over to Amazon and see how are they doing. Are they getting their monies worth?
  • Be sure to look at the current clients’ appearance schedules. Do these locations specialize in your genre?
  • Some virtual tour companies own numerous blogs/social media type locations for virtual tour stops. There is no problem with this, but be sure to ask the service how many of the stops they are planning for you are in locations they maintain. This number should be low.
    • One of the great things about virtual tours is the exposure to new readers you get from the host announcing your appearance. So if you are appearing on platforms maintained by the virtual tour company, then they are announcing the appearances to the same audience.

Setting Up Your Own Virtual Tour

The first time you set up a virtual tour for your genre, it’s a pain in the butt. The good thing is, once you get your research, you can adjust and reuse it for future tours.

  1. If you don’t have a blog, why not. Get one started and host virtual tours. I know it’s all about you, but by having authors from your genre visit your blog, they are bringing new readers to visit you just as you are introducing your readers to them. Cross promotion is your friend. Check out Bling: Can You Pimp My Website for starts. Creating a blog is optional, but I highly suggest it.
  2. Here comes the hard part. Research blogs, websites, online conferences, chat opportunities in your genre. I’m addicted to reading and regularly visit numerous blogs and websites to see what’s new and meet new authors (new to me). In my ventures, I take note of the main genre(s) hosted on the sites. Another way to locate sites in your genre is to do a Google search. You can list authors in your genre and find their websites. If they host guest appearances, take note. You can go to Amazon and search for authors in your genre, then look at their web pages to see if they have guest appearances. Some websites contain a list of links to other websites. Start clicking and find those sites. The more contacts you have, the better.
  3. A month or two (two is better) before you are ready to start your tour, contact the people on your list and ask to do a guest posts or be interviewed. Nothing complicated. I use:

Email Subject: Virtual Tour Stop Request

Hello All,

My upcoming GENRE OF BOOK, TITLE OF BOOK, is due for release GIVE A GENERAL TIME IE: LAST WEEK OF JULY, thus I’m requesting the opportunity to write a guest post or be interviewed on your website in the coming months. If you are interested in hosting a stop on my virtual tour, please let me know what you’d need from me and the date.

My website is located at YOUR WEB URL and, as always, I welcome you to visit my page in the future.

BOOK TITLE:

BOOK BLURB

BOOK SAMPLE Make it short and sweet.

Thank you for your time,

YOUR NAME

YOUR EMAIL

At least half of the people I contact usually reply that they’d love to have me. I guess the others ignore me.

  1.  While you are waiting on people to reply, go ahead and begin writing guest posts. Remember, you want to attract readers, so write something interesting to them, not how to query an agent. Your posts should relate to your book and also include the back cover blurb, purchase links, links to your website, and a thank you to the host. I like to include a short sample of the book.
  2. As you begin receiving replies, some will give you a date they want you to appear. Others will allow you to select your date. I like Thursdays because it’s the day before payday for many and people aren’t as distracted by the weekend yet so you get more views.
  3. Send in your blog posts and interviews. Set up your chat dates. Send out your edited book for reviews…
  4. Once your tour begins, be sure to promote each site you appear on the day you appear on it. Visit the site a few times during the day and reply to readers’ comments. Don’t be discouraged by the low comment number. When I have guest appear on my fiction blog, the entries average a few hundred hits, yet people rarely comment. When I look at my stats, I can see people are clicking the purchase links and links to the authors’ pages, so that’s the important thing.

Virtual tours are a lot of work whether you pay a service to set up your dates or you do it yourself, but they are excellent ways to stay in touch with your readers and meet new ones in your genre.

Be sure to check out Why It Might Be Your Fault That Your Blog Tour Sucked by Stacy-Deanne.

Deatri King-Bey

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

Goodreads: Get Your Piece of the Pie! by J’son M. Lee

J'son M. LeeI am convinced that Amazon will eventually rule the literary world.  In an effort to take this place, they have strategically acquired Goodreads, an online book-sharing site with 16 million members.   Yes, you read that right —16 million!  Not only does Goodreads afford Amazon a dominant social presence, it also affords authors an amazing platform—if they use it to its full potential.  Whether you’re a new or established author, you can use Goodreads to introduce yourself to a vast community of potential readers. By fostering that community, you strengthen the link between your work and the people who read it.

Now, here’s the interesting part.  Amazon, in its infinite wisdom, has broken the site up—readers versus writers.  Readers can organize their collection of books, find book recommendations and even join in on discussions about their favorite authors and novels.  Authors have their own special place, too, and need to take advantage of this paradigm.  The Goodreads Author Program is FREE (did I mention there are 16 million members?), and has a host of features designed to help you reach your target audience.  Here are a few:

  • Add a picture and bio
  • Write a blog
  • Publicize upcoming book signings, workshops or speaking engagements
  • Share book excerpts, quotes and other writing
  • Write a quiz about your book
  • Post videos

It is important to note that the Author Program isn’t automatic when you sign up for Goodreads.  That’s where I made my mistake.  I had no idea there was an Author Program until I was featured on the Literary Conservation.  The administrator sent me an inbox which read, “Dude, I’m going to put your Goodreads profile up with the links, but man, get on there actively!  That’s a free resource even the Big Names can’t afford to ignore.”  Doc Shamrock was right!   As a self-published author, I couldn’t afford to ignore this resource.  I put off updating my page because it seemed daunting.  I won’t sugarcoat it.  Even after I dug in, it was a bit confusing.  But I pushed my way through, and now my page is up and running.  I still have a lot of updates to make, but I’m no longer ashamed of my online presence.

Have no idea how to begin?  Start by signing up for a Goodreads account.  After that, send a request to join the Author Program. It may take a few days to process your request.  You will receive email confirmation (I received mine the same day) when they successfully upgrade your user account to an author account, thus merging your author page with your member page.  That’s the easy part.

Now comes the more challenging part.  The confirmation email will contain instructions for managing your author profile.  You’ll have access to a special Author Dashboard that contains useful links and statistics about your books.  Once I logged in, it took me a few hours to set up my page.  It may not take you that long.  I updated my profile, added a few trailers, loaded all of my books…there’s so much to do!  I had some trouble adding an updated version of my book, and reached out to the Goodreads Librarians Group.  They were extremely helpful with directly making changes to my book records or assisting me with making changes.

Whew!  I’m tired just writing about this, but do it!  It’s worth it.  Don’t miss out on your piece of the pie.  Can’t you taste your success?

J’son M. Lee
President and Owner
Sweet Georgia Press

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

It’s Not That You Shouldn’t Promote to Other Authors. It’s How You Should Promote to Other Authors by Stacy-Deanne

Stacy-DeanneNote: So no one is confused as to what I am saying, I am not saying you should promote ONLY to authors or nonsense like that. I’m saying that you should remember that authors are readers too and to completely cut someone out of your audience because they are an author is a mistake.

Read on.

This subject has always been debatable depending on who you ask. People have different opinions about it. But let me tell you why you would not wanna cut out authors as your audience. Do you realize that no one, NO ONE on earth reads more than writers? Writers read constantly. We have to, plus we enjoy it. Writers became writers because of their obsession with reading. Writers and authors are a huge part of the literary audience. To ignore them would be insane. Now I understand when folks say you shouldn’t promote only to authors. Yes, that’s true and I agree, but for those who say not to promote to authors at all, sorry but I don’t agree. You won’t find many people who read as much as authors.

I know many authors and readers and in comparison, the authors read way more on a regular basis than the readers who are not also authors. I am a member of many online book groups and book club groups and let me tell you, most of the “readers” in there are authors, aspiring authors, book bloggers (reviewers), or reviewers. Some of the book groups I’m in have over 800 members, I’d say around 200-300 are active on a regular basis. Out of that active group, over half are authors. And they are not authors pitching their books or writing tips. No. They are authors buying books and looking for new books to read. Oh trust me. Authors are a part of your audience. I can vouch for that because many authors buy my books, and they are authors I don’t even know personally.

The trick is how you should promote to other authors. Most authors don’t do this correctly. In order for an author to become engaged in your book and your writing, you need to treat them like a reader. See what I’m saying? But most authors don’t look at it that way. You can’t just pop up and hock your book to other authors who are doing the same thing. Nope. You have to capture the reader inside that author and that’s by reminding the author that when you’re around, they wear the reader’s cap only. You have to switch your mind frame and stop looking at other authors just as authors but as readers because that’s what they are.

One way to do this is to make up your mind, are you gonna appeal to READERS or WRITERS? If you’re gonna do both then you need to be very creative because many people cannot do both effectively. They end up promoting to one side more and alienating the other. I would think that most fiction authors want to appeal to readers. I know I do. Because readers (even if they are also authors), are the ones who will buy your books.

So how do you appeal to readers only? Better yet, how do you remind other authors that they are readers when it comes to you? You’ve got to stop appealing to their writer side. You do this by making your promo reader-friendly. Let’s start with your website. Do you have writing tips on there or do you have stuff that advertise your books and tells visitors who you are? If you wanna capture readers (and the reader inside the author), then get rid of the writing tips, writing guidelines, etc. that’s on your site. You need to have stuff about your books, your work in progress, your news, and your events. Any and everything a reader would want to know. Readers don’t wanna know about your writing process. Writers wanna know about your writing process. I know when I’m searching for books to read and I go to an author’s site to learn more about them, I could not care less about their writing rituals or them telling me how to publish a book. Why? Because when I check out your site, I’m in reader mode. I don’t wanna get tips on writing. If I want that I know where to go. I want your site to show me stuff about you as a published author. I want it to persuade me to checkout your work. I wanna see excerpts, book covers, reviews, anything that appeals to the reader inside of me. That is how you remind writers that they are readers when they step in your domain. Once you remind them, they will remember and they flick on that reader cap and they become interested in you and your work.

The same thing goes with the mailing list. Your mailing list should appeal to readers unless you are writing nonfiction writing guides. I have seen author lists where it was 20% about them and their books, and the rest was all on writing tips yet the author was a romance author. You couldn’t tell that by her newsletter. I dropped her list because I got confused. When I signed up for her list, I expected her to send me some news about her books. I wanted her to share some blurbs, let me know when the next book was coming out. Except for her spending one tiny paragraph on her books, she spent most of her newsletter on writing tips and that was not fulfilling to me at all. So imagine how a reader who is not even a writer would be turned off by that type of newsletter. You need to appeal to readers. If you have a site or mailing list geared toward writers then readers are not gonna be interested. Some people might argue this point, but let me tell you that Sally Williams who is a school teacher who loves to read romantic suspense and has no interest whatsoever in being a writer does not wanna see How to Format Your Manuscript for Kindle or How to Make that Book Proposal shine when she comes to your site. Sally wants to see when your next book is coming out and why the heck she should buy it. If your site doesn’t appeal to Sally, she’s gonna get confused, pissed, and go to another writer who treats her like a reader.

Check out my site: http://www.stacy-deanne.net. I practice what I preach. Now I’m known for writing articles for writers and giving writing tips. Well if you notice, you don’t see any of my writing articles or writing tips on my site. My site is geared toward readers. If I wanted a site for writers, I’d create one. I’m trying to sell books and gain fans through my site. My writing tips and writing articles belong on the sites I write them for, not my author site.

Get the picture?

So let’s go over my points. Now I am not saying you can’t promote to writers and readers at the same time. Some authors do and do it well, but many don’t do it well. There’s a risk of confusing your audience if you can’t pull this off. If you’re gonna have your sites or lists geared toward both it should be done where most of the content is geared toward readers (and the reader inside the author). The 20% percent geared toward readers and the remaining 80% geared toward writers is not gonna work unless you’re selling writing guides. If you’re writing fiction, your site and your list have to reel readers in. You need to promote to anyone who reads your genre. That’s your audience. Once again, I’m not saying promote only to other authors, no. Heck no. I am saying promote to anyone who is your audience and that includes authors. Authors who write in your genre are your audience so remember that.

The Wild Life by Stacy-Deanne (Coming July 2013)!

Read more about it here: http://peaceinthestormpublishing.com/authorbooks/wildlife.html

Sign up for my mailing list (where you won’t get any writing tips whatsoever): http://www.stacy-deanne.net/newsletter.htm?newsletter=

Ciao!

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

Seize Your Writing Power by W. Terry Whalin

W. Terry WhalinMany writers feel like they don’t have a lot of power or influence. Especially if you are just trying to get into print with a book or magazine articles, you may be receiving a number of rejection letters. All of us receive rejection letters—whether we’ve written nothing or many things. It’s simply a part of the publishing business and not a judgment on you as a person.

I want to encourage you to seize your writing power. What power? I’m talking about your influence as a writer. Whether you have no email list and only a few Facebook friends and only a few Twitter followers, you are a person of influence.

Recently I was reading Facebook and spotted a blog post entry from one of my writing friends, I went to the article, read it and liked it. So I took a few seconds and cut and pasted the title along with the author’s name into my Twitter account. I included the link to the article and sent out a tweet. Most of my tweets also show up on my Facebook page.

The whole process from start to finish took me two or three minutes. I didn’t give it a lot of thought but just took action and sent it out, then went on to something else.

A day later, I received an email from this author. Part of it said, “Just so you know the impact you have, right after you tweeted about it the views spiked and yesterday was my blog’s highest viewed day in months. Thanks for the boost.”

I found this news amazing since I put little stock in my actions. Yet I had used my writing power with that tweet. You have it as well. Are you using it?

You may not have written books but hopefully you are reading books. What do you do after you have read the book? Do you use your writing power? One simple way to use it is to write a few sentences of review about the book and post it on Amazon. When you take action and write a review, you are using your influence. I’ve written over 400 customer reviews on Amazon. No one pays me to write these reviews yet it is a way to use my power as a writer.

After you have written the review, I encourage you to tell your friends about your review. Every review has a “permanent link” on Amazon. You can use that link to tout your review to your Facebook friends or on Twitter or any other social media network. You will be surprised but taking these simple actions will influence others about good books to read.

I noticed my Book Proposals That Sell had another Five Star Amazon review. I quickly tweeted, “My Book Proposals That Sell received the 112th Five Star Review on Amazon today: http://amzn.to/NuYJIU I’m glad the book helps many people”

Words have immense power to heal and help others. I encourage you to seize your writing power and take action today.

________________________________________

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing, lives in Irvine, California. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com.

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

 

 

How to Promote When You Write in a Niche Market by Stacy-Deanne

Stacy-DeanneAs more authors grace the industry with their presence it can become difficult for an author to stand out. It is especially difficult for writers who write in niche markets. Believe me I know. My primary genre is mystery and suspense, which is one of the biggest selling genres, but my novels are also interracial. Interracial books sell well but they do not receive mainstream attention, and the interracial market is extremely limited compared to books in other markets.

Don’t worry. I’m here to help. Well, at least I wanna try to help. I’m not trying to give you advice on how to sell more books, but how to reach your audience. Selling books is a matter of hard work and a whole bunch of luck. Heck, sometimes you don’t even need to put in the hard work if you’re lucky for your book to take off right out the gate. The average author isn’t so lucky and will have to put in some minimum work to get the word out.

Below are some tips that can lead you to your target audience:

Target Facebook Groups

Wait a minute. I know you’re saying, “And what’s so new about that tip? I’m already busting my chops on Facebook.” Yes but are you busting your chops the right way? When I say Facebook groups, I don’t mean book groups, reading groups, or book clubs. No. I mean Facebook groups geared toward the subject of your book. I am talking about regular groups targeted to those with an interest in what you write. For example, there are many interracial dating groups on Facebook. Many of these groups are geared toward black women and white men couples, which is the interracial pairing I write about the most. I’ve been a valid member of many of these groups. I didn’t join just to sell books but because of the common interest I had with these people. The key is to become a part of the group, and not just promote your books. You don’t have to go to a book group or reading group to find readers. Readers are everywhere and if you write in a niche market, you have to be creative to get in touch with your audience.

Establish Your Niche as Your Brand

Do you write multicultural stories that take place in Southeast Asia? Do you write gay and lesbian books for the urban crowd? Do you write lesbian Chick Lit? Establishing your brand as an author is important anyway, but it’s a must if you write in a niche market. In order to stand out you need to make yourself look like an expert. Your niche needs to become your brand, and you need to make sure that wherever you go as an author, that niche follows along with you. Say you write gay and lesbian street lit books. The normal street lit crowd most likely aren’t interested in them, and the gay and lesbian crowd most likely won’t want to read street lit. You must get creative because your work doesn’t fit anywhere. You have to create a place for your niche to fit. Start a blog geared toward nothing but gay and lesbian issues in the urban community. Write articles geared toward the gay and lesbian street crowd. Start an Internet radio show where you discuss how being gay fits into the street community. No matter what you do and where you go, you need to become the poster child for what you write. Niche authors do not have a choice.

Write for Online Magazines and Sites

There are online magazines and sites geared toward all types of subjects. You’re bound to find something that fits your niche. Once you do, read the magazine (if you don’t already) and become familiar with the things they feature. Pitch articles or blogs to the magazine or site. You might end up with a regular gig, but even if you’re just featured in the magazine or on the site you will gain credibility through the subject you write about. When you write about things pertaining to your niche, you’re putting yourself out there for readers interested in your work. Many readers who read magazines or articles on sites check out the authors who’ve written the piece. It’s a solid road to getting your book into your targeted readers’ hands.

Start Your Own Magazine

No I’m serious. Did you know that you could start your own online magazine free? There are sites that provide you with free magazine templates and will even send out the magazines to subscribers free. Some have the option of print magazines and some only online magazines. You can start a magazine geared toward your niche. You can feature other writers and people who share your interest. If you stick to it, you might have a popular magazine one day. It might seem unbelievable but many online magazines started as simple sites.

Join a Cause

Are there any groups or organizations that focus on what you write? Do you write romances featuring plus-sized women? There are many Fat Acceptance groups to join and this is a great way to establish your brand. Your readership is most likely heavyset women who wanna read romances that feature women like them so joining groups they are interested in will alert them of your books and they’ll buy to support you. Do you write graphic novels featuring superheroes with disabilities? If you write characters with disabilities then consider working for disability organizations. They will embrace you and appreciate the fact that you feature disabled people in your books. You might also get offers for people to sponsor your book and help you spread the word. The best part though is to join these organizations because you honestly want to help. Never join something just to get book sales. Disabled people deserve the support of the community so if you decide to join a group, be there for the cause and not just to sell books.

You have to get creative. You can’t just throw a niche book out into the world and promote it like a mainstream book. That won’t work. You also have to accept that your audience might be limited so have realistic expectations. If you write books in an extremely small niche then you might not sell over a certain amount of books no matter what you do. Some niche books however do have a large market of readers, but reaching them is the key. The possibilities are endless.

Stacy-Deane

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

Rethinking Reader Events by Deatri King-Bey

DeatriI know authors who refuse to attend reader events where they will not sell enough books at the event to cover the majority of their costs. I have always thought they were being too narrow in their definition of a successful event, and with the popularity of eBooks ever increasing, they should rethink what they expect to gain from reading events.

Let me tell you about a conference I began attending many, many years ago when I was merely a reader of romance and women’s fiction, the Romance Slam Jam (RSJ). Back then there were no eReaders, no Facebook and no Amazon. I know that’s hard for many of you to imagine, but there you have it.

The first time I attended the RSJ, I was intimidated. There I was, little ol’ me, surrounded by authors whose books I couldn’t get enough of. That up close and personal time with authors and others who enjoyed reading what I was addicted to was AWSOME. So awesome that in the eighteen years of the conference’s history, I can count on one had the times I’ve missed it.

At the conference, there is a Mega Book Signing. Back in the day, readers would literally bring tote bags, roller bags, duffle bags of books with them that they had purchased over the years for the authors to sign. They would also bring books they’d purchased at the conference, but not nearly as many. Over the years as eBooks became more popular, the amount of books brought to the signing decreased drastically as did sells in the conference’s bookstore. The Mega “BOOK” Signing has turned into more of a “Mega Signing” where attendees collect autographs and such for their scrap books.

I told you this story to point out two items.

  1. The main purpose I, as a reader, attended this event was not to purchase books at the event. I can purchase books any day of the week. I attended the event to mix and mingle with authors whose work I enjoy year around and other readers such as myself.
  2. The main purpose I, as an author, attended this event was not to sell books at the event. I want readers to purchase my books all year around, even when I’m not in front of them. I attended to build relationships and make MEMORIES with readers and network with my peers. This is a key element in growing that loyal base who will spread the word about your high quality novels without you having to ask. They know YOU, sign up for your opt-in mailing list and will tell readers about you. It goes deeper than them seeing you at a book signing table. It’s a totally different level.

Attending in person events is very important for authors. But just like you shouldn’t jump onto every type of social media out there, you shouldn’t try to attend every reader event. Select the major event for your genre and attend every year or at least every other year. Get to know the attendees for that conference. You’ll bump into many of the same people year after year. This is a good thing. This is how you build relationships and memories.

Many authors forget to look locally for events and readers to build relationships with. Use sites such as http://www.meetup.com to find writing groups and reader events in your area. Become a member of the literary community locally and let the readers get to know you so your popularity can grow.

So am I saying that when you attend a reader event, you shouldn’t care if you don’t sell any books? Of course not. I’m just saying that selling books at the event shouldn’t be your only or main goal. With the increase in popularity of eBooks, it’s time to rethink why you attend reader events and what you should expect from them.

On a side note. If you haven’t read the article Are Amazon and Facebook Your Publishing End All And Be All? I suggest you do.

Deatri King-Bey

 

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author is used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

Yes You Do Need Book Clubs! by Stacy-Deanne

Stacy-DeanneI don’t care how talented you are. I don’t care what you write about. You could be the best darn writer on this planet but it wouldn’t mean jack if no one reads your books.

There are tons of articles and sites giving authors advice about how to get their work in the hands of readers. What a lot of them forget to mention is that readers get an author’s book in front of other readers. This is a powerful asset of book clubs.

I don’t care how much social networking you do or how many ads you buy on Facebook. Just like how the writing industry is changing, so has the world of promotion and publicity. Authors and publishers must rely on readers in order to move books. Oh yes. No more is it enough to market to readers but readers actually must help you sell a book for it to have a chance at success. Word of mouth is even more important in the age of ebooks.

So what exactly do book clubs do?

Book clubs open doors you cannot open yourself. They help to build your brand to a higher level, and they can put your name on readers’ lips. Do you realize how many book clubs there are? Do you realize how many clubs have hundreds of members? Some clubs span the entire nation! Can you imagine how powerful it would be if you got just one of the larger book clubs to pick up your book? Imagine your chances if you got many to pick up your book.

But it’s so hard to get a book club to pick up a book.

Stop whining. Some authors complain about how hard it is to get book clubs to pick up their books. Newsflash but the industry is competitive. That doesn’t change when you publish a book. Book clubs are picky because there are so many books fighting for attention. You’re not the only cowgirl or cowboy at this rodeo. It’s good for a book club to have standards. You want a club with a good reputation and one that has standing in the industry. That will help you in the end.

I practice what I preach. My latest novel, The Season of Sin has gotten some good exposure. I owe a lot of that to the book clubs that picked up the novel, enjoyed it, and passed the word. In addition, many book club members are members of several different clubs. That means if they read your book and liked it, they will spread the word to every one of their clubs.

That’s exposure, baby!

Book clubs are powerful because they are full of readers always hungry to find books. They are obsessed with the written word and love to support authors. If a book club picks you up then most likely they will again in the future if they enjoy your work. It’s a long-term advantage you can’t afford to miss.

Whether you feel the book club scene is for you or not, you’d better have some kind of plan on how to get your books in the hands of readers because without readers working alongside you to sell that book, it won’t stand half a chance.

Stacy-Deanne

 

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or$9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

 

Content Marketing: Attracting Your Audience by J’son M. Lee

J'son M. LeeOne of the biggest hurdles that self-published authors have to cross is marketing.  An overwhelming number of indie authors are pretty forthright about the fact that most of their marketing is done via social media.  While social media is highly effective, it has its limitations.  As such, authors need to find ways that are creative, memorable, effective and respectful.  Too many, the word “respectful” will seem out of place; however, given the rules of social etiquette as it relates to social media, it behooves each of us to be mindful and respectful of these spoken or unspoken rules.

Having worked in Corporate America for over 15 years, I’ve seen the various marketing techniques that businesses implore.  Authors may call it by a different name, but usually the concept and approach are the same.  For example, businesses often utilize cold calling to generate business.  Cold calling is the process of approaching prospective customers or clients who were not expecting such an interaction. The word “cold” is used because the person is not expecting to be contacted nor did they specifically ask to be contacted.  Authors utilize the same technique, but call it pounding the pavement or frontline hustling. Whether a business executive or an author, the goals of cold calling are the same; you want to get the person’s permission to have a conversation with them and then engage them enough that they want to know more about your product or brand.  Ultimately, you hope this approach will lead to a sale.  As with social media, this is a highly effective approach, but can be limiting.

While many authors focus on ways to increase sales, I would encourage more authors to focus on methods that increase visibility.  This is an approach known as content marketing.  Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of content in order to attract, acquire and engage potential consumer bases with the objective of making them loyal to your brand and ultimately securing sales.  Content marketing utilizes such methods as videos, blogs, photos, etc.  The difference between content marketing and more direct marketing methods is that it stops short of a direct sales pitch.

Here are a few content marketing methods that I utilize to bring focus to my brand:

Reviews:  When I began publishing, I found it difficult to find people who wrote quality reviews.  From an author’s perspective, I found many reviews to be unclear, poorly written or simply too personal.  I ultimately decided to be the type of reviewer that I was looking for.  I researched and established a format for my reviews and present them in a way that provides constructive criticism for the author and feedback that is useful to potential readers looking to make a purchase.  I recognize the type of credibility I am seeking to garner will take time, but I’m in this for the long haul.

Articles/Interviews:  Many authors write for more than just reader entertainment.  Some authors blog while others are featured on various media lending their expertise on various subject matters.  Many of these platforms we have to create for ourselves.  For example, as an author, I want to lend my voice to the plight of the gay community.  In an effort to do this, I recently began writing for a grassroots newsmagazine connecting with members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender sub-communities.  This opportunity didn’t come to me, I went to it.  Again, my goal was not to pitch my products, but build another platform for my brand.

Content marketing is nothing more than creating relevant content and distributing it to your target audience.  While many authors flood reader pages and groups with their book links, I tend to be much more strategic in my marketing approach.  While there is something to be said for social media and pounding the pavement, there is also something to be said for building an audience that respects your thoughts and opinions and is loyal to your brand.  When people are loyal they are more likely to invest their hard-earned money into your products.   Give it a try.  You have nothing to lose, and nothing but a loyal reader base to gain.

J’son M. Lee

Four Keys to Your Conference Preparation By W. Terry Whalin

W. Terry WhalinIn February, I’m traveling to the Florida Christian Writers Conference and I look forward to it. I’ve been revising and updating my workshop on book proposal creation, Editors Read Proposals Not Manuscripts. I’ve been sorting through my 20+ years in publishing and preparing which stories to tell during my class.

I love writers’ conferences. It’s a grand idea haven to talk shop and learn from other writers. If you want to succeed in the writing business, I’ve got four keys to enhance your conference experience:

1.      Take daily time to pray about the various people you will meet and the ideas you will discuss. Ask the Lord to guide you through each detail of the conference such as who you will sit with at the opening meeting or where you will sit at each meal and what will be discussed. Ask for God to give you divine appointments. These encounters will be far beyond anything that you could have orchestrated or planned. Be looking for the Lord’s handiwork at the conference.

Some people call those divine appointments or “a pack your bags experience.” That means if you had to leave the conference early for some reason, then you would have had such a great experience with the greatest personal benefit. Through prayer you will come to the conference full of expectation and a spiritual sensitivity that God will work while you are on the conference grounds.

2.      The second way is to come prepared to meet others and start new relationships. As a part of your preparation, create some business cards and be prepared to give them out to everyone you meet—but don’t make it a one way exchange. When you give a business card, make sure you receive a business card. Double check your business card to see if it contains your complete information: name, mailing address, phone number and email address.  It’s surprising how many participants do not create a simple business card—even if you buy blank cards at an office supply place and print your own. Bring plenty of copies of your business card. It is frustrating to the other person when someone says they only brought a few cards and have given them out. Writing is a solitary occupation and we need each other. You will form new and lasting friendships at the conference if you come prepared for it.

3.      The third key for your conference experience is to study the background for the various faculty members and get familiar with their different roles. Publishing is constantly changing. You want to know who you are meeting and their role. For example, I changed roles last year and became an acquisitions editor at a New York based publisher. Your familiarity with the different faculty will help you form deeper relationships during the conference. I believe your time in preparation will be rewarded.

4.      The final key for your conference experience is to come with the right heart attitude. Many writers come to their first conference expecting to sell their book manuscript or magazine article. Yes, there will be some selling during the conference. A much more central part of every writer’s conference is where individuals learn new aspects of publishing and take great strides of personal growth. Come with expectations and a willingness to learn and grow. With the right heart attitude, I’m convinced that you will not be disappointed but your expectations will actually be exceeded.

How can I say that expectations will be exceeded? Because I know each member of the faculty is a Christian and a person who is filled with the Spirit of the Living God. I love the verse in Ephesians 3:20 which says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Today God is preparing for you the people and lives that will be touched during the time we are together. I will be coming with high expectations and anticipations. I’ve not ever been disappointed in the past.

See you soon at the conference!

W. Terry Whalin understands both sides of the editorial desk–as an editor and a writer. He worked as a magazine editor and his magazine work has appeared in more than 50 publications and he’s written more than 60 books for traditional publishers. A book acquisitions editor for several publishers and a former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. Whether you are unsure how to start on the path to publication or want to take your publishing career to the next level, Terry’s newest book, JUMPSTART YOUR PUBLISHING DREAMS, INSIDER SECRETS TO SKYROCKET YOUR SUCCESS is packed with insight. Also Terry is the author of the bestselling book, BOOK PROPOSALS THAT SELL, 21 SECRETS TO SPEED YOUR SUCCESS. Plus he’s recently launched a 12 lesson online course on proposal creation, Write A Book Proposal. At the Florida Christian Writers, he will be teaching a one hour workshop, Editors Read Proposals Not Manuscripts.

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or $9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

 

Marketing the Write Way by Renee Flagler

Renee Daniel FlaglerMarketing is a monster, a science and a very broad concept. The good news is that it can be tamed, understood and reined in with a little understanding.  Over the years, I’ve also learned that marketing, for many writers, can sound like a four letter word. I’m here to tell you it’s not so bad. Now, granted, my perspective can be a little biased since I’ve spent over 15 years working as a marketing professional in the lovely corporate arena. However, I want to help you understand this beast just enough to make it work for you.

First I’ll start with basic definitions. Marketing is:

1. The process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service

2.  An aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer

3.  Activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers

Marketing activities include: advertising (print, broadcast & online), PR/Publicity, printed materials (aka collateral), events, sponsorship, direct mail, brand management & strategic partnerships. The different forms of marketing include, traditional marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and search engine marketing to name a few.

Here are a few of my recommended strategies for writers. For the sake of keeping this post at a reasonable length, I’ll share more strategies in upcoming posts.

Advertising:

It’s great when it’s cost effective. It can also be costly. Before doing any kind of advertising be sure that you are using the right source to reach your targeted audience. I wouldn’t make sense for a Christian fiction author to advertise in a magazine or on a website that is geared towards avid readers of mystery or sci-fi books.

PR/Publicity:

This is focused totally on gaining access to your readership by use of the media. Contrary to what many believe, this form of marketing is not free! Effective PR, when it’s done well, takes time and time equals money. However, adding PR strategies to your marketing campaign can prove to be very effective and can often give you a great return on your investment. If you can create a dynamic press kit on your own, go for it. If not, hire someone do it for you. At the very lease your press kit should start with a professional sounding bio, a press release, contact information, a photo, and any media clippings that you may have been able to acquire. Find reasons to reach out to the media. If your book wins is nominated for an award, generate a press release and send it out to the media. If you are asked to participate in a noteworthy event, generate a press release and circulate it. Start with you hometown media outlets and pan out from there.

Events:

Even in this digital age, it’s extremely important to get out in front of your audience. Your presence sells books. At the end of the day, you are your brand and your brand needs as much exposure as possible. Plan promotional events around the launch or content of your book. Attend and/or participate in conferences, book festivals & fairs, workshops and seminars. It’s great for meeting readers, networking and getting yourself exposed throughout the marketplace. When readers get to know you, they buy based on you. You are selling yourself with every book. Be wise when determining what events to attend or plan. Make sure your decision is cost effective and strategic.

Social Media Marketing:

The first thing you must understand is that simply having a Facebook, Twitter or Goodreads profile is not marketing. Marketing is much more strategic than posting updates about how cold it is outside. Use your social media platforms to be social. Engage your audience and focus on audience building strategies. To see effective social media marketing in action friend, like or follow a few of your favorite brands and see how they interact with their audience. You can run contests, offer giveaways, build your email database and much more using your social media profile. Let me warn you…do not, and I repeat, do not, get on Facebook and Twitter and just post, “Buy my book.”  Do not, post your link on everyone page as they friend you. You must first engage your audience in a genuine manner otherwise you will only succeed in annoying them and causing them to unfriend or unfollow you!

I hope these quick tips have helped to guide you in starting to build a great, integrated marketing plan. Remember the best campaign is an integrated campaign—one that incorporates several strategies at once. You must always engage in more than one method to reach your audience so that you can make as many impressions as possible. The more people are exposed to you, the more familiar they are with you and your brand and the more likely they are to move towards making that purchase.

Renee Flagler

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or $9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

Are Amazon and Facebook Your Publishing End All And Be All? by Deatri King-Bey

DeatriWithout a doubt, Amazon is the number one retailer of books, but what about the other retailers who have billions in annual sells? How are your sells going for you on Barnes & Noble and in the iStore? Are your sells so great on Amazon that you don’t care about other online retailers? You don’t care about expanding your audience?

Understanding what Amazon has done above and beyond other retailers to capture the overwhelming share of book sells is important. You have to think the same way about your business. What are you doing above and beyond to capture market share.

  • eBlast – My experience as a reader and author has shown me that Amazon is the best game in town when it comes to selling and buying books. As a reader, they send me alerts to books I may be interested in that actually interest me, and I can change my preferences at any time. As an author, they give effective free advertising, showcasing my books to people who may actually want to purchase it.
    • When you are promoting your title, be sure to ask readers to “Like” your product and author pages. In my opinion, this is more important than reviews because the algorithm Amazon uses to send out email blast to readers for books they might be interested in use those “Likes” and the majority of readers I’ve asked say that reviews factor little to not at all if they will be purchasing a book.
    • KDP Select – In this program, you give Amazon exclusive rights to sell your eBook for three months. You can’t even give your ebook away free. In exchange for exclusivity, Amazon adds your title to their Prime Library and when members check out your title, you are paid a certain amount that is determined quarterly. This program has pros and cons. There are tons of blog post out there revealing authors’ experiences so I won’t debate that here.
      • If you do the KDP Select program, I highly suggest you do not use it for your new title. Instead, release your title on ALL of the platforms available to you and give ALL of the readers a chance to purchase your book, then once sells slow, do KDP Select.
      • I do not suggest you permanently keep your titles on KDP Select. Why would you keep all of your eggs in the Amazon basket? That’s not good business. You want to expand your readership to as many platforms as possible.
      • KindleBoards – Amazon has done an excellent job of creating a Kindle user community of readers and authors. Consider becoming a part of the community, without becoming a walking billboard.

With the ease of selling and buying on Amazon, I understand why many authors don’t sell their titles on other platforms, I just don’t agree with them. Publishing is a business. As a self-published author, you are the CEO, CFO, and every other O of your company, and you have to look at more than short term gains. You have to plan for the long term success and expansion of your company.

A few paragraphs ago, I said you shouldn’t only use the KDP Select program to sell your eTitles. Let’s examine Amazon’s motivation behind the KDP Select program. Amazon works to dry up the self-publishing market from other eBook retailers so Amazon will be the only game in town. Amazon is a business and thus doing what is best for its interest. Is that good for your business as an author? Someone who sells eBooks using Amazon’s distribution? No. Amazon has already started testing out only allowing publishers to receive the 70% royalty if they have their titles in the KDP Select program in certain markets of the world. How much more market share do you think Amazon needs to capture in the U.S. before they start that here? Am I saying you shouldn’t use the KDP Select program or Amazon to distribute your eBooks? Heck no. I’m saying don’t ONLY use Amazon and the KDP Select program. Build your audience on other platforms also.

I can hear it now. I have “tried” to sell on other platforms, but I get nothing! Granted, Amazon sells the most, but from what I’ve seen time and time again from authors is them promoting their Amazon product page instead of maintaining a website (not Facebook wall) and having ALL of their purchase links for various vendors of their titles so readers can easily select their print or eReader preferences in purchasing. I see authors nurturing their relationships with Amazon customers, yet promoting to other retailers as an afterthought. Newsflash, your promos should be about your book, not Amazon. Authors give Amazon way more free advertisement than Amazon is giving them by sending out the occasional eBlast.

So what do you do? Upload your book to as many “legitimate” retailers and possible. If you don’t have a website, get one. You are in BUSINESS and should have a professional website that showcases your work. Create a separate page for each of your titles and ensure you have the purchase links on it. Then when you promote your title, send readers to that page instead of to Amazon.

So now that you’ve decided that it’s best to sell your titles on more than one platform and promote your website for purchasing links instead of sending customers to Amazon, let’s talk social media.

Facebook, like Amazon is by far the fastest way to reach a large audience. Facebook has created communities of authors and readers and has given authors a way to build their own following! Great stuff, huh? I can’t tell you how many authors have put all of their eggs into the Facebook basket when it comes to communicating with their readership. Now they have thousands of “Friends” who follow them. Who hooo!

Except, they seemed to forget that Facebook is a business and of course going to do what will make Facebook the most money. I’m not mad at them. My publishing company is also a business, and I do the same thing.

So let’s get back to your thousands of followers on Facebook. Let’s say you are not one of those authors who “friend” everyone and ask everyone to join your group. You are focused on quality instead of quantity. Quality being people who would actually be interested in purchasing your titles. It may have taken you a year or two to grow thousands of quality followers. Guess what happened a few months ago. Facebook changed their policy so posts from fan pages only show on 10% of your followers’ walls. If you want it to show on more of your followers walls, you have to pay a fee.

Oh, and let’s not forget, everyone is getting more followers (even the average person), yet many people, like me, do not scroll down to the bottom of their newsfeed to see what posts they have missed, so the chances of someone seeing your post have gotten much slimmer.

You’re not worried, because instead of creating a fan page, you have the regular user page that limits you to 5000 friends, but it’s all good. You tell people to “Subscribe” instead of befriend, and since subscribers don’t count, you’ll never reach 5000. You’ll just promote on your wall. HOLD UP! Facebook is starting to warn authors and delete accounts of those who fill up their walls with promos. That’s what fan pages are for.

Now what do you do?

Never, ever, ever have all of your eggs in one basket. Especially a basket someone else owns. Just as I said you should have purchase links on your website, you should also have an opt-in mailing list sign-up on your website. You should be building your opt-in mailing list so that when you need to reach your fan base, you can actually reach them.

Am I saying you should skip Amazon and Facebook or other social media? Of course not. But you need to maintain as much control over your product and contact with your customer base as you can. Now get out there and take over YOUR business.

Deatri King-Bey

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or $9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble

A Tale Of Four Reader Groups by Deatri King-Bey

DeatriI enjoy four reading groups on Facebook. I participate in them and have gotten to know the other participants well. Three of them focus on my favorite genres and one of them is for people who love their Nooks (Yes, I’m a proud Nookie). Do I promote in these groups? Not much. I’m mainly there because I’m a read-aholic and have always liked to talk book.

Of the four groups, two of them had restrictions on promoting and two didn’t.  All four had great member participation until recently. A few months ago, the two groups that didn’t have restrictions gained a few members who loved to post promo after promo. A new trend in social media is authors hiring “readers” to promote their titles in reading groups, so the promos increased even more. Why do I bring this up?

Because the readers in both of those groups began complaining about… Guess what? Yep, you’ve got it, too much promoting in the readers’ groups. It didn’t matter if it was authors filling up the groups or surrogates of the authors filling up the groups, readers were turned off and slowly stopped participating. So about two months ago members of one of the groups that had become overrun with promos began posting threads complaining about too many promos and they contacted the admins. The admin listened to the members and set up limits on posting promos. Slowly the group began to come to life again.

Let’s move on to the second group that had a drop in participation (non-promo participation). Again, the members began to complain. They missed how much fun they used to have in the group before it became overrun with promos. Calls to “Take Back Our Group” rang out loud and clear. Next thing you know, the admins decided it was time to start limiting promotions.

Seeing what was going on in the two groups that didn’t have promos limited, I decided to take a little tour of the numerous reader groups I belong to on Facebook but rarely enter and guess what I found. In the groups that didn’t limit promos, quite a few of them were having some form of the “too many promos” discussion.

I do not want any of you to be caught in the backlash that is coming. I know you have to promote, but readers are tiring from promos. They want interaction with authors without feeling bombarded by “buy my book,” “review my book,” “like my page,” “read my blog,” “listen to me on blog talk radio,” … and image after image after image of your cover.

Promotion is a necessity, but you must also be mindful of how your promotions are being received by the readers in the group. You know, the people you want to purchase and spread the word about your titles. Bad news spreads much faster than good news, and you do not want to be known as bad news.

So what to do, what to do? How do you promote in groups without becoming bad news.

  • When you join a group, read the guidelines and follow them. You’d think this was a given wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, it isn’t.
  • Look at the membership of the group and watch the group posts for a while. If the group is mostly authors, is this your target audience? Probably not. If the group feed has more promos than reader related posts, then if the readers haven’t pulled away yet, they probably will soon.
  • Know your genre and only join groups that fit your target audience. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard authors say, “My book is for all readers.” News flash, the majority of readers like certain genres and group together by those genres. Can you join a group with a focus on women’s fiction and find a few horror lovers in there. Of course you can, but why waste your time trying to find those few horror lovers or trying to convert the women’s fiction readers when you should be spending that time in a horror lover’s group?
  • When you join a group, actually join the group. I know we are all busy, so don’t join 100 groups. Instead join a few groups in your genre and actually participate in them. Get to know the readers and let them get to know you. Talk about more than yourself and your book(s). Join discussions and start them. That way when you release a title, the group members will be more willing to purchase your book and spread the word about it. You’ll get a lot more bang for your buck by joining a few groups you enjoy than doing drive by promos in numerous groups and you’ll save time.
    • Don’t fake the funk (SMILE). I’ve read in a few groups that readers do not like it when authors come in with “fake” participation questions. It’s really bad when the authors use programs such as Hootsuite to post the questions and promos in groups.
    • Though I write fiction, I’m realistic most of the time (SMILE). Even I have joined groups that I have no intention on participating in. When my new title is out, sometimes I do a promote by (that’s like a drive by shooting except you go from group to group and post your promo). This only takes a few minutes so you may get lucky and pick up a sell here and there. From speaking with readers in groups, they would rather an author do this than the fake participation questions and bombarding their groups with numerous promos.
    • When it’s time to promote your title in the groups you’ve been participating, show restraint and don’t be redundant. Don’t continually post the same promo over and over (especially on the same day). One day maybe post a blurb and purchase links to your title. Another day a review, Another day a blog appearance. Another day an excerpt… There is also no need to put down someone else’s book to promote yours.

So there you have it.  There’s no big secret. Now go join groups in your genre and have a good time.

Deatri King-Bey

As Featured On EzineArticles

If you found this post helpful, please use the Share buttons to spread the word about it.

Don’t have a copy of Become A Successful Author? What are you waiting for?Become A Successful Author will be used in the “How To Write That Novel” course at Chicago State because it covers everything from branding to writing to editing to formatting and uploading electronic and print books to marketing and so much more. Your time is money. Look at all the time, thus money, you’ll save by ending your search for answers: Purchase Become A Successful Author for only $4.99 (eBook) or $9.99(print) from: Amazon (US), Amazon (UK), Barnes & Noble