Marketing

3 March, 2014

Why authors should use Google Hangouts on Air

By |2023-06-09T11:21:13-07:00March 3, 2014|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Why authors should use Google Hangouts on Air

Google Hangouts on Air is a type of video call that operates like your own private television broadcast talk show. You can have up to ten people participating on the call with as many as 5,000 live viewers submitting questions via text chat. Once the show is completed an automatic YouTube video is published.

For authors, this can be a great way to build up weekly or monthly content as well as deepen connections with your target audience. A recent article on Forbes reported that the reach of video “over white papers, case studies, even live demos with reps” was significantly higher in how audiences choose to absorb new content.

Getting Started

To get started doing your own Google hangout on air, you will need to pick a topic that offers valuable content to your target audience. Offer a tutorial on a subject such as photography, business, cooking or create […]

17 February, 2014

Why you should use your real photo in creating Social Media profiles

By |2023-06-09T11:21:43-07:00February 17, 2014|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Why you should use your real photo in creating Social Media profiles

An important part of building brand awareness is image awareness. Like the golden arches of McDonald’s you want your face to be recognized as an expert. When people see your face, you want them to instantly say, “Yes! I know that person.”

Recognition builds association, which builds greater credibility.

The more your target audience sees you in different places and doing different things, the greater the image of “Oh my, that person is everywhere. They must be much more important than I realized!”

A photo tip is to use a unique personal image for different social applications. This way when your name is searched on Google, the page of images for your name will have more instances of “you” than images of other people with the same name.

When getting professional images taken, come prepared with different outfits and ask the photographer to use different background images. This way you get more mileage out […]

21 January, 2014

Building your 100 book marketing gold list

By |2023-06-09T11:21:56-07:00January 21, 2014|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Building your 100 book marketing gold list

If you are looking for a magic bullet to speed your book to greater selling success, creating a 100 gold contact list might be just the ammunition you need.

A gold contact list is simply a list of 100 people that would help you to sell more books. This concept comes from John Kremer of Bookmarket.com. Kremer explains that building a list of 100 key media and book marketing contacts will help you to focus your relationship building efforts where they will have the most punch.

The first thing you have to realize when you build your list is that you don’t have to already know and have a relationship with these people. Come up with a list of people in the field that you want to know and then try to build a relationship with each one.

This will take some time. It will mean finding out where this […]

16 January, 2014

Why print newsletters can be more effective in keeping your fans connected

By |2023-06-09T11:22:01-07:00January 16, 2014|Marketing, Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Why print newsletters can be more effective in keeping your fans connected

The pendulum is swinging back. For the last five or ten years the push for authors to send out a digital newsletter was encouraged on every front. Turns out that it became so popular everyone did it. So much so that as email newsletters became more and more prolific, readers soon felt overwhelmed. In order to handle the load, people started filtering the emails into sorted files that rarely were opened or simply deleted them after a casual disinterested glance at the subject line.

Even though digital newsletters could be sent in full color, 84% of the browsers that received them had pictures and images turned off to guard against spam and viruses.  An email with plain text has to be pretty amazing to be read in this day and age of short attention spans.

As email turned into a chore and a headache, the delete key started being used with greater […]

18 December, 2013

3 free press release sites

By |2023-06-09T11:22:57-07:00December 18, 2013|Marketing, News, Resources|Comments Off on 3 free press release sites

While you will have greater results if you send a targeted news release to a specific journalist, there are times when sending press releases out to the masses is not a bad idea. The chances of getting results are much slimmer, but if your release is timely and powerful, it might get picked up by media that you would never have contacted.

In many instances, it might be smart to do both types of news releases. Make sure that each release is different enough in content and focus so that your ideal targeted journalist will not feel like they are getting a mass letter. After all, if you go to the trouble of finding a journalist, connecting with them and writing the release to fit their coverage, then you want to build an ongoing relationship.

If you are ready to send your release out to the public, here are free press release […]

12 December, 2013

Christmas Publicity – Don’t knock it!

By |2023-06-09T11:23:12-07:00December 12, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Christmas Publicity – Don’t knock it!

You may think it’s not ethical to do something “nice” and make money off of it at the same time. But if you had a choice between creating publicity through a nice project and simply creating some publicity, you’d probably choose the nice project every time.

The news is full of media darlings doing anything possible to get a little camera coverage. Instead of yelling and getting drunk or married or divorced in order to get attention, how about doing something nice?

WestJet Airlines created a bit of Christmas cheer with its latest publicity video. The airline asked 100 people on two different flights what they wanted for Christmas as they boarded the plane. Then the WestJet “elves” went into action to buy and wrap the gifts and fliers received them at baggage claim when they landed. The whole video is about six minutes, which is long for an […]

23 November, 2013

Setting the proper price point for your book

By |2023-06-09T11:23:19-07:00November 23, 2013|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Setting the proper price point for your book

As an author, you want to receive a fair price for your book. You’ve put in hours of hard work to get to the publication stage, and now that the book is ready, you must figure out the best price point for selling.

There is no hard and fast rule, but a good starting point is to research the prices of similar books on Amazon and in bookstores. Overpricing your book can be disastrous, but underpricing has its downfalls as well. Oftentimes publishers will put a printed price on the book cover, knowing that they plan to offer a discount for most of its selling history.

If you want your book to be sold in bookstores, pricing it too low may discourage bookstores from stocking it. Bookstores are interested in making a profit and if that profit is in pennies and nickels, then they are not going to bother with ordering your […]

16 November, 2013

Use this free Google tool to improve your website loading time

By |2023-06-09T11:23:44-07:00November 16, 2013|Marketing, Resources|Comments Off on Use this free Google tool to improve your website loading time

Amazon did some tests a while back and found that removing seconds from the load time of a web page resulted in more sales.

If your site is slow to load, a lot of visitors simply will not bother to wait. That means all your efforts of writing great blog posts, offering a free download and showcasing everything you have to offer are wasted.

You may not notice how slow your website loads because your computer caches images from previous visits, but a first time visitor will have to wait the full loading time.

Check out your website speed with a free tool from Google. PageSpeed Insights.

Start by checking your home page and other landing pages on your website.

Images take up the most bandwidth on your site but are the easiest to fix in increasing your site’s load time. Are you guilty of any of these three problems?

1. Too many images per […]

5 November, 2013

Writing for the Christian fiction market

By |2023-06-09T11:24:14-07:00November 5, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Writing|Comments Off on Writing for the Christian fiction market

How do Christian fiction books differ from your straight, run-of-the-mill fiction books?

Here are characteristics of most Christian fiction books:

1. An element of faith inspires the main character’s decisions throughout the story.

2. A sparing but appropriate use of Bible quotes — usually two or three that fit the story.

3. Evil exists in the story, but there are no graphic descriptions of sex, murder, and other deviant behaviors.

4. The ending leaves one feeling encouraged and trusting that life will work out for the better.

5. Language is clean with no swearing or violent words. For instance, a character might be described as “swearing a blue streak,” but the actual cursing words are left out.

Don’t be misled into thinking that because the book has a Christian or faith element you can get away with half-baked writing. Christian readers are as critical as other readers in wanting good plots, well-crafted story structure, and believable dialogue. […]

4 November, 2013

Can’t figure out social media and don’t want to? Sell books the old-fashioned way

By |2023-06-09T11:24:30-07:00November 4, 2013|Marketing, Resources, Social Media|Comments Off on Can’t figure out social media and don’t want to? Sell books the old-fashioned way

It may seem like the only way to sell a lot of books is to use social media. There is texting, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and a thousand other social programs with a new one launching every week.  Should you use each one or select just one?  Or, is it possible to sell books the old-fashioned way with simple word of mouth?

Granted social media is an integral part of communication today, I am here to say there is still a place for word-of-mouth communication.  Calling someone on the phone and sharing about your book may seem like an ancient process used by authors who lived in the pre-digital era, but a one-on-one conversation can still have some amazing results.

There is something to be said for a conversation between two people that is not immediately broadcast around the globe.There is something valuable in a conversation that goes no further than the moment […]

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