Being creative while writing is a must but it is also beneficial to the marketing and even publishing process.  There is so much you can do these days that is outside the box, especially with the leaps and bounds being made on the Internet.  I am going to focus [...]]]>

Yes there are books in Secong Life

Being creative while writing is a must but it is also beneficial to the marketing and even publishing process.  There is so much you can do these days that is outside the box, especially with the leaps and bounds being made on the Internet.  I am going to focus on one inventive way to both see your work published and/or build your platform–Second Life.

Second Life is called a game by most people but in truth it is more of a Virtual World.   There are no points or any kind of goal–though you can collect the local currency (Linden Dollars $L) and trade it in for real USD.  So what is it?

At this point I like to break out the Barbie metaphor.  In Second Life you have a little “Avatar” which represents you and is kind of like a little Barbie doll on your computer screen–though the Avatar can be a Ken doll or a pony or a kitty or a big blob or even a solar system( yeah I really did see a solar system avatar once).  You can buy hair, clothes, shoes, mansions etc for your Avatar.  Pretty much anything you can imagine and more is possible in the world of Second Life.

And, you guessed it, there are books!  With a little elbow grease and a few dollars you can publish, market and sell your writing in book or magazine form in this virtual world, with potential customers from around the world.  At any given time in Second Life there are 50,000-70,000 people logged in and over the course of 2 months over a million different Avatars will log in.  You could sell a lot of your writing with that kind of market.

The best part is there is a large artist community in Second Life.  Mostly there are musicians and designers but there are writers as well.  Second Life is a community that loves to support the arts.

Second Life “books” are by no means as convenient and catchy as all these new Nooks and Kindles so its never going to replace Real Life ePublishing, but it can certainly be a nice supplement and a great promotion tool.  All it takes is for you to log in (Second Life is free by the way) and start putting your creativity to use.

Pick a few pieces of your writing, or create a few just for this purpose, and post them for people to read.  Yes, publishers are still a little picky about stuff that has been posted online.  Unless your posting it for free takes it viral, it might be more difficult to [...]]]> 1.  Give it away for free.

Pick a few pieces of your writing, or create a few just for this purpose, and post them for people to read.  Yes, publishers are still a little picky about stuff that has been posted online.  Unless your posting it for free takes it viral, it might be more difficult to find a publisher for it afterward.  But so what!  Your not giving away the entire ice cream truck–just a few Popsicles.

2.  Create something bigger than yourself.

There are a lot of ways you can do this.  Start a local freewrite group and create a resource for other writers, hold a benefit function that supports a cause, create a newsletter, etc–something that has absolutely no reward other than the pleasure you get by helping others.  Considering how “me-centric” my advice usually is, it may surprise you to learn that I thoroughly believe the best way to receive success in this life is to give without expecting anything in return.

3.  Ask for testimonials.

There is nothing stopping you from having a testimonial page on your website–a shrine to yourself.  Give people a few pieces of your writing to look at and ask them to write you a review or testimonial.  And it doesn’t have to be a thumbs up from the most prominent writers and critics in your genre either.  Start with the easy one–start with your mom then work your way out to family, friends, co-workers and finally random strangers.  Just let your visitors know that other people have enjoyed the things you have written.

Every website owner should have Google Analytics or something like it–even if you never look at it.  If you have Google Analytics silently tracking in the background you can make better marketing strategies for today and be prepared for the future.

Imagine one day a prospective publisher [...]]]>

Stats on one of the many pages I track

Every website owner should have Google Analytics or something like it–even if you never look at it.  If you have Google Analytics silently tracking in the background you can make better marketing strategies for today and be prepared for the future.

Imagine one day a prospective publisher of your novel asks you to give them a reason to believe that your book will sell if they publish it.  What will you have to offer them? What if you could tell them that once week for the past year you have posted to your blog and each time you do the number of visits to your page soars to 500 per day for the next 3 days?  What if you could even show that these visits were returning visitors and even more details which show that you have a huge and loyal readership for your blog?

Because of Google Analytics I can safely say that I have at least 4 very loyal visitors to my blog.  Now 4 doesn’t sound as great as hundreds, but its a start.  One day when that number has grown I will have a very clear record of it.

This isn’t one of those things you can leave until later either.  Google Analytics can only see the visits and information from when you install it on your website.  Unless you have it running silently in the background now its not going to be of use to you in the future.

Who What When Where How

Google Analytics can tell you almost everything about your visitors aside from personal details.  You will know what countries your visitors are coming from, what kind of connection they use, ISP, Browser, Operating System whether they have Flash installed or can support Java etc.  You will know how many were new visitors, how many were returning, how long they looked at your site, what pages they viewed.  You will know what search words they used in what search engine to come up with which of your pages.  You will know if they are coming in directly (like they have a bookmark) or from Facebook or Twitter or somewhere else. And I am sure I don’t even know half of what the tool can do.

This information can guide you in so many ways, even before you use it to impress future publishers.  If you notice that people are coming to your website but they are bouncing through really quickly you might decide to start adding elements that capture the audience a little more–like videos.  If you notice that despite spending hours and hours on Twitter you get very few visitors coming from that site, you might want to rethink your time management.

Getting Google Analytics set up and running involves a few steps but once its operating it requires nothing from you and is an absolutely essential tool for your author website.  Here is a great blog about how to add Google Analytics to your blog.