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 [...]]]>

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 [...]]]> 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 [...]]]>

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.

When I am not vacationing or playing hookey from my work, I try to stick to a fairly consistent blog schedule.  I post [...]]]> The key to maintaining a great author website is consistency.  That probably sounds funny coming from someone who just took a one week vacation that spanned 2 whole weeks, but it’s still true.

When I am not vacationing or playing hookey from my work, I try to stick to a fairly consistent blog schedule.  I post once a week and usually by the end of Monday.  It’s not a lot.  There are others who post 5 days a week from Monday to Friday.  But it is the amount I have chosen.  I have a lot of other things that take up my time, so once a week is what works for me.

This blog is not how I earn my living.  People who blog five days a week are usually making a living at it or else they are superhuman multi-taskers capable of stopping time so they can get a decent blog post out and still write a novel, read 20 books a month and work on whatever brings home the bacon.

Since I am not a blogger by profession, I don’t need to blog a lot but I still need consistency.  If my readers were to find nothing new every time they checked my blog they might eventually stop checking in with me. So to keep my readers coming back and still have time in the week to get everything else done, I decided on a once a week schedule.

To determine you’re own schedule, you need to think about what you are trying to do and how often it needs to be done.  For a blog I recommend no less than once a week and for other new website content no less than once a month–and if you are going to play hookey, post about it so people don’t assume you have disappeared.

Another thing to be consistent with is the content.  If a blog goes all over the place it will rarely hits the mark with the reader and will be harder to keep them coming back.  But if one theme or topic is chosen for the blog, the audience that is attracted will still find the blog just as interesting week after week.  Notice how I have chosen the area of marketing for writers with fairly little deviation.  Marketing is something I have learned and enjoy teaching to others.

Pick something you know about and enjoy talking about.  Fill a need that you feel is lacking if possible.  Choose a specific topic over a broad topic, but make sure it’s something you can write about endlessly. Once you have your topic be consistent.  You don’t have to post on the exact same thing week in and week out–create your own brand of consistency that will draw the readers in and keep them coming back.  Know your audience, give them what they expect from you, and they will always be loyal.

Outgoing links are like reaching out to hold a hand, they evoke a powerful social response.

Today I want to talk about links.  [...]]]> The question for authors is no longer “Do I need a website?” but rather “What do I need on my website.” A lot of little things go into making a great author website.

Outgoing links are like reaching out to hold a hand, they evoke a powerful social response.

Today I want to talk about links.  Links come in all shapes and sizes.  They are the foundation of the Internet and one of the most important elements of an author website. Incoming links are usually given the most importance.  These are the links out there on other sites which point to your site. They can be links you posted on Twitter, Facebook or an article site etc. or links from people who decided your website was worth sharing.  They should point to not only your main page but also a wide variety of other pages on your website, such as individual blog posts.  These kinds of links  are important but people often lose sight of how important outgoing links can be. Outgoing links can increase your websites exposure, as well as the appreciation and loyalty of visitors. Outgoing links are like reaching out to hold a hand, they evoke a powerful social response.

Your website will get great exposure if it has a lot of incoming links but Google love can get you more exposure too.  If your website becomes a source of good quality links, you get extra Google love.  Any opportunity to enhance your relationship with Google is worth the effort! Good quality links have descriptive text within the link.  For example A great search engine called Google , or even just Google, is better than “to visit the great search engine Google click here.”  Descriptive links are more appealing to people and more appealing to Google spiders.  (Hint: You want your incoming links to be descriptive like this too).

Even if you don’t think Google love is quite that important, links are also the path to extra reader  love.  Readers, in this case the visitors to your site, appreciate it when you include links to other pages with useful information on your topic, especially if it doesn’t benefit you in anyway to do so.  Make sure its a good quality link and you give them a brief blurb about why you are recommending they read it.  For example, “If You Build It, They Won’t Come: A Guide to Author Websites is an informative website about what makes an author website successful.” These kinds of links will endear you to your readers and sometimes also the recipients of that link.  If people notice you have linked to their page they may give you links in kind or even become loyal readers themselves.

Hint: If you want people to know that you have linked to them, both Facebook and Twitter have those little @-features that makes your posts more noticeable to the people you @-include.  For example, I might Tweet a link to this post and say “Learn how to have a great author website like @StephenieMMeyer: <link>.”  Though I usually try to make it sound a little less corny than that!

If you are a more established author, your readers may have created fan sites about you.  A great way to reward them for their kindness is to create a links section or page just for fan sites (eg- Stephenie Meyer’s fan site page).  This doesn’t just thrill the creators of the fan sites, it communicates to all your readers that you appreciate fans.

Whenever you notice someone has linked to your page, whether from a fan site or other kind of site, reward them.  A simple thank you note, re-tweet, or reciprocal link can go a long way.  The more loyalty you evoke among your readers and fans the better.

Have you made use of  outgoing links on your website?

Repeat after me: know me, like me, trust me.  This is the key to selling anything, including books.  If you have this, you don’t need to promote your book, you just wave it in front of their faces, flash your pearly whites and they will want it.  If they don’t [...]]]>

Stand out in the crowd

Repeat after me: know me, like me, trust me.  This is the key to selling anything, including books.  If you have this, you don’t need to promote your book, you just wave it in front of their faces, flash your pearly whites and they will want it.  If they don’t know you, like you and trust you yet then you need to start making that impression.

It’s all about me me me.  Don’t wait for your book to be published to self-promote.  Start standing out from the crowd now and you will get noticed more quickly later.  But remember: be self-promoting, not self-centered.  Being generous, even in the littlest ways, makes a more memorable me.

Think big.  Publishers will want you to focus on your book, because their biggest concern is all those stacks of books they just printed. You plan to write more than one book though, don’t you?  Your books will come and go.  The only constant will be you! Do promote your book, but not at the expense of promoting yourself.

Don’t wait for fame, make it happen. If you give people reasons to know, like and trust you then they will tell their friends (people who know, like and trust them) and soon your name will buzz about on tongues and in ears.  Your know, like and trustability will circle the globe like a giant tsunami.  Fame can be created by one huge fluke of greatness or built upon many small relationships.

The choice is up to you: sit around and wait to win the fame jackpot or start making your own fame.

There are several useful Google Apps for writers, especially if you have a blog.  If you haven’t already, you need to check out: Google Friend Connect, Google Reader, [...]]]> Google has an App for just about everything–if you need something Google probably has a thingy that does it.  If you want a stock tip: buy Google. Seriously!

There are several useful Google Apps for writers, especially if you have a blog.  If you haven’t already, you need to check out: Google Friend Connect, Google Reader, Google Analytics and Google Docs.

Google Friend Connect is a great gadget for a writer with a blog. It is that neat little gadget on the left that lets you follow my blog in an instant if you have a Google account. Its great for a blogger because it let’s them know their writing is appreciated, let’s them see who appreciates them and let’s them show it off so others can see.

Google Reader is essential for the writer who likes to read.  Using the Google Friend Connect or simple RSS to follow blogs will feed all the posts from these blogs into your Google Reader page where you can read them in a format that is similar to reading e-mails.  You can see what posts are new and you read them all in one place.  This saves you time and eliminated the need to bounce around to various sites.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool for a writer who has a website of any kind whether you blog or not. Analytics is traffic tracking on steroids.  You track every detail about the visitors to your site right down to how long they stayed and where they came from. If your trying to build a platform or sell a book or do anything with a website you can decide what is working on your website or in your promotions and what is not.

Google Docs has one very important advantage for a writer–off site backups! How many writers are as paranoid as I am about their computer files.  I have my writing backed up on 3 hard drives and a USB drive.  I know another writer who e-mails her writing to herself so that she has a copy “out there” in case she loses her files.  What better way to have your files “out there” than to use Google Docs.  You could use it to actually write or you could just use it to upload your files.  Either way it is a useful little App to have in your pocket!

Don’t stop with just these Apps either. There are plenty more that are just as useful.  Explore the world of Google and you are bound to find Apps that will be useful to you; for your every day life as well as for your writing.

Make them want it!

There are a lot of ways to market a book on the Internet: Press Releases, You Tube, Facebook and Twitter etc. These methods can be expensive, [...]]]> Tired of pumping out the regulation 5 Blog posts, 2 dozen Tweets and10 hours of Facebook per week and getting nothing in return? Get Creative!

Make them want it!

There are a lot of ways to market a book on the Internet: Press Releases, You Tube, Facebook and Twitter etc. These methods can be expensive, both in terms of money and especially time.  The reality is that you could spend a fortune of money and time to promote your book and end up with little to show for it.

It’s not that these things don’t work, but that everyone is using them and nobody is using them creatively. For most people going viral on Twitter is an exciting possibility, but it might take an alignment of the planets to achieve. They end up posting the same old thing, day in and day out, hoping for a break.  What you need to do is make your own break.  What you need to do is to get creative and stand out from the crowds.

Here is my fool proof, 2 step guide to marketing your book creatively.  I know most people give steps away in packages of 3 or more but I have broken it down into the absolute simplest form.  Yes there are other elements you will need to flesh out, but I will leave these up to your imagination.

1. Pick a specific audience
2. Give something that your audience craves

That’s it! The rest is up to you and your creativity.

Who is your Marketing Audience

By marketing audience I mean the group of people you want to market to.  The group of people you wrote your book for is much too broad of an audience for what I am proposing. So pick a specific audience.  Specific enough that you can target them.  If you have written a Fantasy novel, do you really know anything about the people who might want to buy your book other than that they like Fantasy novels? OK I am simplifying a bit here, but the truth is you just can’t market effectively to everyone you intended your book for at once.

Do some brain storming and think of as many sub-groups within the larger group of Fantasy Fans.  Several possible target audiences spring to mind: Medieval re-enactment groups, fans of Xena: Warrior Princess, Roleplayers and Aspiring Authors.

Let’s look at the target audience of aspiring authors because, whatever genre you are writing in, you are bound to have a group within your larger audience whom identify themselves as aspiring authors.  What kinds of things do aspiring authors want?  They want to know how to write better and how to get published.  Now you have something!

Something for Nothing–Better than something for hours on Twitter!

Once you know what your audience wants you are in a powerful place.  This is the place where you can get fans and book sales with almost no investment.  Instead of Tweeting to yourself and Blogging aimlessly through the Internet, you have purpose and direction.  You knew where you wanted to end up, the “City of a Million Booksales,” but now you have a map to get there–or at least get to the suburbs in the general vicinity of the City proper!

If you can give people what they crave they will look up to you, be interested in you, and trust you.  Logically if you can give them one thing they enjoy or find useful then you must have other worthy things to offer.  Think of your giveaway like a gateway drug and you are the dealer.  Once they have sampled it, they will want to know “what else you got.”

The thing you give away can’t be crap either.  If it’s just some fluffy blog post, the same as 20 other blog posts on the subject, people will bounce right on through as if you were the pavement to their rubber ball.  Make it unique and something that answers their needs.  Give it unselfishly with no obvious benefit to yourself for doing so. Remember that giving is the road to success not getting.

I found a great example when I happened to be looking at the free writing software  ywriter5.  The program’s creator had, of course, promoted his own book in the product description, but what stood out to me most was the YouTube video on how to use it.  The creator and narrator of the video, author K.M. Weiland, described how she uses the program and also used elements from her book as examples for using the software.  She also mentioned her website URL.  Once I was done watching the video I checked out her web page, blog, YouTube Channel (where I watched the trailer for her latest book and made a mental note to add it to my reading list) and followed her on Twitter.

Here is the kicker: Her video for the software, which isn’t even her creation and which she gains nothing by promoting, has been viewed almost 30,000 times.  How much time did she invest in it? The video is just under 9 minutes long.  Even accounting for all the fussy little things involved in posting a video, the entire project couldn’t have taken more than an hour.  So for less than an hour she just increased her exposure by 30,000 people.  Even if only 10% of those people were interested in her book that is 3,000 potential book sales and that is a pretty good return for less than an hour of time.

OK “fool proof” is a bit of a fib.  It isn’t fool proof.  Not much in this world is.  If you are so much of a fool that you cannot put one step in front of the other then 2 steps is too much for you!  Stop fooling around! Start thinking of creative ways you can give a target audience something they crave! Just be creative, specific and generous and you will soon find yourself on a fast train into the City, rather than sitting there stuck in the traffic jam!