More Marketing Resources

In the world of all these social networks I can hardly keep up with what is the best information to share and what is not worth your time. But I have found Tony Eldridge’s web site Marketing for Authors to be very helpful and I am sure you will find lots of tips here. One post in particular that has some great resources is Marketing Tips Around The Net

Here we go with another quick trip around the net with some great marketing tips from others who know their stuff. Bookmark ‘em, file ‘em, or just come back here often to look ‘em up when you need them. And if you leave a comment, tell them that your friend Tony Eldridge over at Marketing Tips For Authors sent you by to say “Hey.”   >read more

Lisa

5 Mistakes Christian Authors Make in Marketing Their Books

Are you  a Christian author ready to market your book? Whether it is fiction or nonfiction, here are a few tips! I see these typical errors in specific actions or attitudes when people bring me their books to review or ask for consultations for book marketing.

(1) The whole book is “their story” or testimony.

You can tell your story, but intertwine it throughout a book that has a topic. I receive a lot of books from people sharing their “chronic illness story.” It gets exhausting and depressing to read pages and pages about lab tests, MRIs, doctor errors, etc. Your book should have a topic, such as Linda Newton’s book 12 Ways to Turn Your Pain Into Praise. And then use your story (and other people’s stories) as examples.  Tip: Your story doesn’t need to be told in chronological order.

(2) Scripture is quoted so heavily there is no room for any other content.

Don’t quote scripture over and over and use it as an excuse to not have to write, or to write sloppy. A lot of books are packed full of scripture as the answer for everything. Dig deeper into scripture, put it into your own words sometimes, use different versions of the Bible to explore the meaning beyond just quoting it. And don’t slack off on your own writing.

(3) A cover that looks self-published, is bland, is weird, or basically doesn’t “fit in.”

If you are reviewing a cover you’ve had designed or you are doing your own, print it out, put it over a book of the same thickness and put it on your bookshelf and even see how the spine looks. It should “stand out” among other books and yet, “blend in” at the same time.

You need to have a GOOD cover and a GOOD title. Hire John Kremer to review it! I see many good books with horrible covers and titles. Since I sell books over the internet through our store people often want me to carry their books. But if the cover and title won’t make people buy it, I can’t carry it in our store because it won’t sell, regardless of how wonderful the content is. Sorry.

(4) The belief that marketing one’s book is evil — or at least, not needed because “God will just take care of selling the book for me.”

A lot of Christians believe their gift is in writing the book and if God wants it to sell, He will take care of it. It’s true that the bigger opportunities I have had have often times just seen to come from nothing I did. It was just God’s work! But remember, if God gave you this message that you cared enough to sweat over and actually write, you should care enough to get it into the hands of people who will be blessed or learn by it.

You aren’t out to trick people into buying your book, so don’t feel guilty about marketing it. If God showed you where a need was and you wrote a book to help fulfill that need, you should find joy in getting it into the hands of people who need it.

I remember hearing Paula Dean once say, “I worked like a dog and God blessed everything I did.” You may spend months trying to get your book into a mail order catalog and then God may bless you with an order so large you will actually make money off your book.

(5) Refusal to get involved in online marketing.

Regardless of your age or area of expertise, you need to know some of the basic lingo of online marketing and have a web site. You don’t have to write in Facebook every day. You don’t have to Twitter from your phone, but you should know what people are talking about when they mention these things. Don’t act as if you are “too good” for it.

If you are over 50 years old I know the internet “stuff”  can seem like a foreign language, but you can learn a few “words.” Even my mom has figured out how to log on to Blog Talk Radio to listen to my weekly program. Software like wordpress can make it easy for you to have a web site and update it.

Know what is worth spending your time learning and what is not and stick with what comes naturally. Hire your granddaughter to set up a blog for you and teach you how to post and then let her do the major updates every few months. Or check into local free or low-cost classes in your community.

It’s important for you to have an overview of what online marketing opportunities may be a good fit when you are writing book proposals. When I have coached people on marketing tips for their book proposals, it’s often brainstorming with women over 50, letting them know what to look for online, what to mention in their proposals, etc.

Publishers want authors that at least know what a blog is, what a book trailer is, etc. If they mention giving you a virtual blog tour, you need to know to be excited!

What are some mistakes you’ve made? We can all learn from each other and would love to hear your confessions!

Do You Need Christian Resources for Promotional Efforts?

I am the founder of Christian Authors Connection over at John Kremer’s Book Marketing Network at Ning.com.

We are going to try to put our heads and our resources together to come up with more ways to reach our readers and the audience we want to get our book into the hands of!

If you’d like to be a part of this, come join us today!
Lisa

Resources to Check Out

These are a couple of new resources my author friends have:

How I Got Book Published in 20 Tweets! Interesting idea for using Twitter and to keep people coming back to your blog. #3 is –Joined writers’ group online, learned from those who’d been there. Huge! her Facebook profile | Her Twitter

Kathy Carlton Willis Communications – She shares “Recently I asked bloggers to share their tips for driving traffic to their sites. Everyone wants more readers to stop by and read their blog posts. I recommend these tips especially for authors and for blog tour hosts, but they would work for anyone. Since we received so many excellent ideas, we’ll be devoting all week to covering this topic, so stop back in every day.” Her Web Site

Are Anthologies Worth My Time? And a Writing Opportunity

I recently received notification of an opportunity for Christian authors to submit their stories (see below) to what will eventually be a series of 12 books! It is a great chance to have your story on prayer heard.

If you are an author, you may wonder why you would want to spend the time submitting to anthologies where you are just a contributor? I’ve been in a few (I’ve posted a couple of the covers) and have found it fun to be a part of the books!

In my book 50 Creative Sales Tips So You Can Sell More Books I explain the perks.

Some of them are:

• You are able to put the anthology book on your web site and list yourself as a contributor.
• Anthologies are a great way to see how a book is formed and how the compilers work with the contributors to gain media attention. They will likely supply you with promotional and media materials, and you are able to do book signings, radio interviews, and many things you would do as if the book was your own.

• You become a part of a very large community of peers with amazing resumes. Many of these people have been published hundreds of times. They write for magazines, know publishers, editors, publicists, and reporters and have a large network available for you to learn from. Since the evolution of social media networks like Facebook and Linked In, there’s never been a better time to “make friends” with people in the business and gain contacts with ease.
• Compilers of anthologies often need and want the contributors to be involved. You may have the opportunity to do a virtual blog tour, book signings, and even appearances at major book industry shows. They will help you organize your efforts in contacting local newspapers, and basically offer anything they can to assist you in helping them market the book. All of this can help you build a worthy set of relationships your network of friends in the business and make it easier for you to get past media gatekeepers. If you call a reporter or staff writer and introduce yourself as a contributor to the newest Chicken Soup for the Soul book, you will be more likely to gain their interest than with your basic credentials.

Here is the writing opportunity I mentioned above! Best of wishes!

Dear Writer, I’d like to invite you to be part of an exciting new series that Guideposts is sponsoring: The Incredible Power of Prayer. You may have contributed to one or more of my story volumes in A Cup of Comfort, Life Savors, or Love is a Verb. Great! I’d love to hear from you whether you’re a previous associate or have not yet submitted anything to my projects.

Prayer is the heartbeat of the Christian life and is an amazing gift from God to us. A prayer in faith can spur God’s heart to “move mountains” on our behalf. The incredible power of prayer can accomplish miracles that go far beyond anything we humans can accomplish on our own.

Guideposts reaches millions of Americans with their upbeat message of God empowering us. And now, Guideposts is launching a series of 12 books on various aspects of prayer and how people from every walk of life have been transformed through God’s responses. These books will be mailed monthly as part of a book club promotion, and will be exclusive to this readership. I am now collecting submissions for the first three books in the series and would welcome as many stories as you wish to submit.

The first volume is Praying from the Heart and covers God answering our deeply felt prayers of great passion, sincerity, and trust. These prayers may be repentant, express deep gratitude, or describe desperate cries that lay bare a person’s deepest needs.

The second volume, The Healing Touch, deals with stories about prayers that lead to physical, spiritual, relational, or emotional healing. They may involve relationships that don’t resolve perfectly, but bring a closer relationship with God and a new sense of purpose and greater ability.

The third volume, Expecting Miracles, includes personal experience stories about audacious prayers with powerful answers. This is where the need is great and God responds extraordinarily.

The answers don’t need to be purely supernatural; God can work in mysterious ways using all kinds of means. Submissions can be up to 2000 words. Each story should have a creative title, an attention-grabbing lead, main body explaining a conflict or challenge, and a resolution. These need to be descriptive and compelling personal experience stories—not simply testimonies.

We prefer original stories but you may also submit previously published stories. The payment is $25 for stories under 1000 words, and $50 for longer stories. You may retain the rights to publish the stories in magazines and books with smaller distribution sources. We are accepting manuscripts from now until at least June 15 for the first three volumes. We’ll announce the finalists for the first volume around October 15.

Please include on each manuscript—not in headers or simply in the e-mail—your name, contact information (address, phone, e-mail, rights offered) and a bio of up to 30 words. Please attach to the e-mail rather than pasting text in the body. Please direct all inquiries and manuscript submissions to my colleague, Jeanette Littleton at IncrediblePrayers@earthlink.net.

And please feel free to let others know about this project. If this e-mail has been forwarded to you, and you can’t submit to this call, but would like to be notified about other editorial needs as they arise, please send us your e-mail address and we’ll add you to our notification list (we do not sell or distribute these e-mail addresses).

Blessings to you and yours,
Jim James Stuart Bell
Compiler, Guideposts Prayer series

Blogs Versus Web Sites – Which One is for You?

As I finished writing a colleague privately, I realized this may be helpful for some of you. Forgive me for all the self-promotion as I shared my ideas and comparisons. When people explain things to me I like something tangible to look at!

Lisa Copen

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Do you use it as your sole website or do you also maintain a static website in addition to your WordPress blog? And why? Also can anyone send info or a link (offline) for how to make your WordPress blog url be your personal domain name.

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POINTING YOUR URL TO THE BLOG

I have about 8 blogs for different things and all have their own URL. I use godaddy.com and when you buy a URL you have the option to forward it anywhere. So for example, www.hopeendures.wordpress.com is now www.hopeenduresradio.com It’s much easier to give out on the podcast, etc. With godaddy.com the forwarding is free, URLs are about $6-9. I own over 100 of them that I’ve bought over the years. If you plan to spend a lot of money there they have a discount plan; I also use ebates.com and godaddy is one of the companies that is listed so you get a bit of money back with purchases (Disclaimer: If you click my ebates link we both get $5. Vistaprint if anyone uses this print company! I’ve gotten back almost $600 in a few years from ebates.com.)

MAIN WEB SITES VS BLOGS SITES

I use Dreamweaver for my main site www.restministries.org – I have had a web site I’ve built since 1997, and it’s just grown. But I have found blogs great to set up for things like daily devotionals, my own blog chronicillnesssupport.com, radio show, etc. to give it a feed, let it be a widget, etc.

You can easily make anything on your blog be in a Widget at widgetbox.com and then anyone can post it to their web site. We have a lot of people who put our daily devotionals on their own blogs or sites this way.

OTHER SITES

If you have unrelated passions, blogs are great. For example, I also have youcansellmorebooks.com and scrapbookmyadoptionblog.com which leads people back to scrapbookmyadoption.com - that way I don’t have to have it use up any space or reside on my ministry’s web site and confuse people.

BLOGS TO CREATE INTERACTION

If you want people to be able to comment with ease, etc. blogs are the way to go. For Invisible Illness week last sept, I used a blog. I had had the main site for years, invisibleillness.com but I wanted it to be more interactive, daily articles, etc. and be able to post ideas of ways to help promote the week without me having the stress of doing a newsletter. I put all the main information on the main web site and then used the blog. www.invisibleillnessblog.com for all the ways to get involved, guest bloggers, etc. I didn’t have to take time out to write a newsletter, and I could get people info 1-3 times a day. After the week, we’ve used it to post about 1 article a week or so to keep it active and soon I will start posting more. Which reminds me…

POSTING IN ADVANCE AND SCHEDULING IT

With just about all of the different blog software now you can post things in advance and schedule when they display which I LOVE. I blog a lot for everything when I have time and then just fill in the gaps as things come up. I am signed up for tons of Google alerts and I weed through those for newsworthy ideas to blog on. Or for our radio show for example, I can write up all the guest’s info when I have time and then have it post 2 weeks before their show. It’s great to focus for 3 days on 2 months worth of blogs, say, 2 per week and then write more as things come up. But at least that way if “life happens” you still have some activity going on with your blog.

It’s also nice if you run across something interesting that is time related to just be able to “do it now.” I have a great Father’s Day video I found that I blogged on last month and set the date to post before Father’s Day. Better than adding one more thing to my to do list!

TEMPLATES

When choosing a template, look at different features you may want. With wordpress you can click around and “try them on” and see what they feel like. I always want a “custom header” so I can do what I want. If you click on my blogs above, you’ll see they still fit in with my themes quite a bit. And a header and a few custom graphics can make it much more yours! When I updated my blog I decided to go more girly with some scrapbooking looks at chronicillnesssupport.com . You can see 1 template with 2 very different looks I have with www.chronicillnesssupport.com and www.youcansellmorebooks.com – just because of the different header and a few graphics I added. You can pay fees and have more templates, etc. I’ve not gone that route yet.

PAGES

Most blogs have pages so you can add them for things like “about the book” “buy the book” “about the author” etc. When looking at template, see where these “page tabs or links” show up. For example, on my main blog www.chronicillnesssupport.com it was important that I had obvious big buttons so I chose a template that had that. For www.hopeenduresradio.com the big buttons weren’t as important; it just has links on the right hand side.

PINGING, etc.

Once you have your blog set up go to www.feedburner.com and weed through it. Pining is part of most blog software’s features, which means whenever it’s updated, your blog let’s all the internet “crawlers” know it’s updated. If you blog consistently you will get into the google alerts for blogs, which is great.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

One feature everyone should have on their blog is the ability to let people sign up to get the blog updates via email. You can find this feature under “promotion” at feedburner. You will get a code of html, and then you will want to go to a text area of your blog and put that in there. I have this on all my blogs; with my audience, most people still don’t have RSS readers, and you want to make sure they can get updates!

WHO DO I USE FOR BLOGS?

My preference is simply WordPress for ease, but since they don’t allow Javascript, a lot of people love blogspot. I didn’t use blogspot a few years ago when I started because every site had a “next blog” button that would take you to anyone’s blog and I found some scary stuff when I tested some church blogs, and hit the “next” button. Now it looks like wordpress has “related themes” which isn’t necessarily good, but at least I hope they won’t think wicca is ever related to my blogs, etc.

I just moved my blog from typepad to wordpress to have them all in one place. Plus even with the $8.mo fee for Typepad it had a mind of it’s own and wasn’t very user friendly. All the blogging software (I believe) have the ability to export your files and import them into a new blogging software. It’s not seamless, but if you end up with software you don’t prefer, you do have the ability to move your posts.

WHAT IS MY FEED?

Even if you have your url be something like MyNewBooks.com your “feed” address will still have wordpress in it. It would be http://mynewbook.wordpress.com/feed – if you sign up for widgetbox.com or you have a site for example at ning.com and it asks for your “RSS” that’s the address you would put in. You can use this then all over, for example if you do a Squidoo.com page. (Which you should – they rank high in traffic for keywords for the amount of time it will take to do one.) You can see one of mine here for invisible illness week that has a bunch of feeds. http://www.squidoo.com/invisible_illness_awareness – this is another advantage to having a blog instead of just a web site. All these kinds of pages can have your feeds and then you won’t have to update the info, it does it automatically each time you update your web site.

I could keep writing, but these are some basics. Hope this helps!

Lisa

Thousands of Twitter Followers?… Hmm

I’ll admit it… I decided to “bite” on this offer just for the heck of it. I get frequent email updates from James Ward over at BiblioScribe.com and he just added the following to his newsletter.

I just found this site that shows you a way of getting 1000’s of new followers on Twitter, I just started using it myself and its starting to work already.
http://tweetergetter.com/WealthVirtues
Here’s to more free book marketing!

Well, it looks a bit crazy but I signed up (it’s free) to try it under the “what have I got to lose?” pretext. I will keep you posted. Ironically, 1 second after you sign up they provide a message you can send out to your friends that says, “Hey check this out… I just found this site that shows you a way of getting 1000’s of new followers on twitter, I just started using it myself and its starting to work already. http://tweetergetter.com/lisajcopen.”

It’s already starting to work? I haven’t even had a moment to lift my eyes from the screen. So, yes, it’s likely one of those virtual marketing schemes and I will have to delete all the people I am following that I’m not interested in later…

I will keep you posted–of both progress and regrets!

Lisa

Who is Talking About You?

In my quest to organize information overload, I found this. We should all have our book titles, names, etc. in it just like we do for Google Alerts (do you have Google alerts set up for these right?)

Tweet Beep: http://www.tweetbeep.com — This service will alert you via email anytime your name, book title, company, or other keyword is tweeted about. You can set up similar alerts using TweetLater. A

You may also be interested inTwitter Search: http://search.twitter.com — Use this Twitter service to search for tweets. I put in “invisible illness” and then sent replies to people who tweeted on this topic to let them know about Invisible Illness Awareness Week.

Lisa

Blog Posts to Twitter

I’m trying to combine some of my efforts so I can concentrate more on content and less on posting it all over. I’ve been testing out some different things to do with Twitter and here is a link to Twitterfeed that seems to be working. It takes about 5 minutes to jump through the hoops to sign up, but after that you can sign up to have your blog posts post (title and brief description) to Twitter. Wanted to pass it along to save you a but of time too!

Anyone have any Twitter tools they want to share for us non-tech people?

Lisa

Print Magazines Going Digital – What That Means for Authors

More and more magazines are being discontinued. And we’re not just talking about those niche magazines you can only find online. Some of my favorites, including Simple Scrapbooking and Quick and Simple (do you see a theme there for my life’s ambitions? Simple. Ha!) are a couple of the five that I’ve faithfully read who have announced their demise in the last couple of months.

As the editor of my own magazine, HopeKeepers, I am deeply in debt from my last print job. With trouble getting advertisers to commit, plus print and postage increases, printing another is not a feasible idea or a wise one. We are going digital and I am planning to print digitally using Yudu.com.

And although it’s sad that April 20th will be LIFE magazine’s last print issue, it pleases me as an editor to see that readers will still be able to read LIFE online. [Time started publishing the magazine in 1936, but this isn't the first time it was shut down. It closed its doors in 1972, but came back in 1978, before shutting down again in 2000.]

Selfishly, if I ever had to say, “My magazine isn’t making it,” I am in very good company!

But what does this mean to you as authors:

As an editor who has read everything I can get my hands on about digital magazines here’s what I have to offer:

1. Digital “clips” of your writing carry as much weight now as print clips. Even just 2 years ago this wasn’t so. Depending on where your clips appear (and even the comments about them below it) they can even be significantly more impressive.
2. Magazines will no longer have the restraints be so defining of their publications when it comes to size, page count, etc. Use this to your advantage, and keep submit more queries than you have in the past, especially to lesser known magazines. Some of the more popular magazines like LIFE will still get just as many queries and submissions. Smaller magazines will be more likely to have their regular writers say, “See ya!” and go look for work at print publications. This opens up the door for you!
3. Ask about ad prices. While it may have been inconceivalbe to have a full-page ad in a magazine just last year, now the price may be in your budget! Magazines still want advertisers. They make us look credible! Plus we want to bring our readers good resources and products.
4. And lastly, according to Wow – “Women on Writing”:

Good news for the future [for freelance writers]. With magazines moving to online and advertising rates rising, in turn, writers should be better paid and have more opportunities. Reasonably, it should create more openings, since online content needs to stay fresh and be constantly updated in real time. It may not be as glamorous for die-hard print fans out there, but online clips will be easier to buzz.

So get out there and discover the possibilties and be one of the first to do so! Two great web sites to keep updated on what magazines are going from print to digital are Mr. Magazine and The Wooden Horse.

Keep me posted on your success!

Lisa