Publicizing your blog is not as hard as you might think. Compelling content is not enough to create a dedicated large following. It takes a little work and exposure on other sites and blogs to build your readership.
You can self-promote to other blogs by writing a brief post on other blogs that have a similar topic. Send a brief introduction of yourself to 2-3 bloggers who you would like to trade links.
Another way to publicize your blog is to ping major weblog tracking sites. Once you are blogging regularly and have a month’s worth of entries submit your blog to a blog directory and to weblog tracking sites.
You have to include your permanent main blog URL to these directories. If you don’t you may point them to a URL for an old entry and not anchor the complete blog site. Don’t overlook listing your blog with social bookmarking sites:
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Digg.com
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StumbleUpon
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Reddit
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Del.icio.us
Front Cover – Go out and explore your local book store. Look at book covers that draw you to them. Why are they so effective? Where is the title on the book? Is it centered or off-set? Are the letters raised or outline in a contrasting color? How does the lettering of the title impact the image on the cover? Does the title stand out or does it get lost? Will it photograph well in marketing materials?
* Make sure the image you select for your book best represents your content.
* Select a font for the title and author name that have slight variations.
* Use at least four colors for the cover, six if you can. Play with the effects of outlining, shadowing, and other design elements.
* Raised lettering adds a touch of class and style to the book cover design.
Spine – Center your title on the spine. You don’t want it falling off on the back of front cover. Check the spelling carefully. This is the first thing the person in the store or a library usually notices about a book.
Back Cover – Proof read, proof read, and proof read! Use Arial for the headings and Times Roman for the content. This makes the content easier to read. If you wish to include your photo, this is the ONLY place to include. Unless you are famous, never put your mug on the cover.
* Include your URL on the back cover.
* Include 1-2 features of your book followed by 3-5 benefits for each feature in bullet statements.
* Short testimonials or endorsements are a must to have on the back cover.
Following these simple guidelines will help you design a cover that you can not only be proud of but that will help sell your books.
Keyword rich articles, web pages, and blogs are critical if you want to keep SEO spiders fed. Keywords are what anchor searches to your entries on the web. They are also want vendors who are looking for ad space want to hook their ads to as well.
There are people who try to beat the system and who only manage to kill their own writing efforts. There is an old saying, “Winners never cheat and Cheaters never win.” This adage holds true in the use of keywords and their misuse by some nefarious bloggers and website owners. But the people who own those SEO spiders are pretty smart and they know what is really happening. Pretty soon the cheaters’ plans back fire on them and they either get shut down or get nasty threats from the legal department of someone’s business.
So what are they doing that is raunchy and ill mannered abuse of key words?
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Irrelevant Key words - Using words irrelevant to page content to generate traffic. For example, let’s say my blog site is all about dog food and dog food brand comparisons. But I know that the most popular blog topic of the week is “how to blog”. How to blog and dog food have NOTHING to do with each other. If I have loose blogging morals I might try and stuff “how to blog” in my dog food conversation to drive more traffic to my site.
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Key Word Stuffing- Repeating the same word over and over and over in a web page or blog entry. Some even go so far as to repeat the same keyword rich paragraph verbatim on the page. There is actually a tool called the “key word density cloud” to test if your page has keyword density overkill.
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Splogging- Prolific plagiarists who steal your blog content or your article content and post it as their own are dirty rotten sploggers. While mimicry is often called the highest form of flattery…stealing is stealing! All they want is your article and the web traffic that goes with it.
Finding the right amount of keywords for your site is similar to dieting, you have to find the right balance that works for you. To keep you spiders happy and healthy, use keywords in moderation and drive your site responsibly!
You wrote a book. You published it yourself and it is truly a solid read. How do you take that book and make a full time living? Marketing. Does hearing that word send you running for the woods shaking with the willies?
Don’t run away! Marketing does not have to be an ugly adventure into the world of hard sales and cheesy promises.
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A good marketer is really a good listener who works to foster discussion and waits for feedback.
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A good marketer knows that it is not about what the marketer thinks he has that is good for the audience.
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The astute marketer recognizes that it is what the audience wants that is important.
An author can take those same marketing principles of successful businesses and apply them to their own product…their book. Who was the audience you had in mind when you wrote your book? What benefits are they looking to get from your book? What do they want and need?
You can’t be all things to all people. The first step in making your book successful is to know your audience and speak directly to their needs.
Once you have identified those specific needs you have to create a clear message on what your book does. You can’t begin to develop any sales copy until you have refined and articulated that message in such a way that it is absolutely clear in your own mind.
Readers are just like customers. They want to know how your book can specifically speak to their need. They want to know a little about you personally so they can trust you and your values. Readers want to make an emotional connection to your book. If they don’t they won’t buy it.
Do you have a clear message about your book that makes an emotional connection to your audience?
Is there a writer buried deep inside you? Do you want to add the words author and freelance writer after your name? Many authors say they would quit their day job if they could, “make a living at this.” If you are not independently wealthy or have a spouse who is willing to support you financially and emotionally you will still have to support yourself while you write that book. There is also the whole finding an agent and getting your work out to publishers phase of the process. An author alone in the world living by their craft has to be clever or at least market savvy.
Many authors supplement their paltry royalty checks by freelancing. You can be a writer and make money. It is possible! Don’t get caught up in the negative hype of making a living freelancing. There is heavy competition…in some fields. It can be difficult getting the next assignment…in some cases. The pay is low…at times. If you are willing to be creative and learn a few effective marketing and business practices you can earn a living writing.
Who uses freelance writers and authors?
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Corporations and Businesses – newsletters, reports, press releases, business plans, articles for in-house and peer reviewed journals.
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Technical Industries – compliance directions, field guides, handbooks, technical guides, etc.
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Health Care Industries – research reports on treatments, medical coverage, and other related issues. Newsletter and peer reviewed journal articles.
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Popular Magazines
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Individuals – resumes, book proposals, ghost writing, content editing
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Self Publishing – create your own newsletters that lead to book sales
All you need to be successful is to have some writing talent, persistence and a little self-direction. As a writer you already know that you have to take criticism of your work with grace and you are certainly aware of how to meet deadlines. Now you just have to perfect working well with others and good listening skills.
Get out there and launch that new business. You can write from home and not only be well heard but well paid!
Blog titles, blog headlines, and blog sub-headlines need to be ”sticky” for SEO spiders to crawl in and out of your work and catalog the content. Becoming a master of stickiness is much like become a master of yoga…you better be ready to put in the effort, study, and practice or you won’t make the cut!
Creating sticky titles and headlines takes a little bit of familiarity with the key words and ideas that are popular search terms in your niche on the web. This is not really a closely guarded secret. With a little research in Google and other Search Engines you will find what works best for driving traffic to your blog and expanding your audience.
Sticky Headlines:
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Incites interest – Titles that are provocative or controversial stimulate the reader’s interest. They act to inflame the emotions of the reader who feels compelled to stay and read.
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Questions and Queries – Headlines that ask questions and raise uncertainty keep the reader hooked. They will continue to read until resolution is achieved. These readers want answers and will hang around as long as they think the writer is working toward one.
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Benefits – Readers want to know that they will gain some kernel of information or knowledge from your work. They will hang around as long as there is something in it for them that promotes, assists, or gives them an advantage in their world.
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Power Words – Certain types of words appeal to readers who are looking for a bargain, a particular benefit, or are trying to solve a problem. Words like ‘benefits,’ ‘rewards,’ ‘secret’ and ‘free’ all make readers pause. If you reveal a secret or provide breaking news you will capture reader attention.
Accurate, clear and concise titles that truly relate to your main topic are crucial to the success of your individual blog entries. Think of each headline as a definition of your article. If you stick to that and use keywords that define your article’s content you will attract readers and search engines.
Longer titles are often more persuasive giving readers the extra “hook” that gets them to stick around and read the content. Make sure the title is not so long that the keywords are lost on the reader. People scan headlines they don’t really read them carefully. Make the title jump out and grab the reader, holding their interest.
Shannon Evans, senior editor of www.mywritingmentor.com lives with her best friend Rick on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound just a “ferry ride from Seattle.” She works at her desk with her two Labrador virtual assistants, Mocha and Luke, and her feline copywriting assistants, Caesar and Yoda. She is widely recognized as one of the top writing coaches to authors of non-fiction.
Publishing consistently is a huge commitment but does not have to eat up large chunks of your time. If you create a schedule and put it on your calendar you can carve out time to write and post 2-3 times a week. Some people write once a week. They create all their articles for the week in a single sitting and then jump on-line each day to upload articles separately.
Finding Your Voice – Writing larger amounts at a single sitting will help you to find and establish your voice and the tone for your blog. Content that reflects the blog author’s personal experiences and “lessons learned” are more widely read then standard narratives.
What will you write about? How will you create a voice that readers will return to time and again? Statistically, blogs that relate on a personal level to readers are the ones that get the largest readership. Readers do not want to know about you and your business. They want to know about information and resources that help them in their business. Readers want to know about a problem you had and how you resolved it…not how you felt afterwards!
Writing Strategies
Provide your readers with:
- Stories of what you or a client or reader experienced that was a problem or a concern.
- Examples of decisions and actions that made a change or improved a process.
Your strategy for your blog should be to create a community that helps others or that provides a forum for readers. A reader focused blog encourages participation through shared experiences and suggested solutions. Encourage and foster that and your blog will take off and create an enthusiastic audience that sees you (the author) as an authority figure. Blogging can be a powerful author promotion and marketing tool.
About the Author: Shannon Evans, senior editor of www.mywritingmentor.com lives with her best friend Rick on Bainbridge Island in the Puget Sound just a “ferry ride from Seattle.” She works at her desk with her two Labrador virtual assistants, Mocha and Luke, and her feline copywriting assistants, Caesar and Yoda. She is widely recognized as one of the top writing coaches to authors of non-fiction. Shannon has over 17 years in the academic world teaching English composition to native and non-native speaking students.
Blogging is a quick way to generate excitement, stir up controversy, and get people talking about a variety of topics in a short space of time. Why should you as an author blog?
Simple answer: To create a ready made audience for your book.
Complex answer: To create a ready made audience for your next book.
Wait a minute! That is the same answer! Yes, but if we peel it apart there are many layers that could be examined.
Blogging creates excitement and gets people interested in what you have to say. As you the author begin to generate the excitement and stir the waters you begin to be recognized as a possible authority in the field you write about both in your blog and in your book. A made to order audience begins to develop for your book.
The more complex answer is that as an author we truly never know what the fickle audience wants at any given time. We can make educated guesses based on studies, surveys, etc. The world of information has become so fluid with the accessibility of the web that we as authors would be foolish not to use it as a medium for testing the waters.
What if you as an author began to blog about the different chapters of your next book? Could you get immediate feedback for content development? You bet you can! Fiction or non-fiction, you get to create and collaborate with the very people who will be in your book audience.
Put blogging on your author “to do” list. Schedule it. Perhaps it can be your warm-up activity for your daily writing sessions. Begin with a short personal paragraph or two and build out from there. You will find your voice just like you will find an audience.
Now get out there and start blogging!
Prior to sending your manuscript out for editing, preview it for ”tightness” with a critical eye to detail. Do you have a general outline for your book? Go back to that and review it then look at your work chapter by chapter to see how well your work sticks to the original outline and premise for the work.
Go to the first chapter of your book and find your thesis statement. It should be relatively obvious and in the very first paragraph of your work. After you find it, underline it. Then go back in the rest of the chapter and highlight ONLY the parts that are directly related to your thesis in that chapter. How much of the work is thesis centered? How well do you communicate the supporting details to prove or expound on your thesis? How much fluff is there?
The fluff has to go! Tight writing requires an economy of language and a straightforward approach to the topic discussed. Sentences that are more than 17 words should be re-evaluated for unnecessary verbosity. Remove any fluff or unrelated material (save it for another section of this book or for another book – even for a handout or workbook when you start speaking in public on your book).
Then take what is left and organize it according to the outline you used earlier to craft your work. Turn some of what you wrote into bullet statements, some into supporting paragraphs, etc. Your work should fall more naturally into place if you do this. The writing will be more cohesive and the entire work will be logical and easy to follow.
I did a little quick calculation today on the average number of emails I send out in a day. Just emails. I average about 100 a day. That means about 3,000 a month and about 36,000 emails a year!
What if I could make every single one of those emails act as a mouthpiece for my book, blog, or business? Hmmm….often my emails get forwarded to other authors and editors and they forward it perhaps somewhere else. Bingo! I need a really good email signature that sells.
So I did my due diligence and looked at what all the experts said. Then I pulled out my college PR and Marketing 101 and 201 books. I then sat down at my computer and pushed and pulled, hemmed and hawed, cut and chopped until I had something I could use.
Here it is:
Shannon Evans – Senior Editor, Author, Book Coach
Helping Authors Accomplish Their Book Writing Dreams
Author of: Sell Sheets and One Sheets, The Marketing Tool For Authors, Speakers, and Entrepreneurs.
4565 Point White Drive, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
Email today for a free report: Email Signatures That Sell
www.mywritingmentor.com `~ www.authormarketingtools.com
www.authormarketingtools.wordpress.com ~ www.mywritingmentor.wordpress.com
editor@mywritingmentor.com
What do you think? I am willing to test it out on the next 100 emails I send. What do you plan to do?
