Oct 14
Ways For Writers To Use PinterestPinterest is a bookmarking site that lets you save images, rather than text links.
Find a page (or picture) you like on the web, ‘pin’ it and add one of its images to a visual pinboard
Pinterest is also a social network: find interesting images and links based on what friends with common interests are ‘pinning’
Images on Pinterest automatically link back to the original page where the images was posted (creating the ‘bookmarking’ part).
There are plenty of ways for a writer to use Pinterest such as:
– Create an Ideas board
Never again sit down at your desk and think “I don’t know what to write!”.
Browse the web and ‘pin’ pictures that suggest an intriguing starting point (or climax) for a story.
Browse other people’s boards on Pinterest, always thinking about characters, settings and story.
Add all these pictures to one “Writing Prompts” board and refer to it as often as necessary.
– Create a vision board for your characters
What does your heroine look like?
What are the various aspects of your hero’s character?
Where do your characters live?
– Create a vision board for story settings
Houses
Interiors
Exotic locales
Mundane locales
– Create a vision board for your story’s antagonist
Start working on your antagonist. Collect pictures of
People (mean people, nice people, overbearing parents, sweet grandmothers. Antagonists come in all forms)
Expressions of emotion
Places that typify your antagonist or evoke the difficulties your characters get into.
– Collect inspirational posters and sayings
Lots of people collect and pin posters of inspirational sayings. You can create your own writing related board.
You can also easily create visual version of favourite quotes that you come across while reading.
Fire up your image software
Create a nice background,
Overlay some text in a nice clean, readable and a large enough size that it’ll catch someone’s eye when they are browsing lots of little thumbnails.
Post to a page on your own website.
When people click on the pin they will be brought to you site, so make sure there is something good for them to discover on the page as well as the picture!
– Build a board full of pictures of Authors that inspire you
Collect pictures of authors: those you love, those you aspire to be like. Look at them for inspiration
Writers you know you must be able to equal,
Writers who are more practiced than you, but who you don’t hold in complete awe,
The Idols of your writing life. You can’t imagine being like them, but reading their work always inspires you.
–Collect pictures of beautiful libraries and bookshelves
You’re in this business because you love books and reading, right?. There’s nothing like gazing at a beautiful space filled with books to fill you with dreams of seeing your book among them. Also, these are popular pictures, often ‘repinned’ by avid readers, and isn’t that your target audience?
– Collect pictures of authors’ workspaces, for inspiration
There’s nothing like a little solidarity to make you feel you’re not alone in your writing journey. Why not pin some pictures of other writers’ workspaces? What does your work space look like?
– Collect funny comics or pictures to give yourself a break. There is a lot of humor and comics online aimed at readers and writers and librarians. Pin a few!
– Collect beauty
Everything in your pinboards does not have to be connected to writing.
For inspiration – to get you in the creative zone – collect pictures of things that you consider really beautiful. Art and beauty tend to inspire.
– Collect cover art of books similar to your story
It can be easy to lose your way while writing, and lose the ‘tone’ you were striving for. A quick glance at a board full of the covers of books written the style you’re aiming for can get you right back on track. Imagine looking at a screen full of hard sci-fi books versus a screen full of historical romance covers. Instant mood-change!
– Create a board for pictures of your work ‘in the wild’
If you have already published work, appeal to your fans for pictures of your work out in the real world. (You can do this through Twitter or Facebook or some other social network if you have a following there).
Collect pictures of your book being read, on shelves, on benches, in boxes arriving from Amazon.
Sharing these pictures creates ‘social proof’ that other people are reading your work: a powerful marketing tool to encourage readers to try your work.
– Create a board about something you really love, whether or not it’s related to writing
Readers like to get to know the authors, to get a look behind the scenes.
Where you write
What your research look like
What is outside your window
Have fun creating your boards and connecting with your audience.
Sep 21
Who, specifically, is using Pinterest?
Is your book’s audience using Pinterest? According to this infographic from OnlineMBA.com, women dominate the site. Most have “some college” education; almost half of the users are in the $50,000 to $99,999 income range. Can they afford to buy books? I’m thinking that the answer is “Yes!”
But, even though it seems that the audience is mainly women it would also be beneficial for men authors to be part of this raising social media platform.
Why?
Recently I was contacted by a male author inquiring about book marketing, when I suggested using Pinterest he questioned whether Pinterest would be useful for him, as it seems that Pinterest is more for females and topics that chiefly interest them. The target audience for his book is men, and he doesn’t think men are on Pinterest.
I pointed out to him that more women than men buy books in general. For that reason alone, he doesn’t want to overlook women in his marketing efforts, whether he’s using Pinterest or another tactic. Women buy books for men as gifts, and his book sounds like the perfect gift to give a man for the upcoming December holidays, anniversaries, or just because “I am thinking of you” and so on.
So check out this info graphic and see where your target market hangs out.
Via: Online MBA Resource
What’s your question about using Pinterest for book promotion?
Sep 04
One of the first goals of an author is to develop their author platform as a way of growing their audience and generating more sales for their books. The good news is that there are now many digital publishing tools for authors, that can aid in book promotion, as well as book sales.
Your Author Blog or Book Blog is the hub of your online world. It is where you share your message, list book signings and conferences that you will be attending, and much more! You can also create written or multimedia blog posts and post links as to where people can order your books. It is easier today, than ever, to set up a WordPress blog yourself, or I can help you to set this up. . Your blog can be your official online hub or headquarters.
In addition to traditional, mainstream social media sites, there are social media sites that showcase authors, as well as their books. Sites such as Goodreads, Shelfari and Library Thing are just a few examples. These sites also provide authors access to potential book buyers.There are many digital publishing tools that you can use to promote your book. The ones listed above will provide you with a foundation and allow you to gain exposure as you share your book and your message with the world!
If you need help or support creating your author blog you can contact me.
Aug 30
Book authorsYou may be relieved when your books are published. But the next stage – marketing the book – awaits you.
And by now many authors realize that, for purposes of connecting with prospective readers, they need to be active on social media sites and have their own “home base” book author website.
While your book may be finished, your website should never be “finished.”
1. SEO – Search Engine Optimization
You want your website to attract the search engines so that your site has a good possibility of coming up in people’s search results.
Search engines are picky – . they search for fresh content
For example, if your site is three years old and there have been no blog posts, new pages added, or new content, the search engines probably believe that your site is not an active one. And search results do NOT like to include inactive sites.
How do you tell the search engines that your site is indeed alive? You add fresh content as often as possible to demonstrate that all is well.
2. Attracting readers – those people who appreciate what you write.
Fresh content appeals to the search engines and also appeals to your prospective readers. Particularly as you are a writer (you did write a book, right?), having a blog on your website offers the opportunity to showcase your writing and continually add fresh content.
What you blog about should preferably be somehow connected to your book(s).( In my free report I share blog ideas) The consistency of your blog post topics is important for readers who have expectations as well as search engines, which also have expectations.
Search engines strive to return the most accurate results when a person searches on a word or expression. When you write your blog posts, share interesting information with your readers while staying on the “spine” of what you write about. It is a good idea to remember that the on-the-spine content you continually provide your prospective readers will also please the search engines.
The last word is to blog often, be consistent..
Share your thoughts on SEO…..
Aug 20
I’ve found that when I upload files to Kindle, web page filtered or.doc files seem to work the best without messing up the formatting.
OpenOffice (which is 100% free) let’s you save the file as both a .doc file as well as a .pdf. I prefer Microsoft Word 2010 as it creates hyperlinked table of contents automatically and you can just save the file as web page filtered. Word 2010 also creates a pdf file.
I like to save it in both file formats. The PDF version is so I can give out free copies to people for review and the web page filtered file is the one that I actually use when uploading in Kindle Direct Publishing. (if you need support with this, I can help. Just ask me.)
If there’s anything that I’ve learned so far when it comes to Kindle books, it’s that covers sell books. (AKA people judge a book by its cover)
You could use an ebook cover generator – software that can create good looking ecovers such as ebook cover creator that has free and paid subscriptions.
Another site where you can have ecovers made for only $5 is called Fiverr.com.
This step may seem a little bit strange in the context of a book but I’ve found it to be very very important to the marketing process. It will also be a huge asset to you when you go to release a second or third book.
An opt-in page is basically a website online where you can collect the email address of the people that purchased your book. Amazon does not provide book sellers with this information, therefore, you need to ask for it.
On your wordpress site you can easily create an opt-in page or just add a opt-in form to your side bar widget.
On this page you can offer to give a free bonus such as a video trailer of your book, an audio recording of one of your chapters, or a pdf of how you get inspired to write your books. You use your bonus in exchange for an email address.
Also, inside your book, at the beginning and at the end, you can direct your readers to your website to get your bonus. Direct readers to your opt-in page link and marvel at all the opt-in emails your receive.
Once you have their emails on your list you can do several things…
– email that mailing list and ask them to leave a review on Amazon (boosting sales and credibility).
– email that list and inform them of a new book that I release.
– email that list and promote your virtual tour dates
– email that list and share thoughts of this and that letting your subscribers get to know you
It opens up so many opportunities to further push sales of existing and new books.
I highly recommend implementing this strategy in to your book marketing.
Once you’ve got your book written, your book cover, and your opt-in page, it’s time to create a KDP account and submit your first book to the store.
To do this, we need to create KDP account, which is really as simple as going to http://kdp.amazon.com and signing up…
Once you’ve signed up, you’ll see an area called your Bookshelf…
Go ahead and click on “Add new title” because this is where we’re going to add our latest book…
For the most part, this is pretty straight forward from here on out…
Type in the name of your book.
Write a description that’s going to help sell the book.
In the description, put a lot of benefits as opposed to just describing the book. Try to describe what the reader’s end result from reading the book will be instead of just describing what the books about.
With Amazon, even the simplest of sales copy can be very effective because you are already borrowing on Amazon’s credibility.
Now… For categories, you have the ability to pick 2. So look through the categories that they provide and choose two that best fit your book’s topic. These categories don’t always match the categories that they will actually rank under inside Amazon. It’s a bit strange. Just pick the most relevant.
For “Search Keywords”, type the things that you think others would type to find your book. You can have up to 7 search terms so choose wisely.Those are terms that, if people searched them, they would probably find your book .
Now you can upload the book cover and your book file (in web page filtered format if using word 2010 or if using Open office it will be a .doc format)
Digital Rights Management.you can select “Do not enable digital rights management”… This allows people who buy your book to read it on multiple devices if they choose.
Finally, where it asks if you want to allow lending,you can check yes. When people borrow one of your books you still get a little money for it.
Confirm that you’ve read the terms and conditions and click “Save and Publish”.
Give it 12-24 hours and your book will be live on Amazon!
With Author Central you can edit your editorial reviews, your books description, your personal profile on Amazon, track book sales, and much much more. This is critical for anyone serious about making Kindle work for them.
After your book is finally live on Amazon, you can go to http://authorcentral.amazon.com/ and create an account.
Once you’re logged in to Author Central, click on the “Books” tab at the top of the screen.
Click the button to “Add More Books”.
Do a search for your book. When you find it, click the button that says “This is my book”.
Your book is now linked to your Author Central account.
Next, click on the “Profile” tab at the top of the screen.
I recommend adding a photo and a biography about yourself. The biography will be added to your actual book sales page and helps people browsing books get to know a little more about you. Most people who sell Kindle books skip this step. It’s just one more thing to make your book page stand out.
Admittedly, marketing Amazon books is not easy. Other than writing the actual book yourself, this will probably be the next hardest part.
Share your experience with Kindle, I would love to hear from you
Aug 14
Do Readers Of Different Genres Have Specific Craft Preferences?Writing with the eventual reader in mind may give better results.
those who write in specific genres or combo genres (e.g., supernatural romance, supernatural thriller), and for whom maximizing sales is a priority, maybe give a thought to the most likely type of person to seek out your books in the first place, and what that person’s preferences might be. I’m not trying to suggest you totally engineer your prose to match some kind of external template, just that appealing to a commercial audience is always a balancing act between pleasing the audience and pleasing yourself.
I thought i would share with you this blog post from Indie Author. .April is making some good points on making sure you know who your target market is and maybe give a thought to the most likely type of person who seeks out your books in the first place, and what that person’s reading style might be.
Her blog is Indie Author Check it out and leave a comment letting me know what you think
To your success
susanne
Aug 12
Here is a really simple idea about Blogging
that will help to increase the search ranking of your blog…and it
takes only a few minutes to do.
Here it is:
One of the fundamental building blocks of the WordPress blog
structure is the category. A category is like a folder on your PC. In the WordPress nomenclature, both categories and tags are known as taxonomies. Their sole purpose is to sort your content to improve the usability of your site. Meaning when a user comes to your site, they can easily browse through your content by topic rather than browsing chronologically which is how blogs were initially setup.
When you write your blog posts you assign them to a category. Categories are meant for broad grouping of your posts. Think of these as general topics or the table of contents for your site. Categories are there to help identify what your blog is really about. It is to assist readers finding the right type of content on your site. Categories are hierarchical, so you can sub-categories.
What’s the best way to set-up categories?
Use the keyword phrases you are targeting.
The keyword phrases you have chosen should be used for the names of
your categories.
Now when you add your blog posts, you can add each blog post to one
category. This helps to increase the ranking of your blog.
It’s that simple.
Try it. It does make a difference.
Aug 01
Maybe you’ve often wished there was a video vault which contains all the tutorial videos for the most common topics of WordPress…
If that’s what you’ve been looking for, the “WordPress Mastery Videos” package is exactly what you need!
With “WordPress Mastery Videos”, you’ll receive instant access to a comprehensive set of THIRTY tutorial videos which walk you through all the important aspects of WordPress.
You can easily refer to this set of videos whenever you face a problem of not knowing how to do something…
Video 1: How to Create Sub domains and Add-on Domains in cPanel
Video 2: How to Install WordPress Automatically Using cPanel
Video 3: How to Install WordPress Manually Via FTP
Video 4: How to Change Your Permalinks Structure
Video 5: How to Create New Blog Posts
Video 6: How to Create New Pages
Video 7: How to Insert Images
Video 8: How To Install Plugins Automatically
Video 9: How to Upgrade / Delete Plugins Automatically
Video 10: How to Upload & Install Plugins Manually
Video 11: How to Install Themes Automatically
Video 12: How to Customize Your Theme Menu
Video 13: How to Upload and Install Themes Manually
Video 14: How to Use Widgets in The Sidebar
Video 15: How to Add and Manage Users
Video 16: How to Upgrade WordPress Version Automatically Via The Dashboard
Video 17: How to Inserting Audio or MP3 Files
Video 18: How to Use Gravatars for Your Blog
Video 19: How to Edit WordPress Theme CSS Styles
Video 20: How to Add YouTube Videos to WordPress Automatically
Video 21: How to Create Backups for Your WordPress Blog
Video 22: How to Import Content from Blogger to WordPress
IVideo 23: How to Add Google Analytics to WordPress
Video 24: How to Place a Banner In the Sidebar
Video 25: How to Place an Adsense Ad In Your Blog Post
Video 26: How to Add Feedburner to Your WordPress Blog
Video 27: How to Install and Use the All-In-One SEO Plugin
Video 28: How to Install and Use A Contact Form Plugin
Video 29: How to Insert an AWeber Form In The Sidebar
Video 30: How to Use The Akismet Spam Plugin
To your success
susanne
Jul 18
Teleseminars Provide Authors a Virtual Way to Connect With Your Audience
Teleseminars provide you with a platform to easily reach and connect with your audience. To increase sales of your book connecting with your audience is essential. You want your audience to hear the message of your book and Teleseminars are an easy and effective way to communicate this.
A powerful way to connect with your audience and build a relationship with them is to provide them with ways to hear your voice, your enthusiasm, and your message. This will give them a sense of who you are and provide a way for them to get to know you. Offering teleseminars is an extremely effective way to accomplish this.
A teleseminar is a seminar conducted over a telephone, set up as a conference call. You can be the sole speaker or you can set up your call to allow one or more guest speakers.
Teleseminars are a fantastic way for you to share your expertise with a large group of people at one time.
Teleseminars can be a one-time event or a series of calls. They can be free or you can charge for them. You can allow free attendance to the live event and charge for the replay.
I use 
which is a free system to use and delivers high quality sound using MP3 from which you can Listen, download and podcast easily.
Consider Teaming Up with a Friend or Colleague
Compose a list of questions that your audience would love to know the answers to. Get on the phone with a friend or colleague and have them ask you each of these questions. Record your session and answer these questions in as much detail as possible. This will provide you with a powerful audio interview which can be repurposed into a wide range of content-rich products.
If you need help just Ask Susanne and I will support you as you create a Teleseminar.
Jul 18
Get quick access to the internet even if you don’t have a browser window open.
Just right-click an empty space on the toolbar (it’s the horizontal bar at the bottom of the Windows desktop that contains the Start menu right click select “Toolbars,” then choose “Address” from the menu.
Once you do, an address bar—just like the one on your favorite browser—will appear in the toolbar.
Type a web address (or “URL”) into the bar, press the “Enter” key, and —your default web browser will spring to life, jumping straight to the website you specified.
Not sure you want an address bar taking up space on the toolbar? Right-click an empty spot on the toolbar again, select “Toolbars,” uncheck “Address,”
I find this very quick and full when working in a doc and need to look up some facts…just drop my mouse down to toolbar and type in address rather than having to find my firefox icon click on it to bring up the address bar and then type in the address. Very efficient.