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Online Book Marketing and Why Research is Crucial


There is no Elevator To Success - You Must Take the Stairs - Why Research is Crucial to Book Marketing

As a writer, you know all too well how much work is required to complete an entire book. Once you have finished your book, you may be tempted to think that the hardest part is behind you. As many authors discover, however, the book marketing process is arduous and requires a skill set very different from the creative energy that produced your book in the first place. In particular, online book marketing demands targeted and thorough research if you want your book to have a fighting chance against the countless other titles flooding the market. Here is your guide to researching and executing your online marketing strategy.

Know Your Audience

The single most important aspect of your marketing research involves getting to know your target audience. You probably already have some idea of who your audience is; the next step is determining where your audience is on the web. As a starting point, you can check sales data from big online vendors such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The key here is to look for similar titles and determine general interest level in a book like yours. You can also do much more targeted research based on the topic of your book. Are your target readers part of an online community like Reddit, YouTube, or Yahoo? Are there any major blogs that your readers are most likely to follow? If you understand how your audience interacts on the web, you will begin to assemble a plan for how and where to market your book.

Learn Your Audience’s Buying Habits Read more…

Worried About Plagiarism? You might be surprised.


Palgiarism

Worried About Plagiarism?

I recently stumbled upon another book marketing blog post and I noticed the article appeared stunningly similar to a post I had written a few months back. Out of curiosity, I decided to read on and to check other posts this blogger had written. Thoroughly astonished, I learned she didn’t just copy my exact opinions and phrases from one article and pass them on as her own (changing only the titles), she actually copied several and word-for-word in many places. Enrage would be too strong of a word to describe how I felt at the time about a person I had never met before, but I couldn’t help but take this personal. I was NOT at all happy – to say the least. After further investigation, I additionally learned this blogger (RE-WRITER) had been a subscriber to my blog’s email list. So I guess you can say I’ve been “filling her plagiarism tank” for the past year.

Let’s be honest, it’s quite common to check out the competitors from time to time for gaining valuable insight. But whether or not I follow other experts in the industry and utilize the information I learn through competitive analysis to formulate future articles on my blog – it has always been important for me that I put out genuine and unique content and only write about what I know. On this point alone, I can remember every word and sentence I have ever written. To make a long story short, I am in the process of integrating a new WordPress plugin that will hopefully deter others from doing this in the future. It has disabled the RIGHT CLICK and COPY functionality one has when visiting a site. I will also be issuing a letter to the RE-WRITER kindly requesting she take down the content she did not originate and I’m hoping she will not have a problem with this.

But what can you do avoid this from happening to you?

My Virtual Assistant colleague and friend, Crystal Curran of REVAVille VA Mentoring and RedHotVA.com, has recently crafted a very insightful post on this topic. Read more…

Part 1: Professional Tips for Getting Your Book On Costco’s Shelves


Costco

Tips for Getting Your Book Into Costco

A frequently asked question by clients is “How are some self-published authors able to get their book into Costco? Making sure your book gets on the shelves of Costco and other specialty stores is actually not that difficult – if you know what to look out for, and what you can use to your advantage. Here I give you some pro insight for invading the stores that matter.

There are a particular set of criteria that needs to be met to get national distribution in Costco, and most of these are very clear and easily found online. Stock moves quickly here, so everything needs to be up-to-date, including literature. Movie tie-ins are one obvious example and book versions of current movies are always getting big visibility. Read more…

Do You Have What It Takes to Make It as a Successful Writer/Author?


There are differences between what some people consider to be a successful writer or author, but in most cases everyone wants to be a professional writer.

Question is: do you have what it takes?

If you ever had the courage to call yourself a writer, you probably saw the amazement and slight disbelief in your conversation partners’ eyes. A writer? Is that something that can actually pay the bills? What are you writing?

Many of us have this image of the writer: a person, who is doing something for a living, but she finds herself regularly typing away in her spare time, and after a considerable amount of time, she shows her writing to other people. And guess what, it turns out to be a best seller! And she has become a millionaire, within the blink of an eye. So finally, she can be a writer, because she now has financial security. She can write whatever she wants, actually.

And there the millions of others, who do the same thing, but fail at producing a best seller at the first try. Why? Well, obviously because they are not talented enough.

This is how we generalize. Simplistic, yes, and of course, could not be further away from the truth.

I have some bad news for some of you: talents actually do matter. If you don’t find writing easy, enjoyable, and if you don’t get positive feedback regularly from people outside your family (professors, editors, random people on the Internet, friends with decent tastes and honest words), chances are you are chasing a profession that is substandard (for you).

But with hard work, you can still get there. Problem is: it is real hard work and does require a certain amount of talent as well. Read more…

Part 2: The Benefits of Authors Blogging


Blog

Benefits of Authors Blogging

In our previous blog article Why Fiction Writers Need to Blog, we discussed the importance of blogging for writers and what to blog about. In building upon this topic, here we discuss the benefits of blogging and how it can be a great supplement to your overall marketing strategy and author platform.

As you write and plan out future articles, there is no question that you will become more proficient at blogging and more confident in your writer’s voice, but you will additionally be building your author platform by gaining an online audience you would otherwise not have, just by having a static website. While the benefits of blogging appear endless, some are more important than others. Below are my top five benefits to authors blogging that helps to expand your platform and in order of importance. Read more…

Why Fiction Writers Need to Blog (What to Blog about) by Theda K. Rogers (CT Virtual Writer/Blogger)


Fiction writing is a fantastical, imaginary place, both for you, the writer, and for anyone reading your piece. But writing the most creative, wondrous book or short story doesn’t mean you’ll actually find anyone to enjoy it like you know they would, if only they knew about it.

The truth of the matter is there are a ton of fiction writers out there, and we all want our voices to be read. Sure, you can tell everyone you meet that you wrote a great book, and sure, they might actually go read it. But chances are they’ll forget about it as soon as they walk away.

Here’s where blogging can come in handy. Read more…

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