Viewing posts in the Self-published Authors category...

Online Book Marketing and Why Research is Crucial

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Author Platform, Blogging for Authors, Book Marketing, Book Marketing for Authors, Hiring a Virtual Assistant, Market Research, Public Relations, Research, Self-published Authors, Virtual Assistance

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…

Build Your Author Platform in 6 Easy Steps

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Author Platform, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Hiring a Virtual Assistant, Self-published Authors, Social Media Marketing, Virtual Assistant Resources

Building Your Author Platform

Sometimes it’s called an author platform, writing platform, branding, social media presence, or what have you, but essentially, all these things are based on the same principle: you need to create a solid foundation for your writing business in order to build awareness, sustain it, and sell more books.

The word “platform’ might seem terrifying, but if you know all the variables involved ahead of time, and break them down into actionable goals, building your author platform is easier than you thought.  In this article, we will set you up with a plan on how to build up and maintain your author platform and connect everything, with small steps, so you can experience a gradual, steady increase in your visibility and reputation. So, let’s get to it!

  1. Author Websites: Yes, you might think that in 2015 a website is not quintessential anymore because of other existing platforms – but it is. In fact, most book marketers believe, next to email marketing, your website is the most important entity of your Author Platform. You need a stable foundation for your online presence, one that you have complete and unlimited control of. Building a solid author website is not necessarily a huge burden on your time if you have great author website designer, but there are other options as well. You can hire professional designers, or create one yourself using Wix or Grid, without having to write a single line of code. Blog engines like WordPress or Blogger also offer beautiful templates, but a blog template site may not have all the features you want. In this case, you can hire a Virtual Assistant Company that specializes in WordPress to enhance your site and make it complete. Alternatively, you can register on a personal branding site network like me. These are not the same as completely functional websites, but it can do the trick until you have a real site up and running. As an Author, it is important that you buy a personal URL or domain under your author or pen name.
  1. Contacts and List Building: Digital media offers a wide selection of tools to boost you author platform. But first, make certain to utilize your your personal and professional contacts, who can help you grow, give you feedback and spread the word, and create an opt-in list for them to join or for you to add contacts manually. This is referred to as your “Core Fan Base”. Next, make a list of people outside your network. This list should include your favorite authors (who write the same genre as your books), experts on the subjects you write about, and other stakeholders and media professionals. Now you can start looking for ways to use the first group to give the second group access to your author platform. Continue to build your lists by continuously sharing your opt-in list signup and by manually adding new contacts you meet.

Read more…

Worried About Plagiarism? You might be surprised.

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Blogging for Authors, Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Self-published Authors
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 3: Great Tips to Build A Convincing Local Book Marketing Pitch

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Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors
Costco

Book Marketing Pitches

In the previous articles of this series, we discussed what strategy you should use in getting your book on the shelves of Costco and other specialty stores, and tips for pitching your book or whether a certain store and your book are a good match. This process has a sweet spot – the pitch you give to the store manager. Now we share some simple techniques that will greatly increase your chance to succeed at the pitching, and land a deal!

Tip 1: One Page Layout (Your Book Sell Sheet): No matter how rich you plan your pitch to be, and what tools you want to use to present it, if any, in the end, always have a good-looking, clean, book sell sheet you can hand over, with the most necessary info: reviews, endorsements, key selling points – think of it as a CV for your book! Check out my blog post on creating book sell sheets.

Tip 2: Clarify Your Terms: Simply make sure you figure out all the numbers before a sit-down with the manager. Being open minded does help, but you will need to start somewhere. Decisions made in the heat of the moment do not add up later. It is paramount to set your bottom line beforehand – prepare to give them around 50% of your book sales. The exposure is worth it. Read more…

Part 2: Professional Tips for Pitching Your Book to Store Managers

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Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors
Costco

Pitching Your Book to Store Managers

In my last installment, I told you how to approach Costco and other local specialty stores to feature your book. A key element of that process is convincing the store manager that your book is exactly what their business needs right now. How to do that? I will show you.

You probably heard the expression, which is popular amongst start-uppers, that your business needs to identify a problem, and offer help, a solution. Thinking along the same lines, you need to think through, how can your book help these dealers. When you pitch your book, you will use these arguments as the cornerstones of your presentation.

First argument: Why is your book a good fit in that given store?

You need to think through the target audience of the store and identify any matches with the target audience of your book. You can start plain and simple, just check out the books on sale there, thoroughly. It is even better if you check what is on offer regularly, so you can see the tendencies. What goes in big quantities or has great turnovers? What titles seem to stick there without anyone touching them? Some innocent questions to the store clerks about ‘popular’ books can’t hurt.

Analyze the situation at hand and come with a good, well-phrased argument: “My book is a great fit into your store because it fits perfectly with the Element X of your target group. I see you sell a lot of Category B themed books, and my book is exactly about that.” Read more…

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

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Blogging for Authors, Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors
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?

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Blogging for Authors, Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Hiring a Virtual Assistant, Pitching Your Book, Self-published Authors

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

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Blogging for Authors, Book Marketing, For Authors, Freelance Writing, Self-published Authors
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)

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Blogging for Authors, Book Marketing, For Authors, For Speakers, Hiring a Virtual Assistant, Self-published Authors

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…

How to Get Book Reviews That Actually Sell Books

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Book Marketing, For Authors, Self-published Authors

In this day and age, most self-published authors know that securing book reviews is very important to their overall marketing strategy and is a necessity for creating that initial buzz around their book. At the end of the day, reviews influence other buyers. But not all reviews are created equal. If that were the case, every author applying the same marketing principles would have an equivalent outcome.

Let’s explore this further and assume your work is good or even great. You have already received Amazon reviews from friends, a few buyers, and some bloggers (with spotty followings) who received a free copy of your book. This is a great start, but what’s next? Are your book sales flowing in? I can’t imagine so. The reason for this is because you haven’t penetrated your market (with enough repetition) to a level that will ultimately affect your book sales. In order to penetrate your market, you must be potent. You will need to be visible wherever your target audience is hanging out.

In this blog post, I have outlined 2 strategies, among many, for getting book reviews that actually have an impact on sales. Read more…

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