Check Out My New Blog

Hey Authors,

I have started a new blog with my co-author/mentor, Shelley Hitz. If you're looking to find me online, check it out at TrainingAuthors.com

Are You Relevant?

“What makes content engaging is relevancy. You need to connect the contact information with the content information.”

~ Gail Goodman, President and
CEO of Constant Contact

For the longest time I had all of my book marketing separate from my content. It was almost like I was afraid to mix marketing into “the good stuff” – but “the good stuff” is the best marketing there is. By adding a link to the end of your blog post to your book, or writing an article and including your web-address, your marketing your book. But without that little link, your “good stuff” isn't going to help your book sales.

Marketing prompt:

Promote yourself as a local author. Consider contacting any bookstores within an hour of your home. You can offer to do events or signings as you have time.

What Is Your Dream?

“In today’s information age of Marketing and Web 2.0, a company’s website is the key to their entire business.”

~ Marcus Sheridan

When I was a kid, Faith Hill was one of my favorite signers. She has this song (I Can't Do That Anymore) where she talks about how she use to dream about what she be, but now she dreams about the washing machine. So last night when I dreamt about my author website, that’s the first thing that I thought of when I woke up. Granted, there are some major differences. For starters, my husband is amazing, not some tyrant that rules my life – but then I’m also living my dream – and dreaming about different aspects of it – vs. washing machines.

So while it’s not the same, the fact is that whatever we spend our time and thoughts on during the day, often effects what we dream about overnight. I had spent all day yesterday uploading new webpages and creating content for the website, so I really wasn't surprised – but I’d much rather dream about something that I don’t do all day. Something much less workish.

The point of this entry? It isn't to tell you that you need to work on your website until you dream about, but websites are important. And after the original design and set up, they don’t require too much work to maintain them. So put the effort in and get yours up and running – the dreams shouldn't last too long, but it will help your author dreams come true.

Marketing prompt:

Spend today working on your author website. Is there anything you need to add, update, or change? If not, simply add a blog post about your dreams.

What's Your Genre?

Day 218

“Think as narrowly as you can and find a pocket of readers who are passionate about the same things you are.”

~ Kevin Kaiser, WD

Image courtesy of digitalart
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Most readers have a favorite genre. I personally love reading historical romances novels or anything with horses in it. However, I don't care for Amish fiction, but I will read contemporary romances novels and even romantic suspense novels on occasion. After all, my book budget is only so big and my library only has so many books.

When I find an author that I like, I’m always on the lookout for their books – and am ultimately let down when their new series is in a different genre. Sometimes I’ll read their new books, and sometimes I’ll just move onto someone else in the right genre. This is why a large number of people will warn authors against genre hopping – but a large number of authors ignore those warnings. I won’t say one way or another if genre hopping is bad, but if you do genre hop, you have to re-identify your target audience each and every time – because not all the same readers will be interested.

You can’t market your new fantasy book to readers who loved your historical fiction novel. A few might bite, but many won’t. This is another area where working with other authors in your niche can be helpful. Cross promoting can help you build a reader base quicker than trying to do it all on your own.

Marketing prompt:

If you're just starting out in a new genre, see if another author would be willing to do a marketing exchange and place the first chapter of your book in the back of one of theirs – and of course you would need to return the favor.

Days to go: 147

Do Whatever It Takes

Day 217

“It’s interesting to me that the things that are the most difficult for us yield the greatest rewards.”

~ Cynthia Morris

© Djma | Dreamstime Stock Photos
& Stock Free Images

Book marketing isn't always fun, sometime it seems like work. I’m a big advocate for making it fun, but there are always those tasks that you know you have to do even if they don’t make you want to sing and dance. Social media is that way for me. It’s work – plain and simple. I’m just not one of those people that can spend all day on Facebook or Twitter, but I know that those places help me connect with my readers and spread my message in a powerful way – so I suck it up and make the effort.

If you read part one of this book,  you might remember that speaking isn't my strong suit – but after several events I’m finally to the point where I can get through a presentation without hyperventilating – I even speak slow enough so that people can understand me now (impressive, I know). I’m still not going to win any awards for my speaking abilities, and it’s most certainly not my favorite thing to do, but it has helped me increase my book sales.

The point in all of this?

You can make marketing fun, but don’t forget to broaden your horizons and buckle down and do things that you know you need to do to sell books too.

Marketing prompt:

Pick something in your niche or a general topic that you are passionate about and enjoy discussing or writing about. Consider putting together a presentation or speech about it that is evergreen and you can use whenever booking speaking engagements. – Add something about it to your website and maybe even put together a video for YouTube.

Days to go: 148

The Writing Life

Wow, can you believe that it's been almost two weeks since I've written a blog post?! Up until this point I've blogged daily all year long - although I think I missed a few days in late June and mid July. I've come to the conclusion that summer is just hard. Besides the fact that we moved at the beginning of the summer, the kids are home from school, and I've been working on 4 websites - yes, 4. Two of them are in full swing:

TrainingAuthors.com -s a website Shelley Hitz and I have put together for authors. We've been working together at Self-Publishing-Coach.com for years, and we've decided to re-brand it to include both of us and make it easier to help authors at the same time. I'd love it if you'd hop on over and check that out.

BooklyBooks.com spurred off of a newsletter that I started in December to help connect our author following with readers. Shelley wanted to make it even better and thus, the website was born. If you like to read, you'll definitely want to check that out. We promote books of virtually every genre and help readers find books for less.

I'm also working on revamping my author website. You can check it out at: AuthorsHart.com - just note that it is still under construction.

The last website I'm working on is actually a ministry project. My husband is working with a group of other guys to create a ministry for teen guys and I'm putting together the website for them. We're hoping to launch it in Mid-September.

All of this to say, I've been busy. Part of me feels like a failure because I've missed more than one self-imposed deadline. Yet when I look at all I've done and am doing, I know that I just need to keep plodding ahead and getting done what I can when I can. After all, it's far more important to do what you can than to stress over what you can't and accomplish nothing.

I'll be back to my A Year of Book Marketing posts tomorrow.  For today, I'd love to hear what you've been up to lately.

Someday...

Day 205

“There are only seven days in a week, and someday isn't one of them.”

~ Origin Unknown

I don't know if you are anything like me, but my to-do list is crazy long – but my someday list is even longer. Someday I’m going to ask the local drug store about consignment options. Then there’s the dangerous list of somedays: someday before school starts I’m going to launch my new website. Setting deadlines for your marketing is awesome – but only if you know when you can/will have time to work on it.

Marketing prompt:

Evaluate your someday list. Is there anything that you need to move to your to-do list to make sure it gets done?

Days to go: 160