Let's Talk, Marketing and the Blog

One of the questions I get asked most often, and find quite frequently on  forum threads is; As a self published author, how do I market? This is  a very good question.  Facebook is okay, as well as Twitter. However, let's face it, if you don't already have a million followers, you're not likely to get them anytime soon as a self-published author. So Facebook and Twitter lose their merit.

You could advertise by spamming people's cars in a parking lot, or standing on the street-corner sign spinning. Although, I'm sure those flyers just get tossed to the ground, and nobody really reads those signs. Spamming forums meant for authors might get you a few sales, but all you're really doing is irritating the authors that go there to give & get advice, and blow off some steam.

So what's left? Blogging baby! Ok so I'm a little biased, but I have to say that my blog has brought me so many sales it's crazy. I must caution any newbie authors. It's not as easy as it seems. Yes, it's only a blog. Be that as it may, you can turn your personal online diary into something that millions can't wait to read.

My best advice to a self-published author when it comes to blogging, is stick to one topic. When you surf the internet, you are searching for information. That's the number-one reason why people use the world wide web. A blog for a self-published author can also be full of useful information. It does take a bit of planning and time, but it is relatively easy.

Here are some tips for those that wish to take their blog to a new level.

• Make sure your blog is easy to read.

The most common mistake when people create a blog; they design it so that it appeals to them. While adding a bit of your own personal style is a must, don't over do it. One of the worst offenses is the black background with colored lettering. This can very hard on the eyes, and your readers are less likely to come back. It is also not a good style for the bots. They don't like it. A white or cream background with black lettering is the best option. Speaking of Bots...

• Use SEO

SEO is your best friend when it comes to driving traffic to your blog. (This article is filled with SEO key words, dare you to find them!) That is what our precious tiny Bot friends look for when scanning your page for relevance. If you missed last month's post on Indie author SEO, you can use my handy dandy compact search box on the right, to look it up. That post was written by Damien Darby, a man that makes his living off of writing SEO articles for clients. Speaking of which...

• You can hire content writers if you don't know what to write!

As hard as I try sometimes between screaming kids, manuscripts, book covers, author features, and editing, my blog tends to fall to the wayside. Every now and again, I treat my readers to new insights from other authors by way of content writers or guest bloggers. Content writers do cost money, but it is well worth it. They are professionals who know what they're doing when it comes to SEO. Plus, you have the added advantage of telling them what to write about. Guest bloggers, while providing content free, sometimes are not so good at SEO, and generally, they write what they want to write about.(Within the relevance of your blog.) There are places you can go to find both. ODesk, and Text Broker are great for finding the right content writer. My Blog Guest is suitable for finding guest bloggers. Both are free to sign up, Odesk you set the price for the article. Text Broker is generally five cents a word, about ten dollars for a five hundred word article.

• Post often!

Readers don't want to come back to your blog and see the same post that was up there last month. The key to a successful blog is posting regularly with fresh updated content. Twice a week posting is the consensus when it comes to how often you should post. I post  on my main page every seven days, and on my note worthy releases page every seven days. Though I have been doing a lot of blog stops tours, so I've been posting twice a week on my main page.



A successful blog can be a self-published author's best friend in terms of marketing. All it takes it determination, a little insight, and a head-full of ideas. As always, I'm available for any one who wishes me to take a look at their blog and offer some advice.(Use the contact me info to drop me an email) If any one out there has anything to add that I've forgotten, Leave a comment!



Until next time, may your muse be at your side, and your writing the light that guides you.

Dawn

SEO Meant for Indie Authors Served Simple

 

  by Damien Darby

 

How To Improve Website Ranking

 

         From Thousands to a Few: SEO and You!

 

 Online SEO gremlins, otherwise known as web crawlers, are hungry and want to devour your creative genius. Did that get your attention? Good, now, the real question is, “How does a potential reader find your ebook?”

 For those of us Indie authors that can’t afford special marketing packages, expert web content providers, or wizards of the webpage design realm, it’s all about what you know and what you can teach yourself. SEO meant for Indie Authors, when well executed, is among the most powerful tools any author seeking to be the Rambo of the ebook revolution has at their disposal.

Plenty of Indie authors turn to blogging for marketing purposes once they’ve got their work as polished as it’s going to be; the book cover squared away, and the product is online ready to be consumed. Heres a breakdown of Indie Author SEO.

           Every Post is a Min-Ebook

Daily Lit Project

 

Did you know that search engine companies are improving the artificial intelligence of their services all the time? Increasingly web crawlers prefer personalized, pertinent, and interesting content over commercialized nonsense. I’m referring to the old school outbound marketing content that was haphazardly designed to play footsy with the law of averages. Spam isn’t going to cut it anymore, trust me. What an author needs to do is hone in on a specific concept, genre, or community and become something useful to those human beings.

For example if an Indie Author SEO enthusiast decides they want to maintain a blog dealing with their particular niche, say Paranormal Romance, then every single post on that blog should be approached like an ebook.

• Shoot for 600-900 words per post
• Completely and utterly unique!
• It’s easy to edit less than 1000 words…don’t slack off 

Using Keywords To Increase Ranking

             Keywords and Creative Writing

No one likes the feeling of being sold, preached at, or overtly treated like a mindless zombie consumer stumbling into products by accident (This is where a large percentage of sales come from though). As authors it’s our job to select keywords that fit the niche of our blog and then insert them into our posts in such a way that the reader has absolutely no idea that it’s even happening. Those keywords are not for the reader really, they’re for the web crawler’s digital minds scouring the net for problem solving paragraphs.

Every single working day, five days a week, the author needs to try their best to write at least one solid post that not only follows the bulleted tips above and the ones below, but also has two key word sets in it. Consider the system an infinitely useful and productive Indie Author SEO habit.

“New Paranormal Romance ebooks” or “Popular Paranormal Romance ebooks” are a couple examples. The sky’s the limit, but each post should hide them; conceal them in a fluid, interesting, and polished post. SEO meant for Indie Authors doesn’t have to be a head-ache, it’s actually be quite fun.

• Make sure titles are creative and informal
• Don’t go beyond 1.5% with keyword densities
• Talk personably, with conversational speech. Unless you want to sound formal, but I wouldn’t suggest it. 

Inbound Marketing Made Easy

 Indie Author SEO and Inbound Marketing Strategies

 

The point of using keywords for marketing an author is to bring readers to the blog, engage them with great content, and then build a following. With each new day blogs are becoming more visual. One of the most enthralling things about blogging for me is finding pictures online that link to other blogs and including them in my posts.

Realize that this, all of this, while some of it may seem old, rustic, and stagnating, social networking and the way information is shared through the internet, IS IN ITS INFANCY. However, certain trends aren’t going away.

• Make the articles easily scannable with creative and catchy subheadings.
• Integrate pictures (Site the pic, especially when from another blogger’s post) and hyperlinks around them.
• Use Reddit, Pinterest, Facebook, Digg, Twitter etc. to spread each and every single post after you’re done.

Hope This Helps!

SEO meant for Indie Authors is a snap, and becomes like a pleasant summers day chore after a while. One that reaps bushels of good stuff. Figure out what the niche of your blog is, include some unobtrusive links to your ebooks (Ideally under a separate window from the default screen), and make sure to use keywords in every single solitary post so help you God! 

Damien Darby is an eBook author, fitness trainer and a web content writer.  He loves making use of his time by helping others and is always available to be of service.

 

Giving It Away. Are Free Promotions Really Worth It?

   Amazon has done much for the self publishing industry. They were one of the first companies to offer the revolutionary self published eBook. They have consistently made new ways for the Independent author to promote and sell their work, but, as an author we have to pick and chose wisely what promotions we use.

photo courtesy of Scott Chan and freedigitalphotos.net

   There is heavy debate in the self publishing forums about KDP Select and their free promotion. I myself have used this service and been severely disappointed with the results. For those of you who have not used KDP Select yet, I will break down the terms and rules.

   KDP Select is a way for authors to offer their books in the KOLL ( Kindle Owners Lending Library). For every book that gets borrowed by Amazon Prime members, the author earns a percentage of a monthly pot set up specifically for KDP Select members. The pot can vary from month to month but has been holding steady at 600,000 dollars for the last couple of months.

   In joining KDP Select you agree to two things, your book can be borrowed by prime members, and you sign an exclusivity contract with KDP. For ninety days you give KDP the sole rights to distribute your book. This means you are not allowed to publish your book any where but Amazon for 90 days. Agreeing to theses terms gives you the right to KDP's free promotion feature. No they won't promote your book for you, instead they allow you to give your book away for free for any five days  during your ninety day enrollment. Note that no royalties are earned during these free promotions.

   Now here comes the debate.Is giving your book away for free really worth it? Some have said that after a free promotion a jump in sales of their book soon follow. The theory is that giving it away for free increases visibility and there for, attracts sales. Others, (including me) have found out the hard way that giving your book away for any amount of time just leaves you feeling cheated. It has done absolutely nothing for my sales, and now I've given away books to people who might have possibly paid me for it.

   While most self published authors (if we are realistic) know that self publishing is definitely not the fast track to fame and fortune. But we do believe in our work, we do feel it is worth something. If not, we would be giving it away for free to begin with. I would love for any other self published authors out there to share their view of free give aways with me. Tell me if it has helped your sales, or if it left something to be desired. Share with my blogging family how you promote your works. Until next time, believe in your self and may your muse be with you always.
Dawn

To .Com Or Not

photo courtesy of Digital Art

  There comes a point in our careers as self publishers that we ponder taking the leap into true internet validity. To go .com status. It's sounds more professional to have blank blank.com than blank blank .blogspot or .wordpress. It looks more professional when your filling out forms and queries when you can type in your own domain name.
   For the technologically advanced twenty something, this is easy peasy pumpkin pie. For those of us that didn't grow up attached to a computer screen, this is a migraine waiting to attack. Especially if you are like me and choose to do everything the cheap way, which is usually the hard way. Now for a breakdown of where I went wrong, to keep you from making the same mistakes.
   First I didn't go through blogger's buy a custom domain option. Yes, ten dollars a year is cheap. But I wanted cheaper. So I went through a third party site and purchased my domain name for the bargain price of two dollars. Yeah I was feeling very proud of my stingy ways, until I tried to make my blog my .com.
   Let's face it, who wants to pay for per month web hosting when blogger will do it for free? Or go through the added headache of building a whole new website? If you're like me you have hundreds of hours already invested into your blog. Starting over from scratch just doesn't appeal.
   DNS servers and CName issues abound, it just wasn't worth the nine dollars I saved to go with another .com Register. Instead of my .com upgrade being a happy moment it is now the head ache I so desperately wanted to avoid. With all the other things a self published author has to worry about, a website is the last thing we want to deal with.If I can impart one single piece of advice for those of you wanting to take this step, go with bloggers offered service. Four hours tops and you are officially the prestigious owner of a .com site. Hmm, if only I knew then what I know now.
    The world of self publishing it is the very most basic DIY experience. Marketing writing, finding an editor, cover art and website building. It's enough to almost make a woman want to stick with querying for an agent and finding a publisher. Almost.

In the World Of eBooks and Self Publishing

photo courtesy of BJ Wok and freedigitalphotos.net

  Marketing is something most self published authors find the most difficult. I for one, am one of them.I just can't seem to figure out what it takes to make a successful marketing strategy. The pro's say use Facebook and twitter. Get reviews from book review sites so they will put your book up on their site.Spend the money to have your book featured on the radio and do blog tours.
   Here is where I address the fatal flaw to some of these solutions. One if most of you are like me, Facebook is used for family and friends. They already know your an author.They've already bought your books. Unless you were voted most popular and have thousands of REAL friends, we are talking ten book sales at the most.
   Twitter I absolutely detest. Never had a twitter account. Don't want one. I find it hard enough to update my blog, write my next underselling master piece and live the rest of my life. How am I going to find time to create a twitter following?
   Money, Money, Money, can't get none to spend some. The self published author generally starts out with little to no funds. I had absolutely nothing to invest. My first book was put up unedited with a Photoshopped cover I created from a free photo stock site. It was only from the sales of that book that I was able to send my next one in for editing and cover art. No way are most of the self published authors going to have enough money to pay for promotional ads. If we had that kind of money we would be giving our work away for free. We wouldn't need more.
   So where does all this leave the self published author? Book review sites like good reads, Shelfari, and other popular sites.Most of your sales will come from places like this. It's free, (if it's not don't even bother with the site,) and a lot of your audience will be there. Shelfari even has a unique feature that allows you to add character bio's and other teasers straight to your Amazon page.
   It may not seem like much, just sending your book in to be reviewed, but it will help build a following and (cross your fingers) lead to sales. Until the day when we as self published authors can afford the fancy promo ads and blog tours, this is the best way to go. Until next time, well writing wishes and prayers that your muse is your constant companion.
 Dawn