Category: Blog Tour

By Posted on Posted in Blog Tour, Publishing, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , ,

Nina Amir and I have known each other online for a few years now; we finally got to meet at the BEA Bloggers conference last week in New York. But I had the post scheduled long before then, as part of Nina’s blog tour. It’s alo an example of the kind of great material you’ll find in the upcoming series of e-books I intend to pubish as part of a series called Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers.

Yes, I already have a single-volume book by that name. But as I’ve been updating and revising for the new edition, I decided it was a bit overwhelming to be just one book; there’s so much good new cool stuff on book marketing nowadays.

Nina’s expertise is blog-to-book—and interestingly both keynote talks at the BEA Bloggers day were from bloggers who had published books. And with that, I give her the floor.

—Shel


How to Write and Promote Your Book One Post at a Time
By Nina Amir

If you want to create an author’s platform, a fan base, a tribe, a community, even a movement around your book, or around the idea upon which your book is based, the most effective or inexpensive tool you can use to achieve this goal is a blog. And if you want promote that book or idea from the moment you write the first word of your manuscript, you can do this quickly and efficiently by blogging your book. Simply write, publish and promote your book one post at a time on the Internet.

With a blogged book you write your book from scratch in post-sized bits and publish them in cyberspace. In the process, you promote your work and develop a fan base for your book (and for yourself).

To blog a book and create both a successful book, one that sells later to readers and to publishers (if you desire), and successful blog, one with a large or growing blog readership, follow these eight steps.

 

  1. Choose your book topic carefully.  Make sure the topic you plan to write interests you and interests a lot of other people but also is one about which you feel passionate.
  2. Evaluate your book’s success potential. See your book through the eyes of an acquisitions editor. To do this, go through each section of a book proposal and accumulate the necessary information as an evaluation process.
  3. Angle your topic: Consider if you need to angle your book differently to make it unique in both the book store and the blogosphere.
  4. Create a content plan. A table of contents works for nonfiction. For fiction or memoir, map out your story arc or create a timeline. Include material that will not appear on your blog.
  5. Write your book in post-sized bits. Blog posts are short–250-500. Break your nonfiction chapters into many subheadings or sections. For fiction or memoir, divide your story arc and time line into vignettes or scenes.
  6. Blog 2-7 times per week. Write a short bit of your book (a post) in a word processing program to create a manuscript. Then copy and paste this into your blogging program, and publish it.
  7. Share your posts on social networks.  Include a link to your most recent blog post in your status updates on your social networks.
  8. Edit your manuscript. Take the time to revise the first draft you created, and hire a professional editor to give it a final polish.

If your blog and book stem from your sense of passion and purpose, you have the opportunity to build something larger than a blog community. You can create a movement—inspire people not only to gather around your blog and buy your book but to go out into the world and take action. In this way, your fans promote for you by sharing your blog posts and by taking on your cause.

 

About the Author

 Nina Amir, Inspiration-to-Creation Coach, inspires people to combine their purpose and passion so they Achieve More Inspired Results. She motivates both writers and non-writers to create publishable and published products, careers as authors and to achieve their goals and fulfill their purpose. She blogged her book, How to Blog a Book, Write, Publish and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time (Writer’s Digest Books), in five months. Find out more about her at www.ninaamir.com or www.copywrightcommunications.com.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Blog Tour, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Networking, People Helping People, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , ,

I’ve just signed up for the Ultimate Blog Challenge (Twitter hashtag #blogboost), which means a commitment to add ten posts between now and the end of the month. Especially nuts because I’m speaking in Boston tomorrow and probably won’t even get on the computer. Fortunately, I happen to have one post already scheduled.

I’ll be honest. Despite the many benefits of participation (increased visibility, exposure to other people’s networks, and of course a nice boost in the search engines, etc.)—the main reason I’m doing this is because Michelle Shaeffer, a/k/a SmallBizMuse is one of the organizers (along with Michele Scism, who I hadn’t known before, but who seems to offer a lot of useful resources for solopreneurs). She’s been my Virtual Assistant for something like eleven years, and I’ve taken a sort of nachas (Yiddish word meaning pride in the accomplishments of one’s family) in watching her develop some marketing chops of her own, and a dedicated fan base, over the last year or two. She has 4989 followers on Twitter! All organically acquired, as far as I know; I only have 3395.

So my joining her blog challenge is as much a public thank-you for all she’s done for me these last 11 years as anything else. You, of course, will have different reasons for signing up.

Of course, when she’s rich and famous, I’ll probably have to go out and find a new Virtual Assistant. So it goes.

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By Posted on Posted in Blog Tour, Entrepreneurship

Guest post by Jacqueline Wales

Everything that glistens may be interesting, but it’s not gold, and it’s a mistake that many young entrepreneurs make.

So here’s my top 10 list of things to do when starting your own business for the first time.
1. Create a step-by-step strategy. SERIOUSLY simple steps (ex. step 1: buy domain name step 2: buy hosting package etc.)
2. Set a budget and stick to it. Until you start making money…And then still stick to a budget.
3. Don’t believe everything that’s shiny. Just because someone says they are the expert in their field doesn’t mean they are.
4. Be prepared to use the materials and follow the instructions before deciding it doesn’t work. Most programs fail because of lack of implementation.
5. Ask yourself if you really need this now. (You may in the future, but that’s another thing). I have a word I use. “Sombrero”. Whenever I’m confronted with something I’m not sure I’ll use, I consider whether it’s a useless trinket like a Sombrero.
6. Just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you must have it.
7. Titles on the bookshelves won’t bring you results unless you read them.
8. There is only one of you and you don’t have to do it all at once.
9. Be consistent in your approach and don’t chase bright shiny things unless they really will work for you.
10. Get a coach! It’s about accountability. If no one holds you to your goals, will they materialize?

And lastly, if the fear stops you in our tracks, take a deep breath and make a decision. It may not be the right one first time around, but it will teach you something important. After all, that’s why we make mistakes, isn’t it?

Jacqueline Wales is known the world over as The Black Belt Millionaire.  Her unique programs have helped women around the globe develop strong personal success, confident communication and clear visions of their goals. She is the author of five books including The Fearless Factor and you can sign up for a free report at https://www.thefearlessfactorbook.com/signup.html
To get YOUR copy of The Fearless Factor visit https://www.createspace.com/Customer/EStore.do?id=3392398

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By Posted on Posted in Blog Tour, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with ,

Note from Shel Horowitz: As a blogger, I feel some responsibility to participate in the wider blogging community. And thus, if someone with an appropriate book for my audience (ethics, marketing, sustainability, etc.) asks me to be a stop on a blog tour, I’ll say yes if it makes sense.

Today, I’m the blog tour host for MaAnna Stephenson, author of Just the FAQs eBooks Series. Here we go:

Q: You’ve written a bunch of little e-books about the Internet, covering blogs, RSS, articles, and websites. What led you to write these, and what’s your background?

A: Each of the four books is about forty pages and I decided to split them up that way so folks could pick and choose books covering a topic in which they needed help. The books are small because they are to the point and don’t have a lot of fluff. They guide folks step-by-step through the process of fully customizing and optimizing their online presence.

I’m an electronics engineer and have decades of experience writing technical documentation and training manuals. I also designed sites for non-profits and small businesses for over a decade. I took a break from that while I did an intense research project for over four years that resulted in the material published in The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom, which was featured in Publishers Weekly shortly after its debut.

When I began creating an online presence for that book, Web 2.0 had become all the rage. I wanted to make use of blogs and RSS feeds in addition to a website. I was shocked at how little documentation there was on how to make the most of these tools. I simply documented the process as I went through creating my own resources. When my editor had questions about optimizing her blog, I sent her the documentation. She was so excited about having such a great resource that she encouraged me to publish. That’s how the blogs, feeds, and articles books came to be. I wrote the websites book from my experience working with clients. It has the same three worksheets that I gave folks to help them organize the material for their site. It also advises folks on the expensive pitfalls some of my clients experienced on their first site.

Q: Why should the average non-techie entrepreneur care about something like RSS?

A: RSS feeds are one of the most powerful companion tools you can add to your blog. Most folks follow more than one blog. Instead of having to go to each blog to see if there is a new post, they can simply subscribe to any blog that has feeds. Every post is then delivered to their feed reader and they can view them all in one place. Think of a feed reader as a personalized virtual newspaper. Feed readers are becoming very popular, not only for convenience, but to cut down on spam as well. Folks no longer have to give out their email address to each newsletter owner just to find out what’s happening with them.

Feeds can also be delivered via email or to mobile devices. Podcasters can use feeds to list on iTunes. Even if you run an opt-in email list, you should still offer an RSS feed subscription to your blog. You don’t want to miss out on the growing trend by not making it available. They are easy to install and no maintenance is required. They also allow you to collect statistics, or metrics, on your subscribers.

Q: How does RSS compare with e-mail, and with social media like Twitter and Facebook–what are the advantages of each?

A: All of these broadcast tools are slightly different in scope. Each allows you to deliver current information, but each has different advantages and limitations. RSS feeds allow you to deliver your entire blog post, including graphics via email, or in plain text sans graphics to a reader or a mobile device. The safest way to deliver email, such as a newsletter, is in plain text and it cannot be reformatted to be read well on a mobile device. Both of these delivery systems allow you to include far more information than you can on social media sites like FaceBook, and especially on Twitter, which has a 140 character limitation. However, Twitter and FaceBook are both very useful to announce that you have a new blog post and that will drive more traffic to your site. That is another reason why blog posts are becoming more popular than a newsletter. FaceBook and Twitter are also great tools for acquiring more followers.

Q: Your blogging book recommends using and hosting with Blogger.com. I’ve been recommending to my clients that they set up a blog on their own server, where they have control and where no one can pull the plug. And while I started my own blog (in 2004) on Blogger, I found that I had a lot more flexibility when I switched to WordPress, and that Google found my posts just as quickly. True, I had to have someone else set it up, but once installed, it’s been completely self-maintaining. Why Blogger? What happens to your blog if Blogger changes its business model or decides to censor?

A: There are literally millions of people already on Blogger, although WordPress type sites are gaining in popularity and will continue to do so for the next couple of years. There are also millions of folks who have never blogged and own static websites that they paid big bucks to have designed. Blogger is free and extremely easy to use for folks new to blogging. It’s also very simple to incorporate posts from Blogger into an existing static site without having to do a complete site redesign. That’s very advantageous because many of these site owners are with hosting services that include their shopping cart or storefront. It would cost them thousands of dollars to revamp to another format on another host. The JTF books are also designed to help folks who are only selling products through affiliate links and do not need file storage. A good example would be someone who reviews books. They really don’t need static pages or ways to sell their own product. Blogger blogs can also be made private so they are only viewable by those the administrator allows. This is great for small groups. In fact, I’ll be conducting JTF classes on a private Blogger blog.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about the fear that Blogger may change something or censor a site, however, I’ve known folks who’ve had Blogger sites since they started years ago and they’ve yet to have any issues. You would have to post some pretty derogatory or inflammatory material before Blogger would ever consider censoring you. And, since Google purchased both Blogger and FeedBurner, all of the changes have been for the positive. I’m sure they are already working on upgrades that will give WordPress even more competition. It’s simply not in Blogger’s best interest to make the service difficult or pull the plug on any of its millions of happy users.

For an author just starting out, a WordPress site may be a better fit than Blogger. But, keep in mind that there are two different types of WordPress sites. WordPress.com is very much like Blogger in that it is free and uses template designs that you can customize up to a point. It is hosted by WordPress. But, it does have a couple of important limitations. You cannot include third-party widgets, like Google Analytics. You must use only the ones provided by WordPress.com. And, you cannot monetize the site with things like AdSense ads. You can monetize Blogger.

WordPress.org is the generic blogging software that you can download for free and host anywhere you like. You can fully customize and monetize the blog as you see fit. However, it requires connecting to a database and working in the coding language PHP as well as designing the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This initial part of it will likely require you to hire a WordPress designer. You will also pay for hosting and a domain name. Once those things are all set up, it’s very easy to use and maintain.

If you are already using formats such as Blogger or WordPress.com, your posts and archives can easily be imported to a WordPress.org site if you want to upgrade at some point in the future.

Q: Your article-marketing book offers detailed instructions on submitting to a number of different article portal sites. For the busy entrepreneur, is it worth posting articles if you don’t have time to do all the sites?

A: Yes, even if you only have time to post to one directory, article marketing is still a great way to drive traffic to your site, gain expert author status on a particular topic, and increase your ranking in search engines because you have more links on your name, your product title, and your keywords.

Q: With limited time, which one or two article portals would you recommend?

A: E-zine Articles is still one of the top article directories, however, they are not yet allowing videos to be embedded in the article. New directories are popping up that do allow videos, which is an emerging hot trend. Because of this, these directories are gaining in popularity. Article Bins is one directory that allows videos.

Q: Tell us about the giveaway contest you’re doing?

A: I’ll have a random drawing after the tour offering two free classes based on the blogs and RSS feeds books to folks who leave comments during the tour. The classes guide folks step-by-step while offering additional support for their unique needs. It also covers advanced tips and tricks not found in the books.

Q: Where can people learn more about your books?
You can find more information about Just the FAQs books, classes, and podcast at the main site, which is https://www.JustTheFAQs.net

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