Warren Whitlock, Author at Best Seller Authors

Jun 04 2012

The Hidden Promotional Value of Your Blog

Do you have a blog? If not, you are missing out on the best free promotional resource that anyone in business can use today.

“But Will People Read What I Write?”

It’s easy to get discouraged if you post something online and cant’s see anyone reading and then taking action. It’s very natural to be looking for these outcomes, but I’m here to tell you that the best results are 180 degrees from what it seems.

Here’s the secret.

You are more attractive when you are not trying to attract attention

Millions of people are writing, sharing and posting on the Internet today. Just like you, they want to make a connection and get recognition for their work. And YOU have the power to give it to them.

I like to imagine that every other content creator is like me. I know that I love to see a new person posting and do everything I can to support that. From my experience, even the biggest bloggers are delighted to see interaction. I’ve never met one that doesn’t want more readers and the smart ones all know this secret.

Any connection with another blogger starts with getting noticed. Start with blogs the same size as yours and then move up to larger and larger audiences as your network grows.

Accelerating Beyond Comment Exchanges

The quickest way to get to larger audiences is to post where they are already reading. No matter how big your blog gets, most of the potential readers are not reading. So any guest post on another blog is likely to reach mostly people you’ve been missing.

Here again. Don’t be seen as needy. Instead of asking “Can I post on your blog?” use the reverse and say “Would you like to post on my blog?”.. You won’t always get reciprocity, but you will get a lot of offers to guest post.

Speed it up even more the with VIV Blogger Network

I’m working with a magazine publisher who reaches hundreds of thousands of readers. We’ve set up a blogger network and request bloggers to share. This post is a result of that sharing so I know it works.

Additionally, I’ve made it super easy for any blogger to initiate a conversation. VIV is now running a contest designed for bloggers. You just cut and past one line into a blog post and your users see the following widget: (Try it, you may win an iPad)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How to Get the Widget and Have Your Post Appear

Because I believe in networking as the key to promoting any blog, I’m using our own promotional resources to promote those that join the network. I can’t promise that every new blog will get a post on the VIV site, but I will make sure you get some exposure and that every blog participant in the giveaway will be rewarded.

To start, just go to my own blog post:

How One Click Could Triple Your Blog Readership

Dec 12 2011

Marketing Your Book Through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Gust post by Alan K’necht

You’ve no doubt spent countless days, weeks even months writing and editing your book. Along the way, you most likely had a working title, an interim title and finally the official title for your book. Congratulation all that is left is to market you book is to ensure that people who hear about can find it.

This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. If you’re like most non-technical authors, you might have never heard of SEO or even considered it in the name of your book. Yet you’re about to come face to face with the reality of SEO. So prepare yourself and get ready to start working on it.

Even before your book is published go to Google and Bing and search on the title of your book. Take a look at what comes up in the search results. Believe it or not this is your first level of competition. When I did this search for my book entitled “The Last Original Idea” I was competing with numerous blogs, news paper articles, etc. that were lamenting that neither Hollywood nor the TV industry has had a truly original idea in decades. Many of published article/blog post had title similar to my book “what was the Last Original Idea in…”, “The are no more original ides ….”.

As a marketer I knew how to get people spreading the name of my book and that was great if people happened to go directly to Amazon (or other online books store) to purchase it, but what if they wanted to know more details about the book or what if I wanted to capture people searching for the last original idea in marketing? To ensure that my book would be found and dominate the search results, I executed a SEO strategy.

As part of this strategy, I was aware that Google will only show 2 listings per website on a page of its search results. Simply building an SEO effective website would only get me 2 spots out of the default 10 which isn’t good enough. How could I ensure that they were the first two listed? I wanted to own the first page of results and if possible the second page as well. I’m happy to report that I do and here’s how I did it and now you can you!

Register a domain that is the title of your book (i.e. thelastoriginalidea.com) (to protect yourself from others hoping to steal your thunder also register similar domains (i.e. lastoriginalidea.com)
Build a website according to SEO best practices ensuring that you are focused on the title of your book and the subject of your book
Create a Facebook page for your book and register a custom URL that includes the name of your book (i.e. https://www.facebook.com/TheLastOriginalIdea)
Start a blog that does not operate under your website. This means using a different sub-domain (ie blog.thelastoriginalidea.com)
Use the blog to not only post book happenings (book signings, status updates of your book, etc.), but your thoughts on related topics. This is a great opportunity to create both excitement for your book and to demonstrate your knowledge on the subject.
Submit your book for various online contests that will create a page about your book or at a very minimum list it as an entrant with a link to your site.
Contact book reviewers who have blogs and regularly post reviews. Not only will the review help get your name out there, you can easily get them to link to your site and that’s part of step 8.
Now get active and get links & fans to both

Getting Links and Fans

Fans

This may be harder or easer depending on how involved you are already in Facebook. Step 1, tell all your current Facebook friends about it and encourage them to pass the word on. To entice people to become fans create a simple contest (become a fan for a random chance to win X copies of my book). Don’t stop with you current Facebook friends; market this fan generating contest through your email list, twitter followers, LinkedIn account and simply by telling people you know and meet.

On your Facebook page you will of course have a link to your books website. As you get more fans the value of this link will go up and help both the Facebook page and your website rank higher in the search engines.

Don’t forget to post regularly in the Facebook page to garner likes and shares. This activity also help keep and generate new fans, Likes and Shares. Remember your blog (step 4), make sure you post a description of each blog post on your Facebook page as well. This helps generate links to your blog, plus lets people know about and encourages people to read your blog posts.

Your Blog

Ensure that in description area of your blog is a description of your book with a text based link on the books name to the books website. When done correctly, this link will appear on every blog post creating a new link to your book with each post. While not as valuable as links from unique domains, they still count and help your site rank in the search engines.

Your Website

Last but not least the most critical part of the puzzle the book’s website. This is where you need to get tons of links. Here are some sure fire ways to get links:

Send out a press release with an established/quality PR distribution company and ensure that it has a text based link to your site in it. When done well, the press release will get picked up by 10 perhaps several hundred websites creating a large quantity of links.
Register your website with as many author /book directories as possible
Arrange for interviews that will be published online and insist that they link back to the books website.
Run a contest that requires people to submit written entries that will be posted on the site and voted for. This works wonders in getting other people not only to tell people where to go, but in many cases they’ll put permanent links to their content on your site (known as deep links)

The Fruits of Your Labor

If you’ve done everything well, now when you search on your books title, you should be dominating the listings (6 out of 10 on the 1^st page maybe even a 10 out of 10 on the first page). To truly reap the benefits of this effort, make sure you have a link to where people can purchase your book on each of the pages listed. After all, isn’t that the ultimate goal of all your efforts?

Alan K’necht is the author of “The Last Original Idea – A Cynic’s View of Internet Marketing” (www.TheLast OriginalIdea.com) and a founding Partner at Digital Always Media Inc. (http://www.digitalalwaysmedia.com) a full service agency specializing in search engine and social media marketing.

Dec 10 2011

Work Less, Make More: Create Other Products Quickly & Easily From Your Book Or eBook!

Once you’ve written a book or ebook, there are several other products you can create very quickly directly from it that will exponentially increase your profits with very little work. And most authors overlook one or more of them so here they are: audios, special reports, ecourses, video-coaching programs, and high-end coaching programs.

The easiest thing to do after you’ve written your book or ebook, is to record it. It only takes as long as it takes to read it. Then, you’ll want to edit it. And, if you want to, you can find royalty-free music and add music to your intro and outro or have someone do it for you. You’ll also need a CD cover if you want to deliver it as a physical product, and a 3D graphic representation of it for both a CD and/or download. (You can find them at www.fiverr.com for $5 each if you’re short on cash.)

Next, you can create special reports. These can be free or low-cost reports that are used as lead generators to create interest in your book or ebook. What I suggest doing is, looking through your completed manuscript for a whole section that can stand alone. If you find one but you think it has too much good information in it, then you can remove some of it. All, it takes is copying the section into a new word document, creating a new, eye-popping title, and having a cover created and it’s ready to go!

Or, you can take the idea from a section and rewrite it, if you don’t want it to be the exact text as in your book or ebook. These can be created in a couple of hours since you already have all the information you need to do it.

Another great way to create a new product from your book or ebook is to turn it into an ecourse. You can chunk it into lessons, in which case, you would charge for it. Or, you can chunk it into lessons and remove some of the details and give it for free as a lead generator. (Or, give part of it in lessons as a lead generator.) It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to remove the text you want to take out and upload it into an auto responder sequence or hire someone to do it for you-which is what I recommend you do.

You can also up sell people from your book or ebook to an ecourse, in which case you should add additional information to the ecourse version. And again. This shouldn’t take more than a few hours to complete.

You can also take your chapters and turn them into a video-coaching program. You can either talk each lesson into a webcam or video recorder. (Be sure to use a teleprompter, so you don’t look like you’re reading it.) Or, you can use PowerPoints, in which case you just add them to the audio that you’ve hopefully already created. Or, again, hire someone to do it for you! You can also add music and/or graphics to your presentation.

And my favorite-turn your book or ebook into a high-end coaching program. It’s actually already done! You just have to recognize it. It’s there in your Table of Contents! And it can sell from $997 to $2500 for group coaching and $2,000 to $5,000 or more for individual coaching-as long as it’s a “How-to”

Turn each chapter into a module or lesson. Add an action plan at the end of each one and a study guide with an answer sheet and you’re in business!

Each book or ebook you write can be turned into a whole funnel of products for your business with very little effort. So, make it easy on yourself, and create several from every ebook or book your write! You’ll work less, make a lot more, and get your message out to a lot more people!

Dec 01 2011

Book Sales Drop Up To 54.3%

From Publishers Weekly

E-book sales doubled in September, to $80.3 million, at the publishers that report results to the AAP. Sales in the print segments had a mixed performance with children’s/YA hardcover sales up 2.1% at reporting publishers, although children’s/YA paperback sales fell 14.6%. Sales of mass market paperback plunged in September, falling 54.3% at reporting houses. Trade paperback did much better with sales flat at reporting houses, while hardcover sales fell 18.1%. Sales from religious publishers (all formats), fell 6.3% at reporting publishers.

For the first nine months of 2011, e-book sales were up 137.9% at reporting publishers, to $727.7 million. Sales at all print trade segments were down in the nine months, though sales of religion products rose 6.6%.

If you are thinking the book business will every go back dominance, it’s time to rethink your business.

What are you doing to get on this trend?