Using Blogs, eBooks, and Online Social Networking to get THE WORD Out

Thanks for joining us today as we continue our feature on e-books.  Sylvia Hubbard was gracious enough to share  her workshop geared toward authors on using blogs, e-books, and online social networking to get the word out about your books.  Please feel free to post any questions or comments you have and Sylvia will be in throughout the day to answer questions.

INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET MARKETING

In the over ten years since I’ve been on the Internet, marketing a book has grown in leaps and bounds.  As the Internet turns 40, authors are able to reach even more people to read their written work of art. It really has changed over the years.  Now I’m not going to go into all the details, and I might bounce around history in this post. We’d be here all day if I became obsequious and began to go into detail of exactly how and when and so forth.

In the beginning, authors used groups and online communities. One really had to know their niche in order to weed out readers that would enjoy their book.  Next came email blasting. Getting your news directly to readers was a great way to get direct sales. Email blasting is still prolific and strong in getting direct sales to this day.

It’s really only been seven years when the bomb happened though – social networking. Though it’s been around for a long time, it really didn’t take off until Myspace.com made a splash.  Bamn!  Now whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced Internet Marketing Author, you will benefit from today’s post.

eBooks

Definition: a digital file of a book. E-books can come in a variety of length and media, formatted to be read on a digital device.  These formats are that are majority used are:

• epub – An open industry format, supported by the Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook, most mobile apps [Stanza, Aldiko, Shortcovers], and many other reading systems.

• Sony Reader (LRF) – LRF is the format used on Sony Reader e-Book devices.

• Kindle (.mobi) – Mobipocket is an e-Book format supported on Windows PCs and many handheld devices. Important if you want your book easily importable into Amazon’s Kindle reading device.

• Palm Doc (PDB) – PalmDoc is a format primarily used on Palm Pilot devices, but readers are available for PalmOS, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile Pocket PC/Smartphone, desktop Windows, and Macintosh.

• RTF – Rich Text Format, or RTF, is a cross-platform document format supported by many word processors and devices. Usually pretty good at preserving original formatting from Word documents.

• Plain Text – Plain text is the most widely supported file format, working on nearly all readers and devices. It lacks formatting, but will work anywhere. For best results with plain text, your source document should not contain fancy formatting or images.

From eReaders (Kindle, Sony Readers, Nooks & etc) e-books are becoming the most purchased item on the Internet.  From 2008 to 2009, e-books purchasing jumped to over 300%. Amazon boasted a lucrative December just from e-Book sales.

In order to change your book to an e-Book, there are various services out there to assist.  My favorite has become Smashwords.com. Mark Coker, the founder, created a site where you can upload your .doc or .rtf to the site and Smashwords would format the book in six different formats. Once you upload a cover, fill out the information for the book and paying you, your book is ready.

There are other e-book sites as well including Amazon’s Kindle site (http://dtp.amazon.com) and let us not forget Overdrive, which reaches a lot of International Audiences. To download Overdrive and find out about more software, you can check out the contact and information page on The AA Electronic Literary Network (www.aaeln.com).

In a pinch, even Dan Poynter states your book should be in all forms in order to reach the reader. (By the way, Dan’s book is available on Smashwords too.)

eBlogs

A lot of people don’t know this but blogs have been around for over several decades.  The original name was weblog. Basically, it’s a journal mixed with a Content Management System (CMS). Once Matt Mullenweg took over www.Wordpress.com, he changed the face of blogs completely and freely.  According to Google, a blog is created every three seconds. What’s great for writers, more and more people are reading blogs daily.

The main questions I get from authors and writers is: How do I get people to read my blogs?

Here are four quick steps you need to do this:

1. If you have a website – DUMP IT and get your own weblog.

a. Get a free blog from wordpress.com or blogger.com and then have a proprietary domain name forward over there. Use this as your website/blog. With pages, you can have a contact page, book page and even upload your media kit. With posts, you can create excerpts, articles and so forth. The use of categories, labels and tabs are necessary in order to bring new readers and you need to know a little HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) to really make your weblog dazzle.

b. Get a host server and domain name and then either using JavaScript or just uploading WordPress.org’s free software, you instantly own your website for less than $70 a year. As a CMS, you’re able to easily update it on your own and not beholden to any website designer for anything.

2. Post at least 52 articles on this site a year. That equates to an article per week. When you send out information that you’ve posted, make sure you just send part of the post out and not the full post – unless you’re familiar with RSS (really simple syndication) and feeds.

3. Have a subscription box on your site where visitors can leave an email. No form or newsletter, but a subscription to your bog where they can get updated instantly once you your post makes it easy for you and for your reader. For blogger.com, you can utilize www.feedburner.com and www.wordpress.com, there is actually a subscription widget you can add to your sidebar.

4. The best and easiest way to get more traffic to your website is to include your website (in blue) inside of your email’s signature line. Every email you send out, if your website is not in the signature line you are missing out on an opportunity to generate traffic to your site.

Starting off with just these basic tips will start to increase your traffic.

eNetworking

As mentioned before, social networking (Myspace, Facebook, etc) blew up a little over seven years ago.  Yet, online social networking has been around for decades as well.  Currently, Facebook.com and Twitter.com are the top social networking sites. An author needs both!  I tell authors if you’re getting on there to play games, throw pillows, share drinks, then you aren’t getting on there to sell books.

Basically, a social network site is an open source site everyone can publicly join and you have an option to connect with them.  A recent study emerged that more people visit Facebook.com than Yahoo.com or Google.com.  That’s saying a lot.

Tips to being a success on these sites:

1. Remind people you do sell books. We often get on these sites and forget to post a link to our book page.
2. On Facebook.com set up a Fanpage instead of just a profile page. Facebook.com only gives you five thousand friends, whereas Fanpages are social networking on crack. You can do a lot more with them. Also, ask your readers, friends, fans to share you with others. The more people who are connected to you, the best page views to your site you have.
3. Stay in touch. Not with just “buy my book” related items or your calendar of events. Connect with these sites at least three or more times a week with personal notes, quotes, videos, inspirations, tips and so forth.  (No TMI news and usually keep sexual innuendos to late at night. People do not want to know how you just felt ten pounds lighter after leaving the bathroom nor the great time you had with your partner in details w/pictures.)
4. Synergize, Retweet and Share! Connecting yourself with other authors, retweeting expert advice and sharing other’s information is a great way to become a resource. A resource is an asset to people. Like my mother says, be an asset in this world and not a liability.

Along with all these tips, to expand on your Internet Marketing Tips:

1. Comment on other blogs. Not with “Buy my book.” Respond to what the blogger was speaking about
2. Visit other people’s sites and leave a guest comment. Book sites, reader groups, expert sites are ways to get people to follow you back to your weblog.
3. Guest post on other blogs. Share articles you’ve written.
4. Article Market. Uploading articles to sites such as http://ezinearticles.com is a great way to generate web traffic to your site and get people to know your author’s platform.
5. Have videos on your site. Whether it’s a book trailer, instructional video or more, there should be no excuse for you not to have a www.YouTube.com channel. With the invention of the Flip Camera, anyone can even make a home movie. As long as it’s no longer than ten minutes long.
6. Have PowerPoint presentations. Slideshare.com offers ways for you to share you PowerPoint presentations online. You can also use Camtasia as well to make your PowerPoint presentation into a small movie.
7. Audio. Whether you’re reading a story, talking about your author platform or sharing advice, having audio downloads on your site is a great way to interact on with new visitors and keep others coming back to your website. http://blogtalkradio.com is a great way to get great quality for free and you can download the audio from them, edit this download with www.Audacity.com (adding music and even sound effects on three other tracks), and uploading to your site for a wonderful listening experience.

To get more tips, you can go to http://WritersGuide2InternetMarketing.com and subscribe for an update of How To’s, Marketing, Promotion and even writing advice.

If you are an AA e-book author, you can subscribe to The African American Electronic Literary Network (http://aaeln.com) or join the social network at: http://aaelectronicliterarynetwork.ning.com).

Now that we’ve gone through the basics, I’d love to help and assist you with your Internet Marketing needs.

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Facilitator: Sylvia Hubbard – Detroiter and independently published author, Sylvia Hubbard’s foundation genre has always been romance. Always urban and contemporary styled, her writing is enjoyed all over the world by all nationalities. She’s published 4 paperbacks and over 10 e-books. In the upcoming year, she will be featured in several anthologies & will be publishing more e-books. For the past five years, she’s taught writers how to sell products on the Internet at conferences, workshops and with her book, Internet Marketing for Writers & Businesses.

She is founder of Motown Writers Network & The African American Electronic Literary Network, plus chairperson of The Essence of Motown Literary Jam.  Aside from running her own personal author blog, plus a blog for the Michigan Literary Network, she also hosts two other blogs: How To Love A Black Woman and Writers Guide To Internet Marketing.

Related Websites:

http://sylviahubbard.com | http://motownwriters.com | http://essenceofmotown.com | http://michiganliterarynetwork.com | http://aaeln.com |  http://writersguide2internetmarketing.com | http://loveablackwoman.com |