Delving into E-Publishing
Since I have had the experience of self-publishing, I only thought it proper and wise to try e-publishing. Let’s face it; no matter what route you chose, you must market your own work. This is all with no guarantees of success.
I don’t want to go with an online self-publisher. Going into a volatile market in the hole is just plain foolish. The idea is to make money, not try to recoup a loss. I will work for my earnings, but not starting with a deficit. Such an ugly word.
I’ve done some research. Next time, I’ll share some preliminary leads about publishing.
Building Your Online Presence
As a writer, you’re probably well aware of the fact that you need to be online, whether it be a website or a blog. It’s an important move you can make that demonstrates that you are serious about marketing yourself. How you market can be just as important as how you write.
There a few steps involved with setting up your website and web hosting. First, there is your domain name. You want to choose something relevant and easy to remember. If you have a long last name, consider abbreviating it.
Shop around for a good provider. The sites offering hosting for $2.99 a month are offering $2.99 a month hosting. Since your website is your marketing tool, make sure and choose a site that has a history of good up-time and positive feedback for tech support.
For your actual site, consider using a content management system (CMS). A CMS has a user-friendly interface that will make updating easy. That is important since your site will do best with the search engines if the content is kept fresh. Try a couple to see which is most intuitive for you.
Once your site is up, take the time to learn a little search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is an ongoing process where you create content that again, will please those search engines.
Your online presence adds more value to your writing than you may think. Taking the time to get your name out there will make you and your work more attractive to agents and publishers.
Writing Tip: Diversify Your Income Sources
Perhaps this is common sense when it comes to investing: smart investors will diversify. The same sage advice applies when you are blogging for money. Don’t depend upon any one source of income.
So many opportunities exist to promote your blog. Social media, commenting on blog, and forums are to name a few. The key is to increase your exposure. The more times a viewer sees your name, your blog, the greater the impression you will make. You begin to be seen as an authority in your niche. This should be a goal of any freelance writer. Your name sells.
There’s an added benefit. The more you generate traffic to your blog, the greater your opportunities for revenue sharing through content and article sites. An authority in a particular niche is more likely to have tweets, updates, or blog posts go viral. The marketing feeds on itself. The more you’re seen, the more your content is shared and the more your traffic grows.
However, it takes time. It takes dedication. One of the biggest mistakes online marketers make is thinking that success will come immediately. Unless you have a reputation to begin with, rarely does this occur. Rather, it happens gradually as traffic slowly grows. A nice perk is that the more time you spend on it, the more likely you are to become engaged by the energy. Your energy feeds the fire. It all begins with engaging the reader.
Marketing With Email
If I learned anything from self publishing, it is that as a writer you need to take your marketing in your own hands. Be proactive.
Having a website and/or blog is a good way to build up a mailing list for an email newsletter. When a reader opts in, they are giving you permission to communicate with them. It’s your job then to provide good content and make your newsletter something a subscriber will want to read.
I won’t kid you. Newsletters are hard work from creating them, formatting them, to sending and tracking bounced emails. While you can use a email client like Thunderbird, making sure you BCC your mail list and send the email to yourself, some ISPs will interpret you mass emails as spam. That’s when you need to consider using a service.
There are many options. One I like is iContact. Benefits from a marketing standpoint are open and clickthrough tracking. If you’re making the investment in email marketing, you certainly want to know where you’re being successful. They also offer a public newsletter archive. As a blogger, you know the advantage of increasing your blog’s “stickiness” by keeping readers engaged. An archive gives you more opportunities to link back to past writing.
iContact also saves you time. There are over 300 email templates to choose from making creating your newsletter so much easier. The service handles bounced emails and opt-outs. There is an auto-responder so right from the get-go, you are establishing good communication with your readers. Write in more than one genre? iContact provides you unlimited mailing lists so you can target your readers. There are added features such as survey creation to interact more with your readers.
An email newsletter allows you to market yourself and interact your readers. For a writer taking her marketing in her own hands, it’s a great tool.
Grab Your Readers Attention
As self-representing artists, we face that struggle of making ourselves heard. Now there’s a surefire way to grab your readers attention.
Introducing Odiogo.
With a free simple web application, your readers can listen to your blog posts. Set up is easy. Sign up is easy with no waiting for an activation email to get going. Having a WordPress blog, I uploaded the plugin and was on my way. The plugin inserts a graphic that opens a small window that plays your post.
I have only tested the service in WordPress. It is also available for Blogger and TypePad blogs.
The voice was clear. It pronounced words
correctly. Needless to say I was impressed. This is such a great option because not only are your giving your readers choices, but you’re making your blog accessible.
My only gripe is that I had to sign up twice to get it on two blogs. Minor though. The subscribe button works on this blog and is hyperlinked it to my Odiogo page. The options here are vast.
So, bloggers, here is a new tool for you to grab your readers attention.
Photo by russbrady22
Put Your Characters In the Spotlight With Squidoo
I’m a huge fan of Squidoo.com, not only as one who creates lens, but because of the lens themselves. They’re fun to create and read.
SquidooWho isn’t a new feature. For a published fiction writer though, it can be gold. What are lens, you ask? Lens are like static website, a mini site if you will. You choose a topic of interest. It can be anything–a movie you like, a sport, a hobby, even a person. You write about it. You can add modules like Flickr and YouTube to add media. You can even add moneymaking modules like Amazon or eBay.
The SquidooWho is a feature that allows you to create a lens about a person. You name your person, claim the lens, and a pre-populated lens is created for you. Of course, you can modify that to whatever you’d like. I said a person, but I didn’t specify living, dead–or a character from your book, maybe?
Say you have a character that grew up in the Chicago area. He’s a big Bears fan. He likes dry martinis, but only with vodka. He loves the blues and has a secret obsession for bodice ripper novels. There you go. Give your character a face and a voice.
In this case, you could add modules for Amazon, featuring some of his favorite artists. Or you could feature those novels he likes. How about some info on the Bears? Maybe a list of his favorite vodkas. The possibilities are endless. Of course, there is the big prominent sticky note with a link to buy your book too. Now, doesn’t that sound like a great way to get to know you character and market? How Web 2.0 is that?
Marketing Yourself With Squidoo
You may have noticed my links, but if you haven’t visited Squidoo, you’re missing a great opportunity to market yourself. With Squidoo, you create pages that are called lens. A lens is a static page, your canvas as it were, to create a page about a topic of your choice. It can be your love, like writing. It can be a focus of your life, perhaps health. It can be a hobby, a place you love, anything. Then the fun starts.
Squidoo works in a controlled type of set up like Blogger. You are given choices of modules to add to your lens. Some are basic like text areas and lists. Other modules are money-making like Amazon and NetFlix. There’s even modules for eBay and ArtByUs to feature your auctions. You pick and arrange the modules as you please. More than one of a type can appear on your page. You are allowed to use some basic HTML to customize the look and feel of your lens.
What are the benefits to you? Visibility. The site gets a great deal of traffic. The format is very attractive too. A visitor wants to browse lens. Lens are fun to create. You can have more than one. Some people have lots of lens–over 100. Then there’s the money. When you add that Amazon module, you can add your associate ID, if you have one. You do make money on other revenue-focused modules. So does Squidoo, but it’s their site.
I’ve had my lens for awhile now. Other than Zazzle, it has been my best paying non-art outlet. Nice too that my earnings can be sent to my PayPal account. Here are some examples of my lens.
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