Monthly Archives: July 2012

Social Media Tips – Use it Or Lose It

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I have used social media to great success. New clients, building relationships on all levels for all areas, etc. I recently held an online contest and gave away 25 of my manuals filled with my company and affiliate product links. I am able to use the opt-n email addresses to send company info they can use in developing their business further. This has been a very important and productive strategy and is bringing in big business, win-win. The increased business is not only from the email marketing, but also from the links within the free manuals.

My success with social media has been booming since starting with it. My company blog is great for keeping clients and supporters informed about what is happening, and for helping people just finding us learn what we are all about.

Twitter is my tool for connection and interaction. I am doing a series of interviews with writers on the blog and have found several to interview via Twitter. It is conversational, and I like the equalizing factor – everyone, big-time or small-time, has the same 140 characters to work with and it’s all on you to make those characters sing.

My advice is to stay focused but not narrow. Sometimes I have nothing to say about my business – so I have “Writer of the Week” interviews and social media tips which are user generated content for the blog. I look for new media-related news stories to link in my Twitter feed. I try (with varying success) to keep posts regular to avoid “out of site, out of mind” issues that stem from staying off newsfeeds for too long. And if you want feedback, ask for it. Social media is still evolving so you might as well push the boundaries and see what happens, because even if it only works for you it still works.

If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about social media.

Do you want to learn more about Social Media?

If so, read about and download my brand new industry research white paper Social Media: A Primer [http://drdavehaleonline.com/blog/new-social-media-research-white-paper/]

Are you searching for the secrets to building a big online subscriber list fast using social networks? If so, check out my site for more free information at [http://drdavehaleonline.com/blog/social-network-traffic-tactics/]

Dr. Dave Hale, specializes in the integration of Web 2.0 strategies into corporate marketing and HR management systems.

Author: David Hale
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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How Three Publishing Myths Kill the Author

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Agents and publishing houses have their best interests at heart, not the author’s. Save yourself from headaches, disappointments, and money down the drain. Become your own independent publisher and produce your book faster and cheaper. All you need is a little help from professionals. Myth: You need an agent or big publishing house to market your book and make big money. Since big publishers don’t look at unknown authors, now is the time to look at what they can do for you. Dan Poynter, self-publishing guru, says that if a publisher can’t sell four times as many books as you can, you’re better off selling it yourself. Self-publish first because it acts as a test market for your book. If it sells well (over 10,000 in a year), publishers may be interested in your book. Traditional publishers and agents accept only 1-2% of authors’ submissions, and even if you are one of the “chosen” you may not make much money after printing, bookstore, distributor, wholesaler and other expenses–probably $2 on a $14 book. Yes, you get an advance, but your sales must meet that and more. And after the initial book tour, the trainee marketing person is onto the next new author. Then, your books disappear from the bookstore shelf unless you, personally, devote a lot of time to marketing them. Book Publishing is a new game today. Think self-publishing where the profits are all yours. Thanks to Dan Poynter of the Self Pulsing Manual for giving us permission to do part of the task ourselves. If you self-publish and decide to print, you need to print only the copies you need (5-500) with the new technology Print on Demand (POD). Even better is Print Quantity Needed (PQN) such as Deharts.com. No more unsold cartons of books in your closets or garage. You print as you go leaving enough cash flow to market your book splendidly. Myth: To be a respected author, you must invest thousands of hours of time on your full-length book. The reality is that people today want concise and useful information. You don’t have to write a 200-page book to be a real author. Remember The One-Minute Manager and the One- Minute Salesperson? Around one hundred pages. People want information fast and convenient. Create short information products that are between 20 and 99 pages you can sell online, even if you don’t have your own Web site. If you choose to print your book with Print Quantity Needed (PQN), your perfect bound books will look as good as any book on the bookstore shelves. Myth: Authors must spend a lot of money to publish themselves. The printing costs for 1500 copies of a 160-page book might cost $3000, about $2 a unit. Small runs cost even more per unit. That’s a lot of cash for anyone to put out all at once, and it’s not worth it to many of us to use our home equity or life savings to finance our book. The answer is a small run with Print on Demand (POD) where you can print from 100 to 500 for around $2.40 for 160 pages. Without the high inventory, you can maintain a comfortable cash flow to spend on promotion, the most important part of your book adventure. You save even more money if you don’t print your book. Book publishing is going Internet. You can write small books in less time, market them easily and inexpensively on the Web and reap profits sooner. Try an e-book. It can be downloaded, it takes no printing costs because your buyer prints or downloads it. You don’t even have to have the whole book finished to sell it. Just include your table of contents at the end of each chapter and present it as an e-serial book. As a book coach, I am an authors’ advocate and want you to make money. Going traditional doesn’t work. Give ePublishing a chance.

Judy Cullins, 20-year book and Internet Marketing Coach, Author of 10 eBooks including “Write your eBook Fast,” and “How to Market your Business on the Internet,” she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says…and Business Tip of the Month at [http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml] and over 140 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com

Author: Judy Cullins
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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3 Questions to Ask Before Writing Your Book That Will Influence Your Book Marketing Plan

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Many authors leave devising their book marketing plan until after their book is published. This is a grave mistake. How you plan to market your book will affect how you write and even publish it.

Prioritising the development and implementation of your book marketing plan will help to ensure that your book is a best-seller. The alternative is that your book is to left languish on a book store shelf or even returned to the publisher to be turned into confetti.

So here are three questions to ask before you write your book.

1. What will be the title and sub-title?

Your title should normally average at about 1-4 words long. It should be catchy and memorable. While the final title of your book may not be finalised until your book is nearly complete you’ll want to have some possible book titles to work with. Author and expert book marketer, Rick Frishman, recommends having at least 10 potential titles to choose from. And you should register each potential title as a domain name.

Actually, the fact that a title might not be available as a domain name can be a deciding factor as to whether or not to choose that particular title. You want potential buyers to be able to easily find your book online. They will not be able to do so if it is associated with some obscure domain name or worse yet you haven’t got a domain at all and have to refer individuals to the your book’s URL on your publisher’s website.

The sub-title of your book will reveal to a potential reader what they will gain from reading the book. In other words your sub-title should be benefit-rich and designed to persuade a prospect to want to read your book. Many authors omit a sub-title. This is a lost opportunity to promote the message of your book.

2. Will you publish a hardcover version?

There’s no question that authors who publish hard cover versions of their books are seen to be more prestigious. A hardcover version of a book is generally released first and is, of course, more expensive than the later soft cover edition. It is often seen as a collector’s item. Whether or not you print a hardcover version of your book will partially depend upon your target market.

If you’re planning to publish more than one version of your book, then you may want to consider multiple launches. In other words, you want to create buzz around the publishing of each version of your book. So this should be taken into consideration when drawing up your marketing plan.

3. Will you make your book available in digital format?

There are numerous advantages of having your book available in digital format but there are some disadvantages as well. Whether or not you want to offer prospects a digital version of your book is a deciding factor in the type of publisher you work with. There are some traditional publishers who will not allow you to make do this.

If your book can be accessed in digital format then it will be more readily available for individuals to review. With the growing popularity of digital book readers such as the Kindle and Sony Reader you would be exposing yourself to another revenue stream regarding your book sales.

You can also create special promotions using the digital version of your book that will help to increase the sales of your physical book. One possible disadvantage is that people might share your book without your permission. You can prevent this by choosing a digital format for your book that allows you to control who can actually and by using tools such as Product Padlock to prevent digital piracy.

Alternatively, you could see the viral marketing of your book as a good thing as it reflects that people thought your book not only worth reading but also worth sharing. Within your digital book there should be, at the very least, be directions for readers to link to your website. In this way you’ll indirectly gain sales even through unofficial viral marketing of your book.

How would you like to get your next book to the elusive #1 position on Amazon? For a tested and proven, step-by-step marketing plan that will help you sell loads more books while becoming an Amazon Best-Selling Author visit #1: Amazon Best-Seller.

Author: Nickolove Lovemore
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Social Media Tips for Network Marketing Lead Generation

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Social media has taken the world by storm! According to data from comScore, social networking today accounts for 16 percent of the time spent online in the United States, through sites like Facebook, Twitter etc. With so many people spending so much time on these sites, ignoring social media as a network marketing tool would be a big mistake. These networks are a great place to build relationships as well as generate leads. Basically, this tool can be used to network with like-minded individuals, interact with them and build relationships – and this is what’s most important when it comes to generating leads in the network marketing business. Here in this article we will take a look at some tips on how you can use social media to boost your network marketing lead generation.

Social Media Tips for Lead Generation Here are a few great tips on how you can use this new media to improve lead generation for your network marketing business –

Connect with your target niche – Begin by connecting with your target niche on various social media sites like Facebook, or LinkedIn. Make friends with those who are commenting or talking about issues your product or service could resolve. Look up various groups related to your target niche on these social media websites and join them. Connect with other members of the group. You can share your expertise and knowledge with these people. Also, Twitter’s search function is a great way to look for people in your niche. Find them and follow them.

Start your group – Start a group and get other people to join. Invite people from your target niche. However, do ensure that the group you have started represents your niche.

Provide interesting and relevant content – Offering content that is valuable, interesting and relevant to your target audience is essential for building trust and relationships. Besides that, it also helps you establish your reputation as an expert authority in your niche. Your followers and friends will consider you as a trusted source of valuable information. Also remember that this is an ongoing process and you have to continue providing good content. Let your followers know your contact details such as phone numbers, emails, Skype ID etc.

Get others to opt-in to listen from you – When it comes to generating leads through social media, getting the target audience to opt-in hear more from you is very important. A link at the end of your posts or articles is a good way to do this. You could also send your links directly to friends and followers, when they ask for more information.

Here is a helpful article I wrote on generating free leads for your business.

Incorporate these tips in your social media strategy to boost lead generation for your network marketing business.

Eric Goldman started with zero internet ability. He is now one of the top Network Marketing Coaches online. He integrates social media, traditional prospecting techniques, and online relationship building, to generate free leads, create business growth, duplication, and success. To learn more about Eric’s strategies and grow your team visit his blog by clicking here Eric Goldman

Author: Eric N Goldman
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Writing an Outline For Your Book

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“How do you write an outline?”

“How detailed should I make my outline”

I don’t know how many times new writers have asked me that question. But it must be enough to sink a battleship, as my mother would say. Given that I suggest using Content Maps rather than outlines, I can imagine how many similar questions are fielded by people who teach the traditional outline method.

Now, you might think that I never write outlines for books and that I believe that outlines are useless. However, nothing can be further from the truth.

The fact is that writing the book outline has a number of very specific uses. Just not for writing the book itself. It’s not the right tool for that particular job. It’s the slot head screwdriver used on a Philips screw. Yes, it works. But you’re going to ruin the screw and the screwdriver.

There are five very specific reasons for writing an outline for your book. Or perhaps I should say there are five very specific occasions when you want to use an outline.

1. When someone else does the structural edit

Content Maps and their less effective competitors such as mindmaps are great for writing your book. However, unfortunately, most editors today learned to use outlines and to edit after the writing is done. After all, that was the traditional method we all learned in school. Unless you’re under 20 and had a progressive school, of course. Because editors have never used alternative methods, they’ve never learned to visualize the result from a plan. Editors expect to polish a finished piece of writing. One way to overcome this is by converting your Content Map to an outline before you share it as part of your structural edit.

2. When you are trying to sell someone your book

Editors aren’t the only people who have a problem with understanding writing plans such as Content Maps. Writing an outline for your book is mandatory when you are sending out a proposal to an agent or publisher. In fact, you’ll need multiple outlines at different levels of detail for the different audiences involved. The agent and the publisher’s editor for example will need a detailed outline. The publisher’s management on the other hand needs a much less detailed version (one or two paragraphs in fact).

3. When you are storing your book

When you design a book with a Content Map you normally use one or two words to get your concepts and points on paper. Unfortunately, while these short memes are sufficient for a short time, there is every likelihood that you will forget what you meant if you leave the map for too long. Writing an outline for your book is a good way to overcome this memory issue. In addition, it’s much easier to store a word document such as an outline. A diagram tool such as a Content Map (or mindmap) needs to be scanned and then stored.

4. When you are writing your book

You can write your book directly from your Content Map. And it often makes sense to do so. However, writing an outline for your book first is one of the little tricks you may find useful. This is especially true if you have had to prepare an outline for your editor. By splitting your outline into series of single sentences, you’ll have the plan for each paragraph (or set of paragraphs) in front of you as you write. Effectively, you’ll have created a write-by-numbers for your book.

Do you want to learn how to write a book in 24 hours? Take my free course here: http://www.learningcreators.com

Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/

Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.

Author: Glen Ford
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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