Tag Archives: Google+

Do you use Google+ to promote your websites, blogs, or Book?

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I recently started with Google+ and have been using it to help promote my website, blogs and my book. It is a social network on Google. I think you have to have a Google email to join it. If you need an invite let me know. You can set up your profile, add friends to your circles, +1 and comment on their posts and hangout with your friends.

You can create pages for your websites, blogs, books, businesses, etc. They are very easy to set up. I created pages for Deborah H. Bateman-Author Site, Christian Daily Resources, Daily-Bible-Reading, and Bible Verse Tweet. There is a link on the right hand side of the page that says Create a Google+ Page. You click on that and follow the step by step instructions and in no time you have your page.

Today I finally tried the hangout feature. You have to have a camera and microphone on your computer. All you have to do is click on the button on the right hand side of the page that says hangout. It will take you to a screen to download the software you need then you will see yourself on the screen. You can then invite your friends to hang out with you. You can watch YouTube videos, share screens, carry on a conversation, have a meeting, etc. It is best if you set up a time to meet so your friends will be there when you invite them, unless you want to take your chances and see who is available at the time. I think the limit is ten people at a time. So you can’t invite all your friends at once, but you can have a small party or hangout.

I found some good videos on YouTube that explain how to use the hangout feature. If you would like to check them out go to my YouTube channel and look for hangouts. My YouTube Channel is DebBat0519. Join me on Google. I am listed as Deborah Bateman. Leave a comment and let me know if you are on Google+, if you have pages or have an experience with the hangout feature you want to share.

This article was written by: Deborah H. Bateman-Author of The Book of Ruth-A Story of Love and Redemption and founder of Christian Daily Resources-a Christian Online Ministry dedicated to “Sharing God’s Word. Deborah is also going to be sharing articles to help other people online to write, publish, and market their books along with social media tips.

 

The 10 Commandments of Becoming A Financially Successful Self-Publisher

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1. Publish Ebook First: Start with an ebook (pdf and epub) first. This is the easiest and fastest way to get started. Creating an ebook first will also allow you to get some feed-back from your readers, and make adjustments to your book accordingly. After you get your ebook online and get all the kinks worked out, then add a print-on-demand paperback edition.

2. Stick To Your Niche: Your book should be directly aligned with your market niche. For many self-publishers, success comes from focusing their book, and their marketing, at their particular niche. Part of sticking to your niche is that you must learn about and understand the subject of branding.

3. Design A Great Cover: Spend a lot of time developing and designing a great cover. Design many sample covers for your book. Especially look at books that have a similar topic as your does. If you are not creative, and have the money, pay a professional to do the cover design for you.

4. Perfect the Contents: Spend a lot of time perfecting and editing the contents of your book. Make improvements and corrections even after it is published.

5. Get Testimonials: Make great efforts to get testimonials and endorsements. You must never stop asking other guru’s in your industry and celebrities to write them for you. Keep adding them to your book and to your book’s blog. Convince one of these guru’s or celebrities to write your book’s foreword.

6. Set-up Blog: Set-up a blog to support your book. This is not difficult or expensive. By far the best way to do this is to set up a blog with a big company like WordPress. These blogs are specifically designed to be user friendly. They are also designed to work very well with search engines like Google.

7. Max-Out Third-Party Websites: Max-out your use of every website that lists your book. Many websites, such as Amazon, allow you to add a large amount of information about yourself and your book. Doing this will be like giving your book another website devoted to you and your book. Take advantage of everything Amazon has to offer.

8. Avoid Bookstores: Do not put your book into the bookstores by using a wholesaler or distributor. This step is for much more advance publishers, and self-publishers with big bank accounts. Bookstores sell very few books – especially by self-publishers that are not big-name celebrities.

9. Use All Major Online Retailers: Get your book into every major outlet such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, Scribd, etc. – just to mention the major ones. Using services like SmashWords, BookBaby, and Lightning Source, will get you into the big-name ebook outlets. Also, some professional organizations allow their members to list their book in the organization’s catalog.

10. Market, Market, Market: Getting your book online is the easy part. Making your book financially successful is the time-consuming part. But now, because of the internet, it is not difficult. The more effort you put into marketing and promotion, the more financial success your book will have. Even if you are not a business-minded person, you will find that marketing and promotion is a very interesting process.

Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. is an author, publisher, educator, business manager, and entrepreneur. Life-long love affair with books and reading. Very excited about being part of the new media movement. Known for casual, easy-to-read writing style and ability to explain complex topics in an understandable way. “If you are serious about your work you should self-publish. Retain creative control. Retain the profits. Enjoy the satisfaction and status that comes with being published.” Visit Kunz’s website about all aspects of self-publishing at http://www.KunzOnPublishing.com/, for an insider’s guide to becoming a financially successful and happy self-publisher, and sign-up for his free newsletter.

Author: Joseph C Kunz, Jr
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Alternative energy

How to Promote Your Book for Free Days on Kindle

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Some people may ask, why would you give your book away?

http://www.deborahhbateman.comI guess it depends on how good your book is doing otherwise. For me being a fairly new author it was a way to promote myself for future books as well as The Book of Ruth-A Story of Love and Redemption. Doing the free promotion also helps get your book higher in the rankings. I went through some of the same thoughts you might, thinking about it as losing money. If I actually sold the 12,000 books I gave away in the two days of my giveaway that would be a lot of money.  I would love to get that check. But, if your book is sitting there with very few sales then, what have you got to lose?

For one thing you get a lot of exposure. There are now more people who know my name and have my book on their computer. From a Christian standpoint there are more people who I have shared the gospel with, which is my ultimate goal. I hope one day my ministry will be self-supportive and I would love to have a nice income from my books. But for now I have to abide where I am in the process.  I keep reminding myself I shared the gospel with all those people and God will bless me for doing it in whatever way He sees fit.

If you have a message you want to get out and you are not already selling a lot of books, what do you have to lose? Or, if you are like me and you are a new author who needs to let people know about the message of your book, then I think it is a good promotional tool to get your name out and let people have a sample of your writing. If they like it, they may tell other people about your book or they may buy future books. They may subscribe to your website or become a follower of yours. Think of it as advertising.

It is a personal decision everybody has to make for themselves. Don’t feel pressured to do it if you aren’t comfortable with it. I thought about it for a while before I took the plunge. But, in the previous six weeks I had not sold as many books as I would like so I figured I didn’t have anything to lose by doing it.

 

Some of the things I did to promote my FREE Kindle days are:

I sent out emails to my entire email list letting them know about the promotion. I also asked them to send out messages and emails to their friends, family, and email list. Then, I promoted as if no one else was helping me. Anything they did was a bonus. I wasn’t going to ask them to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself.

I scheduled posts for Twitter and Facebook throughout the day. I also posted on LinkedIn and Google+. I also posted messages on my blogs about the free giveaway.

Tags I used on my posts included #Free #FreeKindle #KindleFree #FreeEbook #KindleFreebie. I used anything I could think of and anything I saw others using to get recognition for the free eBook.

I sent out messages to these sites and asked them to post my book on the free days, also:

eReaderiq.com

EReaderNewsToday.com

ereader-freebies.blogspot.com

Once I scheduled all my messages and put up my other posts I watched the rankings go up and checked periodically to see how many books were downloaded. I was very well pleased with the results.

I went to #1 in two categories and up to #12 free in kindle store during the two days of m free book promotion.

Another thing is to keep promoting your book after the free days. Once you go up in the rankings you want to try to keep them up as long as possible. So, do what you can to keep promoting and hopefully it will help keep the rankings up.

Remember out of site, out of mind. If people don’t see your book being promoted they are going to forget about it. Also, nobody cares about your book like you do so you can’t depend on other people to promote it for you. I hope this article has given you some insight into why some of us choose to do the free giveaways and help you decide if you would like to do it too. I wish you much success with your book.

If you would like coaching on Self-Publishing or Marketing your book contact Deborah H. Bateman via the contact form on this site. She will be glad to discuss her coaching package with you.