Guest post by Dan Izzard

Image: Tatsuo Yamashita

The Camera Phone is King

Like many others, I have pawed over handsets, deliberating mostly which technology will stand the test of time the best. I have had a few Sony Eriksson’s, a Nokia, and a sleuth of HTC handsets which all seem to have one thing in common – an above average camera (at the time of release).

People argue that the camera phone is meant for snap-shots, a secondary function, one that should not be counted towards the overall experience. Yes it’s true that it is not the primary function of a phone, but if a camera was excluded from a new flagship model there would be widespread uproar.

I now ponder framing, angle, depth of field and shutter speed, all when taking a shot and I still consider myself an amateur.

Due to the disposable nature of digital cameras, we all have an unparalleled access to photography that was not even available ten years ago.

I was lucky if my Dad let me take one photo with his film camera on a family holiday, with each photo costing a significant amount. Now we see digital cameras marketed at children as young as 4.

Why Instagram?

Of course Instagram has been incredibly popular since its inception 2 years ago and the buyout by Facebook just cements the fact that digital mobile photography is big business.

But what is it about Instagram that has captured the imagination of many?

Remember those old camera phones that took terrible pictures. My hard drive is plagued by a thousand pictures that could be printed out no bigger than a postage stamp.

But with filters from Instagram – what was a marginally blurry overexposed mishap is now a purposeful work of art.

Image: Justin De La Ornellas

Lomography

Instagram owes much of its success to Lomography, a once guerrilla movement now being pushed my mainstream media so much that its hardware appears in high street shops alongside mainstream fashion,

Not that I am bitter that it is. These styled photos, no matter their origin give colour and character to otherwise flat images, creating interesting shapes and textures. They stimulate sharing and community.  They also stimulate interest in film photography, a medium I think will return.

The Aim of Photography

At first with digital photography the aim was to build a consumer camera that perfectly replicated the living world. The enthusiasm for Instagram shows that photography is as much about the process and the sharing of the image itself.

When the camera was first introduced to the masses in 1839, a French painter, Paul Delaroche, sensationally claimed that “from today painting is dead”. How wrong he was.

I consider digital photography to have the same resonance as these claims. Digital photography is a more practical and cheaper form of creating images. But then so was film photography to painting, with painting as a medium remaining a part of culture today as it has ever been.

I encourage you to take photos in whatever medium you choose, whether a film camera, professional digital SLR or even on your phone. I look forward to seeing them online soon.

Dan Izzard is a snap happy blogger, who writes for Strategy Internet Marketing, an SEO agency who offer a link building service via a dedicated creative team, producing inspiring content that is worth sharing

More on Instagram:

• Getting the Most from Instagram
• An Idiot’s Guide To Instagram
• The Instagram App: A Picture Worth a Billion

Guest post

Working on a blog or running a website is great for many reasons, but one of the very best aspects is the fact that it lets you work wherever you please while your friends and colleagues are stuck in dull grey offices.

This is something that is certainly not lost on me and I am well aware of just how lucky I am to be able to stay in bed when it’s wet and raining outside. However at the same time I am very aware that I need to make the most of this by ensuring that I seek out the best circumstances to work in.

I’ve achieved this on multiple occasions, and when the circumstances have been perfect it’s resulted in more productivity and generally a sense of pleasure at being in a perfect environment while I work. Here are some of the best situations I’ve found for working.

In the Evening At My Desk

One place I love to work is at my own desk in the evening and particularly when it’s raining. I’ve always been something of a night owl, and when it’s dark and wet outside you feel no need to go outside and do sociable things so you can focus on work.

I’ve recently moved to a small flat so my current work set up isn’t all that it could be. However last year I had an enclosed balcony and my office was right next to that meaning that when it rained I could enjoy hearing the rain against the roof and watch it running down the glass. My desk itself was some like something out of Dexter’s Laboratory and had the impressive name of ‘Orbital’. It could swing out and provide you with no less than three surfaces to work on and I made full use of that by having three monitors to work on. I would then set up my plasma globe and my plasma lamp and I’d put on some background music along the lines of Daft Punk’s Tron which would set the mood perfectly for productivity and wouldn’t distract me from what I was doing. Then to top it all off a nice mug of steaming tea that I could enjoy while I typed the night away.

In Starbucks

Everyone has their favourite coffee shop, and mine has to be Starbucks – it always has free WiFi (Costa varies because it’s a franchise) and it has better tasting coffee than Nero in my humble opinion. Thus I am rarely happier than when I’ve secured myself one of the comfier seats in the window which lets me people watch surrounded by nice leather chairs and even my own private little light while I people watch the people as they’re going by and as I sipped my latte.

The British Library

I once set myself up to work in the British Library when I was exploring London and this proved an awesome place to do my work. The main selling point had to be the very nice pod-like chairs you could sit in which had their own lamp and small swivel table attached, but at the same time I enjoyed working somewhere that had such a sense of culture and learning. The giant statue of Newton outside and the huge bookcase that runs through the middle of the building make you feel like you’ve stepped into a futuristic archive of human knowledge, and when you work here you feel like you’re rubbing shoulders with ancient scholars and academics. Which is cool…

Sebastian is an online content writer and all he needs is a good broadband and his laptop to continue his work.

More on Blogging:

• ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
• Creative Blogging: Your First Steps to a Successful Blog
• Start Your Own Blogging Business, Second Edition

Image: t0zz / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Hey all! It’s Memorial Day weekend here in the states, and I’m going to try my best to take off. Don’t I always say that? I’ll be happy if I get some hours away from the computer, although I’ll probably still be working on my book. (I’ll turn the Internet off.) What are you up to?

Here are the links and news items I found of interest this week:

All Freelance Writing has some great tips on “7 Ways to Be More Productive Each Day.” Don’t we all need that!

Really wonderful advice from Alan Rinzler: “It’s the details, writers!”

From Open Culture: “Neil Gaiman Offers Graduates 10 Essential Tips for Working in the Arts.”

Thinking and Making has “(More) tips for writing well.”

Interesting story from Psychology Today’s Creativity in Flow that asks “Did Anne Sexton’s Therapist Help Her Poetry?”

At ProBlogger: “Blog Better by Slowing Down.”

The Daily SEO Blog has some good food for thought with “By dumping Facebook, GM’s doing it wrong.” This is info writers can use also.

Joe Konrath, who we love love love, has “Pricing Books and Ebooks.” READ IT!!!!!! Nuff said.

Duct Tape Marketing has a post near and dear to most writers hearts: “5 Non Spammy Ways To Get a Blogger’s Attention.” There’s definitely a right and wrong way to do it.

Rachelle Gardner answers the question: “What Does the Editing Process Look Like?”

At Writer Unboxed they are talking about “Respecting Your Natural Rhythms” which I agree with wholeheartedly! It helps make you more productive.

I know we are all looking for inspiration and ways to market our books, so this story from Galley Cat should be of interest: “Self-Published Nutritionist Inks 7-Figure Book Deal.”

Michael Hyatt has some good food for thought for writers with “Success Brings Its Own Set of Problems.”

Jason Letts has some good advice on “Why Some Indie Authors Are Successful (And Many Aren’t)”

Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Guest post

Making money online is not an easy task. Yes, some try to make it sound easy, and they will even tell you that becoming rich within just a few weeks is possible. This is highly rare and requires a specific amount of luck. Most won’t become rich overnight, but you can still make an extra income or even a full-time income online if you desire.

The first thing you must do if you want to make money online is put together an internet marketing plan. Maybe you already did this and you followed your plan for a few weeks or even a few months and didn’t see the results you wanted. Are you still working with your plan or did you abandon it because your business didn’t grow as fast as you thought it should?

What Happens when You Abandon your Plan?

Beginners tend to give up on their marketing plan much faster than others do. They find something new that sounds great, buy into it and the next thing you know, they are sitting in classroom chairs studying some new strategy for internet marketing. Most of the time, they do this before giving their original plan a chance.

Some refer to this as program jumping or hopping from one program to another, and it can become very dangerous. If you cannot commit yourself to a regular plan for at least a few months, then internet marketing will become very difficult for you. This usually starts because beginners don’t treat their internet business like an actual business.

Businesses on and offline need a plan. They need a plan for their finances, a marketing plan and a growth plan. If you want to make money online from a website, blog or a network of both, then you at least need a marketing plan. This should detail all the tasks for a regular week and break everything down into one day at a time.

What happens if you start with a plan, then you give up on it? Well, common sense tells us that your business will stop producing profits of any type. A great example of this happens in article marketing all the time. Beginners find out they can write and submit articles to drive traffic to their websites, but after a handful of articles, they give up because they didn’t make $10,000 last week.

Internet marketing takes longer than a few weeks or even a few months. You must dedicate yourself to a marketing plan for many months or even a few years before you see significant results. Most businesses need at least six months to really see if their marketing works well or not. You may need to test a few strategies and make a few small changes over time, but you don’t want to give up completely on your plan.

This post made possible by guest blogger Mary, a writer with varied interests, from how to choose the right classroom chairs to how to market them online.

More on Internet Marketing:

• The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly
• How I Made My First Million on the Internet and How You Can Too!: The Complete Insider’s Guide to Making Millions with Your Internet Business
• Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice (4th Edition)

Image: chanpipat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Guest post by Sherri Rabinowitz

Recently I started two big projects at the same time. I have been doing my e-magazine for almost a year so I really didn’t think it would be a big deal to do that at the same time I was working on creating my brand new website.

As I began working on the website, I fell in love with look and colors of it and I felt my e-magazine was not as pretty or as inviting. So brilliant one that I am, I decided to restructure my whole e-magazine. I mean the style, the color scheme, even some of the content. So really I was creating two sites at the same time.

I was very excited by both sites. I have wanted to create a place like this for a long time, something where fans and friends could see everything I wrote and all the exciting things that are happening to me. Someplace that will grow and change, where I could introduce new stories or eventually sell projects on.

It took me some time to find the right site and the right look and how I wanted it to work. I am actually pretty proud of it because I did all myself. One of my good friends who is an IT specialist checked it out after I finished to make sure it looked good and worked right but I did all the input and design. I am very proud of the new site.Here is the link if you would like to check it out: http://www.rithebard.com/default.html .

At the same time, I decided that since my e-magazine is a jewelry site I wanted to make it a more feminine and touchable site. A place that you not only enjoy reading about Collectors, Jewel Designers, and Do It Yourselfers work but want to touch it, or to own the beautiful pieces or become a collector. Or even better, maybe be inspired to make jewels yourself. It is a pet project with me and I am very proud of this site as well. In case you love to be inspired or to see pure beauty here is the site: http://sites.google.com/site/sherrisjewelbox/home/cover-page.

How did I do both? I focused on one at a time. That is sort of obvious but I have tried to jump from thing to thing and I realized that causes chaos. And since chaos is not very productive I restricted myself to one project on each day. It was the only way it worked for me. I scheduled what I was working on exactly like I would schedule my meetings, personal life and workouts. Sounds silly, but it was the only way I could put my full focus on things. I am really proud of the outcome. I would like to thank the person who invented the agenda, wouldn’t you?

Related:

• When a Book Comes Out in Ebook – Interview with Sherri Rabinowitz
• Everyone’s a Writer?
• Fantasy Time Inc.

Image: manostphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I think that the world needs more hopeful messages. We hear so much about negativity, but when you read something that lifts you up, it makes a difference in your day and even life. That’s one reason I look for positive bloggers. Enjoy this interview with Samm from The Inspiration Tree.

I really adore your blog. How did you decide to start it?

Thank you

I don’t ever remember sitting down and making the decision to start The Inspiration Tree, it kind of just became. I was going through sort of a personal revelation at the time and started writing down ideas that I found inspiring on a personal blog. I was changing my life and habits step-by-step and as I came across a new concept or a helpful tip that I found relevant I posted it on my blog. Gradually people started visiting and leaving their own thoughts so I made the decision to make The Inspiration Tree a place for learning and sharing. I asked people to send me their bits of optimism and it was amazing the things that people started to send in. Every time I would check my email I would leave the computer with a smile and often times, a deep feeling of gratitude. With everyone participating in The Inspiration Tree, to me my blog become a sort of mini optimism movement and to be a part of something so positive has been such a great experience.

What are some of the blog posts that have been most inspiring to you?

Wow, this question is extremely difficult to answer because everything that has been posted on my blog has been posted there because of the sole fact that it inspired me in some way. One of the posts that sticks out the most though is “I Believe”. A lovely girl named Kelsey submitted a list to me which is from a poem called “I’ve Learned” by an unknown author. (I’ve also heard, since posting it, that is is displayed on a sign throughout a certain restaurant in the United States.)

What was really inspiring about this particular post though was larger than the poem itself. Once the post was online, I started to receive comments, emails, tweets, private messages, etc. with people telling me what THEY believed. It was amazing. Day after day I was reading hundreds of peoples personal beliefs and each and every one was beautiful. Due to the response, I started the What Do you Believe Project where I asked people to continue sharing their beliefs with me, and to this day I am still receiving responses. I often scroll through both these blog posts and the response emails to read over the wonderful things people have sent me and I’m moved everytime.

Tell me about the design of your blog. Did you do it yourself or hire someone?

The design of my blog is quite basic. I drew the background (the silly, curly tree) on photoshop one day while playing around. I then uploaded it to a simple template and edited some of the formatting and voila, there was my design!

What are some of your blogging goals?

This question is actually very pertinent to my current situation, haha. Unfortunately, my dedication to my blog has been less than satisfactory in the last 6 months due to working full time and finishing up my psychology degree and to be honest, I really missed blogging.

However, now that I’m finished up at University (YAY!!!) I have made The Inspiration Tree one of my main priorities again… so back to posting it is

My current goals are pretty simple- to get caught up with the back log of submissions and posts that are sitting around waiting to be shared. After that I hope to expand on what The Inspiration Tree is right now and continue to reach out to the larger blogging community… how I plan to do these things must remain a secret for now though Stay tuned!

Let’s switch gears to books. Do you enjoy reading? What’s the most interesting book you’ve ever read?

I love love love reading. One of my favorite past times since kindergarten! The most interesting book I’ve ever read was The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. I was in junior high when I read it and although the major theme is concerning racism specifically I believe that it can lend itself to any form of discrimination. Overall, the theme/message within the story helped me make sense of the world around me at the time and I’ve forever remembered this book fondly.

To quote Morrison…

“We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used–to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.”

“… And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life”

Favorite authors?

So many! Some all time favorites are Janet Fitch (author of White Oleander) and J.D Salinger (Catcher in the Rye). Something about the way they both write always gets to me.

Where can we learn more about you?

The Inspiration Tree is my little corner on the internet so that’s probably your best shot. I also love random emails so feel free to fire away

Anything else you’d like to add?

I think that I’ve covered most of it. Much gratitude to Cherie for being interested in my blog enough to email me with an interview, I’m truly honored!
☮ & ❤,
Samm

This poem from Robert Louis Stevenson reminds me a little bit of Lenny Kravitz’s “Let Love Rule.”

Let love go, if go she will.

Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay.
Of all she gives and takes away
The best remains behind her still.

The best remains behind; in vain
Joy she may give and take again,
Joy she may take and leave us pain,
If yet she leave behind
The constant mind

To meet all fortunes nobly, to endure
All things with a good heart, and still be pure,
Still to be foremost in the foremost cause,
And still be worthy of the love that was.
Love coming is omnipotent indeed,
But not Love going. Let her go. The seed
Springs in the favouring Summer air, and grows,
And waxes strong; and when the Summer goes,
Remains, a perfect tree.

Joy she may give and take again,
Joy she may take and leave us pain.
O Love, and what care we?
For one thing thou hast given, O Love, one thing
Is ours that nothing can remove;
And as the King discrowned is still a King,
The unhappy lover still preserves his love.

More by Robert Louis Stevenson:

• Kidnapped
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
• Treasure Island

Ah… another Friday. Hear that sound? It’s the joy of an upcoming weekend creeping its way into my schedule today.

Hope you all had a productive week. My big project this week was creating an ecourse on Five Weeks to Make a New Friend. The class takes you from beginning to end on getting out, making small talk, evaluating the people you’ve met, and creating a connection. So many people I talk to are looking for new friends but aren’t sure how to go about doing it. It “just happened” before and now they’re stuck because it isn’t naturally happening now. Hopefully this ecourse will be a help in that area.

If you’ve never created an ecourse before, it can be a huge undertaking. You’ve got to get the text set, the links, etc. I’m glad I was able to check that “to do” off of my list.

Here are the other articles I’ve written this week:

• 5 Ways to Welcome a New Neighbor
• Review of the Book What Would Michelle Do?
• Small Talk Ice Breakers for an Event
• Making Small Talk With Strangers
• 5 Ways to Get More Responses to Your Online Ad
• Should You Stop Your Divorce?
• The Top Baby Name for 2011

At Daily Blog Tips, “How to Structure Your Posts (and Why You Need To).” Do you think about structure when it comes to blogging?

Anyone that has ever started a blog knows that finding the right theme can be a nightmare. I went through a couple versions here before I settled on this theme. Over at ProBlogger, they give tips on “How to Select the Perfect WordPress Theme for Your Blog.”

Michael Hyatt talks about “3 Characteristics of New Marketing.” See how you can make them work for you as a writer in promoting your work.

From Open Culture, “James Joyce Manuscripts Online, Free Courtesy of The National Library of Ireland.”

Social Media Today says, “Facebook To Consider Charging Users to Highlight a Post.”

Rachelle Gardner has “Bad Habits of Successful Authors.”

Media Jobs Daily has some tips on “How to Effectively Say ‘No’ at Work.”

I found this news item from Galley Cat really interesting: “20th Century Fox Options Self-Published Novel.”

CNN Tech had a scary and thought provoking post: “Could a computer write this story?”

Jody Hedlund had: “8 Reasons Not to Quit Social Media When You’re Burned Out.”

Galley Cat has a humorous bit about “How A Book Is Born.”

I can so relate to this post by Michael Hyatt: “The Fine Line Between Working Hard and Letting Go.”

A post from Famous Bloggers should be near and dear to the hearts of every online writer: “How to Prevent Content Scraping before It Starts.”

Lit Reactor has “36 Writing Essays by Chuck Palahniuk.”

At Writer Unboxed, they’ll give you some good ideas on marketing your book with: “You say Potato, I Say Potato, You Say Tomato, I Say Book Sales.”

Chuck Sambuchino‘s blog has some commentary on “The Short Happy Lives of Short Story Collections.”

From Yahoo News: “4 Ways the IPO Will Change Facebook Forever.”

The Huffington Post has “11 Mistakes Writers Make When Approaching Literary Agents.”

Galley Cat offers a really great list of tips on “How To Sell Your Self-Published Book in Bookstores.”

More on Freelance Writing:

• Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer (Second Edition)
• The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Commercial Freelancer in Six Months or Less
• Secrets of a Freelance Writer, Third Edition: How to Make $100,000 a Year or More

Image: Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The great thing about social networking is sharing a passion and finding other like-minded individuals. Lucky for book lovers (and authors), there are many sites especially designed to share the love of books. With the following sites, book lovers can discuss what they are reading now, favorite books, and even those they really couldn’t get into.

Best of all, they can get recommendations on what to read next. Here are some social networking sites especially for book lovers.

Shelfari

Shelfari allows book lovers to create a virtual bookshelf that helps log how much someone has read. Shelfari has a blog that talks about popular books, author interviews, and other popular book-related news items. There is a widget for book lovers to show what they are reading on their own blog or website.

Goodreads

Goodreads has a variety of options for book lovers. People can look up favorite book quotes, gather friends together to form a book club, and answer trivia questions related to the written word.

Library Thing

Library Thing lets users list books they have read and enjoyed like the other sites, but they also offer up books for review. Some local author events are listed as well. It is a good source for authors and readers to interact.

aNobii

aNobii is a based in Hong Kong, and encourages readers to strike up online conversations with others on the site. According to their website, the name comes from the “first few syllables of Anobium Punctatum, which is the proper name for bookworms.” Users can get help navigating the site with a “most popular” list that shows what others are discussing, as well as books that are “most buzzed.”

Like the other sites listed, aNobii allows users to rate and review books as well as find other sites that sell works by their favorite authors.

Book lovers today have plenty of options on how to chat and interact with other people who share their love of the written word. Not only that, but many authors also frequent the aforementioned sites, which provides opportunity to interact with the person behind the writing. Finding great things to read has never been so easy.

Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s a question I get asked a lot: “Why isn’t my book selling?” This question isn’t reserved for the author who is clueless about marketing. I’ve been asked this by savvy authors, even business people who can’t seem to figure out the system for selling.

Sometimes the reasons why a book isn’t selling are easy: the cover is poor, the content is not edited or the topic is unappealing. But in most cases that I’ve seen, you need to dig deeper. So, overlooking the obvious, let’s go a step further because the mysteries of selling might be a lot easier to fix than you think.

1. Start Early: In many cases starting early means earlier than you think. Often, I see authors beginning their campaigns a month prior to book launch. If you do that, keep in mind that your results won’t show up for months (and months), often it takes up to six months to see anything you seed start to grow. That’s partially why marketing people will encourage you to start early because it can take so long to see results.

2. Limited availability: Having a book that can only be purchased off of your website isn’t a great way to promote a title. You want to make sure that the book is where your consumer is: on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and even if you aren’t stocked on a bookstore shelf, you want to be sure that someone can order it. Limit your book availability and you limit your success. If you don’t give your consumer enough places to get your book, they will probably get someone else’s title instead. Don’t let your marketing serve the competition better than it serves you.

3. The rule of seven: You need to be everywhere. A lot. But what does that mean, exactly? It means that your reader (or potential reader) needs to see your book in a lot of different places. Have you asked yourself how many ways you are marketing the book? Are you active in any social media? Do you participate in blogs? Are you getting reviews? Think of the seven ways or access points that you need for your book to gain traction with the audience. Seven seems to be the magic number for many marketing people so go with that, use it as a goal. Your book should have access points in seven different areas. With so much out there begging for your readers’ attention you want to be sure that your book is getting an equal amount of attention.

4. Multichannel marketing: How many different ways are you marketing your book? No, I don’t mean the rule of seven, though this applies here, too. What I mean is how many channels are you using to market your book to the reader? Email? Video? Print mailings? A successful campaign is one that encompasses the rule of seven, so seven public channels to reach your reader, but also consider multi-channel marketing, as well.

5. You don’t think this applies to you: Often when I give these talks, I have authors who say, “Well, this may be true for some, but it’s not really what I’m about.” It might not be what you are about, but I can guarantee you it applies to everyone, across the board. Are there success stories that break out of the norm? You bet, but it’s rare.

Now You Know, What Do You Do?

Let’s say that you’re reading this, you are knee-deep in promotion and thinking “oh, brother, this is me. What now?” A lot of authors just toss the first book out and focus on the second figuring they made the mistakes with the first and chalk it up to a “learning curve.” I don’t think that’s a great idea. You put a lot of work into that book, yes? Don’t you want it to succeed? I thought so. Here are some tips you can implement, right now, to get things back on track:

* Get to know successful authors: Yes, it’s good and cathartic to commiserate with other authors who feel their book isn’t selling, but beyond that it won’t really do much for your success. Step out of your comfort zone and start looking for authors you want to emulate. Successful authors who have it going on. Build your list. Find at least 10 authors in your market that are doing well and presumably selling books.

* Investigate: What do other authors do in your genre? You now have a list of other, successful authors, right? If you’ve collected this list, follow them on their blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest. Follow them everywhere, start to build your tribe. Get to know them almost better than you know your own marketing campaign. You may say “well, they have more money than I do to market!” That might be true, but I bet it’s not – not entirely anyway. Most of the really successful authors don’t get there with just a checkbook, they probably have a great sense of who their market is, what their market wants and exactly how to give it to them. I’m not telling you to copy, I’m telling you to learn from other successful authors.

* Google Alerts: Now that you have your list of fabulous authors, plug their names into Google Alerts and see where they show up. Yes, when I say investigate I mean doing just that. Do your homework. Why does this matter? Because the blogs they show up on will be great places for you to network, and guess what? All it costs is a little bit of time.

* Count the ways: How many different ways can a reader access you? Count them. I’m serious. You should have at least seven access points. Maybe you are syndicating articles, maybe you are on YouTube, maybe you are on Facebook, Pinterest, whatever it is it’s an access point. If you don’t have seven of them and aren’t sure where to start, go back to bullets two and three.

* Get rid of what’s not working: I was at an event a few weeks ago and talked to an author who was doing lots of Google ads. He was careful to stay within his daily budget, but he wasn’t sure if they were working. Why was he doing them? He had been to a seminar that talked about Google Ads and thought he’d give it a shot. Initially it did well, then not so much. He kept doing them because he thought eventually it would turn around. Sometimes things like ads have a lifespan, if you aren’t monitoring this stuff you’ll never know. Don’t hesitate to get rid of what’s not working and be brutally honest with yourself. Remember that if you keep doing something that’s not working it will take away time and probably money from doing something that could make your book successful. The choice is yours.

* Distribution: Make sure your book is out there, and I mean really out there. You may hate it that Amazon takes 55% of your book sales but would you rather have 45% of a sale or nothing at all? Don’t have an ebook yet? Why not? It’s easier than ever to have your book converted to an ebook. It’s so easy I’ve known authors to do it in less than 15 minutes. It’s no longer a matter of whether you can publish a book; it’s whether someone can find it. You might not be in stores nationwide, but if you can be on online e-tailers that’s a big and helpful start.

* Persistence: Maybe the biggest piece of success is persistence. I know I sound like a motivational speaker right now, but it’s true. Persist, persist, persist. Often I find that authors are just weeks away from their success and they give up because of some of the reasons cited in the first part of this article. Persist even on the days you can’t be bothered. On those days do just one thing. Just one.

The key to success isn’t always easy or clear-cut, but the key to failure often is. If you have produced a good looking, well-written book but it’s still not selling then go back through this article to find the missing piece or pieces. Once you do, I can almost guarantee your book will start to take off.

Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com

More About Book Selling and Promotion:

• Jump Start Your Book Sales: A Money-Making Guide for Authors, Independent Publishers and Small Presses
• 1001 Ways to Market Your Books (1001 Ways to Market Your Books: For Authors and Publishers)
• 21 Ways to Promote Your Book on Twitter

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