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Category : Marketing and Platforms
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: 7 Ways to Grow Your Blog Readership"Thursdays with Amanda: 7 Ways to Grow Your Blog Readership
Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent.
Thanks for tuning in to my ongoing discussion on author platform! We’re on post two of a three-post miniseries on building your platform through blogging. (If you missed it, last week we talked about the components of a great blog post). This week, we’re going to look at some things you can do to improve traffic and blog searchability. (Is that a word? you ask. Thanks to Google, yes).
Seven Ways to Build a Platform Through Blogging:
1. Title it right – Google is structured so that the title of your blog post helps determine its position within searches. The more searchable terms/keywords that a title has, the more likely it is to be pulled up in a search result. Confused?
Think of it like this…When people do a Google search, Google, in its infinite wisdom, pulls out what it deems to be the keywords of that search. You can throw an entire sentence at it, and it will pull out the proper nouns, nouns, and possibly verbs. It then moves across the Internet to find a match for those terms, and relies heavily on page titles to do so. This is why it’s key to avoid vague blog post titles, such as “Introducing my new book!” and “Happy to be home!”. These will get you nowhere because the words within them are overused. They aren’t specific enough. Still confused? Stay with me here…
Let’s say you do a blog post on your next book, which is about a cowboy winning the heart of a school teacher. You want to name the post “My next book!” but realize that would be Google suicide because the odds of your post coming up when someone searches for “book”
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: 5 Rules of Blogging Well"
Thursdays with Amanda: 5 Rules of Blogging Well
As promised, this week we're continuing our Platform Monster discussion by talking about blogging.
Blogging is the easiest way for any author to get their feet wet when it comes to online promotions. It has a free-form approach, meaning you can be as long-winded as you like, and it’s fairly simple to navigate, with free blogging services available from blogspot.com, wordpress.com and more. They even come with tutorials. It’s a win-win.
But blogging doesn’t come without its share of hurdles.
There are approximately 150+ million blogs. That’s 150+ million peopl screaming for attention. For your blog to rise out of this noisy mess, it needs to be good. It needs to be really good. And for it to result in a salable platform, well…let’s just say it needs to be near perfect.
So let’s start with the basics and build from there.
Blogging 101
The reason there are 150+ million blogs is because everyone has something to say…or at least they think they do. Of those 150+ million blogs, 149.9 million are written poorly. And the basic rule of writing is that you don’t get anywhere with a poorly-written blog, manuscript or what-have-you, right?
So let’s take a look at some of the most ignored, broken and abused rules of a well-crafted blog post.
Five (of the many) Rules of Blogging:
1. Stick to the goal – Before you begin, give your blog a goal (this is a good rule of thumb for ALL of your social media sites).
Do you want to promote yourself as an author/speaker/expert? Do you want to promote your book? Do you want to connect with fans? Do you want to offer an online experience that ties in with your book? These
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: 5 Rules of Blogging Well"
Thursdays with Amanda: 5 Rules of Blogging Well
As promised, this week we're continuing our Platform Monster discussion by talking about blogging.
Blogging is the easiest way for any author to get their feet wet when it comes to online promotions. It has a free-form approach, meaning you can be as long-winded as you like, and it’s fairly simple to navigate, with free blogging services available from blogspot.com, wordpress.com and more. They even come with tutorials. It’s a win-win.
But blogging doesn’t come without its share of hurdles.
There are approximately 150+ million blogs. That’s 150+ million peopl screaming for attention. For your blog to rise out of this noisy mess, it needs to be good. It needs to be really good. And for it to result in a salable platform, well…let’s just say it needs to be near perfect.
So let’s start with the basics and build from there.
Blogging 101
The reason there are 150+ million blogs is because everyone has something to say…or at least they think they do. Of those 150+ million blogs, 149.9 million are written poorly. And the basic rule of writing is that you don’t get anywhere with a poorly-written blog, manuscript or what-have-you, right?
So let’s take a look at some of the most ignored, broken and abused rules of a well-crafted blog post.
Five (of the many) Rules of Blogging:
1. Stick to the goal – Before you begin, give your blog a goal (this is a good rule of thumb for ALL of your social media sites).
Do you want to promote yourself as an author/speaker/expert? Do you want to promote your book? Do you want to connect with fans? Do you want to offer an online experience that ties in with your book? These
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Continue Reading "Creating a Career Plan for Writers"
Creating a Career Plan for Writers
I have a background in organizational development — that is, the study of how an organization grows and changes over time. In my job as a literary agent, I've found it's proven helpful when talking to writers about their careers. You see, my contention is that some agents pay lip service to "helping authors with career planning," but many don't really have a method for doing that. (Actually, from the look of it, some don't even know what it means. I think "career planning" to some agents is defined as "having a book contract.") During my doctoral program at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!), I served as a Graduate Teaching Fellow in the Career Planning and Placement Office. The focus was on helping people graduating in the arts figure out how to create a career plan, and that experience allowed me the opportunity to apply the principles of organizational theory to the real-world setting of those trying to make a living with words. So here are a few things I like to consider when talking with a writer…
First, I want to get to know the author. Who is he (or she)? What's the platform he brings to the process? Does she speak? If so, where, how often, to whom, to how many, and on what topics? Does he have experience with other media? What kind? What's her message? What books has she done in the past? What other writing is the author doing that could boost the platform?
Second, I want to find out about the author's past – the significant events and accomplishments. I also like to make sure I'm clear on things like strengths, gifts, burdens… all of that helps give me context when discussing career paths.
Third, we have to talk about perspective – what is important to the author? How does he define success? What does she need to change? What do they want to
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Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Success with Writing Articles"
Thursdays with Amanda: Success with Writing Articles
NOTE: Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent.
We’re on week three of tackling the Platform Monster. Week one we talked about numbers as in how big an author platform should be, and week two we took the first step toward achieving those numbers by acknowledging that growing a platform should be like playing with dominos. You move forward, tile by tile, focusing on one thing at a time until the big payoff when everything falls into place and you have your platform.
So now let’s dig deeper. Each week, we’ll take a look at one of those platform components (Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Speaking) and I’ll give insight into how to do them right and reap the biggest reward.
This week, we’re talking about WRITING ARTICLES.
I chose this one to start us off, because aside from blogging, it comes more naturally to most writers than, say, YouTube vlogging and public speaking. It also is one of the easiest ways to ensure your name gets in front of lots and lots of people.
Here’s my thinking…you Tweet something or write a blog post or throw something up onto the Internet, and unless you happen to be talking about a trending or searchable topic, it only gets read by your immediate audience. But with articles (especially print articles), your words will be read by a majority of that publication’s readership. And 99.9% of those readers are people that you haven’t met before. So while pitching articles and columns may be a bit outdated, it’s one of the best ways to get your words in front of NEW readers.
So how do you see success with articles? Here’s what I recommend:
1. Take a look at what you write and identify the topics you specialize
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Continue Reading "A Series of Fortunate Events – a guest blog from Gina Holmes"
A Series of Fortunate Events – a guest blog from Gina Holmes
It's not everyday that a debut novel becomes a bestseller, which is perhaps why people are curious as to why and how Crossing Oceans made its way on to the CBA, ECPA, Amazon, and PW Religion lists.
Anyone who regularly follows the bestseller lists for a few months will notice that while the book titles change, the authors rarely do. People like Ted Dekker, Francine Rivers, Karen Kingsbury, etc show up there over and over—making it difficult for a new name to squeeze in. (This is true in the CBA as well as the general market).
There is, of course, no single way to turn a book into a bestseller. If there were, everyone would be doing it with every book. I can’t speak for the rest of debut novelist’s who were lucky enough to break in, but this is how it went for me:
· I had a champion.
Actually several. It started with a top-notch agent, Chip MacGregor, who championed the book and sold it to Tyndale House. Karen Watson, Associate Publisher there, read a partial manuscript and became passionate about it. She took a risk and gave an untried author a chance.
This wouldn’t have happened though if the idea had been poorly executed. It took years to hone my skills. Over the course of ten years, I'd written several manuscripts that were ultimately rejected, read every how-to writing book I could get my hands on, and aligned with the toughest critique partners I could find.
Lucky for me, the rest of the team at Tyndale House also got excited and additional resources were thrown at the book. One "higher-up" from Tyndale commented it was one of the best debuts he’d ever read. That’s the kind of excitement that helps sell a book.
· I had a great editor.
I doubt I have to convince writers how important this is. Kathy Olson saw my vision for the
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Continue Reading "Thursday with Amanda: Growing a Platform Is Like Dominos"
Thursday with Amanda: Growing a Platform Is Like Dominos
NOTE: Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent.
So now you know what to shoot for in terms of numbers (if you missed it, last Thursday we talked about how big an author platform should be). But as many of you pointed out, those numbers seem impossible. The time and effort required to grow such a following had some of you envisioning yourself with an impressive platform sometime in the year 2030. While others flat out admitted that they didn’t have a single sales bone in their body. You’re artists, after all. And artists don’t always make the most sociable, friendly, outgoing, spin doctoring bunch.
So what’s the secret? How can these numbers be achieved?
Let me explain it like this…most authors, when embarking on a quest to tackle the platform demon, treat it like spaghetti. They throw everything against the wall to see what sticks. They start a Facebook group, a Twitter account, a blog, a website, a Goodreads account, a newsletter and on and on and on until they feel they have all of the possible platform-building areas covered.
And then they’re surprised when nothing happens. When their Facebook group hovers around 50 followers—most of which are personal or family friends. When their Twitter account has more spam followers than real followers and their website stats don’t climb above 30 visits a day. They’re surprised by this, because they’re doing everything they’re supposed to do and nothing is working. And more than anything, they’re exhausted. They’ve spread themselves so thin, they can barely keep track of what was said where. At this point, most give up. They tried their best, and it didn’t work.
But platform is nothing like spaghetti. It’s more like a game of dominos (as in the game in
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Continue Reading "Thursday with Amanda: Growing a Platform Is Like Dominos"
Thursday with Amanda: Growing a Platform Is Like Dominos
So now you know what to shoot for in terms of numbers (if you missed it, last Thursday we talked about how big an author platform should be). But as many of you pointed out, those numbers seem impossible. The time and effort required to grow such a following had some of you envisioning yourself with an impressive platform sometime in the year 2030. While others flat out admitted that they didn’t have a single sales bone in their body. You’re artists, after all. And artists don’t always make the most sociable, friendly, outgoing, spin doctoring bunch.
So what’s the secret? How can these numbers be achieved?
Let me explain it like this…most authors, when embarking on a quest to tackle the platform demon, treat it like spaghetti. They throw everything against the wall to see what sticks. They start a Facebook group, a Twitter account, a blog, a website, a Goodreads account, a newsletter and on and on and on until they feel they have all of the possible platform-building areas covered.
And then they’re surprised when nothing happens. When their Facebook group hovers around 50 followers—most of which are personal or family friends. When their Twitter account has more spam followers than real followers and their website stats don’t climb above 30 visits a day. They’re surprised by this, because they’re doing everything they’re supposed to do and nothing is working. And more than anything, they’re exhausted. They’ve spread themselves so thin, they can barely keep track of what was said where. At this point, most give up. They tried their best, and it didn’t work.
But platform is nothing like spaghetti. It’s more like a game of dominos (as in the game in
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Continue Reading "Should I be investing in my own publicity?"
Should I be investing in my own publicity?
I've had a few people write to me and ask about the marketing posts I did a couple weeks ago. Several have wanted to know, "When should I consider spending my own money on my book's publicity?"
The answer is probably, "When you feel the marketing people at your publishing house aren't doing enough," except that NO author ever really believes the marketing types are doing enough for their book. (It's true. I've seen bestselling authors who are getting full page ads complain about the lack of effort from the marketing staff.) I suppose every author would like to see the marketing department try harder, do more, be more creative, and get away from doing the same things that don't work, all for no cost. But the publishers are all trying to do their best. One young publicist might have 20 or 30 books she's working on, so your book may not get a ton of attention.
So again, let's just work on the assumption that YOU are in charge of the marketing. Anything your publisher does is great, and by all means you should express your appreciation for them sending out review copies or setting you up on some blogs to talk about your book. Hey, at least they're doing SOMETHING. But yes, it's possible your book may need a boost when it comes to publicity if it's really going to grab some attention. Figuring out what to do next is the key.
A lot of authors want to simply hire an outside publicist. That may work, or it may be an expensive mistake. Let me suggest that the first "outside" person who needs to get involved is you. It bears repeating: YOU are in charge of marketing your book. You. Not the publisher, who will help you but may not do all that much unless you're a proven bestseller. You. Nobody else knows your message as
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Continue Reading "Should I be investing in my own publicity?"
Should I be investing in my own publicity?
I've had a few people write to me and ask about the marketing posts I did a couple weeks ago. Several have wanted to know, "When should I consider spending my own money on my book's publicity?"
The answer is probably, "When you feel the marketing people at your publishing house aren't doing enough," except that NO author ever really believes the marketing types are doing enough for their book. (It's true. I've seen bestselling authors who are getting full page ads complain about the lack of effort from the marketing staff.) I suppose every author would like to see the marketing department try harder, do more, be more creative, and get away from doing the same things that don't work, all for no cost. But the publishers are all trying to do their best. One young publicist might have 20 or 30 books she's working on, so your book may not get a ton of attention.
So again, let's just work on the assumption that YOU are in charge of the marketing. Anything your publisher does is great, and by all means you should express your appreciation for them sending out review copies or setting you up on some blogs to talk about your book. Hey, at least they're doing SOMETHING. But yes, it's possible your book may need a boost when it comes to publicity if it's really going to grab some attention. Figuring out what to do next is the key.
A lot of authors want to simply hire an outside publicist. That may work, or it may be an expensive mistake. Let me suggest that the first "outside" person who needs to get involved is you. It bears repeating: YOU are in charge of marketing your book. You. Not the publisher, who will help you but may not do all that much unless you're a proven bestseller. You. Nobody else knows your message as