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      Category : Marketing and Platforms

      • October 16, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: Should I Have a Book Website?

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        Amanda LuedekeAmanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

        Last week I identified some web options for authors looking to create a website. Shortly after, I received an email, asking me if I would consider talking about book websites. And I’m happy to oblige.

        THE PROBLEM WITH A BOOK WEBSITE

        Many authors wrongly assume that by creating a site dedicated to their book, they will generate sales. But I’ve never ever seen this work. Sure, it may feel like you’re really nailing the marketing thing by having a book site, and it may look impressive and make you seem like you’ve got things under control.

        But a book site is no different than an author website or a blog or anything else that you create and then put up on the Internet. NO ONE WILL VISIT THE SITE UNLESS THEY KNOW THAT IT EXISTS.

        And furthermore, for those who DO visit the site, they certainly won’t revisit if they don’t have a reason to.  Why? Content on these sites is very stagnant. There is usually one draw to get people there (maybe they clicked on an ad or were promised a quiz or a download), but once that bait has been taken, there is no reason for them to return. I know that I certainly don’t spend my time visiting book websites. Do you?

        So the mentality that a book site is a great option is false, in my opinion. You are spending time and energy pushing people to a site that will not keep them. Will not engage them. Will offer them a simple YES or

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Should I Have a Book Website?"

      • October 9, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: Web Hosting Analysis for Authors, COMPLETE LIST

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        Amanda Luedeke agentAmanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

        We are continuing our analysis of various website services, keeping authors in mind as we review! I have the WHOLE LIST HERE. So this is it, folks. My subpar analysis of all of these options…from one person who doesn’t speak geek, to another:

        WEB HOSTING ANALYSIS FOR AUTHORS

        Hostgator.com –

        • PLANS: for an author website, you would probably only need the Hatchling or Baby plans.
        • PERKS: Compatible with WordPress; Unlimited usage space; 24/7 support; weekly backups; Free website transfer (not totally sure about this one)
        • COST: Hatchling is $3.96/month when you order 36 months. Baby is $6.36/month. They also try to sell you other things like web backup, SEO help, and site security. The domain is roughly $12.95/yr should you purchase it from them.

        BlueHost.com –

        • PLANS: shared hosting plans: for an author website, you’d want  the Plus Plan or the Business Pro plan. WordPress hosting plan: for an author website, the Blogger plan looks great.
        • PERKS: $29.99 for 45-minute 1-on-1 help session; Free domain name; $99 website migration
        • COST: $5.95/mo for 36 months for the Plus Plan; $13.95/mo for 36 months for Business Pro plan; $24.99/month for WordPress Plan

        TigerTech.com –

        • PLANS: Gold and Platinum
        • PERKS: A set monthly cost that doesn’t seem to fluctuate; Free domain; No outsourced support
        • CONS: they have limits on usage, and they tout free setup, but most companies also offer this
        • COST: Gold Plan $9.95/mo; Platinum plan $19.95/mo

        iPage.com –

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Web Hosting Analysis for Authors, COMPLETE LIST"

      • October 2, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: Web Hosting Analysis for Authors, Part 1

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        2013amanda2Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

        Alight, folks. Here is round one of analyzing the various website hosting services that were recommended to me. All in the name of finding the PERFECT fit for an author site.

        Now remember, I don’t really know much about tech stuff. I’m your run-of-the-mill person who can stumble through it without totally understanding what’s going on. So, my analysis reflects that! I’m sure there will be important things that I’m going to miss, and if you spot them, be sure to let me know! Especially if I have missed an important item that would be a deciding factor for an author website.

        WEB HOSTING ANALYSIS FOR AUTHORS

        Hostgator.com –

        • PLANS: for an author website, you would probably only need the Hatchling or Baby plans.
        • PERKS: Compatible with WordPress; Unlimited usage space; 24/7 support; weekly backups; Free website transfer (not totally sure about this one)
        • COST: Hatchling is $3.96/month when you order 36 months. Baby is $6.36/month. They also try to sell you other things like web backup, SEO help, and site security. The domain is roughly $12.95/yr should you purchase it from them.

        BlueHost.com –

        • PLANS: shared hosting plans: for an author website, you’d want  the Plus Plan or the Business Pro plan. WordPress hosting plan: for an author website, the Blogger plan looks great.
        • PERKS: $29.99 for 45-minute 1-on-1 help session; Free domain name; $99 website migration
        • COST: $5.95/mo for 36 months for the Plus Plan; $13.95/mo for 36 months for Business Pro plan; $24.99/month for WordPress Plan

        TigerTech.com –

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Web Hosting Analysis for Authors, Part 1"

      • September 25, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: A Pinterest-y Placeholder for Next Week’s Post

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        literary agentAmanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         

         

        Looks like I’ll have to postpone my promised analysis of website tools. Sorry! I’m at a conference, and haven’t had time to do the intended research.

        Next week we’ll be back on track, but in the meantime, if you haven’t done so already and are really in the mood to read about marketing, check out this post I did some time ago on Jane Friedman’s blog.

        5 Ideas for Using Pinterest as an Author

        How do YOU use Pinterest? Is it worth your time?

         

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: A Pinterest-y Placeholder for Next Week’s Post"

      • September 18, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: Helpful Tools for Building, Hosting, and Designing Author Websites

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        literary agentAmanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

         

         

        A funny thing happened the moment I joined MacGregor Literary. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the moment I joined. Could have been a moment or two later.

        Anyway, I became the “tech person.”

        Due to what was probably a massive dose of ageism and the fact that I knew how to blog on WordPress (whoopty-do), I was soon the de facto knower of all things tech. So, whenever our website broke, the solution was to call Amanda. Or the posts weren’t showing up like they should–call Amanda. Or we needed to set up some kind of new account or change something on our site or figure out why in the world Twitter was being crazy–call Amanda.

        Eventually, this responsibility was shared with another within our company, and rightfully so. Because here’s the truth…

        I know little-to-nothing about tech stuff. I can’t write or read HTML. I have no idea what “Nameservers” actually means. Or if I’ve even spelled it correctly. I can barely navigate GoDaddy (in my defense, it’s the least intuitive, clunkiest website ever), and I’ve just now gotten the hang of a few website building tools through WordPress…and only because I painstakingly replicated what I saw a REAL webmaster do.

        And yet…I’m one of the go-to tech people.

        Yay me.

        My husband always gets a kick out of this, because when setting up electronics or the like, I’m the type to refer to wires as “the blue one” and “the spirally short one,” whereas he says “input” and “output” or something of the sort. Or

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Helpful Tools for Building, Hosting, and Designing Author Websites"

      • September 4, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: How to Effectively Communicate Your Author Platform–No Matter How Big or Small

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        literary agentAmanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

        I’m sure you’ve been in this position: You’re sitting across from an agent or editor. And despite their attempts at making it a comfortable meeting, you’re experiencing a range of emotion. Panic. Confidence. Fear. Hope. Anxiety. Not to mention the shaking. Or the muddled thoughts. Or the ohmygosh she didn’t even look at my one-sheet.

        And then the bomb drops…the agent/editor asks about platform.

        If you have a massive platform, then chances are you totally nailed this. But if your platform is anything less than massive, then things don’t go as well as planned. You’ve been preparing for this moment, but you quickly realize that your rehearsed platform monologue isn’t working. And then the questions come, and you find that you don’t have the answers. Or maybe you do, but they’re not coming out as confidently as you’d hoped. And regardless of whether you come away with a rejection or a request to send the proposal, if you’re like me, you’re thinking about what went wrong. How things could be better. And what the heck do these people want from me?!

        5 Things Agents or Editors DON’T Want to Hear When Asking About Author Platform

        1. Yearly stats. When your blog numbers aren’t that impressive, it’s understandable that you’d want to try and put them in the best light. The primary way authors do this is by communicating yearly blog or website numbers as opposed to monthly. So, instead of 500 unique visitors every month, they would say something like 6000 unique visitors…and leave it at that.

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: How to Effectively Communicate Your Author Platform–No Matter How Big or Small"

      • August 28, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: How to Focus Your Book Marketing Efforts

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        Amanda Luedeke Literary AgentAmanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

        Last Saturday and Sunday, we offered our Marketing Seminar first to MacLit clients and then to the general writing public. There was a ton of great content, all focused on book- and brand-marketing. But one theme…one rule seemed to really rise to the top regardless of the topic or who was speaking.

        When it comes to book marketing, you don’t need to do everything.

        Whenever anyone talks about marketing (myself included), it turns into a kind of free-for-all. We cover Pinterest and YouTube and blogging and Facebook and LinkedIn and Google+ and soon it all seems very overwhelming, and authors come away thinking they need to sign up for this or that or they need to relaunch things that they’d previously abandoned.

        Nothing could be further from the truth.

        We cover all of these topics because there’s no one-size-fits-all marketing approach. What works for one romance novelist won’t work for another. So, we cover the bases in hopes that you will know what to filter out. That you’ll stay abreast of your options, but that you’ll only spend time on the areas that are a fit for YOU and YOUR audience.

        But of course, this assumes that you know what those areas are.

        Identify the areas in which you’re strongest.

        Here’s how we helped the folks at our seminar uncover which areas were working the best for them…

        The following is a list of potential author platform areas:

        • Facebook:
        • Twitter:
        • Goodreads:
        • LinkedIn:
        • YouTube:
        • Instagram:
        • Google+:
        • Pinterest:
        • Newsletter:
        • Blog:
        • Website:
        • Articles:
        • Events:
        • Radio:
        • TV:
        • Other:

        Go ahead and fill

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      • August 21, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: THE EXTROVERTED WRITER GIVEAWAY!

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        2013amanda2Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

        I had a few guest posts hit the web this week.

        I talked about FINDING TIME FOR BOOK MARKETING over at Routines for Writers.

        And if you’ve ever wondered WHAT IS AN AUTHOR PLATFORM, then check out my post on SalomaFurlong.com.

        AND while you’re at it, enter to win a FREE copy of The Extroverted Writer!

        Goodreads Book Giveaway

        The Extroverted Writer by Amanda Luedeke

        The Extroverted Writer

        by Amanda Luedeke

        Giveaway ends August 31, 2014.

        See the giveaway details
        at Goodreads.
        Enter to win

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: THE EXTROVERTED WRITER GIVEAWAY!"

      • August 14, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: Book Marketing Challenge, week 3

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        2013amanda2Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

        Last week, I invited all of you to participate in ANOTHER Book Marketing challenge! We did one the week before, and it was so much easier than I think any of us anticipated that I figured we should give it another go.

        Truth be told, I’m just trying to get all of you into the habit of doing this 🙂

        Okay, so the rules are that you challenge yourself to complete 5 marketing tasks for your book or author brand (or what-have-you). You then have one week to complete those tasks.

        Here’s how I did this week:

        5 MORE Marketing tasks for The Extroverted Writer

        1. Comment on five blogs (oh yeah…you heard me! I’m upping my game). This was harder than I anticipated, so I ended up commenting on a few blogs and then taking to Twitter. Twitter is much easier to search and find conversations that you can infiltrate. I did this and had great results. My Twitter feed seemed to really be buzzing there for a bit.

        2. Look into a Goodreads giveaway (and set one up if possible). Haha I did exactly this…I looked into it. I’m probably going to schedule one in the next week or so.

        3. BUY MY WEB DOMAIN!! Time to stop relying on the agency site as my main hub…gonna get my own space. Ugh, I am at times a major deliberator. And I’ve been deliberating about my website for AGES. Who should host? Where should I buy my domain? What template should I use? I’m drowning in my

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Book Marketing Challenge, week 3"

      • August 7, 2014

        Thursdays with Amanda: Book Marketing Challenge, Week 2

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        2013amanda2Amanda Luedeke is a literary agent with MacGregor Literary. Every Thursday, she posts about growing your author platform. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaluedeke or join her Facebook group to stay current with her wheelings and dealings as an agent. Her author marketing book, The Extroverted Writer, is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

        So last week I bemoaned my book sales and chalked it up to my overall lack of marketing enthusiasm this summer. To get myself out of the rut, I decided to make a list of five thing that I was going to accomplish to market my book over the next week. I then invited YOU to join in.

        5 marketing ideas. 1 week to get them done.

        Ten or so of you took me up on the challenge. HOW DID YOU DO? I’m asking you, Diana, Edward, Melissa, Raj, Robin, Chelsea, Rachel, and Saloma? And anyone else out there who played along maybe a bit more unofficially??? Let me know how your week went!

        Here are my results…

        5 MARKETING TASKS FOR THE EXTROVERTED WRITER

        1. Find a blog that I’ve never appeared on before and approach them about doing a post.  Done…we’ll see if they take me up on the offer.

        2. Follow up on that article that I wrote for that one online magazine and push them to run it. Done…they’re choosing not to run it 🙁 WAAHHHH!!!

        3. Think up an event/party/contest that I can do on social media in the next few weeks. Ugh, will need more time with this. Just can’t think of anything that will be super worthwhile for writers but also doable on my end.

        4. Send a newsletter out to all those people who first signed up to be notified when the book released. Let them know it’s now in print. Done!!

        5. Find two writer-related blogs and leave comments.

        Continue Reading "Thursdays with Amanda: Book Marketing Challenge, Week 2"