The Benefits of Hosting Others

The Benefits of Hosting Others

guest post by Jo Linsdell

A book tour has long been known as one of the most effective ways of creating a buzz about your book and growing your author brand. With internet you now have the opportunity to do a virtual book tour and reach even more people whilst leaving a virtual footprint that will keep your marketing efforts working for you long after the event is over.

The benefits of doing virtual book tours are numerous: collecting reviews, creating a buzz about your book, increased sales, can help become a best seller, strengthening author brand... the list goes on. What I want to share with you today though is the benefits of hosting.
I recently filmed this video where I talk about the benefits of hosting others.

Do you host others on your site? What other benefits have you noticed from hosting?

Jo Linsdell is a best selling author and illustrator, award winning blogger, and freelance writer. She is also the founder and organiser of the annual online event Promo Day (www.PromoDay.info). Her latest release Virtual Book Tours: Effective Online Book Promotion From the Comfort of Your Own Home is now available from Amazon. Find out more about her at her website www.JoLinsdell.com

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A heartfelt welcome today to Jo who dropped in to Slow and Steady Writers to talk about how to create a buzz for your book. Jo is not only an award-winning writer but an expert marketer as well. 
Best of all, she is a truly nice person, always willing to help others. When it comes to promotion, her halp and advice is invaluable. 

Virtual Book Tours

About the book:

Virtual Book Tours are a great way to create a buzz for a new release or to put life back into an older publication. 
In this book Jo takes you through everything you need to know to be able to set up and carry out a successful virtual book tour. The book is divided into 4 main sections for easy navigation: 
1) What is a Virtual Book Tour? 
2) How to organise your own tour 
3) Promoting a tour 
4) Useful resources.
You'll find it packed with links, tips, and advice to help make your tour a hit.

How to Succeed...

...without really trying is no longer an option. And to be truthful, success has a direct correlation with  achievable ambition. Deadlines met, articles written, books sold: all equate to success though they may not equate to fame. To succeed as a writer, have  the confidence to first of all write, and then to sell.

And there's the rub. The marketing and selling take time, often too much time out of the writing day. Very few writers have the luxury of treating their work as a full-time job. To add marketing into the tricky mix of life commitments can be one job too many.


Some writers are much better at marketing than others. For that reason banding and bonding in writers' groups makes total sense when it comes to spreading the word.

But choose carefully.


The Advantage of Writers' Groups

•  Meet like-minded authors with the same goals and aspirations
•  Ask for and receive advice and support about  writing and marketing
•  Access to all the knowledge and accumulated resources of the group as a whole
•  Support when it comes to promoting your materials. 

The Disadvantage of Writers' Groups

•  Too many emails, promoting work you  know nothing about.
•  Conflicting advice when it comes to problem solving. 
•  Too much time spent reading and learning from others and too little doing any work of your own. 
•   Too broad spectrum of interest.

January Marketing Ideas

The best promotion can often be invisible. Create a following for yourself by following others. Promoting to writers ia always good because all writers read, right? But not all readers write.

The January blog comment challenge at Mother Reader has already opened my eyes to new possibilities for writing, reading and promotion. Aimed mainly at children's and YA writers, it invites you to sign up and comment on five of the participating blogs per day. Not as arduous a task as it sounds. Comment on 100 blogs during 21 days. It has already started but you can easily catch up if you want to. I've been going for two days now and thoroughly enjoying it. Thanks Mary Jo for recommending this one.

Think about it. Your name linked to your website is heading every comment and you're hitting 100 new sites.

From participating, I found The European Reading Challenge  which again I shall most certainly take on. There are both European and American sections. (Apologies to my Australian friends. You'll have to check out the site for yourselves. LOL) For this we must read five books and review them before January 31 2013, each from a different European country and written by different European authors.

Several other challenges appear on the site and again it  seems to me a way of inculcating best practice  when it comes to enhancing

• your writing speed
• your literary knowlege
• interest in your own genre and books.

Anybody interested in joining me? Or do you have other challenges and award promotion possibilities lined up for this month?

Seven Steps to Writing for Article Directories

 Today I am delighted to welcome as a guest Karen Cioffi, writer, editor and marketing expert. Karen's children's book Walking Through Walls is riding high in the Preditors and Editors' 2011 Poll and you can vote for it here.

For those who aren't familiar with the book, it's a children's middle grade fantasy adventure. Find out more about Walking Through Walls.

 

If, like me, you were lucky enough to enrol in the course she co-hosted with Magdalena Bell at Muse Conference last year, you will already know how valuable her advice is.
Without more ado--over to Karen.

How to Attract Customers with Informational Marketing

7 Steps to Writing for Article Directories

( from How to Attract Customers With Informational Marketing)

by Karen Cioffi

Among marketing strategies, writing for article directories is certainly up there. It offers a large readership with the advantage of having those readers click back to your site. It also offers the opportunity of those readers reprinting your article on their blogs and in their newsletters.

While it is writing for free, it should be considered a part of your business expense, at least your time aspect of it. Just like any other form of marketing it is used to create and increase your visibility. It’s an investment.

While it can get tedious having to write and submit articles to the directories, the articles don’t have to be long. Here are seven steps to writing for the directories:

1. Create a title

Your title is by far the most important element of your article. The keywords in the title will allow the search engines to categorize your article properly. This in turn provides a trail for online searchers looking for the topic of your content to find your article.

The title and title keywords should accurately reflect what the article is about. If they don’t, you’ll lose credibility with the search engines.

To check out the effectiveness of your keywords try:

http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

2. Write an outline

This is optional, because there are many writers who can write with the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants method. But, if you are more comfortable with an outline, that’s fine. It does provide structure.

3. Create List, How-to, and Step-by-Step articles

This is a popular way to go. Readers love to see simple 1 2 3 lists of what they should do or should NOT do.

Be sure to include your keyword/s in the title, subtitles, first paragraph and a couple of times throughout the article. Just don’t overdo it.

4. Parts of the article

Your first paragraph should be interesting and let the reader know what the article is about, but don’t give away too much – you want the reader to continue reading.

Your second paragraph or section should inform and elaborate on the first paragraph. This part should fulfill the reader’s expectations.

Your last paragraph should sum up what the article is about and conclude with a lead-in to your resource box.

5. Write the minimum word count or just above

Check the guidelines for each particular directory. The minimum word count is usually around 400. But, check the site to make sure. Burn-out is easy with article marketing, especially when you’re writing for your own sites also. Keeping the articles short and to the point helps in this area.

6. The resource box

Some sites allow you to include a resource box which is about you and what you can offer the reader. Check the site’s guidelines because they may have specific requirements for the length of the resource box in relation to the length of the article. And, they may prohibit links to affiliate sites or promotional sites.

7. SUBMIT

Once your article is complete, submit to a number of article directories.

Note: If you are submitting to a lot of directories, try to change the title of the article and spin the content a bit for each directory. This will make the search engines think it’s new content.

If you want to be sure your content won’t be picked up as duplicate content by Google, check out the site below; it will give you a duplicate content score.

WordsFinder Duplicate Content Checker and Article Rewrite Comparison

http://www.wordsfinder.com/tool_duplicate_content_checker.php

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Karen Cioffi is a published author, freelance writer, and marketer, and to start the New Year with a BANG, from January 1 through February 28, 2012, she is offering all her writing and marketing e-books (purchased directly from her site/s using the Paypal SHOPPING CART) for  $1.19 each. And, this will include new titles added within that time period.

For a complete list of the available titles and links to more information, visit Karen's website.

For a complete list (with brief descriptions of each ebook) go to: http://www.karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com/p/karens-books.html