NoraLyn Blogs $uccess, Your Path to a Successful Book: March 2009

The Hill Team is fortunate to know author and reviewer Susan Haley. We were pleased when she reviewed "Till Death Do Us Part," by David. A. Zurbriggen. Norm and I had edited this book and were more than pleased with Susan's review of this true life experience. Thank you Susan.

Review for:
"Till Death Do Us Part"
By:
David A. Zurbriggen

Having trod this road myself, I can attest to the courage, as well as the compassion, put forth by Mr. Zurbriggen in his new book, Til Death Do Us Part. This compelling story has a two-fold, an almost oxymoronic, affect on the reader. It is, at once, both heart-rending and uplifting. For me, also a writer, it brought forth both empathy and a joy at the power of writing to assist in the healing process.

With Cancer being one of the top two killers in our country today, the potential number of people that can be helped by the personal sharing of those who've gone through the ordeal is many. Often, stories of this nature are written by the survivor of the battles to offer inspiration and guidance for one making the trek. This story, however, comes from a different perspective with an even larger potential audience. It reveals the effects of this dread disease on the family unit, most especially the children and spouse. It goes beyond the diseased victim to the whole of those affected, and the process following the loss of a non-survivor. In this case, a devoted wife and mother of three daughters.

The author's magnificent summation of the truths and realities of losing a loved one, and to the guidance actually given by the one lost to those left, lifts up both those having traveled the road and those that will someday find themselves about to embark on any journey that results in one going on and one remaining behind. I‚Äôd say that includes everyone living.

Susan Haley, Author
RAINY DAY PEOPLE
FIBERS IN THE WEB

**Susan Haley is the published author of two books, several articles on networking, an award-winning poet, a contract copy editor and book reviewer for AME Marketing. She is a columnist for ‚ÄúThe Florida Writer‚Äù the official magazine of the Florida Writers Association, and serves as Facilitator for the Sarasota County Chapter. The audio version of her novel ‚ÄúRAINY DAY PEOPLE‚Äù was awarded runner-up Finalist in the 2008 Indie Excellence National Book Awards. She also contributes a variety of editorials and excerpts of her work to various E-zines, newsletters, and local papers, and is currently working on her second novel ‚ÄúThe House is Burning‚Äù and a third book coming out this fall from Infinity Publishing. Susan can be contacted at http://www.sucarha.com/ or shaley1112@verizon.net.

I hope you enjoyed Susan's review. This book is perfect for any family you know dealing with a severe illness. You can purchase it on Amazon or from Buy Books on the Web.

Maralyn D. Hill, President
International Food Wine & Travel Writers Association
Books By Hills Success Log Global Log

The best way to increase traffic to your blog is to get other bloggers to visit and link to your blog. This is not as easy as it may seem. So, we‚Äôd suggest starting with one or two at a time.

They need to be customized and bloggers need to know you‚Äôve read their posts more than once. Reference their recent posts. Keep it simple.

If you do not get a response from the blogger, you can follow up once, but that is it. Let it go and move on to the next one. Popular blogs get many e-mail requests. They do not have time or interest to get involved with everyone. But, be sure to put a link to your blog and mention a post that may be of interest. Bloggers like incoming links. We suggest linking to their blog from yours before you approach them.

This hint comes from Penny Sansevieri. When you reference an article from another publication in your blog, be sure to insert the web address for that article. That will give you an incoming and outgoing link, which will increase your presence (platform) on the web.

This continues with our next post.

Be sure to sign up for a copy of our new posts as soon as they happen. We do not sell your names and you can remove yourself from list whenever you want.

Maralyn D. Hill and Brenda C. Hill

Books By Hills
SLOG: Success Tips Global Log

Interview with Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn: Marketing yourself and your books online.

Frequently when reading my numerous online newsletters or forum posts, I'll wonder why I spend 30 minutes to 1 hour a day reading this material. But then, one day, I'll discover 4 or 5 new, important aspects to the writing and publishing world that matter a great deal. That is how I met Joanna--she made a great post on a forum which generated many comments and I had to address one of the comments. Now, it seems like we know each other.

After Joanna asked to interview me, I thought, what a great idea. The Hill Team does not view books that cover our area as off limits for promoting. In fact, we stress over and over, we are continually learning from others and enjoy having the opportunity to promote others.

Joanna has two new books that will soon be on Amazon -- From Idea to Book and From Book to Market . Joanna's first book was How to Enjoy Your Job.

Since Joanna is doing such a great job of promoting herself online, we have asked her to discuss and share with us that aspect of marketing.

Joanna, would you introduce yourself and your books?

I published my first book, How to Enjoy Your Job in April 2008, after 23 years of wanting to be an author! It was a dream come true for me.

I have been a business consultant for 12 years working in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. So many office workers are unhappy in their jobs, and I was one of them, so I wanted to help people get out of that misery. The book offers strategies, tips and inspiration to help people make the most of their working lives. It has helped a number of people change career entirely so I am happy it is helpful to people. In writing it, I also changed my own life, which is so often a side effect of writing!

I have also written From Idea to Book, which gives people all the information they need to write and get published. Then I have From Book to Market, which is all about sales, marketing and book promotion -- after all, authors want to make money too!

I am also the Director of The Creative Penn, which helps people achieve their dream of being an author by providing information on writing, publishing, sales and promotion for books. I have just given up business consulting to run this full-time which is very exciting!

Are you self-published and if so, what led you to that process?

Yes, all my books are self-published. I didn't know anything about the publishing world when I wrote How to Enjoy Your Job. I just had something important to say and wanted it out there.
I finished the book and then started investigating my options (tip: authors should investigate publishing before writing!). I met some agents and was astonished to find that if my book was accepted, it would take 12-18 months to get published. But I had a finished book in my hands and I wanted it out there now!

I also tried a few agents and publishers and got a few rejections. This process was way too slow for me, so I investigated self-publishing. I used Lulu.com and my book was on Amazon.com within a few weeks and started selling immediately. I then started to investigate all the ways authors can promote themselves and decided to just continue self-publishing for my next books.
The author has full control, larger profits and the ability to move quickly into new markets. Also, the traditional publishers are suffering greatly with the global recession and are not taking many new authors so independent publishing and print-on-demand has become more popular.

I know you use ebooks--have you found them a successful means of getting your book out there?

Ebooks are brilliant!

They are virtual products so you can sell them to people all over the world. There is no warehousing, no shipping and little overheads. You can use Paypal so you don't need a special account, and you can sell all kinds of different things e.g. full length book, or special reports or leaflets plus audios and eclasses. You can make money with ebooks!

They are up and coming in 2009 so authors need to understand them. The Kindle, iPhone Stanza, Blackberry reader apps, and all the other ways to read ebooks are all taking off. Amazon wants to grow digital revenue and reduce warehousing and distribution costs and people are increasingly mobile. The good news is for authors that it levels the playing field. Your ebook can make it if you publicise it and make it available. An easy way to get started is to use Smashwords which converts Word documents into all the various formats. I use it for my books -- here is a post on how to use it.

With marketing online, do you find one site more helpful than another?

I am a total fan of Twitter at the moment. It is brilliant for driving traffic to my blog. It is now beating Google organic search and all my other traffic streams after 6 weeks of using it. I am also making some amazing contacts through it, including big names in the book world.
Many people think it is just a waste of time, but if used properly, it's very powerful. This post explains what Twitter is and how authors can use it.

What online marketing tips do you have for authors?

Wow! That's a big question so I will pick three! These combine sales with marketing, because there is little point marketing without some return on investment.

1) Get your book available for sale online. Either through your own website, or through Amazon, or through Smashwords or another e-retailer. If it's not for sale online, there is little point marketing yourself. Remember it's a global market now! I'm talking to you as a Brit in Australia being interviewed on a US site. I sell my books online in every country in the world - now that's exciting!

2) Get a blog and use it to build a database of people interested in your books and products. Offer something for free and then develop relationships. My example is my free "How to be an Author workbook" available at http://www.howtobeanauthor.com/

3) Use Twitter and other social networking tools to drive traffic to your blog. Also use video -- YouTube is very easy to use. Drive traffic any way you can, offer value and people will buy from you if they like your products.

You talk about Publishing 2.0 on your site. What is that and why is it important for authors?

Publishing 2.0 is changing the way books are written, published, sold and promoted over the internet utilising web 2.0 technologies. Authors can now use these tools to self publish and get their message out there themselves. You do not need a publisher to write and sell your books, and you are not confined anymore by space or somewhere to store your books. You are not confined by price either because so many of these techniques are free! It is such an exciting and liberating time to be an author! (as long as you embrace the technology!)

These new tools include blogging, social networking, video, podcasting, twitter and realtime RSS feeds, print-on-demand, ebooks, and digital collaboration. The list goes on! If these terms are unfamiliar to people, then that's because it is new, but it is also the future right now. If used in the right way, these tools can make the difference of thousands of dollars in sales. I know people are interested in that! I am currently writing a program called author 2.0 which will have videos, audios, interviews and "how-to" guides for these things and more. The aim is for authors to take hold of the technology and shape it into profits.

How can people contact you?

You can find me at my main website and blog http://www.thecreativepenn.com/
You can also follow me on http://twitter.com/thecreativepenn
I also have a Facebook group for How to Publish a Book -- come and join us!

Thank you Joanna and we wish you much success.

Maralyn D. Hill & Brenda C. Hill
International Food Wine & Travel Writers Association
Books By Hills Success Log Global Log

Be sure to add your blog address to the signature portion of your e-mails and on your business cards. On our Where & What in the World blog nicknamed Glog for Global log, you will find http://www.noralyn.com/blogger/blog1.

Note: First comes our website, then blogger is our Google platform, and blog1 is our Where & What in the World blog. For writing and publishing hints, our blog nicknamed, Slog (perseverance in writing), is http://www.noralyn.com/blogger/success/ which you‚Äôll find listed under NoraLyn Blogs on our website, http://www.noralyn.com/.

Try commenting on other blogs of similar interest. As long as you spend an allotted time blogging, it is time well spent.

We have had a couple of people as guest bloggers and they have generated interest.

You can use public sites like http://www.MySpace.com, http://www.FaceBook.com and http://www.YouTube.com. Blogging is new for us, but we are committed. It‚Äôs proven to work. Learn about blogging and do it, not all day. Try to allow 15 to 30 minutes a day for blogging. It will help you sell your book. You do not start off with readers, they tend to build slowly.

Be sure your headings are specific.

Each entry is called a post and posts are listed with the latest one first. We found it a little scary to hit publish post even though we had previewed it first. What made the process easier was knowing we could still reread and edit. You can also save your post as a draft and publish later. Sometimes you may still make an error. Consider it a learning experience and move on.

Boost your rankings with an online store. Many authors will order books for their own supply through the bookstore. They may also have their friends and family order on the same day. This can give them a best-selling book ranking for a day. To be an Amazon Best Seller, your book only has to have that ranking for a day to allow you to use the term in marketing.

The Hill Team has been interviewed together and sometimes Brenda and I as the Tandem Tasters. However, I was honored to have Joanna Penn ask to interview me.

I've included her interview for those that may want to read it. I believe it belongs here as I think it shows so well how Joanna markets herself by marketing others.

Success, Your Path to a Successful Book, Our Love Affairs with Food & Travel, Cooking Secrets the Why and How and Winner and Final Chairman.

You want to be sure you are listed with as many on line book stores as possible. Find out where your publisher will list your book, and then search the others to list yourself.

We strongly encourage you to check out http://www.NothingBinding.com. This is a site created by The Book Marketing Expert Newsletter. It says: ‚ÄúNothing Binding can‚Ä¶ be a voice for independent publishing. The name alone signifies a non-alliance with any publisher or printer. A social networking website that allows authors free placement of their books with links to outside sources is a perfect way for authors to separate themselves from the traditional world of big publishing‚Ä¶‚Äù

We recently discovered this site and will be posting our books on it. They review your books free. Nothing Binding has the ability to conduct a telephone interview to give you an audio clip. This clip can be attached to your website as well as Nothing Binding‚Äôs and other websites. Jerry D. Simmons, who is responsible for the site, is a former publishing executive with over 25 years between Random House and the former Time Warner Book group (now known as Hachette Book Group U.S.A.). Jerry also founded http://writersReaders.com.