Do You Still Need a Website as the Core of Your Online Platform?

By Karen Cioffi

A few years ago I wrote an article about the need for home business websites. I explained the reasons a website was an absolute must and gave a couple of statistics proving that need.

Since then, social media has exploded. It’s become more powerful than ever, and more and more people and businesses are using it as an integral part of their marketing strategy.

In fact, the social engines are now an essential element of brand visibility, website traffic, and building authority to all size businesses. It’s gotten to the point where some are questioning the need for a website.

Are websites for marketing really a thing of the past?

Here are three reasons for that question:

1. Some might reason that you can blog on venues like LinkedIn. You can also publish articles on EzineArticles and other article directories to generate visibility and authority.

2. If you’re selling a product or service, you can use social networks to do so by linking to your Amazon or other sales page.

3. Want to let people know about you and what you do? You can do that on your social network pages. You can even build your subscriber list through social media.

So, it’s not unreasonable for some to wonder about the necessity of a website.

But, if you decide to forgo the website or get rid of an existing one, think twice and even three times about it.

The benefits of a website

While the social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn allow for just about everything you need to market you and your product/service, you’re at the mercy of these sites.

Pro internet marketer and entrepreneur Sandi Krakowski has over 1 million Likes on her Facebook page. And, she has over 1 million clients, which allows her to produce millions in revenue. She knows what she’s talking

In a recent email from Sandi, she said, “If you don't have a website, listen to me very carefully, you own NOTHING online. You're homeless. You have no real estate, you are under the control of someone else's property and when push comes to shove, you my friend are in a big pickle!”

Did you notice she said you don’t have control with social media sites?

Think of it as renting space in a building. Or, better yet, buying within a condominium development. You’re not in control. You’re at the mercy of their rules and regulations, their changes, their agendas, basically, their whims.

Want to change the exterior color of the building? Want to do major construction inside?

You’re at the mercy of the owner’s permission.

In other words, you’re not in control.

This is the same as using sites like Facebook and GooglePlus. You never know when or if changes will come that will render your social media page useless.

This is why you still need your own website.

If you use paid website hosting through sites like Bluehost, you own the site. It’s yours. You are in control of what you publish, how you publish, and so on. You can choose your own theme with the header dimensions and design you want. You can put ads and affiliate links on it with no problem. You can sell from it.

Along with this, people trust bloggers. This gives bloggers influence and authority. It’s good marketing to have that authority, that influence, go to your own site.

Bottom line, as an author / writer, you still absolutely need your own website!


Knowing what to do and ‘not do’ is an important aspect of online marketing. Karen Cioffi’s new CREATE YOUR WORDPRESS WEBSITE TODAY (no code, no technical stuff, no fuss ) e-class through WOW! Women on Writing shows you how to build your online foundation.
CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS!

Book Marketing Blogging - 4 Elements to SEO Ready Content

By Karen Cioffi

There is much to know about properly formatted and SEO ready article content. While both elements are essential to effective content marketing, it’s the search engine optimization that will allow your articles to be picked up by the search engines and found by the online searchers.

It's important for writers and authors who use blogging to know how to use their content effectively. This will increase your visibility, expert status, readership, and ranking.

So, what are the elements needed to create SEO effective content?

1. Create ‘shareable’ and keyword optimized blog posts.

The ‘old’ SEO had you optimizing keywords that search engines would find, categorize, and index in order to place that content as results based on search queries.

Today, it’s all about providing quality content that readers will find valuable enough to share. You want readers to share that article or post with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google Plus, and other social networks.

While you also need to provide keywords for the search engines to find, the key to article marketing now is to provide quality content, so it can go viral.

SEO is a kind of popularity contest. The more people like and share your content the greater value you (your site) has with Google and other search engines.

2. Include Your Bio

You’d think every writer would make sure they receive credit for their article content, but if you read some blogs, even those with multiple contributing authors, there are some with no byline. Even if it’s your own blog, at least end the post with your name.

For article directories, each service has its own resource box instructions. For guest blogging you don’t want your byline to be too long – make it short and effective. You can include your name with a couple of sentences letting the reader know why he should click on your link.

Your tag, bio, byline, is how you get credit for what you write.

3. Blog Post Marketing Tags

Including keywords or tags where allowed is essential to article marketing and its SEO effectiveness. Most hosting services and article directories provide specific areas at the bottom of the article for keywords or tags. Take advantage of this tool.

These tags should be relevant to the content and will allow the search engines to categorize and index your content. This in turn will allow your article to be found by people searching for your topic.

4. Link to More Content

This step is simple. In any article you publish on your own blog or submit for a guest post (if the host site allows it) link to other articles or a landing page on your site. You can do this within your content by hyperlinking a relevant word or phrase to a relevant article on your site.

You can also include a “Related Articles” section at the end of your article and list a couple of titles with hyperlinks to the actual articles on your site. Or, after a bit of information within the article add, “For more information on this check out” and add the link.

This allows you to get even more ‘juice’ out of your articles. You may not be able to do this with article directories, but for your blog posts, it will keep visitors on your own site longer and draw them further into your pages, and will bring visitors to your guest posts back to your site. Search engines like this marketing technique.

For those who aren’t sure how to hyperlink, you simply highlight the relevant word or phrase, click on the link option in your toolbar, put in the URL, and click okay. Simple.

There you have it, four blog post SEO ready tips to get your blog posts doing what they should be doing: getting read, getting shared, and bringing traffic to your site.

Karen Cioffi is a online marketing instructor for WOW! Women on Writing and Working Writers Club. Check out her classes on Blogging:

Become a Power-Blogger in Just 4 Weeks
Blogging Made Easy (a four-week class for beginners)

5 Reasons Why You Should Use Content Curation as Part of Your Blogging Strategy

By Karen Cioffi

Content curation has been around for a while, but many bloggers, including book marketers, don’t realize the advantages or benefits it offers.

This form of marketing comes in various forms throughout the internet. Of those variations there is one common thread: content curation is related to article marketing, or more specifically to content marketing. You can think of it as one of the strategies under the content marketing umbrella, the same as content aggregation.

If you’re wondering whether content aggregation and content curation are the same, they’re not. A Forbes article by Susan Gunelius explains that the primary difference between the two is that content curation offers “the human element.”

What does this mean?

Well, content aggregation is simply finding and linking to hot topics, trends, and other news or information worthy content from your site. Some sites use all sorts of topics and others use content that is focused on their platform.

Content curation on the other hand offers more. While linking to the information source, those using this strategy add their own spin on the information, or enhance it with personal experience or additional information on the topic.

The information used for content curation is targeted and so is the audience it’s prepared for. As an example, if you have a health site on alternative medicine and alternative health options you would search for and use information/content on that topic or niche. You obviously wouldn’t use sports content on your site. It’s treated as any other niche marketing strategy – it must be focused to your platform or brand.

Content curation offers a broader view and understanding of a particular topic by providing your own input and that of the source content.

Now on to the five reasons you should use this blogging strategy.

5 Benefits to Content Curation that will Boost Your Blogging Efforts

1. Simply put and most importantly, it brings your readers more ‘bang’ for their stop at your site. Rather than offering a single view of a topic, or one site’s experience, you offer your reader the world and a broader information experience.

The reader will appreciate having more information to work with and this will motivate him to appreciate and trust you. That’s the beginning of a great relationship.

2. It’s a source of ideas for your blogging. Find current trends, hot topics, and new information in your niche. The content is already there, you simply add your spin on it in a paragraph or two and voila, you have new a new post.

3. It’s a time saver. Using tools like Google Alerts, you can quickly find relevant information to blog about. And, like ‘number two’ above, it’s ready made content you simply add to.

4. It can support or enhance your own blog posts, adding more value. Even if you write effective and engaging articles, the reader will find it helpful if you supplement it with additional information.

5. Linking to quality sites is an effective search engine strategy. When you link to a site that ranks high with Google, you’re noticed. It can help bring more traffic to your site and help convert visitors into subscribers. And, that’s what online marketing is all about, the ‘golden’ list.

Content curation will boost your blogging efforts. You don’t have to use it for every post, but you can switch it up a bit and offer your reader something extra.

So, why not give it a try and add it to your existing content marketing strategies.


Have you been blogging, but not successfully? Check out Karen’s e-class through WOW! Women on Writing, Blogging Made Easy. It’s 4 weeks of simple steps to blogging for results. Lots of hand-holding.

3 Blogging Uh-Ohs to Avoid if You Want to Blog for Results

By Karen Cioffi

Article marketing is an excellent tool for a number of reasons, but many writers seem to be missing the ‘optimized’ mark.

For those who aren’t sure what article marketing is, it’s using posts, articles, and other content to attract visitors. This includes the posts on your own website.

Here are three mistakes you should avoid to boost your efforts.

1. You don’t take the time to self-edit your content before publishing.

Article marketing encompasses a number of venues. There’s blogging on your own blog, there’s guest blogging, and there’s publishing with article directories and other venues.

Whichever venue you use, self-editing your posts and articles is absolutely needed.

The reason self-editing is a must is because you must be blogging and article marketing with a purpose in mind. That purpose is usually one of all of the following:

• Create visibility
• Lead visitors back to your website
• Increase your authority in your niche
• Increase your mailing list
• Sell your product or service

With these purposes in mind, it’s important for your content to be polished. You want to look the part of a skilled writer. This is why self-editing is an absolute must.

So, before you send off that article, or before you publish it yourself, take the few minutes it takes to READ it first. One trick is to close the article after writing it and go back to it in a day or two. You’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to spot errors when you do this.

2. You don’t include a bio or tag at the end of ‘every’ article.

You write a slam-dunk article, that offers lots of information. You impress the reader. But, you don’t have an effective tag. In fact some blog posts don’t even include the author’s name.

Whether it’s your own blog post, an article for an article directory, or it’s a guest post, you need to include a brief bio.

So, be sure to include your name at the end of every post on your own site. And, it’s advisable to include a call-to-action. You might suggest the reader sign up for your newsletter or you can lead them to an offer.

In regard to article directories, they provide a ‘resource’ or ‘bio’ box that appears at the end of your article. Take advantage of this tool and make your words effective. Be sure to lead the reader back to your website or to your call-to-action.

The same holds true for guest blogging, you want the tag to be short and effective.

3. You don’t include hyperlinks in your posts.

It seems most blogs don’t use hyperlinks. While this is a practice you can’t use on most article directories, you can certainly use it in your own posts and guest posts. Search engines love hyperlinks.

To hyper link, you simply highlight a keyword and link it to another relevant article or site. The idea is to give the reader more bang-for-the-buck. You give your reader a broader reading experience.

There you have it, three article marketing mistakes and three solutions. Start blogging smart today!

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning author and online marketing instructor. Check out her new Blogging Smart Video Workshop through Working Writers Club.

This hour long workshop will show you how to get more website visitor, more authority, and more sales. And, there are 3 bonus lessons . . . and, it's only $20. You can't go wrong.

4 Major Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Blog Posts

By Karen Cioffi

Writing is a craft, a craft that needs to be learned. With that being said, there are many successful bloggers who had no writing training.

You might consider writing as being doubled sided. There are research papers, resumes, articles for medical and scientific use, business and health content, and even short stories, children’s books, and novels.

To write for these genres, you need to learn the craft of writing. Depending on the genre you write, you need to know how to write dialogue, how to reference quotes in a nonfiction article, and how to write POV (point of view). You should know the difference between a comma and a semi-colon, and how to use each. You get the idea.

On the flip side, there is web writing: blog posts and writing copy. In these niches there aren’t many rules, aside from grabbing the reader and making your content engaging and shareable.

While there aren’t many rules for blogging, there are four mistakes you should avoid:

1. Avoid aiming for perfection.

If you wait for the perfect time, the perfect circumstance, the perfect topic, the perfect anything, you’ll be forever waiting.

While you do need to be a responsible writer and respect your reader by providing quality content and doing the best you can, you shouldn’t wait for everything to be perfect. There’s nothing wrong with learning as you go along.

I love what George Fisher said about perfection: “When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target.”

2. Avoid confusing and unfocused content.

The quickest way to lose a reader is to make your content confusing. If you’re topic is ‘allergies,’ don’t go on a rant about the latest clothing styles.

Blogs posts should be in easily digestible pieces of information that are focused. From the title to the concluding paragraph, keep it on topic.

In addition, you want to lead the reader down your post. In the beginning let the reader know what to expect, what’s in it for him. This will motivate him to read on.

3. Don’t write long paragraphs.

We all lead hectic lives. We want to get targeted information as quickly as possible. For this reason, your content needs to be easy to read and written in short paragraphs. This is especially important for skim readers.

Keep your content clean and leave plenty of white space. White space is the space between paragraphs, between words, and such. It’s the blank space on the page.

4. Don’t use grandiloquent language.
Here we go back to the premise that people are in a rush and along with this, most people don’t want to have to look up words to get the gist of the article. This is another quick way to lose a reader.

Keep your writing simple. Write how you would normally speak.

In addition, choose your words with care. C.S. Lewis knew the importance of this when he said, “Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”

Following these ‘four mistakes to avoid’ will help you write blog posts that readers will appreciate and will want to share.

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Get weekly must-know writing and marketing information and more, right to your inbox. Join Karen Cioffi in The Writing World. (It’s all free!)

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Viral Social Media, Dissected

Viral Social Media, Dissected

By Suzanne Cordatos

                                             www.suzannecordatos.blogspot.com

www.thelostcrownofapollo.wordpress.com

The Singing Salutatorian

How well do you remember commencement speeches? With 24,000 high schools in the USA, I’d guess 48,000 valedictorian and salutatorian speeches this year were highly forgettable, no matter how well they were received in the moment. In under a week, however, Wethersfield High School’s Greg Corning has garnered 29,000 hits--and counting--on YouTube with his salutatorian speech.

Mouse-squeaks of jealousy vie for attention in my brain with admiration over his cleverness at going viral. How did he do it? What did he say? What did he eat for breakfast? Can I have some, too?

Which way to the readers?

I've been brainstorming ways to "trap" new readers and "train" them to want my upcoming books. It sounds manipulative, but it is simply a matter of locating my potential audience and figuring out how to provide them the opportunity to read a book I think they will love. I’ve got time, about a year—plenty of time to dissect the success of other writers. 

Choosing popular songs from each of his four years of high school, Greg Corning sang his speech, changing the words of hit songs to be meaningful to his classmates. Apparently, WHS endured heavy renovations this past year, because his take on Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball got a big reaction.

Viral-ness isn’t necessarily our goal as writers, but book promotion? Absolutely. Sweeping the globe with my best ideas between book covers? Sign me up! Like the recently viral (but now ancient) Gangnam-style dance, it’s impossible to predict what wacky idea will gain a huge following next, but let’s pick apart this WHS speech like an unfortunate subject of a high school Biology lesson to see what scratches its way into our memories. Perhaps we can add one or more of these ideas to our next book promotion to boost its popularity and success. The Salutatorian's speech hit all of these hot buttons:

Popular – within seconds, the audience recognized the songs and could hum along to every note.

Familiar—like blue jeans, people like what is comfortable. The songs were familiar, and his words told stories everyone already knew about their shared experience.

Surprising—nobody expected a song in place of a speech. The matserial was familiar but fresh. Like editors say, there is no new story under the sun, just different ways of telling it.

Range of emotion— from funny to sentimental, practical to emotional to inspirational, the range of emotions in his lyrics kept the audience awake and interested, poised for what’s next.

Audience-focused—audience members could feel as if parts had been written expressly for them alone.

Heart-filled—presented with sincerity, nobody doubted that the speaker cared for the audience and was fully committed to his idea. No hesitation, no apologies for the unconventional method. Simple and heart-felt.

QUESTION: Have you discovered any other hot buttons that work to attract attention? Have you used any of the above tactics to achieve a desired result in your own promotions?

Gaining Readers

What’s the best all time way to sell books?

                                Word of mouth

Getting word of mouth working for you comes from getting more people to read what you write. Each of us have only so many friends that will purchase our book, so we need people we’ve never me, never will, and won’t look us up until they’ve read something we wrote that they like.

 

What’s the best way to accomplish that?

                                     Online -  Blogging and other social media

                                     Physically - Periodicals and newsletters

Establish a blog site.

         It doesn’t have to be fancy  That's good news for the tech-challenged like me. If resources are few, use a free site like blogger or wordpress. Hire an expert if money isn’t an issue. Don’t stop with just a blog, make sure you have a page about yourself and one for your books.

 

Do these blogs tell you something about the author?

 

http://childrensandteensbookconnection.wordpress.com/

 

http://vivianzabel.blogspot.co.uk/

 

http://www.janetkbrown.com

 

       Spread the word. On your blog, institute a RSS link at least to Amazon’s author central page, Facebook or Twitter or whatever other site you can master.

     Make it easy. Get a domain name based on your name. If you have time and energy to set up two blogs, put one in the name of your book. I found most people that hear about you on a loop or from an article will try to find you by name. It’s simple and lives on after you publish other books.

    Continuity and frequency are imperative,, so whatever you do, don’t set up a blog and forget it. If you can’t post 2-3 times a week, post once a week. Don’t forget. Don’t skip a week. Don’t take a break. Blogging should be like taking medicine. If you miss a dose, take it as soon as you remember and then continue on schedule.

     Make them look. Each post should have at least one semi-meaningful or eye-catching graphic. Visuals make posts distinct and fresh. Links to other blogs interest more people. Posts should be “your work.” How else will a reader become acquainted with you and your writing? Author interviews or other authors visiting your blog is a super idea, but even then, add your own personal touch. Open ended questions solicit comments.

Did I make you look?

 

     Check results.  Keep up on the stats from your blog. What posts are read the most? That makes it easy to see what you should write next time. Of course, if you write, non-fiction, readers expect you to “stay on topic.” For fiction writers, choose items included in your book, such as setting, or identifying with teens, or recipes. Decide who you’re targeting, readers, writers, or both.


How about Facebook?     
      Facebook  brings people together in conversation. Used by many, both young and old, it’s a good place to start getting out your name. Take a course or get a helper to set up an author page. Use it for your writing, and your timeline for personal. Decide where you want your RSS feed to go.

Anyone for other social media?

      Decide what works for you. A sweet friend, Mary Beth Lee, taught me about Twitter. I accidentally lapsed into Google plus. Karen Cioffi-Ventrice suggested Stumble Upon.  Someone sent me a link to Linked In. Anything you add to your list can be helpful. The main thing to remember is that’s better not to add one, than to add it and forget it.

                  Remember that continuity and frequency thing.

Another online suggestion is post on other people's blogs.
                Guest blogs
                Blog tours
                Regular spots on group blogs

What can you do to get your writing out other than things online?

     Write short stories, articles, devotions.

     Submit to periodicals or magazine even if they don’t pay.

     Work for hire counts.

     Newspaper articles introduce readers to you and your work. 

     Anything you write may cause someone to pick up your book.

 

How do you gain readers? I would love to get other ideas. We authors are always looking from something new, aren’t we? 

Five SEO Blog Tips to Help Increase Traffic to Your Site

If you’re new to the writing game, you may not be aware of some of the essential steps needed to actually get in the game - steps that will make your name and brand visible. And, visibility is a ‘biggie’ if you want to increase traffic to your site and move forward in your writing career.

One very interesting fact about having content online is you never know who will end up finding it. It could be an agent, a publisher, someone who wants to hire you for your writing style. You get the idea.

Why is it important to become familiar with SEO blog tips?

Simply put, the answer is to generate visibility.

Writing is no longer a solitary career. Now, if you want to create and build visibility, along with readers to your site (traffic), you need to build an online platform and promote it.

So, what are some tips to help you get started in the right direction?

Well, the very first and most obvious tip is to have a website or blogsite. Once you have one set up, it’s your job to post content to it on a regular basis, no less than once a week, two or three times a week is better though.

It’s that content that will establish you as an expert in your genre or area. This will help you down the road, after you’ve traditionally published or self-published one, five, ten, or more books and/or e-books, and you want to expand your writing career.

But, before we go over five of the basic SEO blog tips for new writers, let’s first go over what SEO actually stands for: Search Engine Optimization. This marketing strategy allows the search engines, such as Google, to find your site and content.

Being aware of SEO strategies is essential to having the search engines not only find your site, but to also index your content, and make it available to online searchers.

Five SEO Blog Tips:

1. Use a keyword in your article title. Try one of the free keyword search tools to find an effective keyword. I use http://googlekeywordtool.com/

A keyword, according to Compendium.com, is “any word or phrase a searcher might use to describe or identify a desired resource on the Internet.”

2. Use that keyword in your article’s subheadings, and be sure to bold or italicize your subheadings.

3. Use that keyword within the content – just don’t overdo it. You don’t want to stuff your article with as many ‘visibility generating’ keywords you can fit in, search engines frown upon this practice. Your article needs to be an informative, engaging, and understandable.

You primary focus should be to write for your reader. Today, for effective marketing your content needs to be shareable. This means your readers need to feel motivated to ‘share’ the post.

4. When searching for effective keywords, look for long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are words that will move you away from highly competitive keywords.

As an example, if you write business articles, a generic and highly competitive keyword might be ‘incentives.’ I did a Google keyword search and the keyword ‘incentives’ came in at: 1,500,000 global monthly searches, and 823,000 local monthly searches. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to use a keyword with that much competition.

That’s where the long-tail keyword comes in.

If you used the keyword ‘business incentive,’ you’d reduce your competition to 22,200 global monthly searches and 14,800 local monthly searches. That’s quite a difference, and it narrows your target. Remember, you want to hit as close to your target market bulls-eye as possible.

5. The final bit of advice is to let the social networking sites know you have new content. Post the content link to Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. You should also inform your groups. Get the word out. And, be sure to have a SHARE button so visitors can share the post also.

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Boost your writing and marketing efforts with Karen Cioffi. Visit http://karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com and sign up for her FREE newsletter, The Writing World (top right sidebar).

Should an Author Have a Blog? Author Marketing 101

Most businesses today are using blogs as a way to promote their products and connect with their customers. So does the same hold true for you as an author hoping to market your book? Absolutely!

One of the greatest benefits of blogging as an author is that you have the ability to create a readership for your book… before it’s even released.

If you’re anticipating the release of your debut novel in a few months, you can start blogging on any topic related to your genre now. You may want to blog on how to write a children’s book as a children’s author, or even the ins and outs of the publishing process as a romance novelist. You can also use your blog for pure fiction to provide interested readers with free short stories related to your genre. Yes, it really will work.

But blogging can never reach its fullest potential if you don’t already have a presence in social media. Google views blogs as fresh content, so they’ll often rise to the top of the search results for specific keywords. But you can make it even easier for interested readers to find your blog by automatically syncing your blog to your social media profiles like Twitter and Facebook. This way, your friends and fans can read your new content and pass it around to other friends who may also be interested.

Keep Them Coming Back for More

The key to successful blogging is to use your fresh content as bait. If you’ve written an interesting blog post that has attracted reader traffic to your blog, you can’t just stop there. You need to write more and more interesting, compelling posts that will encourage readers to comment, join in the conversation, and pass links to your blog along to their friends.

In short, as an author with a blog, you are giving a valuable gift to potential readers. You are giving your readers useful content at no charge to help them put their trust in you. This is an effective and virtually free way for readers to get to know you to become part of your loyal audience. And the next time that they’re at a bookstore or browsing on Amazon, they’ll be more likely to remember your name and buy your book.

Bethany Ramos is an author and full-time freelance writer with experience in Internet marketing, social media marketing, and SEO. She is passionate about writing captivating children's books and witty chick lit. For more information, you can visit her blog at http://chicklit-books.com/.

Promotion - Why blog?

by Vivian Zabel   

            As far as we are concerned as an author, illustrator, editor, or publisher, a blog is a way to build an audience who will purchase our work, another way to promote ourselves, build our platform.

            Blogging creates excitement. It’s a way to get people interested in what we have to say. As we begin to generate the excitement, we begin to be recognized as a possible authority in the field we write about both in our blogs and in our books. People want to know more about us and our creative endeavors.

            Many of us begin to blog to attract people to our work, readers to our books, clients for our illustrations. However, we can begin to enjoy the process of blogging, since it is a creative way to show ourselves to others.

            Quoting The Internet Writing Journal’s article called “The Authors Dilemma – To Blog or Not to Blog”:  “The business of being an author has changed considerably over the last ten years. No longer is it sufficient to write a brilliant manuscript and manage to get it published. Authors now need to be excellent promoters of their own work. And for the intrinsically shy, that can be problematic. But an Internet trend has the potential to revolutionize author marketing, even for those who despise public speaking: blogging.”

            A few questions pop up, such as how often should we post on our blog, what subjects should we use, or how much advertising should we do?

            Let’s look at how often first: We should blog often enough to keep people interested, but not so often that we allow blogging to take the place of our other creative endeavors. Some people blog once a week; some every day. One suggestion for authors is to use a short blog post as a warm-up for the day’s writing.

            What subjects should we blog about?

1. We can write about an arena in which we excel or know much about. I can write about writing because I’ve studied it for most of my life and taught the subject for nearly 30 years.
2. We can write about a work in progress. We don’t want to give too much away, but enough so that people would be interested.
3. We can share excerpts and/or reviews of a published work. Illustrators can give samples of art work.

      How much should we advertise ourselves or our work? Any advertisement should be subtle. The majority of any post needs to be about something that might lead into promoting a particular work. Aidana WillowRaven and Ginger Nielson explain how they create something, which indirectly promotes a book – the main topic is the creation of the art work. The post should generate an interest in what we’re selling, not make people tired of our “hard sell.”

            Now, where do we find a blog site or platform?

Blogging Platforms

Blogger – http://www.blogspot.com (free, and they have a paid option)

LiveJournal – http://www.livejournal.com (ad-supported & paid options)

MySpace – http://www.myspace.com (free, not recommended for professional blogs)

Typepad – http://www.typepad.com (paid)

Vox – http://www.vox.com (free & paid options)

WordPress – http://www.wordpress.com (free & paid options)

Xanga – http://www.xanga.com (paid)

            Once we have site, how do we add some of the site visits and such, track activity on our blogs?

Blogging Tools

Blog Catalog – http://www.blogcatalog.com

Technorati – http://www.technorati.com

Digg It – http://www.diggit.com

Site Meter – http://www.sitemeter.com

            Yes, we need a website and a blog, unless we have a website that has a blog option. Remember we need to promote ourselves and our work, build and maintain a platform.

Vivian Zabel, author of Midnight Hours 

4RV Publishing 

4RV Catalog