JULY ACFW MARKETING COURSE

Day 1, July 2, 2014

The Baseline Basics of Marketing Your Book

First, I want to mention just a few things before we start on the main course so you’re not putting the cart before the horse and wondering why your marketing is not working.

Some things to have in place with your books before you start straying into actual marketing efforts.

1)      Great book content – if your book isn’t as fabulous as you can possibly make it right now, don’t spend your time blogging or Facebooking or Twittering about it.  Get that book to be awesome FIRST!  Editing, formatting, content.  All of those MUST be in place before you market, otherwise getting it in front of more people will do you no good (and might actually harm you with low-review ratings).

2)      A GREAT cover.  Okay, some of you might not have the funds to do a great cover yet.  Then do the very best cover you can with the funds you do have.  A good cover will produce more sales than an awful cover.  And a great cover will produce more sales than a good cover.  Make your cover great as soon as you are possibly able to. (Or at least as great as you can for now!)

3)      Reviews.  Now I have people argue with me on this one saying that they have good sales and very few reviews.  However, if you are in a competitive genre (like me in contemporary Christian Romance), more reviews means customers KNOW I didn’t go out and get my six cousins to write nice reviews for me.  I shoot for at least 20 great reviews on a book (4 – 5 stars each) before I really start marketing that book in other ways.  Before that, I think you are spinning your tires if your goal is to sell (if your goal is simply ministry, maybe not, but great and good reviews sell books – especially for unknown authors).

4)      Amazon Metadata.  Getting your categories right, getting your keywords to work for you, and putting up a great description and From the Author section are critical to sales. If you don’t have control of your buy page, see if whoever does will work with you to get these in place.  All of these will work in your favor once you start pushing the ball with marketing.

Got all of those in place?  Great!  Then next time we’ll tackle Basic Blog Posts and how to get them to start selling books!

Any questions or comments?

 

 

 

July 4, 2014

Basic Blog Posts

Many authors blog, but it seems very few have a concept of how to sell your books on a blog without directly posting about your books.  So today, I want to share with you a couple of ways to put posts up on your blog that sell your books without the post being directly about your book.

This part will take about a week to cover, so follow along, ask questions, look at your own posts, think how you can put these tips into action.  Then we will jump to how to promote your posts on Facebook and Twitter.

To start… blog posts that draw readers must be written for THEM, not you.  Don’t write about your dog or what your kids ate for supper last night.  Find a topic for the whole blog that is broad enough to give you lots of options on what to write, and make sure that the overall topic targets at least some of the demographic of your readers.

So for example, if you write science fiction and you are really into say, time travel, make your blog about time travel or incorporate that into your overall blog about science fiction.  What you DON’T want to do in order to use this strategy is have a blog about relationships if your books are about science fiction.  If you do, you will be writing and posting blogs that will attract the wrong demographic (not a bad one, just one that doesn’t fit with what you are trying to sell).

For me, I write Contemporary Christian Romance.  That gives me basically four demographics:

Women

Christians

Relationships (romance)

Readers

 

Looking at those four, I decided that the broadest topic (and the one I know the most about and can write the most about) is Christianity.  I also do posts about Christian relationships and I usually gear my posts to women.  Very rarely do I post to or for just readers in general.

So that you’ll get a good understanding of just what I mean by writing for this target audience, here are a few examples of some blog posts I’ve done this strategy with:

http://www.stacistallings.net/reconciled/

http://www.stacistallings.net/hypercompetition/

You will notice that these posts are about becoming a better-version-of-you, which is what many Christian women are looking to do and thus they will be more interested in clicking over to read something about that.

You can look through my blog, especially the more recent posts, to see more examples of these types of posts.

So content is first.  If your blog is not about giving great content on a regular basis (even if regular is once a week or once every-other-week), then you need to start steering the ship in the right direction.

One great blog post is better than none.  Ten great, timeless blog posts are better than one.  If you start now, even at one a week, in three months, you will have 12 great, demographically targeted posts! And you can then promote these posts multiple times indefinitely.

So look at the content you are currently creating first.  Does it hit your demo groups?  Is it super-interesting?  Is it timeless (won’t get dated)?  Is the CONTENT something that will draw readers in and keep them reading?  Does it introduce you and your work in an interesting way?

If so, you’re ready for the next step.  If not, it’s time now to at least put a plan in place to get it that way.

 

July 7, 2014

DAY 3

Beyond Basic Blog Posts

Once you get some of your timeless, demo-targeted blog posts up, now it’s time to make them shine (and sell!).

(An aside question here… I’m assuming you all know how to use categories, tags, and SEO’s to get the metadata on your blogs to be picked up by search engines.  If you don’t, here is a short course on how to do that:  http://www.stacistallings.net/short-course-on-tags-categories-and-seos/.  That’s just one more way for people to find you.)

And now, back to the course…

At first, you will probably want to use just your covers for this (see hints below for how to do this very easily!), but eventually, feel free to find artists on Fiverr who will do custom ads for you as well.  The goal is to have a variety of ads that visitors will see and notice not just look over because they’ve seen the same one a million times.

The idea of this step is to incorporate an ad for one of your books into your post so that as people are reading your marvelous post, they will see the ad or cover and want to click over to read more about it (this is where you HAVE to have the book positioned well, a la Day 1) or you will lose them when they get to your buy page.

I usually place my ads or covers midway to ¾-way down the blog post on the far right.  I think that is the least intrusive spot (though I might get better conversion in a different place, I don’t want to annoy my readers).

A cover ad alone would look like the one on this post:

http://www.stacistallings.net/together/

See “A Light in the Darkness” about ¾ of the way down?  That’s a cover-only ad.  It links directly to the Amazon buy page for that book.  (It could also link to the first chapter or to the BN page if I wanted it to.)

Those are really simple to “design.”  Just Add Media (in WordPress), Upload the cover art, insert the link, and I make mine open in a new window.  And you’re done!

If you are an Amazon affiliate and your blog is WP-self hosted, you can also make ads in your posts very simply by using a plug-in called “Easy Azon” http://easyazon.com/   You can see an example of how one of mine using this method looks at: http://www.stacistallings.net/general-triggers-relationships/

Note:  Once you sign up for this, you can add these to ANY of your posts—even previous posts.  So if you already have great-for-readers posts, you don’t have to wait to create new ones, you can start using the strategies that will follow immediately!

If you have a great cover and a few great blog posts, you can start using this step now. Next time, we’ll talk about actual ads.

 

 

July 9, 2014

DAY 4

Adding Ads to Blog Posts

The thing you have to do before you can take this step is to have someone (or yourself if you’re great at Photoshop or a graphic maker program) create ads for you.  You can get artists on Fiverr to create these for you for $5 per ad.

You will, however, need to give them some idea of what you are wanting.

When I did my ads, I found ads online that I liked (sample ads).  I went with the same sample ad for a series and different sample ads for each book or set of books. So all the books in that series have the same looking ad (just different books and taglines), and each stand-alone book ad is a completely different style.

In the ad, you will want to have the cover of the book (or a portion of it), a headline, a tagline, and a “Get it Here” or something similar button.

Here are examples of some of my ads (look about ¾ of the way down on the right of each post!)

http://www.stacistallings.net/going-deep/

http://www.stacistallings.net/the-ups-downs-and-blind-corners-of-life/

http://www.stacistallings.net/dynamic-relationships-a-lesson-in-patience/

I usually don’t do mine very big on the blog post and so I try to keep the amount of wording quite short, and I make sure it’s readable even as a small ad.

Here are two similar ads for two different books in a series

http://www.stacistallings.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Cowboy-Ad-2-2014.png

http://www.stacistallings.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Lucky-Ad-2-2014.png

 

Once you have your cover ads or ads on your great content blogs, then we’re ready for the next step: promotion!

See you next time!

Day 5  July 11, 2014

Facebook – Pointing People to Your Content

In the last course I did for ACFW in November, we talked about Pages vs. Profiles, followers vs. friends.

This time around I want to talk specifically about groups and even more specifically on how to post to book groups.

First, a short primer on Facebook Groups.

To join FB groups, you have to have a profile (not just a page).  So if you don’t have a profile, that would be the first step in how to make this strategy work for you.

Once you have a profile, you will want to find and join different groups on Facebook that promote to READERS.  Now there are many reasons to join groups such as socializing with other authors or just hanging out with your peeps.  But this is different in that certain Facebook groups are all about letting authors tell others about their books.

Yes.  That’s what they are FOR!

I know. I know.  You were in a group and no one was allowed to post about their book, or you could only post about your book on one thread every other Friday.  I gotcha.  I know.  There ARE those Facebook groups who are not set up for you to post about your book out there.

Today, for this course, we’re not talking about those.

We’re talking about the ones that are designed FOR book ads.  And there are tons of them, and they are VERY popular.  In fact, some have 25,000+ members!

Once you start joining some of these FB groups, FB will help you out by giving you suggestions for other groups like the ones you have joined.  You can find these suggestions to the right of your newsfeed.  All you have to do is hover over the name of the group, and it will show you how many members in that group there are.

(Beware that many book groups are not Christian and do not have Christian content, and once you are a member, some of the posts from these groups will show up in your newsfeed.  You can turn off the notifications for them so that only your friends’ posts to them will show.)

For this strategy, you want to target the really big readers groups.  To me, really big means 10,000+ members .  There are many smaller groups in the 5,000+ range, and joining them would be fine as well.  There are just enough big groups that I don’t spend oodles of time with the smaller groups although I do post to them once in a while.

So today’s task is joining some reader groups.  Here are five of the big ones I’ve joined.  From there, watch to the side of your newsfeed and join ones you think will be good to get messages about your books and blog posts out.  (Smaller Christian groups are good for blog post promotion, so feel  free to join some of them too!)

Giant Reader Groups

BOOKS — https://www.facebook.com/groups/2213398116/

BOOK PLACE — https://www.facebook.com/groups/bookplace/

BOOKS, BOOKS & MORE BOOKS! https://www.facebook.com/groups/320356974732142/

PASSION FOR BOOKS https://www.facebook.com/groups/passionforbooks/

BOOK PROMOTION https://www.facebook.com/groups/BookPromotion/

 

Once you get a few of these, you will probably want to favorite them so that they appear on the left side of your Home page on FB.  That way, you can click to them and post very quickly.

Next time we’ll talk about what to post on these groups!

 

 

Day 6  July 14, 2014

Promoting on Facebook

Now that you’ve joined some Facebook groups and you have some great content-with-ads blog posts, let’s get started promoting!

Be aware that what comes next is not ONE marketing strategy but multiple styles of marketing.  Pick and choose what might be right for you, or try them all and see what works.  My recommendation is to make a list of these strategies and pick one to do for a couple of weeks to see if it works.  Doing it once or twice will not give you enough practice or opportunity to see if it works.  Do them consistently for about a month before you say “Yay” or “Nay.”

 

STRATEGY ONE

Direct book posts to the groups.

This is probably the most straight-forward of the strategies, and I must warn you that some of your friends who are book lovers might get multiple notifications of your posts when you do this.  So especially at first, you might want to do a couple in the morning and a couple at night.

Also, if you only have one or two books, I wouldn’t slam the groups with them.  I have 25 books, so I can do one or two posts about each one and cover the groups with something about me and my books without doing the same post to each one.  (Just some tips going in!)

To do this strategy, you will want to create multiple “ad posts” for your books because if you post the same thing to several groups, Facebook will NOT be happy about it.  However, it’s very easy to create book posts.

There are seven basic pieces to a book post:

Cover shot (add this by clicking on the little camera at the bottom of the Write Something input box; if you don’t input through the camera, your post will have the middle 2/3 of the cover from the link you use)

Special Line

Review or Description

Amazon line

Link

Book Name

Hashtags

 

The “Special Line.”  If there is something “special” about your book—it’s on sale, it’s free, it’s a bargain, you are going to want to say that at the top.  For example, some of my “special lines” are:

*** BARGAIN BOOK ALERT! ***

*** FREE BOOK ALERT! ***

*** 99Cent BOOK ALERT! ***

This gets people’s attention that the book is on “special.”  If your book is NOT on special, just skip this line.

 

The “Review or Description” – rather than writing all of my ad copy, I’ve taken a page from the movie trailers and I use reviews for my book.  Yes, they need to be actual reviews.  No, you don’t need to contact the person to use public reviews on Amazon.

Sample review line:

“It caused me to think about my own experiences, and how I could improve as a person showing God’s love to someone going through such a trial. My heart was touched by this story.”

 

The “Amazon” line – this is where I tell people if the book is for example a best seller or that it’s a Contemporary Christian Romance.

Sample Amazon line:

A #1 Christian Romance on Amazon!

 

The Link – a direct link to Amazon (Yes, this works for BN, etc. as well.  I just do most of mine with Amazon because that’s where my books are positioned the best with reviews, etc.)

The Name of the Book – the Title

Hashtags – these are super important as including them will get your book on MORE pages than just the group page.

 

So a full book ad post for a group will look like this:

 

*** BARGAIN BOOK ALERT! ***

“…it touched my heart and soul. God hears our prayers. I’m amazed how this author was able to bring such a delicate subject into words… words that I needed right then… there have been only a few books that have been able to bring back to me the hope in Him that I sometimes forget but know…. and this was one of them.”

A #1 Christian Romance on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005GGP3HI/

*~*~ COMING UNDONE ~*~*

#Christianbooks #AmazonKindle #Kindlebooks

BIG PICTURE OF THE COVER that will appear when you put it in with the camera.

 

For me, I put all of my FB group posts for a book in one Word doc so I can just copy and paste them over without having to recreate them each time.

Next time we’ll talk about Facebook posts for your blog posts!

 

 

 

Day 7 July 16, 2014

Writing Facebook Blog Posts

So you should be joining more groups by now and be at least a bit familiar with them.  Today we’re going to talk about a strategy to get those fabulous blog posts you’ve been writing out there.

 

STRATEGY TWO

Rather than using the Reader Groups, today we’re going to utilize your timeline, page, and smaller Christian groups.

This strategy is a little more subtle than the direct book posts.  It will invite the reader to check out one of your blog posts that you then have an ad or cover ad on.  Basically, this is utilizing the Promo Chain that we talked about in November where the goal is to hook the reader, give them great content, with a hook to the next part of your promotion.

The goal is to get them interested in you and your work so that they will want to continue the relationship with more of your work.

For this strategy, you will need a strong blog post with a working ad or cover ad imbedded in it.

First, read through your blog post once more.  Does it make sense as a stand-alone post?  Is it grammar-perfect and error free?  Check the link to the book.  Does it work?  Does it go to where you want it to the way you want it to (i.e. open in a new window if that’s what you want)?

Good.

Now let’s write a post about it.

To do this, let’s use one of my blog posts:  http://www.stacistallings.net/what-is-your-default/

 

Ever find yourself doing things you hate?  It might be time to look at your “default settings”! http://www.stacistallings.net/what-is-your-default/  #Christian #lifelessons

 

So there is the tagline, the link, and the hashtags.

If you’ve done Twitter posts with me, this will look very similar.  The only thing is on Facebook, do NOT use short links.  People won’t click on them.  Use the full link.

 

Let’s do a couple more for that post:

What trouble are your default emotional settings getting you into?  How can you reset them?  Find out! http://www.stacistallings.net/what-is-your-default/  #Christianity #motivation

 

Your default settings are running (ruining?) your life.  What are they?  How do you reset them? http://www.stacistallings.net/what-is-your-default/  #parenting #inspiring

 

Once you get several of these (I do 5-10 for each blog post), you can begin posting them on your own timeline, on your own page, and in Christian groups and sometimes even on reader groups if they happen to be about reading.

Next time we’ll talk about promoting first chapters and excerpts on Facebook.  Stay tuned!

 

 

Day 8 July 18, 2014

Facebook Posts for Excerpts and First Chapters

By now you should be writing up some great blog posts with ads and promoting to the groups about your books and blog posts.  GREAT START!

Let’s throw one more log on this marketing fire…

STRATEGY THREE

You are not limited to posts about your book that go directly to Amazon (or BN).  Today we’re going to mix it up a little.

For this strategy to work, you will need some posts on your blog (or pages on your site) that are either excerpts from your book or the first chapter of your book.  Now because I have so many books and including these on my main site was going to get cumbersome, I actually started a parallel blog with these types of things on it.

You can see my parallel blog here:  http://ebookromancestories.com/

Now I’m going to admit up front here that I haven’t done as much with this blog as I would like, but I wanted you to know about this in case it hits some boxes for you.

With this type of blog (or pages on your site), you can modify your direct book buy type posts to the groups to entice people to read the first chapter or an excerpt from your book.  Some people would rather do that than to buy “sight unseen.”  This will hit a different demographic of readers (you know how some people buy books after reading the last sentence?  Well, some love to read previews).

 

You can do FB posts about this type of blog post similar to those in Strategy One but get creative with this, you can use a first line, or a line in the excerpt, or you can use a line from a review and say it goes to the first chapter:

 

“I promise concern for others, and a willingness to help those in need…”  Thus begins the journey of “To Protect & Serve.”

Read the first chapter of this Amazon Contemporary Christian Best Seller!

http://ebookromancestories.com/2012/06/03/ebook-romance-stories-to-protect-serve-chapter-1/

#Christian #fiction #books

 

If you have 3 books, and you do a first chapter post and an excerpt post for each and then have 3-4 Facebook posts about these posts, you now have 24 different posts to promote your work!  Imagine the possibilities!

Next time how NOT to promote on Facebook and then putting it all together on Facebook the following Monday.

 

 

Day 9 July 21, 2014

What NOT to do on Facebook!

I need to now back track just a little here and tell you that one thing you do NOT want to do on Facebook is to try to post to other people’s PAGES.

Posting to YOUR page is fine.  Putting up multiple pages for yourself to post on is fine.  Posting to groups within their guidelines is fine.  Posting to your own timeline is fine.

What is NOT fine is posting to other people’s pages.  This can easily get you banned on Facebook or at least put in Facebook jail for a week or two.  Don’t let that happen to you.  Just don’t post on other people’s pages!  Simple as that.

Also, don’t post multiple posts of the exact same thing on multiple groups.  This can also get you in FB jail.  It’s not worth it, and there’s no reason to end up there.  Variety is the spice of life, and you can easily create a lot of variety in your posts.  Stay tuned next time to find out how when we start Putting it All Together!

 

Day 10 July 23, 2014

Combining the Facebook Strategies

The pieces of promoting on Facebook that we have discussed so far include:

1)       Direct posts about your book to groups, your page, and your timeline

2)      Posts about your blog posts to groups, your page, and your timeline

3)      Posts about first chapters and excerpts to groups, your page and your timeline

So now we have three options of overall posts to make and (hopefully) multiple things to post about under each one, let’s put this together and see how you can post a LOT about your books and your work on Facebook in a way that draws people in rather than annoying them with the same thing over and over again.

Step One – Organizing Your Posts

If you have multiple posts about each thing, you will quickly become overwhelmed.  So first, let’s get organized.

I have one Word FB marketing doc for each of my books (I have 25 books, so it is MASSIVELY important for me to be organized about this).

The first thing I do is create the Amazon tag, jump link, and title.  For example at the top of my doc, I would put:

AWIP Working Doc

 

A #1 Best Selling New Adult Christian Romance on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JN05KY

*~*~* A WORK IN PROGRESS *~*~*

 

(for the link, all you need is the http://www.amazon.com/dp/ASIN  — put your ASIN there and you don’t have this super-long link but you WILL have a link that works)

 

Now, go to Amazon and pull say 5 to 10 good review quotes.  Copy and paste them into your doc like this:

 

“Have you ever read a book that you can read over and over again? A Work in Progress is one such book. Staci Stallings weaved an amazing story with every single word that was written. There are real lessons within these pages that make you aspire to become a better human being.”

“Do you ever feel like the odd man out? Do you see everyone else as “having it all together” or being “the total package”? This book explores those feelings from a lot of sides.”

“Most people aren’t aware that the people that seem to have it all- looks, money, being popular- feel just like they do. And they are really envious of us! Because they think we have something they don’t. This book also shows us the One that REALLY loves us- where we are at, the way we are and are calling us to Him. This book works as a comfortable read but is thoroughly inspiring and uplifting. I was sad to see it end.”

(You will probably have to put the quotes around them after copying and pasting them!)

Then copy and paste the first part under each one…

“Have you ever read a book that you can read over and over again? A Work in Progress is one such book. Staci Stallings weaved an amazing story with every single word that was written. There are real lessons within these pages that make you aspire to become a better human being.”

A #1 Best Selling New Adult Christian Romance on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JN05KY

*~*~* A WORK IN PROGRESS *~*~*

 

“Do you ever feel like the odd man out? Do you see everyone else as “having it all together” or being “the total package”? This book explores those feelings from a lot of sides.”

A #1 Best Selling New Adult Christian Romance on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JN05KY

*~*~* A WORK IN PROGRESS *~*~*

 

“Most people aren’t aware that the people that seem to have it all- looks, money, being popular- feel just like they do. And they are really envious of us! Because they think we have something they don’t. This book also shows us the One that REALLY loves us- where we are at, the way we are and are calling us to Him. This book works as a comfortable read but is thoroughly inspiring and uplifting. I was sad to see it end.”

A #1 Best Selling New Adult Christian Romance on Amazon!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JN05KY

*~*~* A WORK IN PROGRESS *~*~*

 

If I now add whatever “Special line” I want at the top and some hashtags at the bottom, I’ve got three unique FB posts for A Work in Progress all ready to go.

Do one of these docs for each of your books.  The more books you have, the fewer you have to do for each one.  The fewer books, the more quotes you’re going to want to us.  Also, you don’t have to use the whole review.  Just enough for interest but not so much it’s overwhelming.

 

STEP TWO – create a Word doc with your FB posts for your blog posts.

List the blog post title, then write 3-4 posts about it.

TITLE:  What is Your Default?

What trouble are your default emotional settings getting you into?  How can you reset them?  Find out! http://www.stacistallings.net/what-is-your-default/  #Christianity #motivation

Your default settings are running (ruining?) your life.  What are they?  How do you reset them? http://www.stacistallings.net/what-is-your-default/  #parenting #inspiring

 

If you have many blog posts (that link to your books) ready to go, 2-3 posts is great.  Your goal would be to get around 50 – 60 FB posts about your blog posts.  Or be working toward that.

 

STEP THREE – create a Word doc with your FB posts for your first chapter and excerpts posts.

List the title of the book and then 2-3 FB posts about the first chapter with the link, and 2-3 FB posts with the link to the excerpt.

 

STEP FOUR – When I had a whole bunch of these pieces created, I then started putting them together.  To make it easier, I created a combination doc that looked like this:

 

Day 1

FB/G+

Stuck in your “tent” of the rut of ho-hum?  Maybe it’s time to Step Outside… http://www.stacistallings.net/247/ #Christian

“It will pull you in and touch your heart. It will show you how you can lay those things that are preventing you from loving Jesus at the foot of the Cross. It will inspire you and give you hope.” FOR REAL http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A1SYS0E/tag=theinspirat0b-20

What do you want your kids to say about you?  http://www.stacistallings.net/i-want-them-to-say/ #legacy

“A beautiful story that points out not only what the firemen go through but what their family and friends also go through. Thank You for a great read.” TO PROTECT & SERVE http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008391QB2/tag=theinspirat0b-20 A #1 Amazon Best Seller!
“I’m still smiling, thinking about what clever ways she weaved this story.” WHITE KNIGHT http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008MBM3MM/tag=theinspirat0b-20 #books

Day 2

FB/G+

Go as far as you can.  When you get there, you can SEE FARTHER. http://www.stacistallings.net/seeing-farther/ #inspirational

 

Transformation… Change OVER TIME!  If you want change, it won’t happen overnight, but it CAN happen. http://www.stacistallings.net/transformation/ #motivation

Even our rejection doesn’t keep God from loving us. http://www.stacistallings.net/the-pain-of-rejection/ #God

“Very few books have captured my interest as this one did. I found that I couldn’t put it down. I devoured it in less than two days, reading every chance I could.” WHITE KNIGHT http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008MBM3MM/tag=theinspirat0b-20 #ebooks

“There were a LOT of issues brought up in this book but they were handled in such a way that it didn’t overwhelm the senses. They just sort of followed a natural chain of events.” FOR REAL http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A1SYS0E/tag=theinspirat0b-20 #book

Day 3

TRANSFORMATION is possible! Some things to think about… http://www.stacistallings.net/transformation/ #life

Don’t stay in the tent! You can’t imagine what God has in store for you when you STEP OUTSIDE. http://www.stacistallings.net/247/ #grace

Do you “hedge your bets” with your prayers? With God, there’s no need for Plan B. http://www.stacistallings.net/no-plan-b/ #inspiring

What Reviewers are saying: “She built such a strong community of friends that it made me wish my husband and I were part of this tight circle. I could envision us hanging out with them, being accepted for who we are, and building memories right alongside everyone else.” WHITE KNIGHT http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008MBM3MM/tag=theinspirat0b-20 #Kindle

“If you ever struggled with your weight and compared yourself to all of those beautiful girls with perfect figures and felt as though no one was ever going to care about you, then you will be able to relate to this story about a girl named Melody.” FOR REAL http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A1SYS0E/tag=theinspirat0b-20 #ereader

 

Then I just open and start on a day.  I post to my page, my timeline, and groups.  Often times I post to multiple groups, just pulling things from my Book Working Docs, but this gives me a systematic way of combining the promotion of all of the content I have rather than drilling one book and having people get sick of it.

Also, I can post one day and skip a day or have a light posting day where I just put things on the groups not on my page or timeline.

With this many pieces in place, you can move things around and different people will see it.

I think right now I have about 65 days of posts ready to go.  I need to make more.  So many pieces so many combinations… so little marketing time! J

A very short word about income streams.  I view each book as an income stream.  Some of my income streams do much better than others.  My goal is to get all of them pulling, not just one or two.  So posting about the different books on different blog posts and then different books to the groups gets all the books into play rather than just my “favorites.”

 

 

 

July 25 – Twitter – how to write Twitter posts

Day 11, July 25, 2014

People often get hives when you start talking Twitter, but trust me, Twitter is not that hard if you know a few tricks.

First, posts on Twitter are limited to 120 characters.  Not much, I know.  But if you know how to write them, you can pack A LOT into those few slots.

Secondly, although you can do almost 100% content related posts on Twitter, you do need to mix them up (some blogs, some books so you are not pushing in every tweet).  That is not as hard as it sounds either.  Follow along and try it.  You’ll be writing great tweets in no time!

Here are the parts of a good tweet:

HOOK

INFO

LINK

HASHTAGS

 

HOOK – For Twitter this needs to be much shorter than the review/description of a Facebook post, but it’s basically the same thing.  The idea is to grab the reader’s attention and get them interested enough to click the link.

So, some I have from my reviews…

“A gem in the genre!”

“So many twists and turns!”

“A story of forgiveness and redemption.”

 

INFO – on a Twitter book post, this is your title.  I always do my titles in all caps, so I can tell what book it’s for easily.

DEEP IN THE HEART

 

LINK – on Facebook, you do not want to use shortened links.  On Twitter you ALWAYS want to use shortened links (bit.ly or ow.ly work great)

http://ow.ly/mFEzI

 

HASHTAGS – Add a couple of hashtags, making sure you stay under your character count, and you’ve got a great selling tweet.

 

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:

“A gem in the genre!”  DEEP IN THE HEART http://ow.ly/mFEzI #Christian #inspyromance

 

And that’s how you write a Twitter post!

 

Day 12, July 28, 2014

July 28 – Twitter posts about your books and blog

Last time we wrote Twitter posts about our book for direct push-marketing tweets.  Today we’re going to talk very briefly about how to write Twitter posts that point to your blog posts.

Same general idea:  Hook, Info, Link, Hashtags

Let’s look at a couple I wrote for my Facebook posts and see how to change them into Twitter posts:

Facebook post:

TRANSFORMATION is possible! Some things to think about… http://www.stacistallings.net/transformation/ #life

Twitter post:

TRANSFORMATION is possible! Some things to think about… http://ow.ly/zuOLc  #life #hope #motivation

 

Facebook post

Don’t stay in the tent! You can’t imagine what God has in store for you when you STEP OUTSIDE. http://www.stacistallings.net/247/ #grace

Twitter post:

Don’t stay in the tent! You can’t imagine what God has in store for you when you STEP OUTSIDE. http://ow.ly/zuOYL  #grace

 

Yep.  I just shortened the link and added a couple of hashtags to fit.

Easy, right?

 

You can do the same for your excerpts and first chapters as well.

Next time, putting it all together!

 

Day 13, July 30, 2014

Short word about Hootsuite and combining all strategies

Obviously you are free to do the tweets manually by copying and pasting them into Twitter throughout the day.  For me, I choose to invest in Hootsuite ($9.99/month).  I have learned to use their bulk upload feature (which is finicky and difficult and if you choose to do that, I would recommend getting my book , How to Prepare, Launch, and Run a Successful KDPSelect Free-Day Campaign (The Indie Author’s Ultimate Guide Book 1) that walks you through the steps of how to create your spreadsheets and get them to work with Hootsuite).

Once I learned to use Hootsuite, I put together multiple spreadsheets with 50 tweets each, mixing and matching blog post tweets, book tweets, and first chapter, excerpt tweets so that now, I probably have 50 or more of them.  Then I can schedule one on Hootsuite to go out on Twitter, and that is done.

Then I hop over to my Combination Doc for Facebook, etc. , work through that for the day, and I’m done.  I might spend 15 to 30 minutes a day on actual posting.  I might spend another 20 to 30 minutes writing up new marketing posts once or twice a week.  Once you get the majority of your posts written, you shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time doing that except for adding new stuff.

Now, you are posting with a strategy rather than just scatter shot and missing miserably!

God bless you & happy marketing!

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