GREEN BAY, WI (12/23/2010) – BookWhirl.com, one of the leaders of the book marketing industry, caps the year 2010 with the unveiling of its first Social Media Book Advertisement Service. With a price of $120, self-published authors can avail of a more extensive promotional coverage. It’s the company’s first book marketing tool concentrating on social media.

The Social Media Book Advertisement Service involves a creation of a book advertisement that will be posted on the Welcome page of a self-published author’s Facebook Fan Page. The advertisement will contain the book’s description, book cover image, author biography, and a list of links where interested readers can purchase the product.

“The Social Media Book Advertisement Service is our very first book marketing tool that concentrates on social media. Although we have a good line-up of staple and effective book marketing and publicity tools, our company has decided to further expand our services. It is without a doubt that the social media has become one of the most engaging areas to effectively raise brand awareness. Through the Social Media Book Advertisement Service, self-published authors will no longer miss the opportunity to market their books to over 500 million active social media subscribers”, discussed Don Harold, Marketing Director, BookWhirl.com.

In today’s most challenging and fiercely competitive economy, the Social Media Book Advertisement Service would enable self-published authors to extensively market their books to their friends, the friends of their friends, and to anyone else who is actively engaging in social networking sites.

For more information about the BookWhirl.com’s Social Media Book Advertisement Service and other book marketing and publicity services, log on to http://www.bookwhirl.com/Social-Media-Book-Advertisement-Service.php.

About BookWhirl.com
BookWhirl.com is an online book marketing service company, specializing in providing low-cost, high-quality marketing services for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books. Through its unique, inexpensive book marketing services, BookWhirl.com helps authors promote their published works more effectively and connect to readers in a more effective, more efficient system.

BookWhirl.com employs an experienced team of online marketing strategists, ad copywriters, graphic artists, and web designers, whose combined talents ensure an effective online marketing campaign at easily affordable rates.

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Source: http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/tgif-book-marketing-tips/publicity-is-free-15-commandments-for-getting-in-on-the-ride/

Guest Expert: Carolyn Howard-Johnson
An Excerpt from THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON’T

A huge retailer once said that advertising works, we just don’t know how, why, or where it works best.

What we do know is that advertising’s less mysterious cousin, publicity, works even better. It is the more reliable relative because it is judged on its merit alone and carries the cachet of an editor’s approval. It also is surrounded by the ever-magic word “free.” The two are easily identified as kin.

These two often walk hand-in-hand and yet they can be incompatible. The editors of good media outlets will not allow the advertising department to influence them. Still, in an effort to be completely impartial they reserve the right to use advertiser’s stories editorially if they deem them newsworthy. That is why it is helpful to use advertising in a vehicle that plays to the audience you would like to see standing in line for your book. This paid-for exposure then becomes an entrée to the decision-makers. A contact in the advertising department may be willing to put a news release on the desk of one of his editors, maybe even encourage her to look at it. There are no contracts, but it does sometimes work. If you’re going to try this route, choose a “little pond”, a bookish brochure or an “arty” weekly so that the dollars you spend will be noticed.

Sometimes a magazine or newspaper will run a special promotion called advertorial. These are sections where you pay for an ad and then the newspaper assigns a reporter to cover the story you want told. The article carries some of the prestige of editorial copy—that is the general reader may assume the article has been chosen only on its merits because of its copycat character. The writer or editor you meet will can be approached when your have something exceptional.

Still, advertorial isn’t exactly FREE. If FREE sounds more like the fare that will serve your needs, carve out some time to do it yourself and follow these 15 commandments:

Educate yourself: Study other press releases. Read a book like my The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What You’re Publisher Won’t. Be sure to find the sample media releases and other writer’s tools in the Appendix.

Read, read, read: Your newspaper. Your e-zines. Even your junk mail, a wonderful newsletter put out by the Small Publishers of North America and one called The Publicity Hound. My daughter found a flier from the local library in the Sunday paper stuffed between grocery coupons. It mentioned a display done by a local merchant in the library window. My second book, HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED, became a super model in their lobby and I became a seminar speaker for their author series. Rubbish (and that includes SPAM) can be the goose that laid the golden egg.

Keep an open mind for promotion ideas: Look at the different themes in your book. There are angles there you can exploit when you’re talking to editors. My first book, THIS IS THE PLACE is sort of romantic (a romance website will like it) but it is also set in Salt Lake City, the site where the winter games were played in 2002 and, though that’s a reach, I found sports desks and feature editors open to it as Olympics © fervor grew and even as it waned because they were desperate for material as the zeal for the games wound down.

Cull contacts: Develop your Rolodex by adding quality recipients from media directories. The Web site www.gebbieinc.com/ has an All-in-One Directory that gives links to others such as Editor, Publisher Year Book, and Burrell’s. Some partial directories on the web are free and so are your yellow pages. Ask for help from your librarian—a good research librarian is like a shark; she’ll keep biting until she’s got exactly what she wants.

Etiquette counts: Send thank-you notes to contacts after they’ve featured you or your book. This happens so rarely they are sure to be impressed and to pay attention to the next idea you have, even if it’s just a listing in a calendar for your next book signing.

Partner with your publicist and publisher: Ask for help from their promotion department—even if it’s just for a sample press release.

Publicize who you are, what you do: Reviews aren’t the only way to go. E-books, Twitter (find me at @frugalbookpromo), Facebook, Blog Tours, your Book Launch, catalogs, the list is endless. Many ideas are included in my The Frugal Book Promoter and John Kremer’s 101 Ways to Promote Your Book.

Develop new activities to publicize: Don’t do just book signings. Use your imagination for a spectacular launch. Start an award. I give the Noble (Not Nobel!) for literary work each January at www.MyShelf.com. Get charities involved. Think in terms of ways to help your community.

Send professional photos with your release: Request guidelines from your target media. Local editors won’t mind if you send homey Kodak moment–properly labeled–along with your release. Some will use it; it may pique the interest of others and they’ll send out their own photographers. It’s best, however, to send only professional photos to the big guys.

Frequency is important: The editor who ignores your first release may pay more attention to your second or twenty-fifth. She will come to view you as a source and call you when she needs to quote an expert. This can work for novels as well as nonfiction. I received a nice referral in my local newspaper because I am now an “expert” on prejudice, even though my book is a novel and not a how-to or self-help piece.

Follow Up: Shel Horowitz, author of Marketing Without Megabucks(http://www.frugalfun.com), reports that follow-up calls boost the chances of a press release being published. Voice contact builds relationships better than any other means of communication.

Keep clippings: Professional publicists like Debra Gold of Gold & Company do this for their clients; you do it so you’ll know what’s working and what isn’t.

Evaluate: One year after your first release, add up the column inches. Measure the number of inches any paper gave you free including headlines and pictures. If the piece is three columns wide and each column of your story is six inches long, that is 18 column inches. How much does that newspaper charge per inch for their ads? Multiply the column inches by that rate to know what the piece is worth in advertising dollars. Now add 20% for the additional trust the reader puts in editorial material.

Set goals: You now have a total of what your year’s efforts have reaped. New publicist-authors should set a goal to increase that amount by 100% in the next year. If you already have a track record, aim for 20%.

Observe progress: Publicity is like planting bulbs. It proliferates even when you aren’t trying very hard. By watching for unintended results, you learn how to make them happen in the future.

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The author is Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won’t, winner of USA Book News’ Best Professional Book, and Book Publicists of Southern California’s Irwin Award. Its sister book, The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success is also a multi-award winner. Her new booklet of word trippers is Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers: The Ultimate Frugal Booklet for Avoiding Word Trippers and Crafting Gatekeeper-Perfect Copy. Learn more at: http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com.
Her complimentary newsletter Sharing with Writers is always full of promotion tips, craft, and publishing news. Send an e-mail with “subscribe” in the subject line to HoJoNews@aol.com.

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Source: http://www.bookcatcher.com/articles/seven-book-writing-secrets.php

Does your writing lack pizzazz? Does it lack the power to draw your readers in for more? Does it inspire confidence in you as an author? Does it stand up to your competition and hold its own?

If you answered no to any of the questions above you may be interested in the tips below. Discover how to write compelling copy that makes your book sales soar:

1. Put your reader first. Most of us tend to write selfishly. I mean we write what we want. Go against the natural grain; give your readers what they want. Write to their benefit. Write a solution to their problems.

2. Start well. Create a sizzling beginning. Hook your readers through emotion. Slant your book or introduction with a question or an amazing statistic. Share the top benefits of your book early. Aim for the ‘You’ in every reader.

3. Break your writing into short sections. Write your book in chunks, chapters, sections and parts. Use headings, bulleted lists, pull quotes and other easy reading tools. Don’t make your chapters too long. Create easy transitions to the next chapter or section. Keep each section short and easy to read.

4. Use short sentences. Slash your sentences to under 15-17 words. Don’t bog your readers with complex sentences. Remember multiple phrases slow your reader’s comprehension. Make it easy. Get to the point fast.

5. Use simple words. Write for the 7-10 grade level. The shortest, most well known words are best. The more syllables in a word, the less compelling it becomes. Cut all unnecessary adjectives. Clear, easy to understand copy makes your reader want to read your piece to the end. Fill your writing with what’s in it for them. They’ll come back for more and tell all their friends.

6. Avoid technical jargon. Unless you are writing a technical manual where most everyone will understand the technical language, don’t use technical jargon. It will become techno mumbo jumbo to your readers; they will find something better to do besides figure out what you’re saying.

7. Be specific. Avoid generalities. Engage your reader’s emotion with specifics. Let them experience color, size and shape. Instead of, “Complete your degree online fast to increase your income.” Say, “Complete your master degree online fast so you can upgrade your lifestyle, get vacations, health insurance and other corporate benefits.” Specific benefits create a stronger pull than the general benefit of increased income.

8. Slash adverbs. Go through and cut words like openly, suddenly, very that tell the reader instead of show the reader. Circle all the (ly) and (very) words. Pull out your thesaurus and replace them with power words that show emotion or describe.

9. Check the flow of information. Check your paragraphs for good harmonic flow and understanding. Meaning, make sure you don’t drop off suddenly and change the subject. Clear writing creates compelling copy. Compelling copy leads to more book sales.

10. Slash passive structures. Passive sentences slow and dull your writing. Get rid of the passive voice sentences. Give your sentences a clear subject and a verb to avoid the passive voice. “The writer found fame and fortune through marketing her books online.” instead of “The writer’s books were instrumental in leading her to fame and fortune.” Avoid connecting verbs like ‘was’, ‘is’, ‘had’, and ’seemed’. Replace passive voice verbs with active verbs.

Are you ready to write sizzling copy that your readers find hard to put down? Remember to put your reader first, develop a sizzling start, break your writing into short sections, shorten sentences, use simple words, avoid technical language and be specific. Implement these seven tips to begin writing for more profits! Now go; write a successful book and make us all proud!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Earma Brown, 13 year author and book coach
Get a Free Book Writing Kit when you take the Write a Book Challenge. Send any email towabc@bookwritinghelp.com for 7 lesson mini-course “Win with the Writer Inside” or visit her at How to Write a Book for more resources and tips.

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Source: http://www.sideroad.com/Information_Product/free-book-marketing.html

Written By: Christine Hohlbaum

You have a great story idea you’re sure everyone will want to read. You manage to put it down on paper, pass it around various places, and get it published. Congratulations! Now the fun begins.

To be a great writer is an innate gift. To be a great writer whose work people actually read, you have to have yet another talent: marketing. Someone once said selling a book involves 5% really great writing and 95% even better marketing. Look at any bestseller list, and you will see what I say is true: unless your last name is Grisham, you’ll need to do a lot of footwork first.

The good news is you can do a lot of marketing on a shoestring budget. With the advent of the Internet, reaching your target audience has never been easier. Think you can’t spread the word about your great new release cheaply and fast? Think again!

The most important thing is to know your target audience. It wouldn’t make sense to pitch your book to an auto mechanic’s magazine editor if you’ve written a book about quilting. Once you have determined your readership, it’s time to get creative.

Book signings at local bookstores can add to your profile as a local author. Contact the store manager with a press release and a copy of your book in hand. If you are marketing a children’s book, make certain that there is a children’s section in the bookstore in which you are doing the book signing. Again, knowing the target audience of the bookstore can assist you in getting a “yes” from the store owner versus a “rather not”. Once the book signing date is secured, tell the world about it!

Internet radio is a relatively new medium. Do an internet search to determine which programs suit you. Ask around or notice other people’s message posts. When they announce an upcoming radio interview that addresses your target audience, check out the station’s Web site. I have secured many interviews by watching others succeed first.

Networking is an important factor in making yourself and your work known. There are many social networking sites which are generous and helpful, that allow you to network with all kinds of people for free.

There are also several free press release services which get your news on the web fast and free. Most offer the option to pay for additional exposure: The more you pay, obviously, the more you will be exposed to the right eyes. I actually opted for the free service on one major site, and got my very first fan e-mail that way. A side benefit is that your release will then appear on the major search engines which is more free exposure.

Providing webmasters and ezine publishers with free, well-written articles can be an extremely powerful marketing tool. Within four months, I have been published in over one-hundred twenty publications both on- and off-line due to this method of marketing. In addition, it is a great way to reach your target audience because your Web link and bio are included with every article.

An added benefit to the ezine approach is the network that you are able to create. I have two regular columns at women’s Web sites because they used one of my free articles, and I offered to provide them with more. In addition, after using my articles, several Web sites have placed my book in their bookstores or on their recommended reading lists simply because I asked!

Author interviews are a great way to get exposure. Unfortunately, much like book reviews, they can be hard to get. I created a simple Q&A about my book which I would attach to follow-up e-mails to reviewers and the like. On several occasions, webmasters were grateful that I saved them the time of “having to interview me”. They would simply post my Q&A on their sites. Viola! An instant author interview was born.

Contacting your local paper for a feature article about your accomplishments will often lead to great publicity. After landing a page-length article in my hometown paper, I managed to receive e-mails from old high school friends that I hadn’t seen in ten years. People tend to buy your book if they know a bit about you, the author.

The short of it is this: set a goal, write it down, and put it where you can see it. You can achieve your dreams if you have it in front of you at all times. If there is a will, there truly is a way.

Christine Louise Hohlbaum is the author of several books, including a turn-key marketing program, The Author’s Companion: A Self-Guided Course on Book Promotion. She has been published in over 120 publications and offers affordable PR consulting for authors. www.authors companion.com.

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Not too long ago, an author’s dream of getting a manuscript published and distributed rested largely on the hands of the publishing houses. Authors with rejected works had the option to self-publish their manuscripts, although the high cost of this process discouraged many rejected authors from taking this route.

A lot has changed since then. The rise of internet and digital technology has drastically reduced the cost of self-publishing, and has given birth to hundreds of competing self-publishing companies. Now, virtually anyone can turn a raw manuscript into a published book.

But while the process of publishing has gotten easier, the process of selling books has not. In fact, it has gotten harder. The remarkable growth of the self-publishing industry, while initially thought to be a boon to authors, has given birth to a twin problem: an overabundance of published books.

Consider this: Close to 200,000 books were published last year in the United States alone, 80 percent of which are self-published and you can bet a large chunk of these books are for sale. What’s more, the number is expected to rise this year. With this kind of competition, how does an upstart author market a self-published work efficiently?

There are many ways to market a book, but whatever kind of marketing platform an author chooses to adopt, the most vital marketing tool an author can do to boost a book marketing campaign is by owning a well-designed website.

For any author, having a well-designed website is the single most important move in selling a book. A website will serve as a highly credible marketing base for any author, and exponentially increases the visibility, market reach, and promotional power of any book marketing campaign.

A website, when linked to a particular book advertisement or marketing campaign, will greatly reinforce the information and marketing punch disseminated by publicity campaigns, e-mail advertisements, or any other type of online book marketing campaign.

Furthermore, a well-designed website facilitates the connection between the author and the clientele in a professional and convenient method — a very pivotal aspect in today’s book-selling industry.

A website serves an ideal host for an “author blog”, which is one of the most effective — and perhaps most underrated — book marketing tools in the current book marketing landscape. While many authors are not aware of this yet, a well-designed and frequently updated blog webpage effectively translates into avid reader patronage.

The reason is this: books that capture a reader’s interest do not go unremembered, and neither does the author who wrote it. Enamored readers want to get involved. A memorable reading experience makes readers want to know the author, as well as the book’s the themes and back story. They want to know what’s the current and upcoming projects of the author who has so effectively captured their imagination and touched their emotions. As mentioned earlier, they want to be involved. A website will take care of this area with optimum effect.

In addition, “author websites” are regularly visited by the movers and shakers of a wide range of industries. Whether it’s a film producer in search for a new film project, or a businessman in pursuit of revolutionary business ideas (self-help books), a wide range of visitors will be accommodated effectively by a website, which serves as an online organizer. Here, you can list your contact information and other contents, making yourself available to every person in the world at any time.

Finally, a website is hands-down the most cost-efficient book marketing tool. With the recent growth of companies that offer book marketing services, an author can easily own a well-designed website for a couple of hundred dollars.

The bottom line: Before you start waging any kind of book marketing campaign, start your program with the most important tool in the business of book promotion and marketing — and get yourself a website.

Learn more about the dynamics of marketing self published books, Internet Marketing Promotion, Book Marketing Services, and many other useful tips about online book marketing.

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Source: http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/how-to-avoid-becoming-a-book-marketing-dinosaur/

The technology landscape and associated opportunities for marketing your book is changing at an unprecedented pace. Online games, mobile marketing, Facebook, Twitter, the Kindle, the iPhone, the iPad and the Android are pushing the boundaries of what is possible when it comes to promoting and marketing your book.

As an author, it is important that you keep abreast of these emerging trends and technologies so that you can take advantage of these opportunities. Else you run the risk of becoming a book marketing dinosaur.

And the first step in avoiding the fate of the dinosaurs is for you to spend some time in educating yourself. When the team at BookBuzzr looked around, we discovered that there was a dearth of information and practical advice when it comes to book marketing technologies for authors.

So we decided to do fix the problem with a new kind of online learning environment … one that was focused on getting practical, actionable information from industry leading experts to authors in the most efficient manner.

Announcing BookBuzzr’s Book Marketing Technologies Center (BBMTC)

In order to help you to successfully navigate through the swarm of new technologies and separate the noise from the signal, we at BookBuzzr are launching the BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies Center (BBMTC.)

BBMTC is the world’s first and only online, free, learning program designed to help authors learn about emerging new technologies and associated opportunities for book promotion. BBMTC features a monthly online seminar or roundtable (aka webinar) featuring industry leading book marketing experts. Each month they will cover a new technology or emerging trend.

Our panel of experts will talk and share about technologies with authors and writers through webinars and blog posts to cover it comprehensively. This is our way of getting different viewpoints to the table about what is the latest trend emerging for authors in technologies that will help them reach out to more people.

We will have one webinar each month on the topic and as many view points as possible from industry experts as article/blog posts.

For each webinar the panel will share their views about the topic and discuss it in detail. The latter half of the webinar will be dedicated to answering questions from authors and writers. Questions can be asked before, during, and after the seminar on Twitter (with Hashtag #BBMTC) or on our BookBuzzr Facebook Page.

How much does it cost?

You can attend any workshop for free. Our generous expert partners are giving away much of their knowledge for free. Why is BBMTC free you ask? Our expert partners are doing this in the hope that at least some of the attendees will become their clients in the future. Also it’s our and our experts way of giving back to the author community. Of course you are under no obligation to purchase anything.

What is the schedule and what are my next steps?

The schedule is outlined below. Please bear in mind that the schedule may change and we may make changes to the format of this program or the schedule based on feasibility and opportunities. Simply sign-up to our monthly newsletter to get notified about upcoming BBMTC events.

All seminars/webinars at 2:00 p.m. Eastern / 11:00 a.m. Pacific / Noon Arizona

Wednesday, 12th January 2011 – Facebook Fundamentals for Authors

Wednesday, 9th February 2011 – Using Twitter to Market your Book

Wednesday, 9th March 2011 - Formatting for the Kindle and other readers

Wednesday, 13th April 2011 - Marketing Your Book in an Apple World

Wednesday, 11th May 2011 - Blogger Relations for Authors

Wednesday, 8th June 2011 - How to Create Good Book Trailers

Wednesday, 13th July 2011 - Podcasting Fundamentals for Authors

Wednesday, 10th August 2011 – Online Gaming – Why it Matters for Authors

Wednesday, 14th September 2011 - Marketing Your Book in a Mobile World

Wednesday, 12th October 2011 - Networking on Forums and Reader Sites for Authors

Wednesday, 9th November 2011 - How Authors can Use Technologies to Market Their Books

Wednesday, 14th December 2011 - How Authors Can Succeed in the EBooks Universe

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Source: http://bookmarketingmaven.typepad.com/book_marketing_maven/2010/08/relevance-and-credibility-key-selling-points-in-promoting-your-book.html

Relevance and credibility are two key points in any form of advertising or promotion which includes social networking. I have yet to see book marketing experts address these topics when they tell us social networking, building our list, creating groups on Facebook, or a whole gamut of other marketing ways is of utmost importance if we want to sell our book. In reality, doing all these things isn’t go to get us anywhere if we don’t have relevance and credibility to what we say or do.

Relevance: You must prove to your potential reader how pertinent, connected, or applicable your book is to them , current times/ social issues, or currently popular.

Credibility: You must prove to your potential reader you are trustworthy and an expert on the subject. This also includes your personal code of ethics, integrity and reasonable grounds to be believed.

Relevance without credibility is just hype and without substance. Credibility without relevance is boring. But combining the two together you get power.  You get the potential reader’s attention, you get respect, and you create interest in your book.

Are you frowning right now and wondering how you can do both?  It’s easy:

source: http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/book-authors-need-a-dedicated-website-for-their-books/

Guest Expert: Phyllis Zimbler Miller

Thanks to the online marketing opportunities made available by the Internet, authors with little or no marketing budgets can level the playing field with authors who have huge marketing budgets.

Yet before authors can truly take advantage of online marketing opportunities, these authors need a home base that they can totally control themselves.

While it is an excellent part of an online book marketing plan to have your book on sites such as freado.com, you need one place where you can publish whatever material you want about your book. (This includes a place to post book signings.)

A WordPress website provides this opportunity as well as providing a blogging platform.

Let’s start by clarifying what we are talking about. WordPress.com is a hosted blogging platform on which you can have a blog. But you do not control this site and must abide by the WordPress.com blogging rules.

WordPress.org (known simply as WordPress) is a self-hosted blogging platform that can also be a website with static pages. Once your WordPress site is up you can totally control it, adding pages and posts with a couple of clicks. (Yes, there is a learning curve just as there was when you started using Word.)

Now if you are a writer you should definitely be blogging. You want to showcase your writing as well as have an opportunity to interact with fans when they leave comments on your blog posts. In addition, search engines love fresh content, and blogging two or three times a week provides this fresh content.

And, yes, at first it appears that nonfiction authors have the upper hand in blogging. These authors can blog about their nonfiction topics and even easily publish excerpts of their books as posts.

But truly there are numerous topics about which fiction writers can blog. For example, these topics can be related to the main subject area of your novel. (I blog on military-related topics at www.mrslieutenant.blogspot.com in connection with my novel “Mrs. Lieutenant.”)

Some fiction writers blog about writing in general or share excerpts of their fiction writing on their blogs. If you would like more blogging ideas for fiction writers, see the free report that Carolyn Howard-Johnson and I wrote atwww.fictionmarketing.com

Here are some important elements to have on your book author website:

• Make it clear the moment someone lands on your website whether your book is fiction or nonfiction and whether it is upcoming or already published.

• If published, make it really easy to spot the “buy” button (this button or link should be “above the fold” – before a person has to scroll down your home page).

• Include prominently displayed links to your social media profiles such as on Twitter and Facebook so fans can connect with you online besides at your website.

• Include a photo of the cover of your book.

• Include downloadable book discussion guidelines – yes, make it easy for book clubs to read your book.

• Include an excerpt of your book.

• Offer reviews of your book.

• Provide information about you the author.

• Feature an email opt-in box to capture email addresses.

When considering how to get a WordPress website that will work for you, be aware that there are WordPress websites and then there are WordPress websites.

What I mean by this is that there is a wide range of prices for getting a WordPress website up and running. Unsuspecting authors can get what they consider are great-looking sites, but these sites may not be search engine optimized. In other words, the sites may not have been set up to attract the search engines.

My company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing has established a collaboration with Doron Orenstein of Magnetic Webworks in which Doron builds search-engine optimized WordPress websites. (See http://budurl.com/ultrapro )

For each website that Doron builds he gives the website owner a $50 gift certificate to Kiva.org . Plus each website owner gets ongoing access to how-to videos created by my company to help people effectively use their WordPress website.

And when should you have a book author website?

The sooner the better. Yes, the optimum time to have the website and start blogging is way before your book is published. You want to use the lead time to create strong relationships with potential fans so they will be eagerly awaiting the publication of your book.

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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novelwww.MrsLieutenant.com and has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is a co-founder of the social media marketing companywww.MillerMosaicPowerMarketing.com You can download her FREE report “Twitter, Facebook and Your Website: A Beginning Blueprint for Harnessing the Power of 3” at www.millermosaicpowerof3.com.

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By Tony Eldridge, creator of Marketing Tips For Authors

source: http://blog.marketingtipsforauthors.com/2010/12/create-unique-sound-for-your-brand.html

So, you’ve read a lot about creating an author platform, complete with your unique brand. You have chosen your website look, pics, and colors carefully and you have been consistent in using them across platforms. You have chosen your user names well as you created your presence on social networking sites.

Well done. You know how important it is for you to use your look consistently. Think about your favorite author who has written a series. Chances are, each cover has the same look and feel of other books in the series, at least books published by the same publisher.

So, what’s next for you to think about? I’d say we all need to start thinking about how we use video in our marketing. It’s becoming more and more mainstream and a whole lot easier for the non-techie marketer to utilize (see my BookBuzzr post entitled, Tools To Help You Create Videos For Your Blog/Website).

As you start to dip your toe into video marketing, you will have an opportunity to think about your unique sound. Whether it’s a jingle that sticks in a viewer’s mind, an instrumental lead-in to your videos or your audible sign-off, having the some sound can be yet another way people have to identify your brand.

Who would have thought a few years ago that an author, who deals with words, would even have to consider an audible branding tool? Things change and luckily for us, we don’t have to spend thousands to keep up with the changes.

So start paying attention to the sounds you like. What audio snippets say to you, “That’s me!” It doesn’t have to be a song; maybe it’s as simple as the three tone peacock sound that NBC plays when it shows its logo. Whatever it is, there’s something out there that can uniquely identify you and now is the time to start to give it some serious thought.

Tony Eldridge is the author of the award winning action/adventure novel, The Samson Effect, which Clive Cussler calls a “first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure.” He is also the creator of Marketing Tips for Authors, a site that publishes free tips and videos to help authors learn marketing techniques for their books. You can read the serial release of The Samson Effect athttp://samsoneffect.marketingtipsforauthors.com/

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