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* Top 10 Ways to Promote Your Virtual Book Tour

A step by step guide to making your Virtual Book Tour a success:

http://blog.publishedandprofitable.com/2011/12/09/top-10-ways-to-promote-your-virtual-book-tour/

* Where Can I Find Great Content to Tweet?

If it matters to you and your followers, it’s great content, and here’s how to find it:

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/where-can-i-find-great-content-to-tweet_b17934

* Pinterest Tips for Writers

Pinterest is already attracting Twitter and Google-level traffic. If you’re a writer, here’s how to leverage the site:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/pinterest-tips-for-writers_b46019

* Authors, Here’s the Social Media Platform You Should Spend Most of Your Time On

Learn why you should capture, connect and convert Facebook followers:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arielle-ford/authors-social-media-marketing_b_1144749.html

* Why Every Entrepreneur Should Self-Publish a Book

Stand out from the competition by writing a book. What you should know:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/28/why-every-entrepreneur-should-self-publish-a-book/

* 3 Creative Ways to Promote Your Book With Social Media

Have fun, and think of ways you can engage your readers:

http://socialtimes.com/5-creative-ways-to-promote-your-book-with-social-media_b88460

If you’re trying to market your published work, chances are you’re using the Internet to promote it in one way or another. If you’re developing the promotional content on your own, understanding a few key rules can help you write for the web more effectively. You’ll benefit from knowing how writing for the web is both similar to and different from traditional writing forms.

How writing for the web is similar to traditional writing

Many traditional writing rules apply when writing copy for online marketing.

• Support your claims with research. Directly linking to outside research makes citing sources online extremely easy.
• Connect to your specific audience. As with traditional writing, well-written and highly informed pieces will go unread if you can’t keep readers’ attention.
• Use action verbs. When telling a story, action verbs drive the storyline. In marketing, action verbs encourage people to buy your product, which, in this case, is your writing.
• Edit with a vengeance. You wouldn’t publish an article or book without having it thoroughly edited. Promotional copy should be no different as errors divert potential customers.
• Be consistent. If you use a blog to promote your work, you need to update it regularly and with a similar style and tone.

How writing for the web differs from traditional writing

Conversely, writing effective copy for online marketing also requires you to go against some traditional writing rules.

• Formatting should be short and sweet. When writing for online consumption, you have to hold the interest of your readers. Keep all formatting as concise and efficient as possible. Online audiences typically don’t feel compelled to read an article composed of a seemingly infinite number of paragraphs.
• Use bullets to make key points obvious. Whereas you might take paragraphs to explain an idea in traditional writing, web consumption requires you to make your point as efficiently as possible.
• Explain the benefits explicitly. When promoting a product, you’re trying to advise people what to do rather than let them come to their own conclusions. To effectively persuade online readers, tell them what your product will do for them.

My final piece of advice is this: include visuals whenever appropriate. When posting marketing content online, your written word alone usually isn’t enough. Even if your web writing is top-notch, you’ll still have to attract and keep the attention of your audience. Include relevant photos, videos and infographics to further convey your message.

As a writer, you can appreciate well-thought-out and well-written content on the web. Whether you’re writing for a professional website, personal blog or other online forum, you must do so effectively if you want to successfully market yourself, your work and your craft itself.

Danielle Rodabaugh is the editor for SuretyBonds.com, a nationwide surety producer that publishes educational resources about developments in the surety industry. Danielle also writes about her online marketing experience to help entrepreneurs and business owners make the most of their ventures.

Words are all around us, and there are many people who desperately want to learn how to use them for self-expression. But the sad fact is that even though learning a language and its functions can be relatively easy, learning to express yourself openly is not the easiest thing to do.  Developing your voice as a writer is a process that takes self reflection, dedication and practice. Thankfully, there are a few tips that you can use to become a better writer regardless of your level and experience.

Read as much as possible

The journey to becoming a competent writer starts with research, but unlike boring school research, as a writer you have the freedom to research expression itself. Not only is reading beneficial to your intellect, it will also help you to pick up and assimilate the techniques and feel of great writers. If you can take the things that you like from a broad spectrum of writers, and manipulate them so that they become your own, your writing will immediately improve. Also, reading a lot will show you what has already been done so that you can steer clear and keep your own work as fresh as possible.

Experiment with free writing

Once you have  an idea of what you like in other writers, it is imperative that you bring it in to your own writing. You will never develop as a writer if you don’t practice and work on your narrative style, so get to it! Many writers have issues starting their work – they just don’t know where to begin. If this sounds like you, then maybe you should consider free writing. This is a useful exercise in opening up. All that you do is start writing – you don’t even have to use sentences, just write the first thing that comes to your mind.

Eventually you will realize that you’ve written something of value. Even if you simply take phrases for another work, you will feel that you’ve accomplished something, and writing will become easier. Another useful tool is Internet sites that allow you to write variations on popular stories, in a fill-in-the-missing-word style. What would you have done with Harry Potter right at the end? Write it and have it critiqued by an online community.

Practice, be open, and look for advice everywhere and you will start to grow as a writer.

Guest post by freelance writer Victoria Heckstall. She is a stay at home mom who has been currently writing about Royal Bank Credit Cards and BMO Business Credit Cards.

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* The New Author Pitch: Show, Don’t Sell

Learn how to use the right words to get noticed by the various audiences you want to reach:

http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2012/01/16/the-new-author-pitch-show-don%E2%80%99t-sell/

* What Are The Best Times to Blog?

Based on this infographic, there is one particular time that is perfect for your post to go live:

http://danzarrella.com/infographic-what-are-the-best-times-to-blog.html

* 3 Metrics that Will Change the Way You Market on Facebook

Understanding what to track will allow you to get the most out of Facebook:

http://mashable.com/2012/01/20/facebook-metrics-marketing/

* How to Increase Your Book’s Amazon Rank

It’s about building visibility and credibility, as one author explains:

http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/author-interviews/how-to-increase-your-books-amazon-rank/

* 11 Marketing Tips for LinkedIn

Did you know LinkedIn has 135 million users? Here are ways to use LinkedIn to your advantage:

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/01/16/11-useful-tips-for-marketing-your-brand-on-linkedin/

* An Interesting Graph on Best Times for Posting

Timing does matter, and this study may have you considering some new options for posting content:

http://danzarrella.com/infographic-how-to-use-contra-competitive-timing-for-more-retweets-likes-comments-and-clicks.html

* Facebook Plugins Keep People On Websites 50% Longer

Logging in with Facebook is not just convenient; it keeps users on those websites longer:

http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-plugins-sticky-2012-01

About our guest: Dave Ursillo’s book, Lead Without Followers: How to Save Our World by Radically Redefining the Meaning of Leadership, teaches people how to become “leaders without followers” in any walk of life by discovering a personal and profound sense of inner leadership.

Since its inception in 2009, DaveUrsillo.com has reached over 75,000 readers in 173 countries. In June 2011, his site was seen in a feature story on nationally-televised CBS Sunday Morning about the world of blogging.

About the book: Lead Without Followers not only explores the cultural, social and political origins of today’s “Leadership Problem,” but cuts into the heart of the human source of today’s convoluted definition of what it means to lead.

Lead Without Followers invites readers to abandon the political sphere in order to embark upon a unique personal journey to discover an unconventional and profound form of “quiet” leadership that can be embodied by men and women in any walk of life.

The book lays out a step-by-step process for ordinary men and women to discover and harness a unique, highly-effective and influential form of quiet leadership. The Lead Without Followers philosophy reaches into the shared humanity of the reader to help him or her reconnect with leadership’s truest traits, such as positivity and hope, love, selfless giving, forgiveness, compassion and much more.

By becoming “leaders without followers,” readers free themselves from their disillusionments and regain a purer sense of what it really means to lead.

Have an impact on others

Dave’s book is his life story, although he is only 26 years old. He believes we can each have great impact on other lives, just with a click of a mouse. This concept resonates in every part of our lives: business, personal, and politically.

We should view that ability to have an impact on other people’s lives every day as a responsibility and an opportunity. What makes you a leader is what you do, how you do it, how you help, how you can make an impact, Dave says.

It’s not a numbers game

There’s a conventional wisdom that you have to build a tribe, find followers, etc., but nobody says just go out and lead. Do it for the reasons that matter to you personally, that fit your morals, values and goals.

Image by glennharper via Flickr

There is also the idea of thankfulness, which is not typically discussed when thinking about leadership, but it’s important, he adds.

Authors can start leading by calling themselves writers, not aspiring writers, and by beginning wherever they are in their journey and building forward momentum. Work toward getting published a step at a time.

Be a leader and show people who you are. Be transparent. It matters more to find the people who will get something out of what you do, the ones you can touch, rather than amass a huge block of anonymous followers, Dave says.

Live in a way that will make you proud of yourself. A person who acts like a leader and shows his or her value will be more likely to attract followers.

Think of your legacy: what are you leaving behind? That’s what really matters.

Download the full show at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thepublishinginsiders/2012/01/25/lead-without-followers-with-dave-ursillo

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Upcoming Episode:

Please join us Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 4 p.m. Pacific for Secrets to Creating Children’s Book Apps

Karen Robertson is a children’s author who turned her book, Treasure Kai and the Lost Gold of Shark Island, into a book app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Karen will discuss how she created the book app, how it’s going, and how she’s creating a global brand for Treasure Kai using digital technology.

The Treasure Kai book app launched in 2011 and has won recognition and awards including being a Digital Storytime “Top 25 Most Essential Children’s Book App,” and winning “Best in Category” for apps at the New Media Film Festival in San Francisco.

After launching her first book app, Karen wrote her first eBook, Author’s Guide to Book Apps.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thepublishinginsiders/2012/02/08/secrets-to-creating-childrens-book-apps

Narrative tension is the tension characters in a novel feel about unresolved and unfulfilled events and needs. When characters in a story are blocked from gaining what they want, they experience narrative tension.  When acting to gain something increases a character’s pain (because the story/storyteller increases the obstacles) a character in a story experiences increasing narrative tension.

In a nutshell, a storyteller creates a character who can’t refuse to act because of the cost of inaction (either internal or external), but there’s also a price to pay for acting.

Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, is a great example of narrative tension.  To act on his love for Juliet is to turn against his clan and family; to not act on his feelings for Juliet is to violate his sense of what’s important to him.  But any action he takes increases his pain.

A novel (or memoir) that lacks narrative tension fails to be compelling.  It can appear to be episodic; events happen, but there’s no tension around an outcome to these events.  Characters act, but there’s no tension generated around their actions.

Suggesting tension for characters is only the first step in generating narrative tension. The second step is to write about this tension in a way that it is transferred from a story’s characters to a story’s audience.  That’s why the introduction of a story’s promise around an issue of human need is so important.  When a story’s audience identifies with a story’s characters and goals, that audience can also be led to internalize tension over whether a character achieves his or her goals.

Image via Wikipedia

Narrative tension can be compared to an electrical current that runs through a story.  The weaker the current, the less a story transmits to an audience. The greater the current, the greater the involvement of an audience.

While a great plot can help hook an audience around finding out what will happen next, when an audience has internalized a story’s narrative tension, that audience needs to experience a story’s resolution and fulfillment for the relief of the tension created by the storyteller. Then and only then is a story compelling.

Bill Johnson is the author of A Story is a Promise and The Spirit of Storytelling, which is available on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V020N0. Essays about popular novels, movies, and plays can be found at http://www.storyispromise.com

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* 30 Inspiring Ideas To Develop Content For Your Blog

Learn how to create content that keeps your readers coming back for more:

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/12/17/30-inspiring-ideas-to-develop-content-for-your-blog/

* 5 Ways Brands Can Use Pinterest to Boost Consumer Engagement

Did you know Pinterest is one of the top 10 most visited social networks? See what it can do:

http://mashable.com/2012/01/10/pinterest-business-consumer-engagement/

* 4 Ways the New Facebook Insights Can Grow Your Fans

Facebook has improved its metrics so you can discover what your fans really want, and then provide it to them:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/4-ways-the-new-facebook-insights-can-grow-your-fans/

* The 4 Social Media Marketing Secrets Of A New York Times Best Seller

Your blog can be key to reaching out to your audience and building a fan base before your book even comes out:

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/12/21/the-4-social-media-marketing-secrets-of-a-new-york-times-best-seller/

* How to Monitor Twitter: For Businesses of All Sizes

If you use Twitter, you should monitor the conversation. Here’s how:

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/how-to-monitor-twitter-for-businesses-of-all-sizes_b136

* Advice for Authors, Part One and Part Two

Author and marketing guru Seth Godin offers some timely tips on publishing and marketing your book, written a few years ago but still relevant:

http://www.thedominoproject.com/2012/01/advice-for-authors-part-one-and-part-two.html

Most authors exploring a book marketing website won’t be thinking about the merits of a creative writing course. Aren’t you beyond all that? If your book is in its tenth draft, if you’ve got your cover design chosen, your blurb written, your marketing under development – aren’t you beyond learning the ABCs of writing?

Well, maybe. I used to think so. I should say that I’m a working writer myself. I’ve been published by HarperCollins, Random House, Bloomsbury and others. I’ve had novels become bestsellers and others make prize-shortlists. I’ve been published most places that matter between Japan and New York – so I’ve been around the block. I’m not a newbie any more.

But the notion of a creative writing course isn’t so foolish, all the same. For one thing, most writers just charge in to their first novel. I did. Bash your first draft out on a laptop convinced you’re Dan Stephen King / Nora Roberts / Jonathan Franzen. Mess around with it, trying to get the darn thing into some kind of shape. Send it off to a literary agent. Hope you get lucky. (And I did.)

Yet somewhere along the way, you realise that although you might have got one published, you never actually learned how to write a novel.  Your first book worked, if it did, through inspiration, but that rush of creativity won’t always be there. And one day – quite likely some day soon – you’ll run into a creative problem that you don’t know how to solve.

At that point, you need technique. You actually need to know the ABCs of writing. If a plot isn’t quite working out, you need a set of tools that will help you analyse the problem, identify the core issue and fix it. Sure, inspiration is an indispensible ingredient of any great writing, but technique is there to support, not replace, that original creative impulse.

Or take another issue: prose style. I’ll bet that you still write today in more or less the same way as you did when you first picked up a pen. You’ll have tightened up, got better at avoiding cliché, been more economical with your words – but I’ll bet you still sound the same. That might be because you just happened on a great style when you first started writing. Or it might be because you cling, like a limpet to a rock, to the very first thing you got to work. You want to guess which of those two options is the more common?

And those really are the two reasons why existing writers might want to think about learning, from scratch, how to write a novel. You do it to build technique, to give you a set of tools that will halve the time it takes you to get your work right. Measured out over, quite possibly, an entire career of writing, that saving of effort could be enormous.

And the second reason is that a course offers you a ‘safe play’ area. You can try stuff on a course you wouldn’t have the nerve to do for real. Try different styles. Push yourself. Experiment. Imitate. Mix things up. You wouldn’t want to start a whole novel like that, but if you scribble out a short story on a course that really excites you … well, that excitement could possibly be the start of something big.

In terms of which course to pick, I’m a massive fan of online writing courses. They slot into your ordinary life and your ordinary working rhythms without having to disrupt a thing. If you need plenty of time for a particular exercise, working online will give you more freedom to take that time than you’d have if you were sat in a classroom. And naturally, the quality of a writing course depends a lot on its students. If a class fills its places by choosing from a narrow geographic location, you’re at risk of not being sufficiently challenged and extended by those you’re with.

Like countless authors, I’ve ended up running my career backwards. Launching myself with my first novel, taking time to figure out that I didn’t know what I was doing, picking stuff up piecemeal along the way. And life doesn’t have to be like that. You could actually choose to do things in the right order. Get your skills, launch your career, build from there. It’s funny how much simpler that would be.

Harry Bingham runs the Writers’ Workshop which offers a variety of online creative writing courses, including a how to write a novel course.

I have made some noise in my blog about the fact that I’m going all eBook.  I have a list of reasons, but there is always that alter-ego of mine called “buyer’s remorse” who is telling me that I’m killing myself.  Read on, Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath, and console me.

Let’s enumerate the reasons again.  The top one is that I can’t afford to keep on paying for POD.  Even though prices have come down and service has gone up (I have no complaints about Infinity Publishing’s production of trade paperbacks, for example), for the same price I can produce multiple eBooks.  I have many stories I want to tell.  If this paradigm shift to digital publishing continues, eBook media is my most economical route.

It’s a toss-up which media, eBook or trade paperback, is most effective for marketing, something I’m forced to do on my own.  I can’t afford even a small ad in the NY Times Book Review section, let alone a trailer that is shown on TV, but that’s true whether I’m marketing an eBook or a trade paperback.  As for book signings and/or discussions in more traditional venues (bookstores, libraries, book groups, and eclectic coffee shops), I’d say the eBook is at a distinct disadvantage.  It’s also hard to put an eBook in someone’s stocking at Christmas.

The eBook has an important marketing advantage that counts more for me:  It’s easy to get an eBook to a reviewer.  An author doesn’t sell that many books in the traditional venues, especially if you take into account that indie authors are seldom invited to present in these venues.  Mary Higgins Clark or Stephen King can sell a few more, I suppose, because they already have name recognition—an adoring public wants to attend so they can say they saw the famous author up close and in person.  (To Mary’s credit, she recently appeared in our Montclair Public Library, but she was reading to children.  At least the adoration was second hand, through the parents.  The kids didn’t get there by Star Trek transporter.)

A reviewer that wants a hardcover or trade paperback to review won’t get it as fast as one that will receive an eBook.  In my case, if it’s a recent book of mine, he or she won’t ever get it because there’s only an eBook version.  On the other hand, if he or she accepts an eBook, I can gift it immediately (assuming they have an internet address).  I review for Bookpleasures.com.  I prefer to review eBooks and will ask for the eBook version, if it exists, for precisely this reason.  Snail mail is so passé, costly, and inefficient.

Image via Wikipedia

But there’s the conundrum.  The digital revolution in general, and eBooks in particular, exist due to the internet.  The monster lurking in the closet is that not everyone has a fast internet connection.  These connections are more or less limited to heavily populated areas.  My brother, bless his soul, lived in rural Ohio for many years.  In spite of the close proximity to Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati, he struggled with slow internet connections for most of those years.  It’s a fact of life in rural areas.

There is the fact that these rural areas are falling behind in the information revolution.  The N.Y. Times last Sunday had a good article about this.  The Times sees this as a blow against equal opportunities for all Americans.  I’m not sure people in rural areas see it that way.  Nevertheless, it presents a real problem for eBooks and the digital paradigm shift in book publishing.

Even in a cabin in the backwoods of the Sierra Nevada, I can sit down and read—maybe by lantern light, but I can still read.  But I probably can’t have an internet hookup, even a slow one.  That means that if I’m reading my Kindle, I can’t download a new book to read in situ.  Of course, I can’t order a new trade paperback either.  But, if I had that internet connection, I could download and be reading my new acquisition within minutes before the snail mail person can even start thinking about how to get through the snow to deliver the paperback to the nearest general store.

Do you see my point?  By restricting myself to eBook publication, I’m also restricting my potential audience.  Not only is there the chance that no one in rural areas will read my eBook (what are the chances that the local library has it on loan?).  There are also many people who just aren’t into eBooks.  They can’t get past that pleasure of turning the page, dog-earing pages with pithy prose, jotting down notes in the margins, etc.  I know.  I thought I was one of them.  Now I can’t imagine life without my Kindle.

So, Barry and Joe, what kind words of consolation do you offer?  I don’t know how the demographics work.  Maybe those rural areas don’t count for much, population-wise, but I know that if lived there I would be even more prone to entertain myself with a good book.  The nearest movie theater and ethnic restaurant might be many, many miles away (I don’t count overcooked Chinese vegetables in Utah or molasses-consistency chili con carne in Iowa as good ethnic food).  A nice provolone and salami sandwich on rye, my one-fingered glass of Jameson’s, and a good book sounds like the way to go.

I guess I must accept that there are many readers that I just can’t reach.  I don’t reach many now anyway, even with the wonderful internet at my disposal.  Barry and Joe have name recognition.  I don’t.  Apparently many people read my blog but don’t buy my books.  Maybe you just don’t like paying for stuff.  Sorry.  My eBooks are bargains (I don’t charge by the hour).  Nevertheless, I need to recover expenses, even if I’m choosing a media, eBooks, that offers the least expensive way to put my stories before the public.

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Steven M. Moore has written six sci-fi thrillers:  The Secret Lab, The Midas Bomb, Full Medical, Evil Agenda, Soldiers of God, and Survivors of the Chaos.  The first is a novel for young adults.  His interests include mathematics, physics, forensics, genetics, robotics, and scientific ethics, as well as writing dystopian novels containing a glimmer of hope.  He has an active blog comprised of op-ed posts, book reviews, interviews, short stories, and comments on the writing business.  His wife and he currently live in New Jersey.  Visit him at his website: http://stevenmmoore.com.

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