Outbox Takeout, a Web Design blog by Kate McMillan

Usability tips for author websites

Kate McMillan — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:24:28 +0000

User Experience comprises many aspects of a website, including the navigation, the content, the design, and the staying power. While there are some blanket rules for web usability (from Wikipedia)…

Present the information to the user in a clear and concise way.
To give the correct choices to the users, in a very obvious way.
To remove any ambiguity regarding the consequences of an action e.g. clicking on delete/remove/purchase.
Put the most important thing in the right place on a web page.

…there are also specific usability & user experience guidelines for each web niche, including author and book websites. Having designed many author and book websites, and tracking analytics to determine design success, here are some guidelines I’ve come up with that help create a great user experience:

Be sure the site visitor knows who you are. Even if your website is designed to mimic the universe created by your story, people still want to know about the person behind it. It’s a way of building trust with your audience, and a way for them to further invest in what you’re doing. For example, Chelsea Cain’s website does a GREAT job reinforcing her genre through the design of her site, while also celebrating her as the author:
Write the text for the site in a similar tone to your book. Did you write a self-help book that offers advice in the first person? Or, a romance novel filled with beautiful, lengthy descriptions? Website text should follow some specific guidelines itself, but you want a continuity of experience between your presence on the web, and your presence within your book(s). Jacqueline Mallorca, The Gluten Free Cook, does a great job writing her website content in the same friendly, approachable manner as her cookbooks:
Design the site as an extension of the brand you have built through your cover art. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to your site navigation or layout, but make sure the design of your website enhances your book cover(s) without overtaking it, and has the same attention to detail. Whether your cover design is clean and modern, or moody and painterly – you want the experience with your site to envelop the user with that same feeling. It’ll help the experience on the web *and* brand recognition. Here’s a great example:
Say what you mean & make your links explicit. This is not a time to be vague and mysterious – if you’re offering a top-ten tips list based on advice in your book, say something like “Discover my Top Ten Tips for ________” and make the entire thing a link. If users know what to expect, they’re more likely to click the link – as opposed to a link that says, “What are you doing to help _______?” This idea can be used in lists, on buttons, within the text, etc… Don’t hide high-value things away on other pages of the site without clearly telling your user about them on the Home page. Here’s an example that highlights the excerpt, an interactive timeline, and the author’s social media links in an unambiguous way:
Give people an easy way to get in touch and/or participate, including (and especially) the press. Everyone hates a website where you have to hunt around for a way to get in contact (hello cell phone companies!), but when you’re marketing something it’s even more important that people find it easy to ask questions and get more information. You don’t have to give our your personal email address – maybe you have a publicist, or you create a web form, or an 800 number people can use to leave a voicemail… there are many options, but you don’t want to cut yourself off when opportunity comes knocking. In addition, you want to provide the press with the majority of what they need right on the site – this includes a press release for the book launch, whether you’re available for interviews, some see interview questions, and an author bio. Make it as easy as possible for people to promote you! Malcolm Gladwell’s site doesn’t do the best job of titling the page, but once you’re there it provides all the info people might need:
Offer more than just the basics. Whether you wrote a novel, a how-to guide, or a cookbook, there will be something else you can add to bring your book to life. How about a free recipe? Or a worksheet for getting something accomplished? Or a snippet of extra content? Just like everyone loves the Special Features on a DVD, your website is an opportunity to enrich the experience for your audience, and keep them wanting more. Your value add doesn’t have to be a huge investment, but you can be quite creative with it. Dr. John Telford’s site about his memoir offers images of the events covered in the book, an interactive timeline of major events in his life, and a video of him talking about his experiences:

Using photos and videos to enhance your website

Kate McMillan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:08:02 +0000

We all know how it’s important to make meaningful connections with your clients and/or customers. One of the ways you can do this is by sharing with them not only through Twitter and Facebook, but also through YouTube and Flickr. Your brand is an extension of your personality, so use the great tools out there that help you bring it to life!

Putting a face and a voice to a name brings an instant connection that may not have been there previously. It also gives you the chance to share goings-on in a way that enhances your customer’s experience…

For example, if you’re opening a restaurant, add photos and videos of the process of creating the venue to your blog posts – or even create just a photo-blog as a way to start building publicity. People are often invested in and excited about what you’re doing well before they set foot in the door. Or, if you’re building a small business around dog training, offer up some free video tidbits of you and your pup in action. Be creative! If you’re reluctant to be the star of the show, collaborate with someone else – or keep yourself behind the camera. There’s no right or wrong way to go about it.

Bringing your business to life like this can make it, and you, much more approachable & lowers the bar for initial customer contact. It also allows you to spread awareness to audiences who might not otherwise have discovered your offering. With user bases in the millions, using targeted tags and linking back to your website on YouTube & Flickr is fantastic way to bring a new audience to your offering.

Writing Website Content – How Do I Get Started?

Kate McMillan — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:18:37 +0000

There are a few things to keep in mind when writing website content:

Keep it short: Website readers are impatient, so they scan website content – it’s often too much work to really “read” on the web & there are so many sources of information that people will find another source if yours doesn’t immediately deliver. Also, because of the nature of the medium people read more slowly and avoid large blocks of text. You can deliver a longer message below the fold or on other pages of your site, but avoid information overload on landing pages.

Keep it organized: So, if you work hard and have found a way to delivery your message in short, punchy bunches – how do you display it so that it’s visually appealing? You could try a list, or a grid. Either of these options give people’s eyes a chance to rest on a single item before moving on to the next one. Also, consider placing information in places where people might need it – even if it’s not in a consistent place on each page, or is tangental the current topic. For example – if your website is about nutritional deficiencies and you’re planning the content on the page that talks about Iron Deficiency, place a testimonial or patient profile that has to do with Iron Deficiency there on the page. There’s no reason that shouldn’t also be on a page of testimonials, or patient profiles, but placing it where it reinforces your message helps build your authority.

Keep it meaningful: No one likes a hard sell – and web users are a particularly skeptical bunch. Most people have become immune to the exaggerated hyperbole that exists on the web & ignore it when they see it. Rather, keep your headlines short and clear, and make sure your content is offering something to your user. It might be instruction, it might be support, it might be laughter – but make sure you write it while thinking of what your audience will get out of it, not what you will get out of it.

With those tips in mind, check out what your competition has done . . . Is there a common method for grouping your type of content? Are there common navigation elements your users will be looking for? What about the level of language?

Now you have the information you need to start writing! Figure out the major categories of content, and assign a location (ie: page) for each one. Then, think how you can simplify. You may not need all of your pages linked from the primary navigation along the top of each page. You may not need a full page of just testimonials if you can strategically place them throughout your site where they’ll have more impact.

Whether you’re building your site yourself, or have hired someone to do it for you, the time you spend editing and organizing your content now will make the build much more efficient & the end result much more successful!

Ways to interact with your site visitors

Ask a Reviewer: Marc Schuster of Small Press Reviews

Kate McMillan — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:00:29 +0000

This week in “Ask a Reviewer” I’m delighted to feature some quick tips from Marc Schuster of Small Press Reviews, where Marc and Tom Powers review works from small and independent presses

My biggest “do” is to keep the pitch concise. It’s good for authors to remember that we reviewers usually have day jobs! If I get a query that goes on and on, I begin to wonder whether the book will have a tendency to ramble incoherently as well. Basically, I’d like a sentence or two that tells me what the book is about and why I might like it. If that brief description of the book intrigues me, then I’ll ask to read a copy.

My biggest “don’t” is to avoid asking a reviewer to read a PDF copy of the book. I spend so much time in front of a computer all day that when I read for fun, I prefer to do it the old fashioned way–with an actual book, words on a page.

In addition to the books he reviews on his blog, Marc’s first novel is The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl. You can learn more about Marc Schuster at his website: http://www.marcschuster.com.

Finding your online identity.

Kate McMillan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:29:13 +0000

First impressions are often made online today, and your online identity is your public face to the world. In addition to doing a Google search on your own name to find out what exists about you, setting up one or more Google Alerts so that you can thank the source and rebroadcast what was said about you (or manage it if it’s not positive), tracking what’s said about you and/or your products on social media outlets, and making sure you own a domain that maps to your name, you need to think strategically about what you want your online identity to be. Choosing an identity doesn’t mean you’re locked into it forever, or that you can’t branch out, but it does give you a starting point to establish yourself when you’re just starting out or are working to establish your brand.

Recently I’ve worked on projects for clients who happily have their hands in multiple pies. For example, they might have a consulting business and also be an author. Ideally these projects start with an established web presence for the consulting business, which can then be leveraged for marketing the related book – and a new site can be created specifically for marketing and selling the book. But what if the book came first? And what if a single person consults about Topic A, and writes books about Topic B? What to do then?

Unfortunately, there’s no single answer here – but there is a overall approach to figuring out the right way to move forward: Think strategically about your brand, then develop it and follow through.

It’s not difficult to do, but I often see individuals struggle with this idea because they haven’t planned ahead – they create a bunch of websites before thinking about how they will all work together.

Let’s say you’re a consultant who authored a book about the same theme as your consultancy, but you also authored some other books about a totally unrelated topic – let’s say fly fishing…

For the consulting side of things, think about whether you want to be known as an author who does some consulting, or a consultant who has authored a book. The analysis here is to determine how you will present yourself to the world through your web presence, including your keywords, and links back to your site. This is how people will get to know you, and how you build your brand. If you’re Suze Orman, you’re all set – you have the name recognition you want. But if you don’t have name recognition, think about whether you want to develop your name or your expertise as your brand. You may want your name and your expertise always paired – but how do you get there? Well, if you wrote a book with the goal of gaining name recognition as an expert, then I would start with a web presence focused on the book – make the domain name the book’s title, or other straightforward keywords that will bring in your target audience. On that site offer yourself, the author, for speaking engagements – build your name as an expert associated with the book, then create a web presence around what you have to offer as a consultant with that expertise. Over time, the book will become one of many offerings you make available through your consultant site – but you have to invest in branding yourself as an expert with regards to the book content first.

For the fly fishing side of things, don’t expect that your consultancy and your fly fishing expertise will ever be completely separate – with minimal investigating, people will know that you are the source of both fly fishing books and an online consultancy. But think strategically about how you will or won’t bring those two things together. Perhaps you decide your name is better utilized for the marketing of your consultancy, so you create a title for yourself for your fly fishing books – eg: the fly fishing expert. Your name will still be associated with the fly fishing books as the author, but you can determine how prominently it is or is not featured. Also, you don’t need to have anything on your consultancy site that has anything to do with fly fishing, but you may consider ways your experience in one might affect the other – that way you can acknowledge that you do both, but capitalize on how one might enhance the other.

At the end of the day *you* are the one who determines how you represent yourself online – so make sure you’ve thought through your options. If you have a little bit here, and a little bit there, and you’re not managing how it works together, it’ll be difficult to go after a larger, cohesive success.

Client Spotlight: Ann Levine, Law School Expert

Kate McMillan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:00:56 +0000

This week in the Client Spotlight is Ann Levine, Esq., Law School Admissions Consulting Expert and author of The Law School Admission Game: Play Like an Expert. Ann is the former director of admissions for two ABA law schools, and more than 100,000 law school applicants have relied upon her Law School Expert blog to guide them through the application process.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

I wish I’d understood the importance of branding. I started in 2004 with a free template website that looked TERRIBLE. I spent a lot of time teaching myself everything and thought that because I had a lot of credible information on my site that the site itself should appear credible. A year later I upgraded to a basic web design and paid about $700 for it – which felt like a lot at the time. It looked better, but was really still a template. It did the trick but didn’t brand me because it was fairly generic. Only when I (literally) sat down with someone who understood my brand and what my online presence needed to project did I feel like I was projecting credibility and deserving of charging higher prices to my clients as a result.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

To employ experts. People hire me to have an expert at their side through the law school application process, and I hire others because I don’t have time to become an expert on web marketing, SEO, PPC, etc. So, I hired people to help me who already know this stuff better than I ever could learning it on my own. It’s not as expensive as you might imagine, but it only works if you work with people who “get” what you’re all about. I flailed using big companies that I found online and only thrived once I found that one person who understood what I meant in a sentence long email or 2 second phone call and didn’t need me to coach her to get what I wanted.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Use a blog to provide quality information and form relationships with others in your field and related fields. If you are good with people, Twitter and Facebook. Network constantly, and help others in their quests because good acts come back around.

Don’t be modest, submit yourself to win online awards!

Kate McMillan — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:14:39 +0000

There are so many awards out there online – for everything from awards for women in business to awards for great use of the internet to awards for the best blogs. Some are free to enter, and some have an entrance fee. Some offer a cash prize, and others the notoriety that comes from winning. All help put your name out there, though, and may be a way to get your product in the hands of major influencers. So, if you’re looking for another way to get your name out there and bring some great positive attention to your work, consider entering your project (or having a friend nominate you) for an award!

This isn’t the time to be shy or lack confidence as there’s little-to-no downside to entering (especially the ones with no entrance fee). And the benefit of being nominated as a finalist or winner is huge.

Since I often work on websites for authors/books, I have collected a list of awards that you may not yet know about as an author.

CYBILS (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) – The Cybils are a series of book awards given in nine categories (Fiction Picture Books, Nonfiction Picture Books, Easy Readers, Middle Grade Fiction, Nonfiction: Middle Grade and Young Adult, Young Adult Fiction, Poetry, Graphic Novels, and Fantasy and Science Fiction). The Cybils were started by Anne Boles Levy and Kelly Herold, and now involve over 100 bloggers. The goal of the Cybils team is to highlight books that, in addition to being well-written, are kid-friendly and engaging.
Annual Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards – Writer’s Digest searches for the best self-published books for their award which covers the genres of Mainstream/Literary Fiction, Genre Fiction, Nonfiction, Inspirational (Spiritual, New Age), Life Stories (Biographies, Autobiographies, Family Histories, Memoirs), Children’s Picture books, Middle-Grade/Young Adult books, Reference Books (Directories, Encyclopedias, Guide Books), Poetry, & Humor. You can be a professional writer, a part-time freelancer, or a self-starting student, as long as you are self-published.
EVVY Awards – The Colorado Independent Publishers Association & CIPA Education and Literacy Foundation offer an award in the following categories: Autobiography, Biography, Business/Finance, Children’s (1), Cookbooks, Diet/Health/Fitness, Fiction (6), History, How To, Humor, Inspirational, Juvenile, Legacy (3), Memoirs, Miscellaneous (5), Non-Fiction/Experiences, Parenting/Family, Poetry, Political/Social, Self-Help, Spirituality, Travel (2) & Workbooks (4).
TheNextBigWriter.com – if you’re relatively unknown, this website offers a series of awards in various categories.
Writers of the Future – The Writers & Illustrators of the Future contests are international in scope and creative writing talents from around the world are judged quarterly. The winners are published in the annual Writers of the Future anthology. Each anthology contains the best new science fiction and fantasy short stories as well as award-winning illustrations by budding new artists.
Indie Book Awards – The Indie Book Awards are open to independent authors and publishers worldwide in 60 categories. They offer cash prizes and other awards, including exposure to leading New York literary agents.
Reader Views Award – These annual literary awards were established to honor writers who self-published or had their books published by a subsidy publisher, small press, university press, or independent book publisher geared for the North American reading audience.
Mom’s Choice Awards – The Mom’s Choice Awards® program recognizes authors, inventors, companies, parents and others for their efforts in creating quality family-friendly media, products and services.
USA Book News Best Books Awards – The National Best Books Awards are specifically designed to garner media coverage and book sales for the winners & finalists throughout the holiday retail season and the following year.
ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award – ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards were established to bring increased attention to librarians and booksellers of the literary and graphic achievements of independent publishers and their authors. ForeWord is the only review trade journal devoted exclusively to books from independent houses.
New York Book Festival – The New York Book Festival is an annual program celebrating books that deserve greater recognition from the world’s publishing capital.

And if you don’t happen to live in Colorado or New York, research your own local literary and book festival award programs.

Advertising: Putting yourself out there and accepting ads on your own site

Kate McMillan — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:00:53 +0000

It used to be that hosting ads on your content-driven site was a no brainer – there was lots of money for ads out there because there wasn’t much evidence as to its effectiveness. Everyone was throwing money at the internet just to see what would stick. These days it’s unclear whether the time/money/thought you put into online advertising is actually worth it in the end. This doesn’t mean that online advertising is a bad idea, it just means you need to go about it thoughtfully & creatively.

1. Don’t rely on someone else to determine where you’ll be able to advertise effectively, target your own market. Unless you spend a great deal of time tracking and researching it, Adwords often brings site visitors, but not necessarily conversions. So think about where you *know* your audience is, and then make contact to see if an advertising relationship is possible. For example, if you’re a designer looking for clients, target a blog that advises people about hiring designers and find out if you can offer something to their audience. This may be a great time to offer a freebie to their readership in exchange for access to their audience. Make sure that you fit their demographic – it won’t make sense for anyone involved if you’re targeting a mismatch.

2. Get out there in the “real” world. We get so wrapped up in the expanse of opportunity that the internet provides that we forget about what we might provide our local community. Often times people like to work with someone nearby – so offer your services through an old-fashioned tearsheet in a cafe, or offer a prize to a local contest (radio or at a community event/raffle). This approach will not only help bring your business, but will help you connect with people in your community through some good “old-fashioned” networking!

3. Host an event. You don’t need to have tremendous resources to host your own event. For example, if you have a landscaping business, offer a free class on starting a veggie garden. You can host it in your front yard using Craigslist and your local classifieds to get the word out. This is a great way to not only connect with a potential audience, but also get some name recognition for everyone who comes across the posting. And it doesn’t have to be in your front yard – host a virtual event – webinars are a great way to connect with people and highlight your expertise virtually. And there’s great webinar software out there for low or no cost – gotomeeting.com is a great, easy-to-use example.

If you’re thinking about having advertising on your own site to try to generate some revenue, here are some guidelines:

1. It’s not worth it if you don’t have enough traffic. Most advertisers have a minimum site traffic amount to justify their ad space. You might host their ad on your site for 3 months for free if you don’t have enough site visitors to meet their minimum.

2. It’s for content-driven sites, NOT your portfolio. Don’t place advertising on the page of your website that outlines your services, or showcases your work. No matter how much money you might make it’s not worth more than the amount it’ll cheapen your reputation by having them there.

3. Consider the time investment. If you’ll need to spend an hour over the course of a month monitoring your ad space for sale, consider what that hour might be earning you otherwise. If you can use that hour to seek out a new project or client, then benefit from that hour’s investment for the next “X” amount of time you’ll likely realize the finances don’t work out the way you might expect. Don’t get me wrong, passive income is great, but advertising may not be the most profitable of your choices.

Ways to interact with your site visitors

Kate McMillan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:00:51 +0000

In addition to interacting with your site visitors through comments on your blog posts and pages, there are a handful of other simple things you can implement on your website that will engage your readership:

Polls. Polls are a way for your readership to feel involved in your story – they allow a reader’s voice to be heard, however anonymously, but are also a great tool for finding out more of what your readership wants from your site. Rather than wonder if your readership wants more content about subject “x” – either mine your data to find out whether it’s successful, or just ask them through a poll. There are a number of free, simple, poll generators, but PollDaddy is a great place to start.
Photos. Just like you can use a Flickr RSS feed to place your own photos on your blog via tags, you can invite other people to tag their photos with a keyword you will use to display photos on your blog. This is a great way to invite audience participation whether it’s around creating something, going somewhere, or any number of common experiences. If you’re concerned that people might take advantage, then create a Flickr group where you approve membership to add photos to the group, then base your feed on the group’s content. Photos are a great way to feel connected to an audience, and videos as well!
Competitions. Ask your readers to come up with the best way to do something, then give an award for the best answer/submission. It doesn’t have to be a big giveaway – people love to get stuff for free, no matter how small, and if a competition brings you a large audience, it’s well worth the investment. Your giveaway could be some free time with you if you’re a consultant, or a copy of your book if you’re an author, or a coffee mug with your logo on it no matter who you are.

Client Spotlight: Laurie Richter, author of Put Me In, Coach!

Kate McMillan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:00:42 +0000

This week in the Client Spotlight is Laurie Richter, author of Put Me In, Coach! A Parent’s Guide to Winning the Game of College Recruiting. Laurie’s book is an essential guidebook for parents and their student-athletes who want to be recruited to compete in athletics at the college level.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

I wish I’d had a better understanding of how search engines work to drive people to your site, and how to develop language and content based on that. I still don’t know enough about it and it’s not what I want to spend my time thinking about. My instincts were to just write good content without regard to how it shows up in search engines.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

The most important thing I’ve learned is that if you want to be successful at selling something on the web, FIRST you need to build a relationship with people who come to your site and you need to provide them with something real whether it’s content, product or something else. You need to give a little before you can take. I’ve also learned that it’s a constant process of fine tuning – your site is always a work in progress.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Try to look at your site from the point of view of someone coming to it and what their needs are – vs. just focusing on what you want to get out there and say about yourself and your product or service. If you misjudge what people need and want because you’re focused on you and not them, your site won’t be relevant.

Ask a Reviewer: Irene Watson of Reader Views and Inside Scoop Live

Kate McMillan — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:00:00 +0000

This week in “Ask a Reviewer” I’m delighted to feature Irene Watson, Managing Editor & founder of ReaderViews.com. Reader Views reviews books and offers publicity for well known authors such as James Patterson and those that are unknown, self-published or published by a small press. Besides reviews of books, they provide services for authors such as book publicity services, editing, author interviews, literary book awards, as well as coaching to write book proposals. They will also act as an author agent and send book proposals to a traditional publisher on their list. Irene is also a host of Inside Scoop Live, a podcast that specializes in author interviews. You can learn more about Irene at her website: http://www.irenewatson.com.

Do’s:

1. Look for and read the guidelines thoroughly provided by the review site. Each one is different.

2. Autograph the book. Reviewers appreciate it.

3. Send the book with a postal tracking number so you know the book arrived safely. (See #3 in Don’t.)

4. Thank the reviewer for the review. They have given you a service and an acknowledgement would be very appropriate.

5. Check the site to see if they review the specific genre your book is in.

6. Indicate what genre/category your book is in if it’s not indicated on the book. We often have no idea where to place the book if it has no BASIC code.

7. Include your contact information with the book. Yes, there are people that just send in the book – no contact info, no supporting documents. We automatically put those in the “donate” pile.

8. Check the site for other reviews. Does it look like the book was read or a review written just from the supporting documents that were sent with it? You decide whether or not you want to send your book for a potential review based on what you see.

Don’ts :

1. Deface the book by stamping “review copy” on it. Reviewers love to keep the books in their personal libraries.

2. Stamp “requested material” on the envelope in hopes your package will get opened and the book reviewed. This is a turn off. We do keep a list of books we say we will review.

3. Ask the review service if they received the book. We get hundreds of books and do not have the time to hunt for your book. Get a postal tracking number to confirm your book has been received.

4. Publish a book without the BASIC code on the back. Don’t have the reviewers guess the genre of your book.

5. Ask the reviewer to contact your publisher or publicist to have the book sent. It is your responsibility to get the book to the reviewer.

6. Send in your sell sheets, press releases, and “stuff” to the reviewer without knowing whether or not they will even read it. Most reviewers don’t ask for books basic on the “stuff” they receive because we get hundreds of books sent into us on a weekly basis.

7. Think that your book is the best book on the market and get upset with the reviewer if they didn’t like it.

8. Expect a raving review because you think you have the best book on the market or your friends/family said it was. No, no, no. Consider the reviewer as your reading audience. Not everyone will like your book, not will everyone not like your book. Every person has a different preference and you have to accept that. Sending a nasty note to the reviewer is totally unacceptable. If you can’t accept another person’s opinion, then don’t send the books out for review or even attempt to sell them. You can’t control your audience.

You can find out more information about Irene Watson online at the following online locations:

Writing website content & using keywords

Kate McMillan — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:00:45 +0000

You’ve likely heard that people don’t read on the web, they scan – but what does that mean? Does that mean that you can’t have more than a few words at a time on your site? Well, yes & no. It means that while people are *looking for something* they’re scanning. And, most of the time, people are looking for something when they’re surfing the internet. For this reason, writing website content isn’t the same as writing prose. Writing for websites, and leveraging targeted keywords while you’re doing it, takes a little practice & finesse, but isn’t out of anyone’s reach. Try to go about it as if you were the visiting your site. This may be the first time a visitor arrive at your site & they’re trying to figure out if they’re in the right place and if they want to spend more time there – what will help that person feel confident? It also might be that they know they’re in the right place but are looking for a particular type of information – what will help them get to it? The solution is a mixture of drawing the right people to your site using targeted keywords, keeping them there by telling them right away what you’re offering to them, and then giving them easy/clear access to the information they need.

It’s challenging to create the right text content for your site – you want to make sure you’re providing all the important information to your site visitors, but you don’t want to scare them away with lots and lots of text. Let’s break it down into three stages:

Getting the right people there in the first place. No matter how brilliant your site is, if your target audience/market isn’t finding it, it doesn’t matter what you do. There are lots of solutions out there to bring lots of traffic to your website, but if that traffic isn’t targeted to your niche, they won’t stay on your site. So the first thing is to figure out how to be sure you’re targeting the right market. If you’ll be using ads, get down to the nitty gritty of choosing the right places for your ads to go. This may mean targeting specific websites to buy ad space rather than using something like Google AdWords. Or, if you are using AdWords or another ad-placement service, getting down into the nitty gritty of what’s paying off for you and what’s not. Just like with your retirement investments, if it’s not paying off within a certain amount of time, you need to unload it and consider it a learning experience while you invest in something that works. It’s a mistake to think that signing up for an ad service will be the answer to your lack of website sales – it’s the FIRST STEP in a process to find a way to bring the right people to you to make a sale.
In addition to ads, you need to think objectively & strategically about what key words will work best for you & what’s special about your business. For example, if you’re business is creating boutique dog treats, you don’t want to go head-to-head with the likes of Purina in the search results. So, “dog biscuits” probably isn’t the right key word for you. It’s too broad. Thinking of key words always reminds me of the big fish, small pond theory. If you’re a small fish in a big pond, it’s very hard to get noticed. However, if you’re a big fish in a small pond, it’s hard not to notice you. So, what’s your niche? If your dog biscuits are especially good at promoting healthy teeth, you’ve got a a niche market to explore. Don’t go after a saturated market, go after a market where you can actually make a difference. This theory was proven by the company Greenies – they make dental chews for dogs. You can now find them in just about every pet store in the country, and they come in a variety of shapes & flavors. Greenies didn’t start out as just another dog treat company – they figured out that there was a gap in the market for what they were offering, and then became THE company to fill the gap. This is what your key words are all about. Think about what your specific keywords are, and then sprinkle them on every page of your site, especially your landing page(s). Be sure they’re used straight away on your landing/Home page, and that they’re linked back to your site when you’re referenced elsewhere on the internet. Do your research – what comes up when you search for the keywords you’re thinking of using?
Yay! People are visiting my site, how do I keep them there?! First, be sure that it’s immediately obvious what your site is about, and what it does. Tell people clearly and right away. I see websites all the time that force me to dig for information about what they’re actually offering. I don’t need to know the history of your company before I know, very clearly, what your company does. Then, lead them through your site to find out more information about what you offer. Your design can be beautiful, but it should never obscure the mission of the site – rather, it should enhance it and set the tone. Make sure you’re not selling to your visitor, but offering them solutions. No one likes to be talked AT, and no one wants to sit through your sales pitch. Be honest & clear about what you offer, and enumerate the benefits. Also, think about offering something to your visitor to help them get hooked – like a free offer of some kind, or a newsletter, etc… Be careful about how your phrase your offer – people are wary of the classic infomercial “no risk!” approach.
Okay, they’re on the site, they’re interested, now what?! The goal of a landing page (most likely your Home page) is to explain what you’re offering, then lead people through the site to a place where you can provide more detailed information or turn them into a customer. You can do this by placing links in your text that naturally lead to more specific information, by making your navigation really easy to use and clear, and featuring specific information in the form of an internal ad. For example, if you’re calling attention to a new offering, make a little “ad” for it for your Home page, and link that to the page where more specific information can be found. Just like your grocery store brings its featured products right to you when you walk through the door, you can do the same for your site visitors. Be careful not to overwhelm them with information here – keep it clear and clean. Whitespace on your page actually serves the purpose to leaving some breathing room for people to digest information while scanning. It also helps to break up the page into logical groupings. Think of it this way: If you pushed all your living room furniture to the center of the room, it would be hard to make it functional for your family. And, if you brought all your furniture to the living room just in case you might need it there some day, it would be really hard to find your way to the thing you really need/want in the moment. Categorize your site content in ways that make sense. It’s good to provide an easy way to get from A to B if there’s a connection between A & B. A great exercise to help you with this is to create post-it notes for the different categories of content you have on your site, then draw lines between the ones that are most logically connected, or the ones your site visitors are likely to connect. Remember that your site navigation should always be available in the same configuration, so this is more about featuring information within a page that lives on another page. You don’t want to hit people over the head with it, it’s more about prompting people with what you think they might need in the moment they need it. Your site content steers people through your site with little markers along the way – treat it as such and you increase your usability, and therefore your site visitor satisfaction.
In the course of figuring this out you find your single site is going in too many directions, consider breaking it up into different sites targeted at different things. This may benefit your business by making sure the right people are finding just what they need without having to wade through all the rest. When the average attention span lasts about as long as you can hold your breath, this may be a great solution to serve your various offerings.

To recap: Make sure you’re setting yourself up for success by targeting people with whom your website will resonate, and ensure you’re going to be the big fish in a small pond. When they reach your site, make sure your site visitor knows what you’re offering to them & lead them into the rest of the site for additional information. And finally, make sure you’re tracking your success. If you don’t follow up on what’s working and what’s not by mining your Google Analytics data, you’re missing out on a huge factor in your success!

Client Spotlight: Diane Pinkard, author of Just Treat Me Like I Matter: The Heart of Sales

Kate McMillan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:00:33 +0000

This week in the Client Spotlight is Diane Marie Pinkard, author of Just Treat Me Like I Matter: The Heart of Sales. Diane’s passion lies in the business of human relations. Her love for teaching, training, and selling ultimately evolved into her own personal study about human dynamics and what makes people tick. Her book offers inspiring tools and techniques for developing strong interpersonal relationship with clients.

There is a saying: “The reason the world is round is so people will not be able to see what is coming or lies ahead.” Well, I can really relate to that. For a long time I have had a passion to write a book. And I did write a book. But my belief was that writing the book was the majority of the work; that everything would just fall into place and everybody would want to buy my book. Wow, was I in for a HUGE RUDE awakening. Writing the the book was just a tip of the iceburg! The work truly starts after the book is written – that is my lesson learned! So the advice I have for anyone wishing to follow your dreams – be sure you also are EXTREMELY passionate and tenacious about fulfilling your dreams. And that you have the positive mindset to travel the journey and weather the storms to accomplish your dreams and goals. Also, you must have the unbending commitment, belief, and faith to enjoy the ride (up and down), learn the lessons (many) and tackle the challenges (also, many) that present themselves along the way. Most important: Come from a place of what you have to offer to the universe – not what you expect (or hope) the universe is going to give you (i.e. notoreity, money). These lovely gifts will naturally come when you properly align your forces with what you have to give – not with your expectations of what you want to get! And when you are committed this special place – from your heart and soul – you naturally open up to the universe and the right people come to help you.

Creating a landing page

Kate McMillan — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:00:04 +0000

You’ve likely heard about landing pages, but just in case you haven’t, or were wondering about what they’re for & how they might work for you, this post will outline what they’re for, what they do, and how to make them work for you.

1. What is a landing page anyway?: A landing page can be a single page tied to a domain name that is created for the purposes of converting a site visit into something profitable, like a sale or event signup. It can also be one of many pages in a site that is dedicated to a specific conversion. For example, if you’re an author, you might already have a website that introduces you and your work; but if you’re about to publish a new book you’ll likely want to dedicate a page on your existing site to that book as well as create a whole new site just for that book. This allows you to use targeted marketing for the book specifically, which can then direct traffic back to your larger author, but not give up any potential sales from your author website either. And on your author site, you may have multiple landing pages, not just one for each book you’ve written, but your Press page and your Articles page are also landing pages. They each serve a specific purpose, and they’re each there asking the visitor to do something specific with that information (eg: pass it on -or- contact you). Landing pages are often arrived at via an ad, or a featured link, but also through search engines.

2. What’s in it for me?: This is the question you need to be asking as if you are the visitor. They’re there because they think there will be something of value they can gain because of their visit. People are very busy, with short attention spans, so make sure it’s crystal clear and very easy to get to. For example, if you’re offering a free tutorial in exchange for an email address, make your offer front-and-center, and be sure it explains how it will benefit the visitor. It needs to be attractive both in terms of the pitch, but also the aesthetics. Remember that it’s critical to instill confidence in someone giving you their email address, and if your signup looks like something your 7-year-old nephew put together you may be shooting yourself in the foot. First and foremost it’s functional, but there’s no reason it shouldn’t also be attractive, and in being attractive it may benefit you. Also, keep the bar very low – if you’re asking for their email address, only ask for their email address – not their first name, last name and home town. The more you ask of them, the less likely it is that they’ll participate. And keep your language above board – consumers are smart and have caught on to the fact that things that say, “no risk!” or “limited time offer!” are commonly a hoax, so be genuine when you explain what you’re offering in return for their contact info.

3. Fine tune site content over time: Like with any website, it’s not something you create and are finished. You need to check on its success rate based on your goals and tune it to meet them. Make sure you’re using Google Analytics (or whatever statistics analysis engine you choose) and try out a few different headlines to see which one works the best. Play with the language used throughout the site to make the most of your potential conversions. Make sure all the information someone wants is there, but keep the critical information easily available and featured by the design. And don’t lose focus – be sure the site content isn’t taking the user in too many directions – you want it all to lead to the same destination. The length of your page isn’t that important as long as all of the important information is there, and the actionable information is featured above the fold. And don’t just make the hard sell – your landing page content should be simple, engaging, interesting and easy to relate to. And the language you use to kick-start a conversion should not be vague, including on buttons – for example, “Sign up for a free tutorial!” is better than “Sign up!”

4. If your landing page is an island, it is lost: No matter how functional and beautiful it is, if you’re not pounding the pavement (so to speak) to get links into your landing page, it won’t be considered important enough by search engines to show up in search results where you want it to be. So, get out there and write articles that point back to it – link to it from your other website(s) and blog. Tweet about it or create a page for it on Facebook. Identify your key words and make sure links pointing to the site are using them.

There is no magic bullet here – the landing page is powerful tool in your toolbox for connecting with your market, but it is only one of many. And you need to hustle to make it work; you need to care about your audience for them to care about you; and you need to make sure your efforts are paying off by tracking them. Don’t give up! It does take time.

Getting your book reviewed

Ask a Reviewer: Douglas Wolk, Freelance Journalist and Critic

Kate McMillan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:00:25 +0000

This week in “Ask a Reviewer” I’m delighted to feature Douglas Wolk, freelance journalist and critic for the New York Times, Blender, the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Rolling Stone, and Salon.com (among others). Douglas’ most recent book is the Eisner Award winning Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, published in 2007 by Da Capo Press.

What I need to consider a book for review:

1) A physical copy of the book. PDFs are only for last-minute emergencies, and ONLY if they’re requested. They are a hassle to read, and life is short. A bound galley is fine. An unbound set of pages is sometimes borderline acceptable in a pinch (and again if they’re requested), but a bound one is much better. It must be the ENTIRE book–it’s acceptable to leave out the index, if you must, but otherwise forget it.

2) The release date for the book. It must be when the book is actually coming out. If you can’t publish things when you say you’re going to publish them, give up on publishing and go do some other job. Also, that date should be at least three months in the future, and ideally more like four or five months. This allows the book to be pitched to magazines and newspapers that require a long lead time. If I get something really, really, REALLY cool in the mail the week it comes out, I might be able to manage a blog post, but it’s going to be awfully hard to place with any print publication.

3) The following information: the book’s ISBN number, price, page count, and the phone number and email address of the publicity contact. Ideally, that should all be on the galley, but if you want to stick in a piece of paper with that information that’s fine too.

Also, be aware that many outlets don’t allow their reviewers to discuss what they’re reviewing with anyone before it runs. As a general rule, if a publicist asks me if I’m going to be able to review their book somewhere, I don’t answer (or say no), even if I’m already writing about it for a major newspaper.

You can find out more information about Douglas and his work at http://www.lacunae.com.

Book Cover Design

Kate McMillan — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:54:20 +0000

As long as books remain as they’ve been, they’ll most often be sold by their cover. As things change the way of the Kindle, iPhone, and various online venues, however, the purpose served by a book’s cover now changes focus to the digital realm, and increasingly books are purchased based on recommendation engines or peer reviews, with a nod to a small thumbnail of the book cover as an afterthought. If we look at the evolution of album cover design, to cassette case design, to CD cover design to online presence design we see the common thread of personal branding evolves as our consumption evolves… so is true for books.

Something to consider for the digitization of book cover design is that it must coexist with the interfaces used to read — be it the Kindle or the iPhone or a web page. This means that it cannot be just about aesthetics and message, but also about functionality. Your website may be stunning, but if it’s unusable that doesn’t matter.

As someone interested in how design evolution parallels technological evolution, I look forward to seeing how book design changes given new technologies, but in the meantime, we can all revel in the following sites that catalog beautiful book cover design.

There’s little better than visiting my local Powells to revel in the rows and rows of featured titles just to see the cover designs and textures. Hats off to those who invest smartly in their book cover design as no quick-and-dirty, cheap-as-chips cover design job ever leaves you with something that beckons from the shelf.

Client Spotlight: Bill Trimble, author of Screw It! I’ll Be My Own Contractor

Kate McMillan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:00:36 +0000

This week in the Client Spotlight is Bill Trimble, author of Screw It! I’ll Be My Own Contractor. Bill provides expert experience-based advice to the home owner who wants to tackle large home improvements themself. Bill’s website highlights his current book, but is built to be able to highlight future projects moving forward.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

Honestly – that it was relatively simple. I anticipated much more time and effort than it actually took to get up and running.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

I have discovered that having an on-line presence means very little until you can create traffic to your site. There are hundreds of millions of people on the internet every day, but they have to know how to find you.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Have a concept in mind before you go to a professional. Think about what you want the home page to look like and what you want to say there. How many pages or tabs are essential? What are the color schemes you want to use? Keep it simple, you can add on after you’re live and see what kind of feedback you get. Then give it to Kate. She will have you on the internet before you can say Kate McMillan. I’ve received many positive comments on my website, so I am really proud of it.

Getting Started with Podcasting

Kate McMillan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:42:39 +0000

I recently wrote about how podcasts are a great avenue for publicity, especially when it comes to getting information about your product, service or book out there.

In a multi-pronged approach to publicity, podcasting helps you tap into a new market and drive traffic back to your main offering. They bolster your credibility and help put a voice to your message.

You can approach veteran podcasters about being a guest on their show, or you can create your own! You don’t need to spend a fortune on equipment to create one, but there are a few things to know that’ll help you get off on the right foot.

For more information about why podcasting may be a good addition to your marketing plan, read this great list from Nicki Gauthier of Web Marketing Therapy & “The Benefits of Podcasting” from Social Media Trader.

I asked vocal talent and audio production expert Perry Norton about the important things to consider when getting started in podcasting.

The bottom line is this: People have little time and less attention span. Keep your first podcasts SHORT — no more than 5 minutes, and 2-3 is even better. Don’t cover an entire subject in one go; think of the material as “serialized”; or, think of your podcast as a marketing tool as much if not more than an educational one. Leave listeners wanting more so they’ll follow-up with you offline or listen to your next broadcast. Audio podcasts make the presenter ‘visually anonymous’ to the audience so your presentation and professionalism really count, as does audio quality.

Here’s some guidance to help you shine in the dark:

Practice makes…

If you’re not used to speaking extemporaneously – even if you know your topic or guest well – get a coach, practice, and know your topic or interviewee strengths inside and out.
Nervous? Learn proper breathing and vocal warm-up exercises. Stress can make your voice shrill or shaky, lessening credibility. A voice coach can provide guidance. Do warm-ups before you record or go live. Some universities have classes in being a DJ – might be worth checking into!
Make sure all technical issues are worked out in advance, including audio quality. Are you using satisfactory equipment, and do you understand how to get the best out of it? This is especially important if your topic is technology!
Think about questions in advance of your interview by doing research. Find a fresh take on old topics – any one can re-hash the obvious. Provide links and resources you can send your listeners to after the “show.”
If you’re going “solo” pick out a friendly “face” ahead of time to which you can deliver your material. Use a photo if you need to as an anchor. This adds sincerity, focus and genuinely connect s you with your listeners.
Eliminate verbal mannerisms (such as um, uh, yeah, I mean, ya know). Record yourself in practice and try simply pausing for a split second when you need to gather your thoughts. People use mannerisms because they’re uncomfortable with silence, but verbal mannerisms lessen the sound of confidence.
Don’t talk down to your audience; prepare with their level of “savvy” in mind.
Practice your material but don’t recite by rote. Use bullet points as a verbal guide to keep you focused and on track, but be spontaneous in your delivery.
Drink enough water two hours before your presentation to hydrate your vocal cords. A few drops of lemon juice in your water can eliminate “mouth noise” and lip-smacking.
Try to avoid dairy, salty foods and caffeine before speaking – these create phlegm and/or dry out your mouth.

Leave ‘em wanting more…

Briefly introduce yourself and your guest(s), as well as the topic.
Quickly get to the subject at hand — people are investing time in your information potential.
Outline up front what listeners can expect to learn and then deliver.
Stay engaged with your material and guest If you’re not truly interested in or don’t believe in your material, your listeners won’t either.
Ask the most compelling, relevant questions or those which re-state key points.
Succinctly recap the main points and thank your listeners for their time. Let people know how to reach you for more information.
Consider following up with a satisfaction survey (Survey Monkey, e.g.). Ask how you could have made it a better experience. Then act on it!
Learn where to post you’re audio for best exposure, and how to promote yourself to generate greater listenership; you may even find a sponsor to cover your costs once you get rolling.

To find out more about Perry Norton, or to hire her to help you produce your podcast, visit her website: http://www.panright.com.

Stay tuned for more information in the future about publishing your podcasts to the widest possible audience, including with iTunes and Facebook.

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Ask a Reviewer: Do’s and Don’ts from Professional Book Reviewers

Kate McMillan — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:23:50 +0000

Today I’m starting a new regular feature on the blog, “Ask a Reviewer.” In it I’ll be asking professional book reviewers & book review site editors what their biggest do’s and don’ts are when it comes to getting your book reviewed.

In this post Magdalena Ball of The Compulsive Reader (on Twitter at compulsivereade) gives advice on how to present your book so that it has the best chance at being reviewed.

Magdalena: “I’d say the biggest don’t, and I don’t know that all reviewers will agree with me, is to send the book without querying first. Not all books fit The Compulsive Reader and there aren’t always hard and fast rules about what does, and doesn’t get accepted for review, so sending a book could be a waste if we don’t have a reviewer able to take the book on. A good, well written query is the best way of judging a book’s suitability for review and enticing our team of 20 or so reviewers, so it’s critical to start with that, rather than send the book on spec. My email address is on the website, as are guidelines (always read the guidelines!), and email is the best and easiest way to query.

“That brings me to my second ‘don’t', which is, don’t rush the query. Write a good one, and proofread it. I know that mistakes happen, but if your query is full of errors and incomprehensible (and I get an awful lot of those), then it’s probably a reasonable assumption that the book will be too. A good query contains a book synopsis of a paragraph or two, which gives a sense of what the book is about and above all, its style and target market. A couple of review blurbs (or puffs as they call them in the industry) are also very helpful. Just sending a link and no introduction or a review request with no synopsis or a full ebook or attachment, is asking an awful lot for a cold query. So do, please, take care over your query, and customize it just a little bit by using the editor’s name (most are available and current at websites), and maybe referencing the site and showing that you understand what the site does.

“One third ‘do’ is to follow up, courteously and professionally please. E-mail isn’t always perfect and queries go astray, or reviewers get sidetracked. I’m keeping track of 100 or so books in the pipeline right now, and tend not to nag my reviewers much, so if it has been a while since you’ve sent your book for review, don’t hesitate to check in to see how it’s coming along. If you can offer something like an interview or a piece of information (eg an award won or an interview/review that has been published), that’s even better. Don’t be too demanding though in the follow up, as all of our reviewers work amidst many other priorities, and sometimes have big stacks of books awaiting their turn. Our book reviews are detailed and pithy (a piece of good writing in themselves) and always involve at least one close, full reading, so can take time. That said, a courteous reminder is absolutely fine and not a bad idea if it has been over a month. A demanding reminder a day or so after you’ve posted the book is probably not a good idea!”

Not only does Magdalena run the show as Editor in Chief at The Compulsive Reader, but she is also the author of Sleep Before Evening, The Art of Assessment, and Quark Soup. She also hosts the Compulsive Reader podcast at Blog Talk Radio.

Getting your book reviewed

Kate McMillan — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:09:31 +0000

Anyone who has written a book will tell you that it can be difficult to get the “holy grail” review (ie: Oprah or the NYT), but when you’re self publishing, especially when it’s your first book, where do you even begin? Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of book publishing, or just starting out — represented by a big publishing house or representing yourself — here are some great resources for getting your book reviewed.

Luckily, there are lots of great websites out there dedicated to reviewing books (and occasionally author interviews) & you’re just an email away from submitting your book for their consideration.

NOTE: I’ve started a new regular feature on the blog called “Ask a Reviewer” where some of the editors of the blogs/journals/podcasts mentioned here tell us what their biggest do’s and don’ts are when it comes to getting your book reviewed.

Arm Chair Interviews – book reviews, author interviews & awards
Best Books Reviewed – book reviews & online book club
Blog Critics – book reviews, reader comments & news
Blogging Authors – book synopsis fed to news sites
Book Ideas – book reviews
Book Reporter – book reviews, awards, news, contests, blog, book clubs & featured authors
Book Slut – book reviews, author interviews & related articles
Compulsive Reader – book reviews, news, & author interviews
Dear Reader – book reviews, book clubs, blog, library services, forum
Front Street Reviews – book reviews, contests, author & publisher interviews
Meta Psychology – book reviews & blog
Midwest Book Review -book reviews & resources
Mostly Fiction – fiction book reviews & author interviews
My Shelf – book reviews & author interviews
New Pages – book reviews, blog, news, information & guides for publishers, booksellers & literary journalists
Once Written – book reviews, author interviews, contests, & discussion forum
Reader Views – book reviews, author interviews & book previews
Small Press Reviews – book reviews of books from small and independent presses

I’ve also another list of review blogs in my post about long term book promotion.

Be sure to follow their submission guidelines, and target the ones that you think will benefit you the most (eg: it’s your niche audience).

If you are interviewed or featured on a blog, be sure to offer a free book as a giveaway to their visitors! Then blog/tweet/facebook a link to it with a thank you – that way both you and the blog owner get a benefit.

And don’t confine yourself to the written word, often your book can be featured in a podcast – here are a series of podcasts related to book reviews & here’s another one! And here’s a site that is a compilation of podcast directories you can search through, or, use to find places to list your own podcast for free! If you’re not finding what you want in the aggregators, here’s a list of specific book review podcasts:

Fascinating Authors
ABC Book Reviews
Book Log
Foreward Thinking (business & motivational)
Just One More Book (kids)
KUOW Puget Sound
Science Fiction Book Review Podcast

If you are interviewed on a podcast, be sure to offer a free book as a giveaway to listeners!

And don’t forget about your local public radio station(s) – they love to support local talent, so get in touch and ask about book reviews!

In addition to the above-mentioned websites/blogs, both libraries and bookstore buyers also base ordering decisions on the following journals:

American Library Association
Book Page
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Choice – academic libraries
ForeWord Magazine – independently published
The Horn Book – children’s and young adult titles
Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
Publisher’s Weekly – must be in book stores
School Library Journal – children’s and young adult titles
Science Books & Films – science-based books

Libdex – Check this comprehensive list for even more available journals.

Make sure when you get a review that you include a short snippet of it on your website, link to the full version, and ask the reviewer to link back to your site in the review. Many times book websites tend to have a page that compiles all reviews together on one page, and that can sometimes be useful for the press, but most “ordinary” people don’t often visit those pages — you’re better off sprinkling key review snippets throughout your site. If you want to compile all reviews and make them available to the press, then create a PDF document and make it available for download on your website’s Press page.

Client Spotlight: Diana Raab, author of Regina’s Closet

Kate McMillan — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:00:25 +0000

This week in the Client Spotlight is Diana Raab, author of the award-winning memoir Regina’s Closet & other great works. Diana’s comprehensive website highlights her appearances, her current projects, her future projects, her press mentions and reviews, and lots of information about her published works. She updates it frequently to keep the content fresh, and is always exploring new ways to reach her audience online.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

You must think of all the ways you can to drive traffic to your site.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

I learned that whenever possible you need to link back to your website, whether you are answering emails or responding on someone’s blog or sending snail mail. It also helps to join as many social organizations as possible.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Keep your website up-to-date. Instead of bombarding Kate with one or two updates more frequently, what I do is keeping a running list and wait until I have at least 5-10 items which need updating before sending to her.

Tweet Your Blog

Kate McMillan — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:57:20 +0000

I’m sure you’ve seen all those people on Twitter who tweet their blog posts, and you’ve probably also seen blogs where they either link to their Twitter account, or show their tweets right there on the page. How do they do it? How *do* you connect your blog and Twitter?

Here’s how:

Push blog content to Twitter: Twitter Feed
Put Twitter content on your blog: Twitter Widget for Blogs

Did you know you can do something similar with Facebook? If you have a Facebook account, and especially if you have a page or group there for your business, you can have your Tweets automatically update your Facebook status, and have your blog content show up there too:

Blog content on Facebook: Networked Blogs on Facebook
Twitter updates your Facebook status: Twitter application for Facebook
And this selectively updates your Facebook status: Selective Twitter

And while I’m offering suggestions on how to single-source updates to multiple platforms, Ping.fm will update multiple platforms at one, from just about any device or service! And Minggl does something similar, but using a Firefox toolbar (love that!).

Keep in mind, however, that you don’t ALWAYS want everything to go everywhere or people might start to think of you as a broken record… it is true that people tend to stick with their favorite service so they may not see that you posted the same thing across multiple accounts, but if someone is researching you, they certainly will. And sometimes it’s just a nice thing for those who follow you to get a personalized message about a blog post you wrote. So, go ahead, automate your social networking life… just don’t forget to add a little bit of your own voice sometimes.

Don’t let your book’s promotion momentum wane

Kate McMillan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:03:42 +0000

Many times when your nonfiction book is first published it’s easy to keep the promotion momentum alive – you’re excited about it’s release & may even be assigned a publicist! People are talking about it! The preview copy is in the hands of the literati! But what about a little later on? If you’re not dedicated to your book’s promotion machine, no one else will be (unless you pay them, which is just another form of dedication!).

In hindsight, my clients have said that the easiest part of the process is creating their book. The hardest part, and the part they didn’t necessarily count on, was the marketing effort to make sure people know about it so that it actually sells.

To keep the momentum alive well after the initial release, you can take yourself on a “virtual book tour” without leaving your chair. Of course you can always pay other people to do this for you, but the internet makes it relatively simple to do it yourself if you know where to spend the time.

To keep your book in the news long after its launch, here are a few guidelines…

1. Make sure people know you’re an expert. Offer yourself as a journalistic source:

1. Leverage your book content into multiple subsequent offerings. I wrote about how to be sure you’re not leaving money on the table when it comes to your book’s content, but you can also create new content as a regularly scheduled article that you release as a press release. Be sure to include an introduction to the topic, why you’re an expert, and link back to your website. Put it on your website, but also send it to media outlets. Don’t rely on traditional media outlets only, make sure you release it to blogs that review your genre or talk about your topic, here’s a sampling:

Corinne’s Book Reviews
Book Review
Midwest Book Review
Arm Chair Interviews
Novel Journey
Front Street Reviews
The New Book Review
Literate Housewife
Devourer of Books
Reader Views
Peeking Between the Pages
Or, check out this blog search for “book reviews” and see what you find!

3. If you get a mention in a publication, follow up!. Leave a comment, email the author & link back to your website. Even if the mention is about your topic, but not about you or your book, get in touch with the author to give your perspective. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small-reach blog or a national newspaper, it’s worth it!

4. Provide a way to keep in touch with your readership and the media. Build a mailing list (I recommend yourmailinglistprovider.com) for a newsletter, or a tip-of-the-week, or whatever else you dream up, but be sure you’re offering something interesting.

5. Write articles or whitepapers. There are lots of online article aggregators – they take content written as articles and categorize it and make it searchable to the public. Expand on an idea in your book or come up with a new one to write about – no one wants stale content. Be sure to link back to your website and mention your book in the attribution. You can also target journals or magazines that cover your genre. If you make it timely (namely, around a holiday) information, you’re likely to gain some additional buzz.

6. Get interviewed. This can sound much more daunting than it actually is, but there are lots of podcasts and radio shows that are actively looking for experts to interview. If you can’t find a podcast that would be right for you, then you can always create your own!: Blog Talk Radio – all it requires is a computer and a microphone. Or, search for existing podcasts: Podcast Alley or in the iTunes Store.

7. Get local. Local media outlets love to support local talent, this means that your hometown newspaper, NPR station, or TV station are great places to let know about your expertise. And if you’re travelling, do the same for your destination location! Put any information about where people can find you via these outlets on your website.

You don’t have to do *all* of these to benefit from them, just pick a handful that you think you can dedicate yourself to and then get out there and get marketing!

Client Spotlight: Linda Allan, author of I Quit!

Kate McMillan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:00:13 +0000

This week in the Client Spotlight is Linda Allan, author of I Quit! Cigarettes, Candy Bars & Booze. Linda has been slowly growing her web presence to serve her book marketing through web articles, Tip of the Week subscriptions, press releases, and blogging.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

How easy it actually is to write a blog both for yourself and on other sites, and to write articles. Also, how important it is to dialogue with people who share your interest. And these things are all free!

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

How important it is to spend the time to get your name “out there” for search engine recognition. The more you write, the more the search engines will keep your name right up top.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

It can be overwhelming in the beginning to try and figure out the best way to get your name and business known. So start slow & get help – with your own blog, then maybe articles, then internet radio shows… There is so much out there to do!

8 Communities for Book Lovers

Kate McMillan — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:00:54 +0000

It’s a tough lesson learned for many authors that if you write it, they won’t necessarily come.. so here are some great ways to kick start your online self promotion, and get involved with a community of like-minded individuals at the same time:

Shelfari. This site (owned by Amazon) allows you to connect with other authors and readers over what each of you is reading. By creating a virtual bookshelf online, participants can easily see what you’re reading and they make it easy to start up a discussion.
GoodReads. “Imagine it as a large library that you can wander through and see everyone’s bookshelves, their reviews, and their ratings. You can also post your own reviews and catalog what you have read, are currently reading, and plan to read in the future. Don’t stop there – join a discussion group, start a book club, contact an author, and even post your own writing.”
LibraryThing. “LibraryThing helps you create a library-quality catalog of your books. You can do all of them or just what you’re reading now. And because everyone catalogs online, they also catalog together. LibraryThing connects people based on the books they share.”
AuthorsDen.com. “The largest most vibrant free online literary community of authors and readers! Visited by 1,400,000+ readers/mo.”
Nothing Binding. “The Leading Global Social Networking Site for writers, authors, readers and book buyers, Nothing Binding unites these groups everywhere around the world. When you join, You can promote your books; connect with fellow writers and authors, hungry readers and book buyers; and discover great new writing.”
FiledBy. “Any author with a book published in the U.S. or Canada can join for free, manage and enhance their pages, promote their books, check for accuracy, provide corrections and much more.”
Readers Place & Authors Place. Created by Random House as an online book club community and place to find out more about authors and their books.
Red Room. “For years, writers have joined the Red Room Writers Society to get their writing done in a supportive environment. Most people don’t need more instruction; they need to write. The Red Room Writers Society is the only writers society or school focused on writing rather than focused on reading and talking.”

Each of these sites has a slightly different angle on a similar model, so create a profile wherever you can and try them out! See which one you like the best and get out there and participate!

Are you leaving money on the table?

Kate McMillan — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:27:58 +0000

If you’ve written a nonfiction book, chances are you could easily leverage your existing work to create offerings besides your book to enhance your overall profit. For example, if you wrote a book on the wonders of bananas, why not create an audio program with information from you and other banana experts? Or a banana notebook to catalog experiences with bananas? Or seminars/webinars on bananas? You’ve already done the research, you already have the seed material – make sure it’s working for you!

You can sell these items individually, or in packages that make sense together, especially ones that include your book as a feature. These can be marketed as gift options, or, depending on the price point, a low-value way for someone to test the waters before jumping in. And these are not only effective for online sales, but can be brought along to speaking engagements, or offered as a promotional give-away.

But what if you’re a fiction author? Don’t despair – if you’ve authored a series of books, you have the opportunity to sell a pack of multiples with free shipping or a discount to entice additional sales. Or, what if a character in the book is obsessed with coffee, what about a coffee mug? Even a temporary tattoo similar to a character in your book – it doesn’t have to be a huge effort.

If you authored a children’s book, you can bring your characters to life in the form of toys or wall hangings. Get creative! The more you can bring your book to life, the more likely you are to capture your audience’s imagination.

Client Spotlight: Web Marketing Therapist, Lorrie Thomas

Kate McMillan — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:00:40 +0000

This week in the Client Spotlight is Web Marketing Therapist, Lorrie Thomas. Lorrie and her team of Wild Web Women (myself included) offer their clients “a full-service marketing agency – a team of ‘wild web woman’ marketing specialists with web, business, and creative expertise. [They] serve organizations and professionals as a virtual, ‘Think-Tank,’ bridging the art and science of the web with strategic expertise and execution.”

Lorrie is a true wealth of knowledge when it comes to web marketing, and along with her team bring huge success to their clients.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

I wish I would have known (and I hired my first web designer in 2004) that there were SO MANY shapes and sizes of skill sets when it came to “web designers.” I learned very quickly that many graphic artists are simply “artists” (not web marketing talented) and that does not mean that their artistic abilities translate into web marketing best practices. Now that I know that, I ONLY hire web designer/developers that can take my web marketing direction for my sites or my client sites (like Kate!). My ideas are only as good as the people that execute. I will not work with amateur web professionals, it wastes my time and my client’s time.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

Just ONE THING?? Come on! I run an online marketing agency, I learn something new EVERY DAY!

Seriously though, the one thing I learned about online marketing (years ago) is that online marketing work always requires WORK! I know, buzzkill… but it’s true. Web marketing requires management. Online Marketing is an ongoing process, web marketing rules change, the need to make optimizations, test, evolve, tweak and adapt is always there, and new channels (like social media, online PR, etc) will require education, testing and staying current with trends.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Educate yourself! Read blogs, ask questions, start small and snowball. If you do not understand a piece of online marketing, DO NOT DO IT until you understand if it makes sense for you and your company. Online marketing is still the wild, wild west… there are a lot of options, self-educating helps you make smart choices. Our rule at Web Marketing Therapy is STRATEGY FIRST, EXECUTION SECOND.

What’s in a name? Pretty much everything!

Kate McMillan — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:00:28 +0000

When it comes to choosing a domain name, leave the cute and vague for the cutting room floor. While it’s important that you have your site’s content, meta tags and page titles keyword-rich, it’s even more important that your domain name is really working for you.

If you’ve authored a book, for example, the book title is a good place to start, but why not also buy up a domain name related to the genre or topic? Domain names come cheap these days, so there’s no reason not to buy a bunch of them when launching a new site. The one that returns the most amount of traffic should be the primary one, and all the others should be permanently redirected to the primary one. The company through which you buy your domains can easily take care of that for you.

Also, if you don’t already own your name as a domain name, whether you’re an author or a small business owner, go out and purchase it right now. And if you’re selling yourself as a service professional (eg: a consultant, a designer, a copywriter, etc…) it’s even more important. You may not want your name as the primary domain name for your offering, but it’s a great thing to have in your back pocket as a redirect. And in the future, if you begin to have multiple locations on the web for new projects, you can use your name as a one-stop-shop that links to all your locations on the web, including your social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc..).

If the name you really want isn’t available, get creative! For example, my design business is called Outbox Online, operated under my name, Kate McMillan… and the primary domain name is outboxonline.com. But I also own katemcmillan.com, katherinemcmillan.com and iamkatemcmillan.com. As long as the name you go by is in there, you’ve achieved your goal.

By choosing a domain name that doesn’t have to do with your offering, you may be leaving site traffic on the table and making it difficult for people to find you. In certain cases it may not be important or appropriate to drive traffic to your site based on what you offer, but that’s seldom the case… so make sure you’re making an informed decision! I, for example, will be taking my own advice as soon as I finish this blog post!

Finally, be sure you’re linking to your calling card site wherever you have a profile online, and if you don’t already have one, be *sure* to set yourself up with a Google Profile.

Now, get out there and make yourself internet friendly!

Harnessing modern media: audio & video promotion for books and authors

Kate McMillan — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:00:23 +0000

Even though books are available in new formats (audio books, downloads, portable for the Kindle…), they’re still made up of words – so how do you make that sexy by leveraging modern media formats? There are lots of ways!:

Podcast Promotions. Whether you’re creating the podcast yourself, being interviewed by a podcaster, or offering your book as an award for a podcast promotional contest, you’re bringing a huge targeted market to your book.
- If your book is about something practical, creating a podcast to accompany the book is a huge way to connect with your audience. Many times podcasters go on to be authors, but authors can also move into podcasting! For example, if your book is a how-to guide to training puppies, a podcast that offers tips and tricks is a great way to spread your message around. It will bring a new audience to your book, and sustain/enhance your relationship with your readers until your next project is ready. Just like Rachael Ray started with a cooking show, moved into cook books, then into affiliate marketing, then into her own TV show, magazine and cooking-related products… you too can span the venue boundaries to make yourself an expert!
- There are existing podcasts, some hugely popular, and cover just about every subject. So, send some emails to podcast hosts that target your niche (also works for blogs)…
  1. Write a quick introduction
  2. Offer a free copy of your book
  3. Offer up yourself to talk about it/set up an interview
  4. Then offer to help them setup a promotion for free copies to give away to their audience.
  5. Don’t get disheartened if it doesn’t work right away, they likely get lots of similar emails, but will jump at the ones that make sense for their audience. It’s still worth it to make the offer to gain exposure to the right people.
Book Trailers. It’s less expensive than you think to create a simple book trailer. Some people go all out and create hollywood-quality shorts, but even an animated slideshow set to music, or a video of you being interviewed about the book is a step in the right direction. Help your readership understand the tone of the book in a new way, and bring some life to what would otherwise be left to the imagination. (Note: there’s nothing wrong with leaving a book’s content to the imagination, in some cases that may even be the desired outcome.)
Television (?!). Did you know there is a new, dedicated TV show for authors? Open Book TV, in their own words, “focuses on the writers and other storytellers living and working in a different spot on the planet each week.” Their episodes are even embeddable in websites (just like YouTube).

Client Spotlight: Book Shepherd & Marketing Specialist

Kate McMillan — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:00:28 +0000

This post is the first in a series of weekly interviews with clients where I pose questions that I’m hoping will help people as they embark on their own projects.

This week I’ve asked three questions of Gail Kearns (Book Shepherd, Project Editor & Production Coordinator) and Lucy Levenson (Online & Offline Marketing Specialist) at To Press & Beyond, a full service book shepherding agency.

1. What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

You must be prepared to work on your website regularly each week. You need to be constantly finding new content to keep it fresh and interesting. Blogging, posting articles, keeping up to date with endorsements, finding opportunities to link to other sites in your niche, it is much more of a commitment that I had understood.

Visitors will stay on a website for only a few seconds if they cannot immediately find what they want. Make sure critical content and information is quickly available at the top of the page and it loads quickly.

2. What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

What is “IN” is constantly changing. When we started it was Google ad words and per click sales – now it is all about social media, like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. You have to be constantly educating yourself.

3. What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

For authors with one book and no other products, it is best to direct visitors to Amazon to purchase a title, rather than setting up e-commerce on the author’s site. A large percentage of buyers will go to Amazon anyway. As Amazon provides free exposure worldwide, authors need to optimize their Amazon author page. Having a title properly listed on Amazon can create demand for it everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re a famous author or an unknown.