Histories Mysteries - What Can We Learn From It?

No, sorry, not a darn thing to do with book promotion, but is it?

As I’m always on the lookout for bloggers who can host my clients, I came upon this really interesting blog that I’d like to share with you. The title is History’s Mysteries and what this blogger does is take each day in history according to what day it is today and she/he blogs about it. For example, for today July 2, she/he has picked July 2, 1937 when Amelia Earhart disappeared. What else makes this in interesting history blog is that she/he has included pictures which adds to the beauty of the blog.

What can book promoters (you, the author) who have blogs (and if you don’t, shame, shame, shame) can you learn from this?

I may or may not be back to the blog (unless the blogger has thought to add a feed where half the posts come into my email box and I’m forced to go over there to read and as a history buff, that would be a good idea on the blogger’s part), but what caught my eye besides it being informative was that it wasn’t a blog that simply promoted…anything.

It was a blog that gave to the community instead of pitching something and if the blogger has a product somewhere down the line that tied into what he or she was doing, I’m sure they would place that information in the sidebar so it doesn’t detract from the already pleasantly informing information they have up there.

As book promoters who use our blogs to promote our products (namely, books), we of course can’t do that. Our blogs are to help others find out more about our books, right? So how can we do this without coming over as a sales pitch?

Unfortunately, you can’t. You need to keep adding information to your blog that pertains to your book; however, maybe you can use a bit of ingenuity in the middle of all those blog posts about where you got the idea to write your book, book excerpts, promo to where you’re appearing on the net or offline to promote your book, and well, you get the idea.

You need to provide something that gives to the public. Let them go away from your blog not filled with excerpts and book promo, but something that has the wow factor. Something different that no one else is doing.

I occasionally mention my company on this blog but I don’t throw it at you. Instead, I include book marketing tips and guest posts from authors telling you how they buzz their book which comes in handy when you are trying to promote your book. For readers, it helps them learn more about the author and their book. So, it’s all good.

The main point of this blog post is to ask you what can you do to give to the community?

While you might not be a history buff like me, wander over to History’s Mysteries and have a chance to learn something today. Meanwhile, take one pointer from the blogger…blogging every day will help you get your blog into the search engines. That’s how I found them in the first place. ;o)
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Pre-Buzzing Your Book Launch

ProBlogger had a really interesting blog post recently about how to sell your product by creating an effective product launch campaign before your product is released. In layman’s terms, it’s called pre-buzz.

Authors know all about pre-buzz. Once they find out their manuscript has been accepted for publication, their mind races to think of ways to promote it. Booksignings might be one of them. Buying postcards and business cards might be another couple of things the authors might do in terms of publicity tools, but if you’re aiming online, the first thing I would think of if I had a new book out was how to find ways to get those thousands of Internet buyers interested.

Setting up a virtual book tour should be at the top of everyone’s list. Whether you set one up yourself or hire us to do it, there is no other way to get more exposure for your book if you do it right.

I sent out a few questionnaires to last month’s clients to see how effective their virtual book tour went in their own opinion and one of the questions I asked was “How much pre-buzz did you create for your virtual book tour?” I will be sending a flurry of blog posts through here to let you know how that went, among other valuable information in case you’re planning a virtual book tour launch. If you’d like, you can sign up for our feed at top left to be alerted when new posts are published.

I do hope that all authors realize the importance of pre-buzzing your book launch. Do stay tuned for more posts on this subject to make sure your book campaign stands out from the rest and while you’re waiting, wander on over to ProBlogger…they’ve got really good tips that will help you create that online presence which virtual book tours are good for.

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Using Google Alerts to Alert You on Copyright Infringement

If you’ve been standing on the dark side of the moon for the last few years and have no idea what Daily Blog Tips is, it’s one of the most informed blogs about blogging out there.  Since blogging is a big part of a book promotion campaign, authors need to keep on the up and up about blogging and Daily Blog Tips is one place you can go where you’ll receive blogging tips to help you understand the blogging system and use it in relation to book marketing.

And one thing about blogging and finding a cool place to learn about blogging is that some of these blogs have a magical feed in which if you sign up for it, it automatically comes into your email box so that if you forget to visit, it reminds you of what was posted on that blog for the day.

So such feed came into my email box this morning and it was a really interesting blog post about how some guy ripped off some of Daily Blog Tips’ material, posted it on his blog and thought it was all right to do so since he gave a link back to Daily Blog Tips.

I syndicate articles and I know that once I sign up at so and so content ezine, there’s a fine print whereby I give everyone permission to copy my material as long as the bio is intact (which includes my link).

But this is way over the board and I think I would be pissed also.  In fact, I know I would.

I’ve had a couple of instances where people have ripped off my work and didn’t even give a link.  How did I find out about it?

Google alerts.

Whenever I publish an article, I put quotes around the title and put it in google alerts.  This alerts me to every single place on the web where my article shows up.  If there is no bio, then I email the owner of the blog and tell them to either add the bio or take it down because it was infringing on the copyright.

The first time I found this, I emailed the blog host company and the guy was immediately banned from blogging there.  The second time I found this, the girl had copied one of my relationship articles and added it to her MySpace blog.  When I emailed her about it, she was pissed and decided to turn her blog into one in which you can’t access it unless you were her “friend.”  So in that case, I have no idea whether she was still stealing my work or not.

In the case of Daily Blog Tips, it would be hard to use this system of using google alerts to alert you of someone stealing your work because blog posts are different from articles you syndicate on the web in the respect that if you put all your blog posts in google alerts, that’s an awful lot of google alerts to keep up with.  However, picking out one or two key words from that blog post and putting that into google alerts should do the trick.

I won’t go into how naughty, naughty, naughty it is to think you can actually copy and paste someone else’s work into your blog and think you can get away with it, but Google Alerts is on our side.  If it’s out there, we’ll find out about it.

How to Get People to Comment on Your Blog

I get the ProBlogger feed into my email box (highly recommended for those wishing to learn more about blogging) and today’s feed focused on whether or not you think syndicating content on your blog is okay.

The subject matter did pique my interest as I have had my content syndicated on other people’s blogs as I know there are others who have had this happen to, too.

When you syndicate your articles, the content ezines make you check this box that allows them to syndicate your articles which is cool in one way – your one article is seen on many, many blogs. Some do not have a thing to do with your theme, but they run your articles for whatever reason – some of them are legit and some are spam blogs and you have no recourse unless they don’t use your bio and then it’s an uphill battle to find out who the blogger is and get them to take your content down.

I like using content ezines – www.ezinearticles.com for instance - because I like to use my articles for advertisement, as I know a lot of authors and business owners are doing.

But, that’s not what my post is about today. It’s about an idea on how to get people to comment on your blog.

I’m a busy, busy, busy person. My time is so valuable that I’ve not even had a chance to get into email as much as I like to and it piles up. This morning, I had a half hour before I had to run out the door and checking my email quickly, I found this post from Problogger.

Of course, it piqued my interest as it is a subject that would concern me greatly. The more I read their post, the more adrenalin started pumping until I found myself wanting to add to the conversation.

ProBlogger gets tons of comments, but they know how to hook you right in because they get me every time.

But, wait, there’s another incentive for taking the precious time to go over and comment. I get to leave my link on a # 1 blogging site and, hopefully, bring a little traffic my way.

So, what’s this mean for the author who wants more people to comment on their blogs?

Ask a question at the end of your post that is geared toward your readers and watch the comments pile up. If your blog doesn’t receive enough visitors to your liking, go into the social networks, ask the question and leave a link to your blog to where they can comment. Run the question through your newsletter like ProBlogger did. Are you a member of any e-groups? Ask them this question and tell them to leave their comment on your blog. If you keep at it, asking more questions as the days go by, you could build up a pretty good readership.

On that note, I’ll ask you all a question. Have you ever used this method to attract people to your blog to comment and how was your success rate?

How to Improve Blog Traffic

I am constantly writing about the benefits of blogging to promote your books, so creating traffic for that blog should be top priority for any author wishing to sell their books.  ProBlogger had a wonderful guest post from Courtney Tuttle about improving blog traffic and in only 30 minutes. 

I especially liked her first suggestion…

1. Create link clusters within your blog

A link cluster is a group of links that you can point at a post or page to improve its search engine ranking. Let’s say you have a post that’s ranked for ’stupid business ideas’. Edit 10 of your other posts to create links (using ’stupid business ideas’ as the anchor text) to the ’stupid business ideas’ post and you will surely move up in Google for that keyword. This process can be implemented in about 10 minutes and can be used for any keyword your site ranks for or is trying to rank for.

I’m going to have to reread this so that I understand what to do but it does sound like an excellent idea.

I also liked this suggestion:

6. Stop writing about yourself. Start solving problems

Surfers become readers when a blog provides something that is wanted. A casual visitor may read your blog because they find training, answers to problems, entertainment, or something else they want. This more than likely will mean that they won’t want to read about you, your girlfriend, your cats, your kids, or your catastrophes (unless you have a personal blog that your friends read). Discontinuing the off-topic posts will help you to develop more repeat traffic and takes exactly 0 minutes to implement.

If that doesn’t make sense!  I have been preaching about this for a long time.  Save those kind of blog posts for a personal blog.   However, I do like some intimacy involved between author and reader but just don’t make it a habitual thing.

But the point Courtney is making is this.  People are in a hurry.  If they land on your blog and you’re talking about your pet doggie, they’re apt to run off.  But..if you were talking about writing tips, promoting tips, what have you…they just might stay a little longer.  People want to learn.  They want to find out secrets.  Give that to them and keep giving that to them and you could end up with skyrocketing stats!

Thank you, ProBlogger, and thank you, Courtney! 

Why Do You Blog?

My guest bloggers book marketing feature will still continue, but something came through my email today which prompted me to ask you, the reader, a question.

ProBlogger sends out a fantastic feed of which I’m signed up for and today’s feed that was automatically sent to my email box was about their poll results from a question they asked about blogging.

“Why do you blog?” was the question, but you have to keep in mind that ProBlogger is all about blogging to make money, and not necessarily a blog for entertainment purposes, although they do a pretty nifty job doing that, too.

But, anyway, the results were in from their poll and this is the way they stacked up:

#1 Reason You Blog:  Money

#2 Reason You Blog:  Fun

#3 Reason You Blog:  Fame/Profile

#4 Reason You Blog:  Business

#5 Reason You Blog:  Networking

# 6 Reason You Blog:  Other

Money got by far the largest amount of votes with fun being not too far behind it so I am presuming that there are still a lot of people visiting ProBlogger who aren’t blogging for profit and maybe want to learn a few tips on how to market your blog like a pro (I know that’s my reason), or maybe they actually do blog for fun.

I have lots of reasons for blogging but the main one in my case is to help in my promotions with my clients, plus provide marketing tips I have learned during the process of running virtual book tours as founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion.  Oh, yes, I have learned A LOT since diving into the blogosphere.

In my case, yes, it’s to make money, but using blogs as vehicles and not necessarily it being the source of my revenue, or any revenue for that matter.  I envy those who make money from their blogs, but it’s not something I have gotten into or even have time for.  But it does sound like an interesting way to make money online once you learn the ins and outs of doing so.

But anyway, the point of my post today is I’d like you, my readers or those lucky ones who stumble in out of the search engines, to tell me in my comments section why you blog since ProBlogger’s wonderful poll is over.  Do you blog for money?  For fun?  For other reasons?

While you’re doing that, I’ve got tons of work to do…new tours go out tomorrow!

Peace be with you, my friend…and keep blogging no matter the reason…
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How to Be a Better Blogger in 31 Days

This is really a great idea to pass on to authors who are out there using blogs as promotional vehicles to sell their books.

Skellie over at NorthXEast has a great article on how to be a better blogger in 31 days called 31 Days to Becoming a Better  Blogger, which is about the best article I’ve seen on the subject.  You don’t have to do all 31 in order; you can pick and choose but I would imagine it would be to your advantage to try to do all 31.  If you do this, let us know how it’s going for you and how many you have completed.  It looks like fun!

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Give Your Audience What It Wants

Sometimes, it pays to know what your audience wants.

I have a friend named Jen Nipps who hosts a blog called CONFESSIONS OF A FAT CHICK.  This morning, she posted about how her blog isn’t set up for weight stories, etc…but it was just a title she gave for her blog which would talk more or less about her life and not necessarily concentrating on anything weight-oriented. 

I know Jen, and I figured the reason why she posted this post this morning.  She’s probably getting a lot of people who have found her in the search engines because of the title of her blog.

This frustrates Jen because none of her blog posts are about losing weight, but if you really look at the total picture, she could tap onto this audience by providing them what they have come to her blog for and pick up some readers, thus adding to her fan base.

I did an experiment on one of my blogs called Over the Hill Boomer Chick some time ago.  I wanted to play around with tags and see if I could get more visitors.  I had to think of a topic that a lot of people search for and my decision to try “sex” turned up about a hundred more hits than normal for that day. 

While sex is not discussed on my blog at all, I thought it would be funny to see if I could get more hits by using the word as a guinea pig and it worked.  Of course, in my post, I had to explain what I was doing…just can’t trust those perverts out there.

Back to Jen, though, even though it was frustrating her, what’s the harm in posting what these people who came to her blog to find wants?  If they are looking for something on weight loss, why not post something occasionally about something regarding that subject? 

Of course, I won’t be discussing sex on my blog, but that’s an entirely different thing and totally not related.  Even though Jen is frustrated and feels that’s not what her blog is intended for, I feel she should grab that audience by the horns and take advantage of it so they will come back.

Blogs are the most incredible vehicle authors have.  If you play around with today’s popular search words, you can increase hits.  All you have to do is apply them to the theme of your blog.

If you want to find out what the most popular searches are today, you can go to www.yahoo.com, for instance, and look at the bottom of the page.  Today, the most popular searches are:

Barry Bonds Baseball

Blackwater
USA

Robert Jordan

Deal or No Deal TV Show

Jesse James Movie

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Rachel Griffiths

Heather Mitts

Nightmares

New York IslandersNow, I have just given you the top 10 searches for September 19, 2007.  Come back and I’ll let you know if those top ten searches helped me in any way of gaining more hits just by including them in my blog post and in my tags.

Interesting the ways you can get more blog hits.  I wouldn’t suggest fooling people by adding those words as bait, though.  This is just an experiment in SEO.  But, you can take the above search words and use them as a blog post and see if it works for you.  If it does, come back here and let us know. 

Oh, I’m wondering why O.J. Simpson isn’t up there?  Why not…I’ll include him, too.

It all goes back to taking something newsworthy and relating it to your book.  Be creative and your ears perked for popular search words that would pertain to your book and blog about it. 

Tags: book marketing buzz, online book promotion, lessons in SEO, Barry Bonds Baseball, Blackwater USA, Robert Jordan, Deal or No Deal TV Show, Jesse James movie, Talk Like a Pirate Day, Rachel Griffiths, Heather Mitts, nightmares, New York Islanders, O.J. Simpson