Book Promo 101 - Promotional Articles and Tips

Free Web Resources

2009-06-30T10:43:00.003-04:00

There are over 12,000 free resource links in Book Promo 201 and I just found a list posted online - these are other sites that offer free items like, sound effects, video background, pictures and more that can be used when creating any videos - including book trailers.

http://www.audiomicro.com/free-sound-effects

http://www.pdphoto.org - free photos

http://stockfootageforfree.com - free video clips

http://offto.net/slideandscreen - free creation program

http://www.archive.org/details.php?identifier=prelinger

Do you have free resources for sounds, pictures and video that you would like to share? Feel free to add them here in the comment section. Thank you in advance for your contributions.

Tweet For an Fictional Character

2009-06-17T11:32:00.001-04:00

I've thought about doing this and love the idea. Hear what someone else has to say.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/adaptation/how_to_write_a_fictional_twitter_feed_118976.asp

Free File Converter Websites

2009-06-04T16:06:00.004-04:00

I just stumbled across something that is very cool and I can't remember where I saw it. But I bookmarked it - that's the important thing :) Now I want to share these free resources with you.

Do you want a way to convert from PDF to Word or RTF?
http://www.pdftoword.com/

Do you want to convert from Word or other document to PDF?
(I've been using this for a long time and it works great.)
http://www.primopdf.com/

Do you want a PDF Editor?
(I have not figured out how to use this yet - but wanted to share in case its good for you.)
http://www.nitropdf.com/free/hammer/index.htm

Do you want to convert from PDF to Excel?
http://www.pdftoexcelonline.com/

I hope these will work for you and I'm using one to work on a project right now :) At one point I was ghostwriting a book for a client and they wanted me to use information from 25 different books to create a new book and I had to purchase a program that would let me pull info from the PDF. I believe that was about $40 about 4 years ago. This is much easier and free.

Add and Automate Updates on Your Ning Networks

2009-05-30T17:45:00.004-04:00

I hesitate to tell you how long I've been looking for a way to add and automate updates to my Ning profile pages. Several months ago I heard about Ping.FM and love the way it automates updates on a wide variety of social media sites - although there are some more I think should be added.

But, my biggest wish was to find a way to add these updates to my Ning profiles - and I have profiles on almost 40 Ning networks. So - that one little thing could add updates to 40 more social sites. Maybe that explains why I was so anxious to find a way to automate this.

Just a note - in case you're reading this and don't know what I mean by "update" - this is the short messages that we post on Twitter and that you see on other social sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and MANY other sites. It is in that box that usually says something like - What are you doing?

So last night I was working on the social media package descriptions for a new social media setup that we will be offering in the very near future. I was creating a spreadsheet template for the full list of social sites that we set up for clients who opt for this service. I checked the Ping.FM site to be sure I hadn't missed any sites - and that's when I saw Shoutem.com. I'm not sure if its new or if I just missed it in the past.

I clicked on Shoutem.com to add it to my postings from Ping.FM and I set up my profile on their site. That's when I saw a note about adding ShoutEm.com to my Ning site. At that point - I stopped everything else and had to check out the post.

I will admit that I made a few mistakes in this setup - but it is working now. I'll even share the silly things I did wrong to save you all that wasted time :) So - here are my step by step instructions for this setup. As a quick bit of shameless self promotion - this is a small part of the new social media setup programs that my company Promo 101 Promotional Services offers --- more information about that when I finish designing the packages we will offer.

You need a Ping.FM account - www.ping.fm
You need a ShoutEm.com account - www.shoutem.com.
Set up your own network or join another network on ShoutEm. You will need the URL for your network and also your user name when you set up the Ning application.
You need at least one account on a Ning Network. If you don't have any, but would like to check it out - I invite you to visit one of mine http://readersstation.ning.com
Once these accounts are in place - log into your Ping.fm account and you will be on the dashboard. On the left side of the page you will see "Add More Networks". Click there and it will bring up the full list of sites that you can connect on.
This can be routed through ShoutEm (http://www.shoutem.com) and Laconia - (http://laconi.ca) PS - Do not sign up for both - or two copies of your pings will go to Ning.
I was unsure what needed to go in the "server" box - use your URL with the http:// and you do not need to include your username in the URL.
Go to your ShoutEm network page - this is mine http://promo101.shoutem.com/admin to see an example. At the bottom of the page, click on "widgets". This page will give you the URL to use on your Ning page and it also gives you the html if you want to add the ShoutEm.com widget to your own Ning network.
Go to your Ning profile page and on just about every network that I'm on - under my profile picture I see this link - Add Profile Apps
Click on Add Profile Apps and you will see a list of applications that you can add. In the left column - you will see a list of links, click on +Add by URL
Once you click on +Add by URL you will see a box - this is the URL that you need to add http://www.shoutem.com/apps/ning/1.0/ShoutEmNingApp.xml
Go back to your Ning Profile page and click "settings" on your ShoutEm box which will be at the top of the page. In the first box - put the URL for your network - mine is promo101.shoutem.com and in the second box add your username - mine is admin
Once that is done - you are ready to post. Add a new ping on Ping.FM and it should post on all your Ning profile pages where you added the ShoutEm application.

That may seem like a lot - but imagine all the time you will save once it is setup.

This is one small part of the social media setup that we offer. It is a wonderful and very useful tool to help you connect with people on your social networks. We can even set this up so that you can "ping" through your email account. If you would like more information, feel free to contact nikki@nikkileigh.com

Till next time - Look for more tips....

Nikki Leigh
Author of Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing

Kindle from Amazon Now Offers the Chance for Paid Blog Subscriptions

2009-05-28T10:31:00.002-04:00

May. 15, 2009 (8:46 am) By: Brian Osborne

If you’re a blog writer the folks at Amazon is offering yet another way for you to monetize your blog. Amazon is allowing you to sell the contents of the blog itself to owners of the Amazon Kindle and Amazon Kindle for iPhone applications.

A blog writer charges a monthly subscription price for every subscriber which they will receive 30% from. That means 70% of the subscription will go to Amazon. Amazon will set the price for blog subscriptions and writers will not have the option of offering their blog for free. Amazon estimates that it takes 12 to 48 hours to make a blog available through the Kindle Store.

When I read something like this it really gets the gears in my head turning in regards to what one could write that would be interesting enough for someone to pay for. Usually, the most honest answer is most of us would be surprised. That’s why I say if you got a blog it doesn’t hurt to offer it on Kindle. Even if it only adds up to extra beer money every month.

Last Chance for "21 Powerful Rewrite Strategies" Teleseminar

2009-05-18T17:54:00.002-04:00

This is not promotion related - but a great resource for any writers. I have never tackled a screen play - but I've been on this call a couple of times and there is all kinds of great rewrite and editing tips on this call. Of course they are trying to sell a screenwriting class - but you will pick up some great rewriting tips - it also has tips to help you write tighter.

Last Chance for "21 Powerful Rewrite Strategies" Teleseminar

Have a screenplay to rewrite?

Using a professional rewrite process can:

Triple the quality of your screenplay.
Cause you to win contests.
Attract producers to your writing.

The more effective your rewrite strategies, the better your script will be. In this two hour teleseminar, I will present strategies to make sure your next rewrite will be your best so far.

"I have never heard of such a comprehensive step-by-step rewriting process before finding you. I started not to even get on the call because I just found your website a few days before the teleclass. But, boy, am I glad I did!"
-- Dolores Wix

Best of all, there is no charge.*

Here's some of what we'll cover:

A step-by-step process anyone can follow to create a professional level screenplay that will be respected by agents and producers.
The #1 Key to Rewriting Success. Change this one thing and rewriting gets so much easier.
Three ways to turn ordinary characters into extremely compelling story people.
The most important question you must ask to turn dull scenes into dramatic and valuable scenes.
The #1 Reason writers won't cut bad scenes. Don't be guilty of this.
And 16 other Advanced Strategies for rewriting.

Whether you are entering contests or promoting your script to Hollywood, this call will give you valuable tools for improving your chance of winning and/or selling.

"It's the best rewrite class I've taken. I've taken three, one was 2 months, another 2 days and the third six weeks. I learned more high quality tools in two hours with Hal than all of the other courses combined."
-- Kymber Yung, Writer/Producer

Limited to 100 callers

PRICE: Nothing...*except the long distance fees you pay to your own phone company. (Usually around $5 - $8)

TIME: Tuesday, May 19, 2009

To sign up for one of these teleseminars, go to http://www.scriptforsale.com/rewrite_conference2.htm

I hope you'll join us.

Hal Croasmun
http://www.ScriptForSale.com

OTHER COMMENTS ABOUT THE REWRITE CALL

"Took an (amazingly free) teleseminar last night on rewriting screenplays. Check out http://www.scriptforsale.com for a whole variety of classes, including -- if you've been living right -- a repeat of the one last night, giving 21 steps to rewrite your script, with lots of meat on those bones. Presented by Hal Croasmun, whose emphasis is on winding up with a script you can sell."
-- Chas Ridley, Author of 11 books

"Of all the classes and seminars I've taken, this was the most informative and valuable insights I've ever received. And I have been paid well, writing scripts for years.
-- Ruth L Ratny, REELCHICAGO.COM

"Just a note to say THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I was on the
teleconference call last night. To say I thoroughly enjoyed it,
is an understatement. I really liked the way you went through
everything and the GREAT examples you used.

I learned more in our call than I did in a weekend seminar
with Robert McKee."
-- Ed Gillow

"It's the most comprehensive and systematic source of
information about the rewrite process that exists."
-- Chuck Loch, Optioned Screenwriter

=================================================

Are You A Wimp in Your Business? If so - You Do Not Want to Read This

2009-05-17T16:52:00.002-04:00

Sharing a post by my friend Kathleen Gage about a call she is offering later this week --

Are You A Wimp?

My friend Sam Crowley hits you where it hurts with this video. He talks about the people who die at 25 but get buried 50 years later. Don't let this happen to you.

Are you merely existing or are you living your life with passion? Are you saying, "Someday I will do what I love and live my Saturday?" or are you among the sleep walkers of life? Join Sam and me oh Thursday, May 21st at 3 p.m. PST, to find out how to move your life in the direction of your passion.

http://www.streetsmartsmarketing.com/Sam.htm

Originally Posted at http://www.themarketingmindset.com/2009/05/dont-watch-this-if-you-are-a-whimp-.html

Strategy to Classify Followers on Twitter

2009-05-14T10:56:00.002-04:00

One of the common use cases of marketing on Twitter is its usefulness as a channel for lead generation. Getting to that critical mass, which can be an asset to a company, is any marketers dream, be it traditional channel of marketing or social media.

In this article, let us evaluate a strategy to classify followers on Twitter and identify critical mass, along with appropriate actions. It goes without saying, the starting step for this strategy on twitter is to Listen, Understand,Categorize. And Repeat.

The picture below illustrates how followers can be classified on two dimensions: Involvement and Interest*

Classify Followers on two dimensions: Involvement and Interest

Low Interest and Active – These are the followers who talk in varied topics, not all of which are related to your topic of interest. At the same time these followers are very active on twitter. The strategy that will work here is to Nurture them; educate them in the area of your expertise. The goal will be to move this set to “high interest” zone.
High Interest and Passive – These are the followers who talk about topics that match your areas of interest. But, they are not very active. The strategy with this group will be to Engage them. Ask questions and give replies on a continuous basis. The goal will be to move them to “Active” zone.
High Interest and Active - This is the absolutely desirable group to have. Not only do they speak your language, but they do so often. It is this segment where you will find your influencers and promoters. And most active users are not necessarily neutral.If you do not quickly Convert them, remember your competitors might get them and they can soon become detractors for you.
Low Interest and Passive – These are those followers you probably got using the “Increase Follower” tool. They are not interested in what you have to say, nor do they care, as they are passive. The best strategy is to not spend much time on this group. Try engaging and nurturing – if the users do not move to either “active” or “high interest” zone – Ignore them.

* SentimentNow(TM) technology of ObjectiveMarketer can actually show mapping of your and your audience’ similarity of interests.

This is a simple strategy, but will be very effective when marketers are planning their campaigns and evaluating the strength of their target audience on Twitter. Identifying the influencers is key strategy to a successful Viral Campaign on Twitter.

It would be interesting to get more views on this topic.

This article was originally posted at:
http://objectivemarketer.wordpress.com/2009/05/12/follower-strategy-on-twitter/

Social Networking With Twitter by G T Bulmer

2009-05-10T21:07:00.001-04:00

I've been a member of the Twitter social networking site for several weeks now and the experience keeps getting better and better!

© GT Bulmer
Web Biz Opportunities - StarrBizz.com

Social networking has become such a vital part of every home based web biz marketer's game plan and Twitter has developed into a leading force in social networking.

The biggest benefit of social networking is that it is free; you can reach thousands of prospects easily and economically. The challenge of social networking is that you have to spend time developing your presence on a social media site and time developing relationships of trust.

Twitter definitely simplifies the process. Sign-up and set-up take a matter of minutes. Then all you do is begin posting your "tweets" in 140 characters or less. You can post as often as you like, but the secret to social networking success is to offer info, insight and value, not just blatant promos or ads for your products and services.

You will find that once you become active in posting tweets, Twitter members will automatically start following you. And that is the object of social networking; to build a list of followers.

There are a few techniques to build your followers faster. One way is to follow other members. It's easy to do on Twitter - just a click of the button - and most members you follow will follow you back.

As your list of followers grows, it becomes even more important to create a balance between informative tweets and promotional tweets.

Also, it helps to keep your tweets relative to your basic theme. For example, I try to keep the majority of my gtbulmer tweets focused on the theme of business and online marketing. I try to keep the majority of my ThinkGreen4Life tweets focused on the theme of the environment and going green.

If your tweets depart too far afield of the theme that attracted your followers, some will un-follow you, and on Twitter, it's just as easy to un-follow as it is to follow.

Another way to help build your followers is to "re-tweet" the posts of other members. Basically, you click the "reply" icon to paste their twitter ID into your comment field; you type in the letters "RT" (meaning re-tweet), then copy and paste the portion of their text that you want to re-tweet. After making sure it is 140 characters or less, you then click the "update" button to post the re-tweet.

When you re-tweet the comments of other members, they appreciate it and will likely pay more attention to your tweets. Also, they might return the favour and re-tweet some of your tweets. There is a HUGE advantage to this: when they re-tweet your tweets, their ENTIRE list of followers could potentially see your messages. There are two key benefits to this:

- First, you instantly multiply your exposure to members you might otherwise never reach.

- Second, when one member re-tweets another, many of their followers begin following the member who has just been re-tweeted.

With that in mind, I actively watch for tweets that I think my followers will be interested in, then re-tweet those tweets. It's one more way I can provide service and value to members of my growing social network on Twitter.

After just a few weeks as a member of Twitter, I have developed a nice following and I am following many informative and inspirational members. Not only have I been learning a great deal on a variety of topics, but I've been finding some great links to share with friends on other social networking sites.

If you are looking to build your home based web biz or advance any form of business or Internet Marketing that you may be involved in, I recommend you consider the value of Social Networking with Twitter.

http://www.starrbizz.com/blog/2009/04/social-networking-with-twitter.html

70 Do Follow Social Media Sites

2009-05-10T14:09:00.002-04:00

I just heard about this list on EvanCarmichael.com and would like to share it with you. You can create a profile page on each of these social sites and participating and submitting your articles and other sites to their bookmarking service can be beneficial for you. See what you think....

70 Do Follow Social Media Sites

(Originally posted at - http://digitallabz.com/blogs/70-do-follow-social-media-sites.html)

A staple of successful internet marketing is a quality link building campaign. There are many resources on the web on link building and I will not bother going into those details here.

As social media has grown and evolved over the past few years, it has become a new avenue for marketers and webmasters to execute link building campaigns.

This blog post is an attempt to list the social media sites that allow “do follow” links; which should have the potential to contribute to the search rank of the page being linked.

Contribute To This List
I am sure this list is far from being thorough and accurate. The landscape of the social web will always be changing. So, I invite everyone to leave comments recommending any “Social Media” websites that I have left off the list. Some sites will be removed from time to time as well, as suggested by the comments. Page Rank of the sites on the list will fluctuate over time. They are meant to be a guide.

Guidelines for adding to the list

Must be a social media site.
Must allow for user submitted links that do not have the “no follow” tag on the link.
Make suggestions as comments.

Guidelines for site removal from the list

Must provide proof that “do follow” user submitted links do not exist on the site.
Must prove that the site should not be considered a social media site.
Make suggestions as comments.

PR	URL	Do Follow
9	www.slashdot.org	Yes
8	www.2collab.com	Yes
8	www.digg.com	Yes
8	www.mister-wong.com	Yes
8	www.propeller.com	Yes
8	www.stumbleupon.com	URL Only
7	www.current.com	URL Only
7	www.reddit.com	In Main Categories
7	www.spurl.net	On Main Page
7	www.friendfeed.com	Yes
7	www.furl.net	Yes
7	www.hugg.com	Yes
7	www.connotea.org	Yes
7	www.mybloglog.com	Yes
7	www.mixx.com	Yes
7	www.folkd.com	Yes
7	www.multiply.com	Yes
7	www.dzone.com	Yes
6	www.sphinn.com	25+ Votes Articles
6	www.kaboodle.com	URL Only
6	www.feedagg.com	Yes
6	www.backflip.com	Yes
6	www.kirtsy.com	Yes
6	www.searchles.com	Yes
6	www.bibsonomy.org	Yes
6	www.swik.net	Yes
6	www.plime.com	Yes
5	www.mylinkvault.com	On Main Page
5	www.linkagogo.com	Yes
5	www.stumpedia.com	Yes
5	www.corank.com	Yes
5	www.faves.com	Yes
5	www.spotback.com	Yes
5	www.kwoff.com	Yes
5	www.jeqq.com	Yes
5	www.bringr.com	Yes
5	www.web2list.com	Yes
5	www.quadriot.com	Yes
5	www.unalog.com	Yes
5	www.linkatopia.com	Yes
4	www.urlex.info	URL Only
4	www.highvibeit.com	URL Only
4	www.a1-webmarks.com	Yes
4	www.oyax.com	Yes
4	www.memestreams.net	Yes
4	www.bookmarksync.com	Yes
4	www.bmaccess.net	Yes
4	www.ausculture.com	Yes
4	www.1topix.com	Yes
4	www.blogmarks.net	Yes
3	www.wobblog.com	URL Only
3	www.plugim.com	URL Only
3	www.kez6.com	URL Only
3	www.th3scoop.com	Yes
3	www.megite.com	Yes
3	www.earthfrisk.com	Yes
3	www.contentpop.com	Yes
3	www.actualtopics.com	Yes
3	www.postonfire.com	Yes
2	www.shareddish.com	URL Only
2	www.stuffs4u.com	Yes
2	www.givealink.org	Yes
2	www.dekut.com	Yes
2	www.diggdirect.com	Yes
2	www.oopza.com	Yes
0	www.i89.us	Yes
0	www.bookmark-tag.com	Yes
0	www.under-link.com	Yes
0	mystuff.ask.com	Yes
0	www.your-bookmark.com	URL Only

Do You Have Questions About Twitter?

2009-05-09T17:22:00.003-04:00

This is a link to a radio show I did to help people understand more about Twitter - how to use it, some things to avoid, learning your way around the page and settings and more ---

My Twitter Toolbox - Over 100 Twitter Tools

2009-05-05T15:45:00.002-04:00

Are you looking for ways to maximize your exposure and effectiveness on Twitter? Then I have something you have to check out.

With My Twitter Toolbox, you get more
than 100 tools to tame the tweeting beast!

Take a look at this page and you can see the table of contents. I'm still working my way through the list of all the tools I want to use. The price is $19.97 today, but I've heard it is going up in a few days. The research time I can save is easily worth much more than $19.97 :)

http://www.learntosellmorebooks.com/twittertoolbox.htm

--
Book Promo 201 - Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing (May 2009)
Book Promo 101 - http://www.nikkileigh.com
Follow Me on Twitter - www.twitter.com/litekepr
Promotional Services - www.nikkileigh.com/promo.htm

Blazing Trailers - New Site to Share Your Books and Trailers

2009-05-03T12:27:00.000-04:00

Blazing Trailers
Books at the speed of fun.

Over 300 books strong and growing...

www.blazingtrailers.com

It's official. Blazing Trailers is now open for submissions. If you
have a book trailer, it's free to post. Instead of inviting readers to
view your trailer on a dead end url at a video sharing site, send them
to Blazing Trailers. Each video is accompanied by an excerpt, review,
blurb, author info and BUY LINKS! Blazing Trailers authors are also
invited to share their news, contests, reviews, etc on the home page.

The site is still in the first stages, but we're planning a launch
party soon. The next phases of Blazing Trailers will include
individual author pages and viewer comments, among other surprises.

To submit a trailer visit http://www.blazingtrailers.com/submit.php.
The submissions form is still beta testing. If you have any questions
or problems, please email me at kimm@blazingtrailers.com

Oh, and did I mention...it's FREE?

Kim McDougall

kimm@blazingtrailers.com

Unique Book Promotion - Weddings Are Dangerous to Marriage

2009-05-02T12:11:00.004-04:00

We have our first "Unique Way to Promote Your Book" and I'm on the lookout for more......

Since wedding books always sound so "rosettes and champagne," we created a shocking press pitch that we sent to radio and television producers and it worked every time. The interview questions included many of the same points so it was easy to promote our book and our website http://smartweddingcouples.com as the answers to all these problems:

WEDDINGS ARE DANGEROUS TO MARRIAGE

Many wedding traditions don't support the couple's relationship or the marriage they are committing to --

In fact, the typical traditional wedding is a mine-field of disasters waiting to happen:

Surprise proposals before the couple even discusses kids, finances, or life goals (and what if she doesn't like the ring?)
Only the bride wears an engagement ring, the groom wears nothing (she’s taken – is he?)
The bride and her mother plan the wedding while the groom is treated like an accessory or worse (no wonder husbands feel excluded from family life)
Parents pay for weddings as if the bride and groom are still children (even when the “kids” are fully employed adults)
Trying to impress the guests and outdo friends, the emphasis is on glitz and glam, hardly the vows (which are, after all, the point)
The average cost of today’s wedding is $27,000 – often not including the ring, the gown, or the honeymoon (production values win out over purpose)
Couples go into debt over this one-day event (is that the way to start a marriage?)
And on and on and on . . .

BUT . . . there's an important new trend that's helping turn things around.

We are husband and wife, best-selling relationship authors Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski AND as a psychology team(we both have PhDs) we wrote our book --

THE SMART COUPLE'S GUIDE TO THE WEDDING OF YOUR DREAMS:
Planning Together for Less Stress and More Joy
(New World Library)

To point out wedding dangers and provide meaningful modern-day alternatives.

Unlike any other wedding book, The Smart Couple’s Guide:

Is the ONLY wedding book on the market for the couple
Shows the couple that how they treat each during their wedding planning sets the foundation for their marriage -- and most couples don't have a clue about this.
Is the ONLY voice for the NEW TREND in American weddings -- which is that “80% of grooms are now active co-partners in the planning of their weddings.” (TIME 10-3-05)
That’s revolutionary. And we predict this trend will bring down the divorce rate. Taking the couple from their engagement through their honeymoon, our book is an easy and fun read punctuated with nearly 150 heartfelt stories from brides, grooms, and couples around the country.

We’ve included our bio at the end so you can see our extensive media experience, and you can check us out at http://judithandjim.com as well as our book at http://www.smartweddingcouples.com

We'd like to send you a review copy of the book, just tell us the appropriate address.

We'll give you a provocative and exciting segment -- count on it.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Voice for The New American Wedding,

Judith Sherven, PhD & Jim Sniechowski, PhD
702-870-3657

Judith@judithandjim.com

JUDITH & JIM

Husband-and-wife psychology team Judith Sherven, Ph.D. and Jim Sniechowski, Ph.D. provoke audiences with their bold, yet charming take on the future of men and women and relationships.

Never afraid to share stories from their dating, wedding, and marriage experiences, audiences laugh with affection and identification -- while always moved to change their ways so that Judith & Jim's success can also be theirs.

Best-selling relationship authors, their latest book is "The Smart Couple's Guide to the Wedding of Your Dreams". Editors, journalists, and media bookers are always grateful to have their 2-for-1 energy and inspiration.

They named their company The Magic of Differences because at the heart of their work is the message that embracing and learning from differences is the key to successful loving and living.

As guest experts they've been on over 1000 television and radio shows including Oprah, The O'Reilly Factor, 48 Hours, CNN, Canada AM, and The View.

They’ve written for or been interviewed by hundreds of publications including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Cosmo, O, Bridal Guide, Redbook, Playboy, Parents, Bride’s, Men’s Health, Best Life, and Today’s Black Woman.

This is Judith’s first marriage and the third for Jim. Celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary this year, they bring hope to everyone.

Visit their websites:
www.judithandjim.com
www.smartweddingcouples.com

FREE Promotional Options For Author

2009-04-30T18:22:00.005-04:00

I have made some major changes to the blogs I'm offering in March and I pdated this list to reflect those changes. These changes should make it easier to find information and give additional exposure to every one who submits information about their books and themselves.

ANY published author is welcome to submit these questions and answers to promote their books. To use any of these blogs - click on the link, click on "how to submit" in the top corner of the blog and follow the instructions. I ask that you send the questions and answers as an RTF file. It is also good to send a jpg file of your book cover - no PDF files for the cover art. When you complete the interview, send to nikki_leigh22939@yahoo.com with the interview title in the subject line and I will add you to the list for that blog.

I have divided the blog lists for fiction and non fiction books to make it easier to find the ones you need. I've added several new blogs lately - so if you've been here before - there are some new options.

The print and digital edition of Book Promo 101 are available. The print book is oversize 8" x 10" and the layout is gorgeous. The print edition of Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing will be available May 2009. If you would like details about the contents of this book visit http://www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_201.htm

I offer a wide array of promotional services to authors. Feel free to take a look at the possibilities and contact me with questions. If you are interested in something that you don't see listed, let me know and we can talk. For a list of these services visit - www.nikkileigh.com/promo.htm

I offer a wide assortment of virtual book tour options and the current list is located at http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/04/virtual-blog-tour-options.html and I offer virtual blog tours which coordinate and enhance Amazon Best Seller Campaigns - http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/02/amazon-best-seller-virtual-blog-tour.html there are a number of options and price ranges and we can talk about other options. I'm planning to add more services in 2009. If you'd like to be added to my mailing list to get the latest updates, send me a message at nikki_leigh22939@yahoo.com. I am also adding a wide variety of social media marketing options to the things that Promo 101 Promotional Services offers.

This is the full list of promotional blogs - the name, the blog link and the link to full instructions are listed for each individual interview.

Promotional Blogs for Fiction Books

Are you an "outside of the box" promoter? I'd love to share your ideas on this blog - http://promo101articles.blogspot.com/2009/04/calling-outside-of-box-promoters-share.html

Share your furry writing companions - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com
How to Submit - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-submit-information-about-author.html

http://itsallinthesetting.blogspot.com/ - Details about story setting.
How to Submit – http://itsallinthesetting.blogspot.com/2007/07/its-all-about-setting.html

Animals in Your Book - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/

How to Submit - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-submit-your-book.html

Villains in your book.- http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com
How to Submit – http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-submit_7729.html

Heroine in your book.- http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com
How to Submit - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-submit_134.html

Hero in your book.- http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com
How to Submit - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-submit.html

Best Friend - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com
How to Submit - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-submit_28.html

Share Book Details - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com
How to Submit – http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-to-submit.html

http://frombookstomovies.blogspot.com/ - From Books to the Movies
If a movie was made about your book, which actors and actresses would play the main characters? This is your chance in case a movie of your book and it can be a lot of fun.
How to Submit – http://frombookstomovies.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-submit.html

Interview a Male Character - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com
How to Submit - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-submit_6392.html

Interview a Female Character - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com
How to Submit - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-submit_1859.htm

In Detail With Nikki Leigh - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com
Give potential readers more information about you and your background.
How to Submit – http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-to-submit.html

http://currenteventsinbooks.blogspot.com/- Can you tie a topic or element from your book with current events? This is the place to submit them. Send them to me and I'll review them.
How to Submit - http://currenteventsinbooks.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-submit.html

Do you have interesting promotional ideas and suggestions that you would like to share with other authors? http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com

How to Submit - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-submit-your-promotional.html

http://judgebookbycover.blogspot.com/ - Share your book cover.
How to Submit – http://judgebookbycover.blogspot.com/2007/07/judge-book-by-its-cover.html

http://startatbeginning.blogspot.com/ - Share your First Chapter
How to Submit – http://startatbeginning.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-submit.html

Promotional Blogs for Non-Fiction Books

Are you an "outside of the box" promoter? I'd love to share your ideas on this blog - http://promo101articles.blogspot.com/2009/04/calling-outside-of-box-promoters-share.html

Share Book Details - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com
How to Submit – http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-to-submit.html

Share your furry writing companions - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com
How to Submit - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-submit-information-about-author.html

Animals in Your Book - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/

How to Submit - http://fictionalcharactersindepth.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-submit-your-book.html

Before I Was Published - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com
Tell us about what you did before you were published and especially include anything that relates to your books and your writing.
How to Submit - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com/2008/02/tell-us-your-story.html

http://currenteventsinbooks.blogspot.com/- Can you tie a topic or element from your book with current events? This is the place to submit them. Send them to me and I'll review them.
How to Submit - http://currenteventsinbooks.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-submit.html
Do you have interesting promotional ideas and suggestions that you would like to share with other authors? http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com

How to Submit - http://authorpromotion.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-submit-your-promotional.html

http://judgebookbycover.blogspot.com/ - Share your book cover.
How to Submit – http://judgebookbycover.blogspot.com/2007/07/judge-book-by-its-cover.html

http://startatbeginning.blogspot.com/ - Share your First Chapter

How to Submit – http://startatbeginning.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-submit.html

I reserve the right to refuse to post any submissions, but so far I haven't needed to turn anyone away. I did edit a couple of first chapters to maintain a PG-13 rating for my visitors. That could be one of the reasons why some have such a long waiting list. All the blogs are listed on my Blogger profile which is located at - www.blogger.com/profile/00985309338453728557.

Nikki Leigh
Author of the Book Promo 101 Series
www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_101.htm
Author Promotional Services - www.nikkileigh.com/promo.htm

Calling "Outside of the Box" Promoters - Share Your Most Unique Ideas

2009-04-30T18:14:00.003-04:00

I'm starting a new thing on my promo articles and tips blog and I wanted to know if you would like to participate - this is the blog http://www.promo101articles.blogspot.com/ and it is being promoted in my new book (Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing) and is where I will post all new promo tips etc that I discovered and continue to discover after this went to the publisher. This is also an award winning blog :)

Here is what I need - I'm getting people to share the most unique, unusual or outlandish thing they have done to promote their book - details about what it was, how it worked, and if it was a success. My hope and goal with this is to get people to start thinking "outside of the box" with their promotion. I'm tired of hearing about people just giving away free copies of their book - so I want to share some great examples of using creativity in their promotion. Would you like to contribute something? More than one is a possibility too :)

If you have something to share - send it to nikki@nikkileigh.com

Nikki Leigh

Publish Post

www.nikkileigh.com
www.twitter.com/litekepr

Let's Talk About How to Get Started on Twitter

2009-04-30T16:00:00.004-04:00

Tuesday May 5th I'll be talking about Twitter on my radio show at - www.blogtalkradio.com/nikkileigh - we'll be on air at 4 pm EST. My guest will be Lizzie T Leaf - hear what she has to say about the call ;)

I always thought I have a face for radio and now I get to prove it. Nikki Leigh has invited me to be a guest on her Blogtalk radio show and she will strive to answer my questions about Twitter. Come share Nikki's pain as she attempts to educate a very non-techo author (that would be me) on one of the latest social networks available to all of us these days.

www.blogtalkradio.com/nikkileigh and the call is May 5, 2009 at 4 pm EST --- people can visit the page and click "reminder" on the show listing and BTR will send them a reminder about the call. Very cool service :)

Look forward to your support!

Lizzie

And - my response --

"Share Nikki's pain" --- wow - I better prepare really well for this show :) All right folks - I need support and the show will give you a chance to ask your questions too -- so definitely come visit on Tuesday. If you can't make it live - you can also download the show after it airs. I plan to share lots of great information to help people get started on Tiwtter, to learn their way around the site and to talk about some of the tools that make it easier to participate. I have a feeling we will even talk about why you should even be on Twitter. Is it worth the effort? You will have to tune in to hear more :)

Nikki Leigh
Author of Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and
Social Media Marketing
http://www.nikkileigh.com
http://www.twitter.com/litekepr

Are Celebrities Causing Twitter to Evolve or Devolve?

2009-04-26T11:42:00.001-04:00

Attracting Thousands of Followers, But Following Few

You've no doubt been exposed to mass hoopla surrounding Twitter and celebrities starting Twitter accounts, racing to get the most followers, etc. There's no question that celebrity Twitter use is good for expanding the social network's user base, but what's it doing to Twitter as a communication tool?

Is Twitter evolving or devolving as a result of celebrities taking it over? (Tell us what you think.)You have celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Jimmy Fallon, and Oprah who have gained massive amounts of followers, but are not following too many people themselves. Is Twitter just part of their respective PR machines?

Are they actively engaging in conversations with their fans? Maybe a little, but how many of Kutcher's million plus do you think are regularly getting responses from him when they send him tweets? Look at Oprah's account. Granted, she's only been on since Friday, but she's already got nearly half a million followers and she's only following ten people. So far she's sent replies to Demi Moore, Shaq, Larry King, and Evan Williams. Hardly communicating with the fans I would say.

To be fair, I'm not saying that there aren't celebrities using Twitter who do communicate with their fan bases. Perhaps even Oprah will if given enough time. Some celebrities (like Arnold Schwarzenegger, MC Hammer, and Britney Spears have thousands of followers themselves (though who knows how many fans were manually followed back and how many were simply added as a result of some auto follower).

I think Neville Hobson puts it well when he says Twitter is for listening. When Oprah joined Twitter, Twitter's daily market share of Internet visits skyrocketed. Jason Miller discussed this at WebProNews.

Oprah has a lot of fans, and they flocked to Twitter because they are interested in listening to what she has to say. Twitter the company is certainly happy to have celebrities participating. But if Twitter was once about two-way communication, it seems to be more about one-way listening now.

Don't get me wrong. Two-way communication is still an option, and there are still many people doing it, but some celebrities and marketers are changing the face of Twitter.

Luckily, there is still value in listening. Twitter has often been referred to as microblogging, and that's really a good way to look at it. You read blogs because you're interested in what the bloggers have to say. You read tweets for the same reason. They're just smaller. Blogs have comment areas for two-way communication that can go two-way or one-way depending on whether or not the author takes the time to respond. The same applies to Twitter.

There is plenty of value in listening from the business perspective as well. Hobson writes:

Don’t think of the increasing user numbers we keep hearing about as just so much more noise you have to filter out if you’re on Twitter yourself. Remember, Twitter is an opt-in idea: you decide whether or not to open an account and then who to follow or not. You’re in control!

Instead, think of the stunning growth in people signing up to Twitter as more amazing listening opportunities to find out who’s saying what about you, your product, your brand, your client, or whatever it is that interests you in finding out what people are talking about online.

I can tell you that a good place to find people in your niche to listen to is our own Twellow. Just don't go too crazy because Twitter has placed a limit on how many people you can follow in a day (1,000). If you're really there to listen, this probably will not affect you too much. There is a bit of a debate going on about whether this limit is a good or a bad thing too.

Do you think celebrities are changing Twitter for the better or for the worse?

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/04/21/are-celebrities-causing-twitter-to-evolve-or-devolve

Do You Write Articles? Learn a Shortcut to Twitter for Your Articles

2009-04-24T14:32:00.002-04:00

Twitter.EzineArticles.com

Twitter.EzineArticles.com is a section of EzineArticles that we created to showcase our authors who gain extra publicity for their articles by having us automatically update their Twitter accounts with their latest published articles.

Go to Twitter.EzineArticles.com

How can I be featured here?

If you haven't already, sign up for an EzineArticles account and a Twitter account.
Log into the EzineArticles Members Area and edit your biography by selecting Profile Manager and Edit Author Bio from the main menu.
Enter your Twitter account information into the fields "Twitter Username" and "Twitter Password." This information is the same information you use to log into Twitter.
Complete any other sections of your biography you wish and click the button at the bottom of the page to save your changes.
Submit a quality, original article through the Members Area.

That's it. Your Twitter account will be automatically updated when your article is approved by the EzineArticles editorial staff and you will be listed here.

To watch the video, visit http://twitter.ezinearticles.com/howto/

Thank you to Kathleen Gage for passing this along :)

www.kathleengage.com and www.streetsmartsmarketing.com

Promotional Question #1 from Martin Bartloff

2009-04-21T15:41:00.004-04:00

I met Martin Bartloff at the VA Festival of the Book in March 2009 and we have conversed on Twitter several times since then. His first book is being released soon by my good friend Karen Syed at Echelon Press. He has some promotional questions, so I suggested that he send them to me and I'd post some answers here. Anyone else is welcome to do the same thing. You can reach me at nikki @ nikkileigh.com

Here is Martin's first question -

I don't want my novel to be like other books I see--being eaten like small fish in an ocean full of books. How should I market my book sufficiently, beyond twitter, myspace, facebook etc?

This is something that many authors wonder about. With over 250,000 books being released each year (and that could be higher now) - we all want to make our book stand out in the crowd.

I would start by making sure the book is being promoted sufficiently on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook - and other appropriate social sites. Sufficiently is a subjective word - what I consider to be sufficient may be over board for another person. I've talked to people who have an old profile, no pictures and a couple dozen friends and they think that is sufficient. I know this will shock people - but I don't think that's sufficient.

Here are some bare necessity things I would do with these platforms --

1 - Have a well developed profile page on each of these sites
2 - Make sure you give a good amount of info about you and your book(s)
3 - Include some pictures of you - at book events is good and definitely your book cover
4 - Check the applications on these sites and see what would be beneficial. You want people to be able to interact with you, you want to be able to post book trailers (if you have any), you want to post pictures, a link to your blog (which you need), a link to Twitter, updates on your social profiles, and much more
5 - I do not think you need games and other distractions- although I have some of those myself
6 - Are you updating the "status" area on these sites regularly?
7 - Are you actively gathering friends -- and potential readers?
8 - Do you share book related events that you have coming up in the future?
9 - Do you have a fan page and/or a group on Facebook?
10 - Have you promoted these pages?
11 - Are these pages complete?

These are just off the top of my head - but will get you started. IF you have all these things on the social sites mentioned above - these are a few more things.

Have you written a press release about the release of your book?
Did you circulate it? (There are articles about writing and distributing PR on this blog)
Are you blogging?
Do you share interesting and relevant info on your blog?
Do you blog regularly?
Do you ever ask people in you can guest blog on their blog?
Do you invite other to guest blog on your blog?
Do you have a book trailer?
Is the trailer posted on all relevant video sites? (I'll warn you there are more than you think :)
Are your books in local bookstores?
Is there any group in your community that you could partner with to do a fundraising event that you could tie into your book content?

The last in more creative, but can be a lot of fun and great exposure for you. It is also a lot of work - so be sure you know what you're getting into.

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. What ways have you used to promote your book? And, how did they work for you?

Nikki

Welcome to Romance Book Covers

2009-04-19T12:45:00.003-04:00

This is a new website that features Romance Book Covers - would it be useful for you??

http://www.romancebookcovers.com

I uploaded a couple of my covers - but there was no indication about where they went etc. If I learn more or receive some notification about them - I'll post an update. I can tell you that the uploaded pictures appeared to be cropped and showed up as a square - so they did not look like the rectangular cover we designed. If anyone hears about this site -- I'd love to hear more details.

This is from their About Us page -

Hello, Romance Book Readers

And welcome to a place, where you can relive the beauty of a good book with its wonderful characters, through its cover art—again and again. I love reading romance novels, and escaping to a world of fantasy, mystery, and adventure on occasion. I’ve even taken up collecting Romance Cover Art on a large scale. That’s why I have this site!!! I also enjoy receiving picture uploads from my viewers. If you have a romance picture you want made into wallpaper, and displayed on this site, click on the words - Romance Picture Upload. This will take you to my upload page. There you'll be able to upload your picture(s). Also check out "Romance Book Cover’s Art Center", and view back issues of previously viewed pictures.

Most of the wallpapers are best viewed at 800 x 600 Resolution—I will be adding 1024 X 768 Resolution Wallpapers from time-to-time. The pages within my site may take some time to download depending on your connection. Please be patient... it will be worth your time, I promise. Now please scroll down and continue to view the images. If you see a picture that you want to save, simply click on the image, and you will be taken to the full screen picture to save on your computer. Finally “RIGHT CLICK” on the wallpaper and “SAVE IMAGE AS...” Please let me know if you are having problems with any of the files. Now, enjoy the images and come back soon.

Best regards,

RomanceSwap.com -- Could This Site be Useful for Your Promotion?

2009-04-19T12:30:00.004-04:00

I was playing on the internet Saturday (yes I should've been working :) and I saw a promo for this site that focuses on romance novels

http://www.romanceswap.com/

Here is some info from their site ---

The site offers the chance to

create your own profile page
set up book clubs by author
book clubs by genre
book clubs by area - meet book lovers near you or reach book clubs near the setting for your books

Go here to register for your free account -
http://www.romanceswap.com/index.php/component/comprofiler/registers

Here are their FAQ's

Why Should You Consider a Virtual Blog Tour?

2009-04-12T15:17:00.004-04:00

The simplest description for my idea of a virtual blog tour is: a cyber “tour” which includes various blogs, websites, radio shows, newsletters etc. The more effective sites usually contain themes or content from the book that is being promoted. This “tour” gives authors the chance to reach many people as they travel the world wide web.

A tour includes a series of appearances with blogs, website interviews, reviews or guest posts etc that are posted on various sites during a specific amount of time. Various site owners host you and may ask interview questions about your book or request that you write a piece about a specific part or element of your book.

Benefits of a Blog

Why would you do a virtual tour? Is it all about book sales? Selling books is only one of the reasons I encourage people to do virtual tours. The following reasons apply to fiction and non-fiction authors – however, some can be utilized more thoroughly by non-fiction and business authors.

• Build credibility
• Increase visibility
• Generate a buzz about your book
• Reach your target audience
• Get information to many people in a short period of time
• Generate additional links back to your site
• Let readers and potential readers learn more about you and your books
• Help blog readers get to know the person behind the book or other product
• Search engines love blogs and you get into search engines immediately
• Gives your target audience the opportunity to communicate with you
• Comments can give you the chance to see what people think about your topics

You can organize a tour for yourself or you can hire a professional. But, ask what the professional can do for you. There are many ways to describe a virtual tour and be sure the other person explains what they plan to do – and more importantly, that they plan the best approach for you and your book. When a professional coordinates your tour it lets you benefit from their promotional network to generate a much larger reach for you.

Nikki Leigh is an award winning fiction and non-fiction author with over sixteen years of promotional experience. Promo 101 Promotional Services offers online promotional options. Her new book will be available in May- Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing. The most up to date information is posted at www.twitter.com/litekepr. Visit www.nikkileigh.com to download The Insider's Guide to Virtual Book Tours. Additional promotional information can be found at http://promo101articles.blogspot.com.

To be notified when Book Promo 201 is available - send Nikki your address --

Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing

2009-04-05T21:19:00.001-04:00

To be notified when Book Promo 201 is available - send Nikki your address --

A Plethora Of Facebook Links From Kathleen Gage

2009-03-23T16:54:00.002-04:00

I got an email from Kathleen Gage over the weekend as a follow up to a program I was in with her. At the end of the message she included some great links to videos to help people learn more about Facebook and it seemed like great information to share here. So, I'm including the links below. Feel free to let me know which one you think helped you the most :)

Nikki Leigh

Below are the links to the videos. Well worth watching.

How to Register and Join Facebook 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSHxSlUuZxo

How to Use Facebook : How to Use the Account Page on Facebook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28VYZCtfzIc

How to Use Facebook : How to Use your Facebook  Homepage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqK3NrmcyQ4

How to Use Facebook : How to Use the "Wall" on your Facebook Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EGFXZaCBmQ


How to Use Facebook : How to Find, Invite, & Add Friends on Facebook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMvQJNiGkEA

How to Use Facebook : Learn More About Facebook Through its Site tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myCkW7vlGAU

How to Use Facebook : How to Create a Slideshow on Facebook with your Photos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_UzmNma8EY

In success,

Kathleen Gage

www.KathleenGage.com

www.streetssmartmarketing.com

The 10 Commandments of the Entrepreneurial Author

2009-03-23T13:03:00.002-04:00

I just saw this on David Hancock's blog and had to share. What do you think of the entrepreneurial author's ten commandments??

The 10 Commandments of the Entrepreneurial Author

1. Create books, products and services that you can market with pride and passion.
2. Remember that you are in the service of your ideas, your books and your readers.
3. Establish an annual marketing budget that reflects your belief in the importance of marketing and enables you to carry out your promotion plan.
4. Devote the same time, energy and imagination to promoting your books every day that you devoted to writing them.
5. Foster and sustain warm, giving relationships with your networks.
6. Maintain the perspective of a one-person multimedia, multinational conglomerate when you make decisions about writing and promoting your books.
7. Be a lifelong learner in your field and in learning to market your business so you remain competitive.
8. Use state-of-the-art techniques and technology to serve your readers better.
9. Recommend competitors’ books if they will meet readers’ needs in ways that yours don’t.
10. Practice “co-opetition” by seeking ways to benefit from collaborating with your competitors.

Of course, give more than your readers expect, which is why I’m going to do the same with 10 more…
11. Always over deliver with the content of your books, seminars, talks, etc.
12. Make your marketing efforts creative and consistent enough to position yourself as one of the top authors in your field.
13. Welcome change as an opportunity to find ideas and improve your business and your life.
14. Make selling your books to new readers the start of a lifelong relationship.
15. Encourage readers to contact you, and regard this as an opportunity to serve them, to help attract new readers through word of mouth and to publicize everything you can offer them.
16. Welcome the chance to say thank you and reward those who help you.
17. Let your decisions reflect harmonious short- and long-term personal and professional goals that make you eager to get up in the morning.
18. Ask the people involved with your books and your business to help you keep these commandments.
19. Strive to create harmony between what you think, say and do, without crossing the line between being righteous and self-righteous.
20. Understand that marketing begins once you’ve made the sale and that a mind numbing 68 percent of all business lost is due to apathy after the sale.

Originally posted at http://morganjamespublishing.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-10-commandments-of-the?xgs=1

Nadene Carter of NorLights Press Shares Her Comments About Book Promo 201

2009-03-14T22:47:00.002-04:00

I’m so excited about this book! When Nikki first introduced me to her Web 2.0 marketing ideas, it felt like learning a new language. Nikki assured me, a better analogy was that of learning a new dialect. This has proven to be true.

Nikki has years of marketing experience, which makes her ideally suited as author of this book. She provides lots of ideas and hands-on information. This allows the reader to pick and choose those ideas that feel right for the marketing of his/her book.

Some of the things I found especially helpful for me: I’d come to a point in my professional life where I knew I needed to step out of my comfort zone. Using Nikki’s information on social networking, I opened a facebook account and started reading other people’s posts: authors, readers’ groups, and people from many walks of life, and networking with other people. By actually doing the work, I gained an understanding of how useful social networking can be.

Also, some time ago I started a blog for each of my three published books. Now that I’m co-owner of NorLightsPress.com I recognized that I needed to create a blog for our company and make it a priority to post often and provide useful information.

That required me to step WAY out of my comfort zone to learn about twitter and other social bookmarking sites. Nikki goes into this in great detail in her book. I hope readers find it as fascinating as I do. It’s true what Nikki says about learning by simply jumping in and doing it. Experience really is the best teacher with this new technology.

If you’ve ever wondered how the pros create “buzz” for their books, you’ll find the answers inside the pages of this book.

Nadene R. Carter, published author and

Executive Publisher - NorLightsPress.com

For more information about Book Promo 201 Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing - http://www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_201.htm you can also register to be notified when it is available.

Author Elena Dorothy Bowman Shares Her Review for Book Promo 201

2009-03-14T21:46:00.002-04:00

Nikki Leigh's Online Book Promotion 201 is one fantastic book that will be a boon to any author, professional or novice. It is loaded with fact–finding information that will help any author who reads it to perfect their marketing techniques. The book itself reads smoothly, completely geared to those not heavily technically oriented and is easy to follow and understand. It is and will be a wonderful reference tool for any author who is willing to use it to its fullest extent. I recommend this book highly for all authors, including myself.

Elena Dorothy Bowman -
Author of The Sarah's Landing Series, The Legacy Series, Time-Rift, The Odyssey and The Imposter

For more information about Book Promo 201 Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing - http://www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_201.htm you can also register to be notified when it is available.

Author and Promo Guru Yvonne Perry Reviewed Book Promo 201

2009-03-14T20:45:00.002-04:00

The world of online promotion can be confusing, especially for first-time authors who are unfamiliar with the technical aspects of blogging and the new frontier of social networking also known as Web 2.0 technology. So, why do so many people use the Internet to promote books? The exposure an author can have is virtually unlimited, most of the options are free or cost very little, and an author can reach people around the world without leaving home—that’s if you know where to connect with readers and what sites and activities bring the best results both financially and personally.

Nikki Leigh has taken the guess work out of online promotion including Web 2.0 technology. She starts with the basics of online promotion and expands by presenting a variety of promotional options. She gives examples to help you Identify your target market and create a brand, write for your target audience, and know your competition. Then, she defines Web 2.0 and tells what it takes to utilize the technology without spending all day online. She carries her instruction a step farther and deals with viral marketing–what is it and how can it help an author—and includes tips for joining social sites that focus on books and authors. There is even a list of sites that offer free or low-cost services where authors may upload book videos, get book reviews, start their own podcast, or be a guest on a radio show.

Book Promo 201 is a must-have toolbox for authors who need a quick and easy map to locate the best-kept secrets of online promotion.

Yvonne Perry, Owner of Writers in the Sky Creative Services http://writersinthesky.com

Book Promo 101 Review by Gurutej - The Energy Guru

2009-03-14T19:39:00.001-04:00

Who can benefit from Nikki Leigh’s latest book – Book Promo 201: Promote Using the Internet and Web 2.0? Everyone who needs and wants to learn more about that mysterious sounding technology – Web 2.0, should read this book. I have been blessed to work with Nikki and I can tell you she makes those who are slow to grasp web 2.0 feel hopeful. Trust me she has seen me through what felt like treacherous waters and made them calm and inviting. Nikki is very knowledgeable and a very clear web 2.0 teacher. Her book takes this big weird world of Web 2.0 and makes it friendly and understandable. This book is her gift to the world and like her private teachings it is clear, simple and a steal at this price. Be smart buy your copy now and it is a great gift for your friends that are struggling to get a handle on social media, social networking and Web 2.0. I consider this to be the Web 2.0 bible and I keep it close to my computer for easy reference.

Gurutej, Owner and Founder of The Energy Gurus and The Blessings Center

www.theenergygurus.com and www.gurutej.com

Book Promo 101 Review from Author & Publisher Philip Harris

2009-03-14T18:37:00.002-04:00

Nikki Leigh’s latest book, Book Promo 201 brings together the ‘best of the best” in book marketing. If you want to be an author, or already have books in print, this book should be a permanent fixture by your computer. From Web 2.0 to blog tours, branding, on-line promotion, social networking, internet radio, trailers viral marketing and tons more, this book shows you how and where to market your book. It will be a constant reference for both novices and pros.

Philip F. Harris, ALL THINGS THAT MATTER PRESS

My Book Was Called - Book Promo for Dummies

2009-03-14T17:35:00.001-04:00

That was a side comment - this is the review -- thank you to Shobhan for taking the time to do a review for me :)

“In today’s cyber world, Nikki Leigh’s BOOK PROMO 201 is a beacon of hope for technically challenged authors who want to make optimum use of the Web to promote and market their books. Leigh’s primer is the most comprehensive yet easy to follow book marketing tool I have come across.”

----Shobhan Bantwal, author of THE DOWRY BRIDE and THE FORBIDDEN DAUGHTER.

For more information about Book Promo 201 Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing - http://www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_201.htm you can also register to be notified when it is available.

Reviews for Book Promo Are Starting to Come In and The Title

2009-03-14T17:33:00.001-04:00

I'm starting to get early reviews for Book Promo 201 and I'm going to post some to share them.

We also decided on the official title today -- for some reason I have an easier time naming my novels. But, after tossing around different ideas for far too long, this is the official title -

Book Promo 201 - Harness the Power of the Internet With Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing

Its long, but it says everything that I want the title to say ---

Any thoughts about the title?

For more information about Book Promo 201 Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing - http://www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_201.htm you can also register to be notified when it is available.

New Facebook Pages -- Instructions and Add Twitter to Your Page

2009-03-08T19:15:00.000-04:00

Have you noticed that the "page" layouts on Facebook have been changed and they look much more like the profiles? There was an old guide for the old pages - but this is the link for an updated page guide for Facebook - www.facebook.com/advertising/FacebookPagesProductGuide.pdf

What will you do with your new "page"? You can also add a Twitter feed to your profile and to your individual pages - to keep FB visitors up to date on what you're tweeting about :)

Add Twitter to Your Facebook Page -

Go to http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ and click to add the application to your "page". You can then choose which page or pages you want to add the application to - then when you post updates on Twitter, they will be posted to your Facebook "page" too.

Nikki Leigh
www.nikkileigh.com

Nikki Leigh

Oragnize and Update Social Network Presence with One Tool

2009-03-08T13:42:00.000-04:00

Does that sounds too good to be true? Well, it is for the moment :)

I just heard about this site and service today http://www.atomkeep.com - but.... they are making major changes and are not accepting new users. However, I didn't want the info to get lost in the shuffle - so I'm posting it now and will try to keep an eye open for them to start accepting users again - if anyone hears before I do, feel free to let me know. I'm anxious to try it out :)

Do You Forget Where You Have an Account

2009-03-08T13:33:00.000-04:00

Over time, it is very easy for all of us to lose track of the social networks where we have an account. I just saw this in an article - (http://mashable.com/2009/03/07/manage-multiple-profiles) and it talks about www.checkusernames.com - simply go to the site, enter your username and it shows the site with that user name. To show you an example - this is my list. The sites highlighted in yellow are my most common username and the ones in blue are other usernames. The copy and pasted version isn't as attractive as the website, but I think you will get the idea of how it works :)

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Are You An Author OR an Entrepreneurial Author?

2009-03-06T10:38:00.001-05:00

In the introduction of Book Promo 101 - I state very clearly that I consider authors to be business people. We have create a product and we want to sell them - that puts us in the business world and the successful authors treat their writing and promotion as a business. David Hancock of Morgan James Publishing seems to agree with me and he blogs about this topic on the Morgan James Publishing ning.com site - this is the link - http://morganjamespublishing.ning.com

The Differences Between Authors and Entrepreneurial Authors

What are the characteristics of an entrepreneurial author as opposed to a traditional author? Entrepreneurial authors differ in twelve ways:

1. Traditional authors use as big a budget as possible; entrepreneurial authors substitutes time, energy and imagination for money.  

2. Traditional authors are geared to big audiences; entrepreneurial authors, to laser focused niches with a big dream but not a big bankroll.  

3. Traditional authors measure effectiveness with sales; entrepreneurial authors, with profits.  

4. Traditional authors base marketing on experience and then judgment that involves guesswork. Entrepreneurial authors base marketing on psychology—the laws of human behavior that determine buying patterns.  

5. Traditional authors try to increase their production of books and then diversify by offering allied products and services. Entrepreneurial authors maintain their standard of excellence by focusing on the business behind the books, and diversify only if they can create synergy that helps sell more books without lowering their quality.  

6. Traditional authors seek linear growth by adding new customers. Entrepreneurial authors also seek attracting new customers but they grow their business exponentially by using service and follow-up to create more transactions, larger transactions and referrals from their present customers.  

7. Traditional authors advocate destroying competition; entrepreneurial authors cooperate with competitors and create win-win opportunities with other authors.  

8. Traditional authors believe that one marketing weapon alone can work; entrepreneurial authors believe in the synergy created by a combination of weapons.  

9. Traditional authors count their monthly receipts to see how many sales they’ve made; entrepreneurial authors count how many relationships they make each month because each relationship can generate many receipts.  

10. In the past, traditional authors didn’t use technology because it was too complicated, expensive and limited; entrepreneurial authors have always embraced technology because it’s simple to use, reasonably priced and limitless in its potential.  

11. Traditional authors identify a handful of marketing weapons that are relatively costly; entrepreneurial authors begin with a base of one hundred weapons, more than half of which are free, and seek to create others.  

12. Traditional authors appear enshrouded in mystique and complexity; entrepreneurial authors remove the mystique and stay in control.

During Tough Times it is even more paramount that these differences stay top of mind. Traditional authors fall deeper and deeper into fear and retreat while entrepreneurial authors will charge ahead weapons blazing profits soaring! Discover exactly how you can tackle these tough times in a brand new marketing course in Surviving These Tough Economic Times. Register Here for the event that will change your career into An Entrepreneurial Author!

http://morganjamespublishing.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-differences-between?xgs=1

Use Library Thing To Promote Your Books and Yourself

2009-03-01T16:14:00.000-05:00

Are you using Library Thing to promote your books? If not, you should take a look around.

I just discovered that you can add links to your social networking profiles and even your Twitter page. I found this out because I'm following Library Thing on Twitter - @LThing

This is my Library Thing page http://www.librarything.com/profile/litekepr in case you'd like to see what they include. You can add all your books to your profile and you can even update your book listing page - in case anything is missing or to include any details you want to share.

Here is some more information about Library Thing - an excerpt from my new book - Book Promo 201. This is just one of the many author specific social sites on the internet :)

Library Thing (Free service – paid upgrade options)

Location on the internet - www.LibraryThing.com

My profile on Library Thing - www.librarything.com/profile/litekepr

My author pages on Library Thing (note the additional details that I added)

www.librarything.com/author/leighnikki

www.librarything.com/author/henkelshri

www.librarything.com/author/henkelshril

www.librarything.com/catalog/litekepr - My catalog of books on Library Thing

Each of my books have their own page and I can make any needed changes on these pages.

The information displayed on the Library Thing site comes from Amazon, the Library of Congress and 80 libraries worldwide. Members have the opportunity to list the books they own or just the books they have read. The site gives you the chance to connect with other readers who like the same sort of books. This is done through book recommendations, tagging books, placing books on your blog. Membership is free, but free members can only list 200 books. Members can upgrade to list any number of books for $10 a year or $25 for a lifetime.

Site Features

· Meet others who like similar books

· Post a reading list

· Search books by author, title and tags

· Correct or add additional information to any book listing

· See what members have marked your books

· Include author events to LibraryThing Local (www.librarything.com/local)

· Your events can be posted on your author page

· Author chats are available

· Add links to your author page

· Add links to your website

· Use the “common knowledge” area to give personal information

· Publisher can add books to “early reviewers” program (www.librarything.com/er/list)

· Bookstores can add their links on the book pages with a link to their site. The frequently asked questions for bookstores is located at www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Bookstore_integration.

One of the best features I see is the possibility to search our author and book listings with the ability to make necessary changes and updates. We can tag our books, just like we do in Amazon to help interested readers find us easier. The site is called “MySpace for books” and “Facebok for books”. If you are interested in checking to see if your books are available on any of the online book trading sites, you can also find that under “Swap” on the book listing page. If you do not see “swap”, it seems that book isn’t listed on any trading sites.

Each author has an author page as soon as one of their books are listed in a library. So, if you don’t see an author page for your books, simply add them to your library. Once the page is created, you can add:

· Author Photo

· Blog Link

· Fan Sites

· Interviews

· Publisher Information

· Website Links

Any author can become an official LibraryThing author. That include your links and name on this page - www.librarything.com/librarything_author. This is sorted with the most popular authors first and they probably aren’t the authors you would expect to see. By creating and updating your author page, readers can see what you like to read and learn more about you. To become a LibraryThing author, you need to be a member and send an email to abby@librarything.com with your username. She will send you a yellow ribbon to show you’re a LibraryThing author.

Library Thing (Free service – paid upgrade options)

Location on the internet - www.LibraryThing.com

My profile on Library Thing - www.librarything.com/profile/litekepr

My author pages on Library Thing (note the additional details that I added)

www.librarything.com/author/leighnikki

www.librarything.com/author/henkelshri

www.librarything.com/author/henkelshril

www.librarything.com/catalog/litekepr - My catalog of books on Library Thing

Each of my books have their own page and I can make any needed changes on these pages.

Site Features

· Meet others who like similar books

· Post a reading list

· Search books by author, title and tags

· Correct or add additional information to any book listing

· See what members have marked your books

· Include author events to LibraryThing Local (www.librarything.com/local)

· Your events can be posted on your author page

· Author chats are available

· Add links to your author page

· Add links to your website

· Use the “common knowledge” area to give personal information

· Publisher can add books to “early reviewers” program (www.librarything.com/er/list)

· Bookstores can add their links on the book pages with a link to their site. The frequently asked questions for bookstores is located at www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Bookstore_integration.

· Author Photo

· Blog Link

· Fan Sites

· Interviews

· Publisher Information

· Website Links

Do You use TweetLater? Did You Know About Tweet Later Professional Services?

2009-03-01T14:32:00.001-05:00

I just discovered there is a professional upgrade for Tweet Later - here is what they offer.

Standard Tweet Later
	Set up alerts and track keywords in the public Twitter stream. We will monitor the Twitter tweet stream and periodically email you a digest of the tweets that contain those keywords. You can also use this to track your @replies.
	Schedule tweets and keep your Twitter stream ticking over with new tweets even when you're not in front of your computer. Publish tweets when your international followers are online and you're asleep.
	Send automated thank you notes to new followers, and automatically follow new followers, if you choose to do so. Optionally, select to vet (approve, ignore, block) new followers before we perform your selected automation tasks.
	Grab your own personal 140-character tweet scheduling engine and RSS feed. You can schedule and publish tweets that don't go to Twitter, they go to your personal tweet stream, which is available in RSS, XML and Javascript formats.
	Add and manage as many Twitter accounts as you want. It is and always will be 100% free.
	It is and always will be 100% free.

Tweet Later Professional
	Everything you have in Tweet Later Free plus...
	Wear your coolest shades when you climb into your TweetCOCKPIT where you easily manage all your Twitter accounts from one central and integrated console. On one page, see your normal timelines (integrated) and pull in additional tweets that contain certain keywords regardless of whether you follow the tweeter or not. Find new folks to follow or new friends and business contacts at one easy glance, and follow them or tweet to them. Beware, TweetCOCKPIT is highly addictive.
	Schedule @replies and direct messages and easily broadcast DMs to all your followers.
	Turn any RSS/Atom feed into your 24x7 PR, traffic, or Twitter bot machine with the Blog Feeds integration.
	Light up your other social accounts with the Ping.fm integration.
	All future enhancements (there are many) are included in your subscription.
	"Where do I sign up?" Register a free account, and then login. Then take the FREE and fully functional trial of TweetLater Professional. We insist you test-drive TweetLater Professional before even giving you the link to upgrade your account. After the trial has expired, it costs a low $19.97 per month to continue using Tweet Later Professional. If you don't upgrade, your account just reverts back to Tweet Later Free. Get Your Tweet Later Professional Account Today

Top 5 Twitter Tips You May or May Not Know - But You Can Use Them Today

2009-03-01T11:57:00.000-05:00

I just saw this link posted on Twitter and wanted to share it with you ---

Top 5 Twitter Tips You May or May Not Know - But You Can Use Them Today

If you're reading this, then chances are you have either heard of Twitter or are currently using Twitter. As with any new social networking platform or application, there are features you may not know about which can help you get more out of it. Twitter is no exception. Here are some features which are not commonly known to most people which can help you get the most out of using Twitter. And be sure to follow me on Twitter!

1. Using Hash Tags

In his recent post over on Techcrunch, Digg’s Kevin Rose gave us his Ten Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers . One tip he had which stood out to me was the use of the # hash sign. How you use it is by placing it before a word which you want to track. For example, say you want to track usage of the word “poodles” via Twitter. You can go to either TwitterGroups or hashtags.org (Hashtags.org) where you can do a search on “poodles”. browsing/searching at Hashtags.org or TwitterGroups. You can set it up with RSS feeds as well.

If you want to use a hashtag on a word you want to track in one of your tweets, simply place before the word. Using the word “poodles” again, just type #poodles in the body of your tweet. For example: my #poodles eat a lot of cheese! Using the hash sign in tweets can also increase your exposure to other Twitters. When someone does a search for a word which you have “hashed”, your tweet(s) will be part of their search results if they use a site like TwitterGroups or hashtags.org.

The key is to use it sparingly and only when you have a real interest in the word or topic the word pertains to. You can learn more about hash tags at this wiki on hash tags.

2. Turning Off @replies Which Are Not Sent To You

Social Media consultant, Chris Brogan, passed along a bit of knowledge which I don’t think too many Twitter users know about. Are you tired of scrolling through reply messages which are not directed to you but to those people you follow? There is a way to stop it. Go to your Twitter account page and click on Settings at the top of the page. Now, click on the Notices tab. Here is where you can set the @ replies to: Show me @ replies to the people I am following. Doing this will fix that annoying problem.

3. How To Retweet A Tweet

To expand your Twitter reach (and hopefully increase the number of people following you), you should start to retweet interesting or relevant posts from people you follow. Think of retweeting and relaying a message to someone else. In this case, you are relay (retweeting) a message which was sent out by someone you follow. By retweeting a message, the original person’s message is being sent out again but this time to people who follow you. These people may not follow the person who originally sent out the message. This may prompt someone who is following you to begin following the original messenger.

To retweet a message, you can do one of the following: RT @originalsender’sTwittername: theoriginal message retweet @originalsender’sTwittername: original message retweeting @originalsende’rsTwitternamer: original message All three do the same thing so just use the one which you have the easiest time remembering.

If you find yourself retweeting a lot of messages, then you should consider creating an account on Retweetist- yet another way to grow the number of Twitter followers you have.

4. Create A TwitterCounter Account And Gain More Followers

One of the easier things you can do to increase the number of people following you on Twitter is to add a TwitterCounter badge to your site / blog. A TwitterCounter badge looks like the familiar FeedBurner badge which most blogs have. By adding this to your site, people will see the number of Twitter followers you have. This alone may entice them to click your button, adding you to their Twitter list.

The key, though, is to only add this badge if you have more than 50- or even 100- Twitter followers. The reason why is much like a Feedburner badge, if you see someone only has a handful of people following their RSS feed, then you may think there’s a reason why. The opposite applies when someone has a high number (like over 50 or 100) in the Feedburner badge: the higher the number, the more likely someone will follow you. This logic also applies to your TwitterCounter badge.

5. Twitter Plug-ins for WordPress

One of the great things about using WordPress for a blogging platform is the numerous plug-ins available. With the increasing popularity of Twitter comes a smattering of useful plug-ins you can link to your Twitter account for different purposes.

Here are some that I am currently using on my blogs: TwitterCounter: An easy way to install TwitterCounter for Wordpress users. Integrate TwitterCounter.com badges on your blog to display the number of followers you have on Twitter Twitter For WordPress: Displays your public Twitter messages for all to read. Twitter Tools: A complete integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter.

More Twitter Resources

Here are some more Twitter resources to help you get the most out of Twitter:
Creating A Custom Twitter Profile Background Image
Top 10 Essential Twitter Services and Applications

Originally posted at - http://twitpwr.com/6yv/
Posted by geekentrepreneur

Should We Fear the Kindle?

2009-02-28T12:05:00.001-05:00

Fear the Kindle

Amazon's amazing e-book reader is bad news for the publishing industry.

By Farhad ManjooPosted Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009, at 5:14 PM ET

It's hard not to love Amazon's new e-book reader. For starters, it's gorgeous. Unlike its bulky predecessor, the redesigned $359 Kindle, which came out this week, is light, thin, and disappears in your hands. If you think there's no way you could ever get used to curling up with an electronic reader, you haven't given the Kindle a chance. Load up a good book and you'll soon forget you're reading plastic rather than paper. You'll also wonder how you ever did without it. The Kindle makes buying, storing, and organizing your favorite books and magazines effortless. You can take your entire library with you wherever you go and switch from reading the latest New Yorker to the latest best-seller without rolling out of bed. In my few days using it, I was won over: The Kindle is the future of publishing.

And that's what scares me. Amazon's reader is a brilliant device that shanghais book buyers and the book industry into accepting a radically diminished marketplace for published works. If the Kindle succeeds on its current terms, and all signs suggest it'll be a blockbuster (thanks Oprah!), Amazon will make a bundle. But everyone else with a stake in a vibrant book industry—authors, publishers, libraries, chain bookstores, indie bookstores, and, not least, readers—stands to lose out.

To understand why, consider how simple it is to buy books on your Kindle. You press a button to take you to Amazon's store, type in a title or author, and press Buy. In 10 seconds, the book's yours. Everything is automated: When you buy the Kindle, Amazon pre-syncs your reader with your account info, so there's no need to type in a credit card number or billing address. There's no need to connect the Kindle to your computer, either—it comes with free, built-in cellular Internet access that lets you buy books from just about anywhere. In addition, Kindle books are cheap, the majority selling for $9.99 or less. Consequently, as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told investors last month, Kindle owners are voracious book buyers. According to the company's stats, when people get a Kindle, they keep buying the same number of physical books as they did before—and they buy nearly twice as many e-books as paper books.

In exchange for this convenience, though, the Kindle locks you down with more rules than the Army Field Manual. The Kindle won't let you resell or share your books. Anything you buy through the reader is fixed to your Amazon account, readable only on the Kindle or other devices that Amazon may one day deem appropriate. (The company has hinted that it'll build an iPhone app that can read Kindle books.) Even worse, you can buy books for your Kindle only from Amazon's store. Indeed, the device makes it difficult to read anything that's not somehow routed through Amazon first—you can surf the Web on the Kindle, and you can convert some of your personal Microsoft Word or text files to the device's format, but doing so is slow and not very reliable. In order to read blogs, magazines, newspapers, and books, you've really got to go through Amazon's store first.

You can see where this is going: Kindle owners buy a lot of stuff, and the more stuff they buy, the more likely they are to stick with the Kindle in the future, even when/if someone else invents a better, more open e-book service. This restriction makes Amazon the prime market for book publishers. How can they resist giving over their entire catalog to a store that attracts so many eager, captive shoppers? Publishers' acquiescence in turn increases the Kindle's appeal to new buyers. If you're in the market for an e-book reader, you'll probably choose the one that offers the most books, and that means Kindle. (At the moment, there are about 240,000 titles available for the Kindle; the Sony Reader, its closest rival, has fewer than 100,000.) Taken together, these trends all point in one direction—Amazon will come to rule the market for e-books. And as the master of the e-book universe, Amazon will eventually call the shots on pricing, marketing, and everything else associated with the new medium.

The Kindle isn't the first electronic device to impose unpalatable restrictions on users. Until recently, if you wanted to (legally) download a broad range of major-label music for your iPod, you had to buy it from Apple.* (Ironically, it was Amazon that launched the first big online store that sold music without restrictions.) The same goes for video games. You can't play just any game on your Xbox. You can play only the games that have been approved and licensed by Microsoft. Then there's the iPhone, a veritable electronic Attica. The iPhone lets you buy music wirelessly—as long as you buy it from Apple. The iPhone lets you add new programs to your device—though only the programs that Apple approves of. Other than that, you're free to do what you like!

But the Kindle's restrictions are more worrying than those associated with the iPhone, the iPod, and other gizmos. For one thing, if you objected to the iTunes Store's policies, there was always another way to legally buy music for your iPod—you could buy CDs (from Amazon, perhaps) and rip the tracks to MP3. That's not an option for books; there's no easy way to turn dead trees into electrons. Moreover, books are important. As a culture, we've somehow determined that it's OK for a video-game console maker to demand licensing fees and exercise complete control over the titles that get on to their systems. Sure, this restricts creativity and free expression, but if that's the business model that keeps the game business alive, so be it.

But we've come to a different cultural consensus on books. First, we've decided that books should be sharable—when you buy a book, you can pass it along to others freely. In fact, governments and large institutions actively encourage the practice; we build huge, beautiful buildings devoted to lending books to perfect strangers. We've also decided that there should be an aftermarket for books: When you buy a book, you're also buying the right to sell that book when you're done with it. This not only helps people who can't afford new books, it also encourages those who can afford them to buy more—it's much less risky to buy a $30 hardcover if you know you can sell it for $15 in six months. (Amazon is one of the biggest players in the used-book market.) And we'd certainly balk at a world in which your books were somehow locked to the store where you bought them. Say Barnes & Noble signed a deal to sell the next Twilight book at a huge discount. But with a catch—the book would be published in invisible ink, and in order to read it you'd need to buy a special Barnes & Noble black light. This is ludicrous, of course, and no bookstore would ever attempt such a deal. But what's the Kindle other than a fancy digital decoder ring?

Some publishers, wary of the Kindle's restrictions, have declined to make their books available for the device. Tim O'Reilly, the tech book publisher and digital evangelist, wrote in Forbes recently that the Kindle's requirement that all books be bought through Amazon was "a non-starter for us." O'Reilly instead chose to publish e-books using the open ePub format, which can be read on devices like the Sony Reader and the iPhone but not the Kindle.

But many publishers are wary of going the open-standards route. The best way to make e-books sharable and to untether them from proprietary devices like the Kindle would be to sell them without copy protection—but the book industry, like every other content business, is paranoid about piracy. Record labels fell into the same trap: They demanded that Apple impose copy restrictions that forced iPod owners to buy music through the iTunes store. But that ended up making Apple the nation's largest music retailer, with the power to single-handedly determine the price of all recorded music.

"Everyone is worried that Amazon will end up becoming to books what Apple is to music," Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, told me. (Aiken's group has criticized the Kindle's text-to-speech feature, which automatically creates a kind of audio book from an e-book; the guild says that Amazon should compensate authors for reading their books aloud. But that's another argument for another time.)

Aiken points out that even if Amazon does create a Kindle app for the iPhone and other devices, the service will still have the same fundamental problems. Your books will still be locked to Amazon—you'll just have two or three places to read them rather than one. At the moment, Aiken notes, Amazon is selling e-books at a loss in order to spur Kindle sales—it sells books for $10, but pays publishers more than $10 per copy. But once Amazon gets control of the market, it will be free to impose price reductions—to force publishers to reduce their e-book rates to less than $9.99. "That would be potentially devastating to the industry," he says.

And even if the publishing industry isn't devastated when a single bookstore takes over the e-book world, the marketplace for books will be diminished. Amazon stands as proof of how innovative retail practices can transform an industry; over the last decade and a half, the company revolutionized the book market with innovations like customer reviews, collaborative filtering, one-click shopping, and unbeatable customer service. It launched all these services to stay ahead of its rivals. But what will happen when it has no rivals?

Correction, Feb. 27, 2009: This article originally stated that Apple's iTunes Store was for many years the only place to legally download music for the iPod. It was the leading online purveyor of music produced by major record labels. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

Farhad Manjoo is Slate's technology columnist and the author of True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society. You can e-mail him at farhad.manjoo@slate.com.

Posted at - http://www.slate.com/id/2212320/

Tips to Start Communicating and Connecting on Twitter

2009-02-21T23:32:00.000-05:00

I was just explaining to a client how to get started on Twitter and I thought it might be useful to share the info here --- this information is for people who are getting started on Twitter, but want to know how to communicate and connect with other people. I'll share more - this is only a start.

Okay - go to your twitter page and on the right side you will see "replies" and "direct messages" -- check "replies" to see if people have sent you a message. That is more important when your page is really busy. You will get an email that tells you when you have a direct message - and you guessed it- click on "direct message" on your twitter page and you can see all direct messages also known as DM. Now - you can only send a direct message to someone if you are following them and if they are following you. These messages are private.

When you reply - everyone can see those, but its also a great way to pick up new followers. If you engage someone in a conversation, their followers will see your name pop up on the other person's page. When you see @litekepr on a message - that means that someone is talking to me. Make sense???

If you are roaming around on Twitter and see a post that you want to comment on, move your cursor to the bottom right corner of that post and you will see an arrow - click the arrow and you can reply to that person.

Another great way to get people's attention is to retweet. The easiest way to do that is to start a new tweet and type RT and @ - then add the person's username right against the @ and their message. That shows that you are retweeting the message and you are giving credit to the person who said it first. Then they will see the RT and many times they will check to see what you're doing.

Its all about communicating and connecting with new people. BUT - when you reply to someone or leave a message -- do NOT post a blatant promo for your book - that discourages communication.

If you find someone talking about any topic in your book - you could post a message to say that the person might like to take a look at your book because it helps people through your struggle or something like that and give your website link.

It will take some practice to get it down - but do all this and I'll give you some more tips to fine tune what you're doing. Also, once you are posting on your blog - I can help you set up an account so that it will automatically send a blurb about your blog post to twitter :) I set mine up so that any time I post on any of my blogs - it is posted on Twitter and 30 other social sites within an hour -- just because I posted it on the blog :)

Would You Like Educated Suggestions About Who to Follow on Twitter?

2009-02-20T12:29:00.000-05:00

This is a neat free service that I use on Twitter. Do you ever wonder if there is an easy way to narrow down all those people on Twitter to know who YOU would like to follow? I did too.

Try this http://mrtweet.net -- subscribe to their service and once a month, you will get a direct mail tweet that gives you a link to a full report about your activity, which followers you aren't following and suggestions on people that could appeal to you. I really like that they give you statistics about the people they suggest - like whether they follow people, if they communicate and maybe most important - the average number of tweets they send per day.

You should check it out and see if it will help you :)

This is my monthly update to show you a sample -

http://mrtweet.net/litekepr?t

Twitteristics Automatically refreshed monthly

30 Updates/Day

Tweets 12X as much as the Twitter founders!

Engaging in Conversation 79% of the time

Very Engaging (Way above average)

Posting 19% Links

Good Connector (Above average)

When you try it out - let me know what you think :)

Nikki Leigh

Facebook Friend Lists: Target Your FB Marketing Efforts

2009-02-20T00:10:00.000-05:00

I just heard about this post from Kathleen Gage(Street Smarts Marketer) and she highly recommended it. I read the post and I totally understand why. So, I'd like to share the post and the video with you.

Facebook Friend Lists: Target Your FB Marketing Efforts

In addition to being a way to connect with your friends and family, Facebook is a powerful tool to use in your business marketing. You can create your own group, join other groups in your niche, and you can invite your Facebook friends to events that you host.

When you first join Facebook, you won’t have any FB friends. To make a friend in Facebook, you and your friend must both agree that you want to be friends. This means you have to find people with whom you want to become friends, and invite them to be your friend. Or agree when someone invites you to be their friend.

A great way to find new friends is to join groups on Facebook that are in areas that interest you. People who use Facebook in their businesses join business-related groups.

Then they invite members of those groups to become their friends. But you don’t want to mix everyone together in one huge Facebook friend cluster!

You will want to set up Friend Lists in Facebook when you invite people to be your friend, as well as when you accept a friend request. These Friend Lists allow you to remember where you met each friend, and what you have in common with them.

You can have friend lists for your personal friends and family, as well as for your hobbies and for your business-related markets.

When I set up my business or hobby-related friend lists, I do so by indicating the Facebook group in which we both are members. Or I’ll identify a friend list with a common interest (like hiking or traveling). Then when I have an event I want to share with people, I can easily post it only to those people who are likely to want to receive the information.

You’ll want to limit each friend list to 100 people or fewer (you can have up to 100 friend lists in Facebook). If you have more than 100 friends in a group, simply create a new friend list with the same name #2 (such as Traveling 2), and add friends 101 to 199 to that list. This way you can invite people to events using your friend lists (see next post).

Here’s a short video on setting up Friend Lists in Facebook.

http://www.businessbuildingshortcuts.com/2009/02/facebook-friend-lists-target-your-fb-marketing-efforts/

Five Things to Avoid in Your Book Pitch

2009-02-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

I just saw this in Penny C. Sansevieri's new issue of THE BOOK MARKETING EXPERT NEWSLETTER. To learn more or to subscribe -

Contact Information

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

email: penny@amarketingexpert.com

web: http://www.amarketingexpert.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are so many things that we want to say when we do a pitch for our books, but there are things that you need to AVOID. The article says to avoid these with a publisher or agent. I would like to add that these things don't help you with a publicist either. We've heard these comments more times than you can probably imagine. We all want to hope our books will be a blockbuster movie and a best seller - but that dream is becoming harder each year. I've "seen" each scene in my novels play in my mind like a movie - and they would make wonderful movies - I bet you feel the same about yours :) The points below are very valid and you will make a much better impression on a publisher, an agent, a publicist, the media, in press releases and potential readers if you avoid these things....

Five Things You Should Never Say
When Pitching Your Book to a Publisher or Agent

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(aka stuff publishers and agents hate)

If you're trying to get an agent or publisher for your book, there are a lot of things you need to do but also several you shouldn't. With writers' conference season in full swing the opportunities to pitch your book to an agent/publisher abound. Here are a few things that will turn off a publisher or agent when you're pitching them!

1) Everyone loves my book: don't lead your pitch with this. In fact my recommendation is to leave this out of your pitch altogether. The definition of "everyone" is generally friends and family, and while we love them for being a supportive bunch, when it comes to mainstream publishing they don't really count.

2) No one else has written a book like this, it's never been done before. This is a big red flag to almost anyone in the book world, if it's never been done before there might be a reason. They say there are no new ideas, certainly there are, but publishing tends to fall into categories and if it's never been done, there might be a reason. If it really is a new idea, great! But do your research first before you toss out the "first book on this topic ever."

3) My book should be a movie or - my book is going to be the next bestseller. No one can predict a bestseller or, for that matter, what will become a blockbuster movie. I know if Hollywood and the New York publishing community could predict this, they'd be in a much better financial state than they are now. The fact is, you might wish or hope that your book becomes the next classic but even you, the uber talented author, can't predict this so don't pretend you can. It's a big eye-rolling turn off. Trust me.

4) Don't stalk your agent/publisher: Ok, now I don't mean stalking in the sense that Lifetime is considering making a movie out of you, but I mean hounding, badgering, emailing daily, calling. You know, the super annoying stuff that will get you blacklisted off of every agent and publisher's list. Trust me, word will spread like wildfire if you're a pain in the you-know-what. It's also the quickest way to a rejection. Follow-up is ok, burning up the phone lines or hitting your send button obsessively isn't. Keep in mind that patience will often win this race. If you have found an agent that you trust, then trust them to do their job.

5) Not wanting to take feedback or rejecting professional advice: a good agent and/or publisher will offer you feedback on your book. Perhaps ways to enhance/correct it. Things you might want to consider adding to make it more commercially viable. Listen to these comments and learn from them, then, swallow your own opinions and consider incorporating them into your book. If you really have an objection that's another thing, but if pride is getting in your way then back off of the ego and see some of the points they're making as helpful and constructive. The writer sure to fail is the one who won't listen.

It's a competitive market out there, and with New York publishing in trouble these days it seems more and more that authors need to know the do's and don'ts before they rush headlong into publishing. From our perspective, the last thing you want to do is come across as a know-it-all or an amateur. These are the things that will not only hurt your career, but delay the publication of your book as well.

THE BOOK MARKETING EXPERT NEWSLETTER. To learn more or to subscribe -

Contact Information

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

email: penny@amarketingexpert.com

web: http://www.amarketingexpert.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Should You Give Your Book Away? More Specifically a Digit Copy of Your Book

2009-02-13T15:35:00.000-05:00

This is a topic that comes up frequently and this article caught my attention, so I wanted to share it here. What are your thoughts?

What if I Give My Book Away For Free?

by David Hancock

Publishers have been experimenting with promotional free downloads of books and worrying about the risks of electronic piracy, but there has been precious little data and analysis to work from. For the past eight months Brian O'Leary at Magellan Media has partnered with Random House and O'Reilly Media to rigorously study the "impact of free distribution on paid content," which meant examining both giveaways and unauthorized peer-to-peer distribution. The ultimate objective is to develop "a model that describes instances in which free distribution works or may not work," taking into account the variety of complex influences. The work is still ongoing, and they invite participation from additional publishers.

The trio presented initial data and impressions at Tools of Change and are preparing a "Rough Cut" research paper. We've seen a draft and recommend it highly for those interested in the subject; you can express your interest in seeing the report when it is completed at this link:

http://toc.oreilly.com/reports/p2p/

For now you can pick up the presentation PowerPoint here:

http://www.toccon.com/toc2009/public/schedule/detail/7582

In the conference session, Chelsea Vaughn at Random House said that for the eight giveaway titles of theirs they studied, "the free downloads were correlated with a slight increase overall sales. We don't know whether the free downloads are what helped keep the sales going or other factors. But they don't seem to hurt sales, which is reassuring, and they may help. And they may help slow a decline that was otherwise happening."

As the report describes it, one Random House sci-fi/horror novel "was promoted heavily around the time of the download [which began right before publication] and sales grew by a third at the time of the free download before dropping to lower, but not small numbers in the weeks that followed." For another sci-fi title with a film tie-in, the promotional download offer "coincided with a 4 percent increase in sales of the mass-market paperback edition that had been released a year earlier. In the four weeks that followed, sales of the print edition were more than 40 percent higher. Sales of the ebook were twice what they had been before the promotion was announced."

In a different promotion, offering a free download of a high-profile literary first novel shortly after publication, it coincided with a rise in CD audiobook sales and ebook sales. But hardcover print sales, "which had been declining, did not improve during the promotion."

For all books in the Random House study, average sales rose 19 percent during the promotional period, and were up 6.5 percent during the defined promotional and post-promotional periods. There was great divergence however, with actual sales ranging from a 74 percent decline to a 155 percent gain.

For O'Reilly, they monitored three peer-to-peer sites and found only eight frontlist titles from books the house published in 2008. (They also noticed that overall, books comprise a very small share of the files sites such as Pirate Bay and Scribd.) On average, those unauthorized postings were made 20 weeks after publication (the fastest was posted in four weeks). As soon as an unauthorized download was detected, they monitored sales of that title--and on average, sales rose 6.5 percent here, too. O'Reilly's Mac Slocum said in the conference session the minimal piracy and negligible effect on sales was surprising. "There's just not a lot going on there. That was a real shocker to me."

What do you think? Many of our authors aggressively "give" content from their books away. We've seen where it positively affects sales, but more importantly, increases the authors database if they are smart about capturing the readers names and email addresses! That is where the real value is for the authors!

These days, there seem to be two kinds of authors: givers and takers. Giver authors are quick to give content to readers and prospects. The right information is worth more than a gift and often even worth far more than money.

In fact giving is now a characteristic possessed by successful entrepreneurial authors. I've always known they were blessed with infinite patience and fertile imaginations. I've written in awe of their acute sensitivity and their admirable ego strength. I've raved about their aggressiveness in marketing and their penchant for constant learning.

Now, I'm impressed, but not surprised, at their generosity. They are, every single one of them, generous souls who seem to gain joy by giving things away, by taking their customers and prospects beyond satisfaction and into true bliss. They learn what those people want and need and then they try to give them what they want and need absolutely free.

The result? Delighted prospects who become customers and delighted customers who become repeat and referral customers. Those are huge payoffs during the days of a bear market.

David Hancock of Morgan James Publishing - http://morgan-james-publishing.com

Social Networks -- Can We Find You On The Top 25 Sites

2009-02-10T17:45:00.000-05:00

Social networking sites are becoming more and more popular. For a long time (in cyber time) MySpace was the top ranked social site, but Facebook is in first place. Twitter - which is easy to use and quick - has moved from #22 to #3. Ning is one of my favorite sites because it is so flexible and it moved from #23 to #12. It didn't move as far as Twitter, but it is on "the rise" :)

So, which social sites do you use?Which sites are you familiar with and which ones don't even sound familiar? I looked over the list in detail and most of the top 25 ranked sites are discussed in my new book - Book Promo 201: Use the Internet and Web 2.0 to Promote

I provide quite a bit of information about 4 of the top 5 sites to help you figure out what to do, how to utilize and which sites could be beneficial for you.

I've inserted the table of the top 25 ranked social networking sites - take a look and I'd like to hear your thoughts about the various sites. Which ones do you use? Which is your favorite? Why do you like some more than others?

Nikki Leigh
www.nikkileigh.com

Book Promo 101 - Promotional Articles and Tips

Free Web Resources

Tweet For an Fictional Character

Free File Converter Websites

Add and Automate Updates on Your Ning Networks

Kindle from Amazon Now Offers the Chance for Paid Blog Subscriptions

Last Chance for "21 Powerful Rewrite Strategies" Teleseminar

Are You A Wimp in Your Business? If so - You Do Not Want to Read This

Strategy to Classify Followers on Twitter

Social Networking With Twitter by G T Bulmer

70 Do Follow Social Media Sites

Do You Have Questions About Twitter?

My Twitter Toolbox - Over 100 Twitter Tools

With My Twitter Toolbox, you get morethan 100 tools to tame the tweeting beast!

Blazing Trailers - New Site to Share Your Books and Trailers

Unique Book Promotion - Weddings Are Dangerous to Marriage

FREE Promotional Options For Author

Calling "Outside of the Box" Promoters - Share Your Most Unique Ideas

Let's Talk About How to Get Started on Twitter

Are Celebrities Causing Twitter to Evolve or Devolve?

Do You Write Articles? Learn a Shortcut to Twitter for Your Articles

Twitter.EzineArticles.com

How can I be featured here?

Promotional Question #1 from Martin Bartloff

Welcome to Romance Book Covers

RomanceSwap.com -- Could This Site be Useful for Your Promotion?

Why Should You Consider a Virtual Blog Tour?

Book Promo 201: Harness the Power of the Internet with Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketing

A Plethora Of Facebook Links From Kathleen Gage

The 10 Commandments of the Entrepreneurial Author

Nadene Carter of NorLights Press Shares Her Comments About Book Promo 201

Author Elena Dorothy Bowman Shares Her Review for Book Promo 201

Author and Promo Guru Yvonne Perry Reviewed Book Promo 201

Book Promo 101 Review by Gurutej - The Energy Guru

Book Promo 101 Review from Author & Publisher Philip Harris

My Book Was Called - Book Promo for Dummies

Reviews for Book Promo Are Starting to Come In and The Title

New Facebook Pages -- Instructions and Add Twitter to Your Page

Oragnize and Update Social Network Presence with One Tool

Do You Forget Where You Have an Account

Are You An Author OR an Entrepreneurial Author?

Use Library Thing To Promote Your Books and Yourself

Do You use TweetLater? Did You Know About Tweet Later Professional Services?

Top 5 Twitter Tips You May or May Not Know - But You Can Use Them Today

Should We Fear the Kindle?

Fear the Kindle

Amazon's amazing e-book reader is bad news for the publishing industry.

Tips to Start Communicating and Connecting on Twitter

Would You Like Educated Suggestions About Who to Follow on Twitter?

Facebook Friend Lists: Target Your FB Marketing Efforts

Facebook Friend Lists: Target Your FB Marketing Efforts

Five Things to Avoid in Your Book Pitch

Should You Give Your Book Away? More Specifically a Digit Copy of Your Book

Social Networks -- Can We Find You On The Top 25 Sites

With My Twitter Toolbox, you get more
than 100 tools to tame the tweeting beast!