book promotion tools for self-published authors

Easy, Modern Book Promotion Tools

Lately I’ve been running into some amateur (yet very talented) self-published writers with little knowledge of book marketing. One serial self-publisher, an obvious talent, claimed that he was “hopeless” at marketing. No more!  Here’s the low-down on easy book promotion tools for self-publishers on a shoestring book promotion budget. Now, can we all agree we are living in an image-conscious world?  Good, then follow along. Instagram Not so Daunting Any type of author should set up a ‘business’ Instagram account rather than a personal one, so it lets you have a website link in the profile. The trick is not only to link to others, but also to have a lot of book-friendly images ready to go. But if you haven’t got a decent camera/lighting set-up or just publish ebooks, what then? Well, you cheat with mock-ups.  A mock-up generator…
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publishing books professionally
Book Writing, Self-Publishing

Dip your Toe in… or Immerse in Publishing Books

This post is about how you cut your book success off at the knees when you don’t commit to the publishing process. It’s also about ensuring professional quality in all books you write. Freight Train truth coming… Publishing an eBook on Amazon and talking about it on a small blog will not lead to many sales, keynote invitations, Joint Ventures, or podcast invitations.   Look for opportunity, not problems… While you can’t get an author platform just by publishing on Amazon, there are other ways to share your message and achieve success. Did you see the hardback, High Performance Habits?  I saw the picture of Brendon Burchard in front of these amazingly impressive books of around 300 pages. Look at the cover design – simple with just two colours, large letters, impactful. A hardback like this gives a great first…
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how to use Instagram and Twitter Hashtags
Updates

How to Use Insta and Twitter Hashtags for Authors

Learning Instagram and Twitter for authors? In making a new account for Business Author Academy, I came across some helpful information, which I’d like to share with you. Apparently, you can use up to 30 hashtags on Instagram posts and 10 hashtags on an Insta Story. Thinking that would be hard and admitting to sheer laziness, I was glad when someone emailed me this automated tool (87% safe rating on scamadvisor): https://Autogramtags.com What’s an Instagram Story? It’s a visual spectacle of 15 seconds (video) that you create right in the app. If you don’t have a teen nearby, find out how the kids are doing it here: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/1/15889750/instagram-stories-how-to-tips-features-tricks Canva Quote to Instagram Post Another trick for the not-so-young… I made a Canva picture quote (nice!) but how to put it on Instagram?  Here’s a Mac tip: Just drag the downloaded…
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Changing Brand Positioning
Personal Branding

Knowing How to Change Your Positioning

Don’t look, I’m changing my positioning! Weird!  Some people don’t think of themselves as a ‘brand’… but really we are talking of ‘brand positioning’. When I was setting up Power of Words for copywriting and content marketing, I did a lot of SWOT research on what my service should do and what level I should play at. It is similar to what I do now, whenever I launch a new book or membership. Sometimes though, the level we play at is dictated by the people we can feasibly reach. Who can you reach? It makes sense to align with what people in your circles are looking for… this often comes down to your own content, pitches, and talks. I’ve found, people in my circles are not often looking for ‘executive level’ info; far more often, they are looking for how to…
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Amplify book review
Book reviews

Amplify Book Review

Amplify is a book where you start reading and nodding along and soon find yourself down a rabbit hole. But a good one. You’ll be podcast listening — and perhaps hosting one — in no time. Having become intrigued, I listened to Bond Appetit and the interview with Dent’s Glen Carlson on finding your internal values. I later downloaded the worksheets. All good stuff to get you thinking. Ronsley Vaz is Australia’s largest proponent of podcasting and he has certainly done it the right way. His written voice is still oozing amazement at this runaway success and the gift of conversation. We might learn from Ronsley’s early mistakes in podcasting, but can we all follow in these giant footsteps and bring in 5 million listeners in 2/3 of the globe? Although not too sure, I started to warm to the fact…
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measure website visitors
Book Marketing

How to Make a WordPress Website Measure Visitors

WordPress has now become the most popular self-hosted CMS, beating out Drupal, Expression Engine and Blogger.  (A CMS is a Content Management System). Here, we’ll discuss how to log in once to WordPress and measure website visitors, quickly and easily. Along with bloggers, millions of small business people have gotten a WordPress website customised and then scratched their head. They ask: “how do I use a website to measure visitors and understand all the metrics?” Install an Analytics Dashboard to Measure Website Visitors As a business owner or consultant, you’re flat out already – with little time to check your Google Analytics tool.  Welcome to a handy Plugin: Google Analytics Dashboard. (Select “Add new” and search “analytics dashboard”, select the one with four stars). Once installed, you’ve got a great time saver – scroll down to the bottom of your…
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