JOINT WEBSITES

Last time, we chatted about joining up with other folks in blogging—guest blogs, blog tours, creating a group that blogs together on a specific topic.

What if we took that a step further? What if we joined up with other like-minded writers and created a joint website? I’ve experimented with this twice in my life.

The first time, our writing critique group, the Write Marbles, set up a joint website. Each person was responsible for providing content. Some people wrote articles, some interviewed authors and illustrators. We even had a monthly contest with the prize being a written critique by our members. It was a fun experience and a great way to get our feet wet in the Internet marketing business at a time when nobody knew anything about how to do it.

The website stayed up and active for a couple of years. After that we moved on to other things; most of us creating our own, individual websites. But for a first attempt, it was a great experience. Our site was richer than it ever could have been on our own and we each provided value, giving the site a unique feel. And the cost was almost zero.

The second joint website was for a speakers’ bureau. A number of like-minded children’s authors gathered together. All of us were interested in doing school visits. We created a flier and our techie guru, Mira Reisberg created the site. The site does not actively post new material. That was not its intent. Rather, it is a professional Internet location where we can send schools, librarians and PTA presidents to find out more about who we are. Check us out. We’re at www.SpeakingofKidsBooks.com.

My point here is that many of us writers are technically challenged. The biggest challenges we feel capable of managing are the new updates with each version of Microsoft Word that comes out. Creating and managing a website? Shriek. The cost and complexity can feel overwhelming.

But there is courage and encouragement in numbers. One person may have the techie know-how; another person may have content to provide or contacts to interview; another person may have oodles of publishing experience. Sharing the load can also mean sharing the fun.

Keep thinking outside the marketing box, friends! What can you come up with?

BOOK REVIEWS
Book reviews are one of the most important parts of book marketing today. With the thousands of new books being published each month, it’s difficult for readers to be able to tell the good from the bad or simply to understand what the book is all about. Especially when it comes to online purchases.

That’s one of the great things about online book reviews. They can be helpful not only to the author’s marketing campaign. They can also be helpful to people looking for a book to purchase.

There are three ways book reviews can be a form of joint marketing.

1. Review other people’s books and ask them to review yours. Then post the reviews on your blog or website. Or, if you don’t have a blog or website, allow your review to be posted on the reviewer’s website. Even better, create a group of 7 or 8 authors and post reviews on everyone’s sites.

The group of writers need not be genre specific. We can read and comment on books of all genres, because we all know the craft of writing and we can all find something great about every book.

If possible, meet in person and let each member have some hands-on time with each other’s published books. If folks can’t meet in person or can’t find a book at a local bookstore, go online and flip through the book’s pages on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and get a good feel for the content and look of the book. Focus on what strikes you as unique or compelling about that book.

2. After becoming familiar with each other’s books, have each member post a short book review on both Amazon.com and Barnsandnoble.com. Or Goodreads. These need not be lengthy or detailed. But from personal experience, you probably know how important these short reviews can be when you’re thinking about buying an unknown book online. One or two favorable reviews can really sway your thinking. Imagine having seven or eight!

3. Setting up a reviewing personality at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, gives you additional online exposure and helps you with your own marketing. If someone reading one of your reviews likes what you’ve written, they might head over to see what other reviews you’ve done. That helps other writers as well as giving you additional name recognition. In fact, you might find yourself being approached by other writers to review their book. You could suggest a reciprocal review and crank the joint marketing up one notch higher.

WE BLOG

Did you know that the word “blog” is a shortened version of the original word “weblog”? Weblog stands for web log; as in logging (journaling) on the web. For purposes of this article, Part 3 of Marketing out of the Box, let’s divide the word, weblog this way:

we blog.

In other words, let’s look at some ways writers can band together and increase their national platform through blogging.

Blogging is becoming more important to marketing and promotion than Facebook and Twitter. It is one of the main ways writers now work towards creating a national platform and building their brand name as a writer. It is a way, not only to gain name recognition, but to showcase our craft.

Technology has made blogging simple. Even I—Carol the non-techie—set up my own blog From Carol’s Quill without shedding a single tear. WordPress and Blogger have made the process simple. And free.

The main complaint about blogging for most writers is that it takes time to keep up with a regular blogging schedule. That writing time could be spending writing books and articles for publication.

So how can writers make the most of their writing time, while still participating in the blogging phenomenon? By remembering those two words—we blog.

1. BLOGGING SCHEDULE

One of the first things to do when beginning a blog is to set up a blogging schedule you can live with. Other people might blog seven days a week but if your life doesn’t allow that, then be realistic. What will your schedule allow? One day a week? Monday-Wednesday-Friday? Tuesday-Thursday? Which days of the week will best fit with your personal schedule? Or can you post your articles with an automated posting schedule so that they post even if you’re not paying attention? On which days of the week do most people in your blogging audience follow blogs?

Even if you can’t commit even one day a week consistently to blogging, there are still ways for you to create a blogging presence. But what does this scheduling have to do with joint marketing? Keep reading.

2. CREATE A JOINT BLOG

Gather together a number of like-minded writers and agree to contribute to a blog posting schedule.

For example, if a group of six writers create a blog and establish a M/​W/​F blog schedule, that means each person is generally responsible for posting twice a month. That might feel immensely more doable than trying to write and post 12 times a month. An example of a successful joint blogging site is: Author Culture.

3. GUEST BLOGGING

Create an even larger community of writers by guest blogging on each other’s sites on a regular basis. Writing posts to share with others can benefit you by enabling you to have a “day off” from time to time.

Similarly, on days when an individual blogger simply cannot post on her own site, she can simply post a link to her joint blogging community and send her readers there. Her joint bloggers will appreciate the referrals and your readers will appreciate that you haven’t ignored them entirely.

Having a large community of guest bloggers allows each person the opportunity of a day off from time to time and helps each blog site attract and hopefully maintain new followers.

4. CREATE STANDARDIZED INTERVIEWS of other authors, teachers, editors and agents.

Create a template of several terrific interview questions fir other authors, illustrators, teachers, librarians, editors and agents and add one or two specific questions personalized for the interviewee. Or create interviews of kids about what they like to read.

Send several interviews out and then hang on to the finished interview so that you can post one when your schedule gets tight. Make sure to link your site to your interviewee’s site—and vice versa. Announce the upcoming interview everywhere you can and announce later when the post is up. And of course, let your interviewee know well ahead of the date of posting, so he can do promoting beforehand as well.

5. SIMPLIFY

Make life easy. Not each and every post needs to be ground breaking. Consider creating a standardized topic that you can easily post and manage when life gets rushed.

This could be in the form of a roundup of the week’s or month’s posts; a thought for the day; a link to a book or author you like; a rotation over time to link to your joint blogging members’ sites; or a re-posting of the month’s most popular post. (A re-post should be done on the day of the week your stats say has the least traffic.)

Whenever possible think about how you can promote others. Make sure you tell them you are promoting them. And request that they link back to your site. Remember the joy of joint marketing.

Joint marketing can be a terrific way to help each other promote work and develop a national platform. It can also be a terrific way to help manage writing time so that folks can participate in blogging, while still having energy left to write the books that reside in our hearts and minds.

SHARIN’ THE JOY

When we’re thinking about out-of-the-box marketing, we sometimes need to remember that when we’re inside the box, we’re in there all by ourselves.

One great way to market is to get out of the box and join up with others who are struggling with the same problems you are.

There’s creativity in numbers. There’s also courage.

Maybe you’re like me: you’ve got a couple of published books. A publisher saw enough value in your concept to pay the thousands of bucks to put it in print and slap their name on it. But still, you are more comfortable sitting in the corner of your office, tapping out the zillion words that will become your next great book. You feel uncomfortable tooting your own horn.

Maybe what you need is to become part of an orchestra and let the sounds of other people’s horns blend with yours. Put into my personal perspective, I may not be able to promote my own books without feeling self conscious, but I can certainly tell the world about my friends’ books.

And as I am busy promoting my friends’ books, they’re happily promoting mine.

Or perhaps you don’t mind tooting your own horn; but your horn is brand new and you’ve never had any horn-tooting lessons.

If you join a music class, you’ll be able to learn from others who have expertise in horn tooting. Or maybe they have a special tooting style that can complement your fabulous skill in horn polishing.

In other words, maybe you need to look into joint marketing.

Before you get started on any type of joint marketing, you first need to know people who are like-minded writers. This is the easy part. Join with established writing organizations, such as SCBWI. Attend conferences and follow on list serves and forums. Get to know people and let other people get to know you.

Then send out feelers to see if others would be interested in joining up with you in a cooperative marketing venture.

More than likely you’ll find that there are loads of folks out there just like you–needing a push to get them started or keep them going in the marketing game.

When you settle on a group of friends and a type of joint marketing you’d like to embark upon, make sure you each understand what you’re trying to do and what each person is committing to do. Write it out so there is no confusion and so there is commitment. Keep it focused and make it clear.

What type of joint marketing can you do? The following is the first in a series of ideas for possible joint marketing ventures.

EVENTS

If there is a local event coming up, share an author’s table and share the expense. Recognize that one or all of you may not sell a single book. But you will be there–stepping out of your comfort zone and gaining experience in being in the spotlight.

Foster an “one for all” mentality. If your friends all sell books but you don’t, rejoice in their success. You might be the big seller at the next event.

If you have ties with other writers in your genre who may not live in your geographical area, consider sending each other copies of books to sell at events. My friend, Linda Yezak recently did this at a festival she participated in. She set a pile of books written by her friends on her table and sold them along with her own. (Go to her site and see how she did it.)

If nothing else, offer bookmarks or postcards touting your friends’ books at your event table. And ask that your friends do the same whenever they are at an event.

Brainstorm events locally: city events; library events, school events; cultural festivals; church events; Chamber of Commerce meetings; alumni open houses. Several of us UC Davis alumni are also published children’s authors. Several years, we participated in the annual alumni day, sharing the stage and the fun by interacting with children and offering our books for sale.

These are two of my UCD alumni writer friends:

Erin Dealey
Lynn Hazen

See how easy it is to promote your friends?

It’s time to start thinking about joint marketing and ways you can toot your horn and make beautiful music with like-minded horn tooters.

This is the first of several articles about joint marketing. Stay tuned. As in “tune up your horn” and get ready to play beautiful music.

CREATIVELY THEME YOUR BOOK

We’ve been chatting about how to market your book to a book club. We considered intriguing, open-ended questions for lively discussion. And we gave examples of creating a theme for a more fun book club setting. But…
WHERE DOES YOUR BOOK FIT IN?

Take the two examples we talked about earlier—the western theme and the heavenly theme. Now look closely at your book. Think creatively outside the box. In fact, take your box and stand on top of it. You’re gonna need it when you practice your acceptance speech for all those awards your book will garner, as a famous author.

Oh, back to reality. Think through these questions:

1. Is your book something that members of a book club would enjoy reading? Of course, it’s wonderful, but does it lend itself to discussion? It could be either a fiction or non-fiction book. The question is whether it is a book club book.

2. If so, create several interesting questions that will spur active discussions about your book. Then post those questions on your website so folks can print them out and discuss them. Even if your book doesn’t end up as a book club selection, many people appreciate questions that will get them to think deeply about what they’ve read.

3. Create a theme around which a group of people could have a fun book party. Is the book set in an interesting time in history? A unique location in the world? Are any of the characters from a unique culture or with an interesting background or vocation? Is there a specific theme, such as education, childhood or courage that would give you some creative ideas for a party? Go with those ideas and see where they lead.

4. Create invitations that readers can download and print.

5. Include ideas for food and share at least one of your personal recipes. Don’t underestimate the value of your personal touch as an author to your readers.

6. Include ideas for costumes, table settings and decorations.

7. Encourage folks to send you a photo of their party that you will post on your site. Then post it, with a note of thanks to the group for the encouragement they have given you.

I hope this gets you started thinking. Now, button up your raincoat and prepare for the storm brewing in your brain!

IT’S NOT ALL TALK

On my last post, we chatted about marketing books to book clubs. I suggested creating intriguing, open-ended questions that would lead to discussion and even controversy.

But not all book clubs are only about discussing books.

Have you seen the TV ad for pizza, where the gals at the book club confess, one-by-one that they are there for the pizza? No matter how much folks like to discuss your book, they also want to have fun. So make that easy for them, too.

Show them how to have a themed party related to your book by providing them with a few fabulous ideas. Would you like to see what I mean?

WESTERN THEMED BOOK PARTY

Recently our Christian women’s book club read Linda Yezak’s novel, Give the Lady a Ride.  This fun book was set on a cattle ranch in Texas. What better way to get together to discuss the book than to have a Western Hoedown?

Table settings included a red plastic table cloth, bright blue placemats, red plates and bold red and blue neckerchiefs that we used as napkins. Our potluck lunch included pigs in blankets, fried chicken, popcorn trail mix, Jell-o, cornbread, iced tea, apple pie and peach cobbler. All with a “hee-haw” and a “go, cowgirl!”

If this were my western book, I would post these ideas on my website to provide my readers with a way to have fun with my book. I would also:

* provide clever and colorful book club announcements or invitations that the hostess could download, complete and print out to ensure enthusiastic attendance at the meeting where my book were featured.

* include one or two of my personal, easy-to-make recipes named after characters in my book.

* suggest table settings:
Mason jars for drinking
Mis-matched dishes
Cowboy hats, ropes, horseshoes and daisies for centerpieces
Red and white checked plastic tablecloths

* suggest ideas for costuming:
Cowboy hats and boots
Red bandanas at neck
Ponytails
Western wear
Jeans with a belt
Vests

*provide links to websites with western music in the public domain that could be played during the party.

*make sure my discussion questions were posted right there on my website next to the other party information, easily printable.

* create a link on my site directly to my book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble where folks can post a review while they’re enjoying the party and while enthusiasm for my book is at its highest.

*provide an request for book clubs to send me photographs of their party for posting on my website. Then I would make sure I posted the photos quickly and acknowledged the group with a big “thank you.”

Need another example?

HEAVENLY THEMED BOOK PARTY

You can create different themed parties for other books. For example, has your book club read Lisa Grace’s terrific new book, Angel in the Shadows?

Lisa has a great tag line: The difference between vampires and angels is that angels are real.

Because of her friend Linda’s blog, showing our book club party based on Linda’s book, Lisa is now thinking of creating suggestions for her readers, to hold a book party based on heavenly themes.

Our book club is now reading Todd Burpo’s Heaven is For Real. Naturally our next meeting will have a heavenly theme, too. So let’s look at how a book club could throw a heavenly themed party for either of these books.

Our tables will be covered with sheets of polyester fiberfill—you know, that cloud-like stuffing used inside quilts. Guests will wear halos and some of us will find ways to incorporate feathers into our hairdos, jewelry and clothing. Everyone will be sprayed with one of the Victoria Secret Angel colognes.

Luncheon items will include ambrosia, Cloud 9 Casserole, Heavenly Hummus, Harp String beans; Tossed-Out-of-Heaven salad; hot wings, and of course angel food cake for dessert.

If this were my heavenly themed book I were marketing, I would post discussion questions on my site along with downloadable invitations. I would also include other suggestions for a heavenly themed party and include the link to Amazon and BN and an invitation to post photos.
Things to think about, eh? Stay tuned for more marketing to stormy book clubs to come.

MARKETING STORMS FROM MY BRAIN

These articles are devoted to out-of-the-box marketing ideas for book writers. They are my gift to you as a first step to start the storms brewing inside your brain. It is my hope that you will take your own book and the kernel of my idea, and create a personal marketing tornado that lands in your very own house in Oz.

If you use any of these ideas as a launching point to market your book, please let me know by emailing me at carolwritesbooks@​gmail.com It would be my pleasure to include your ideas and comments—as well as your book title and link—on this site. It is my wish both to encourage your efforts and to encourage others to think outside their own brain-storm-drain-clogged boxes.

PART 1: PUT ON YOUR DANCING SHOES AND GO CLUBBING

Do you love books? Of course you do. That’s why you write books in the first place. Guess what? Lots of other people love books, too. In fact, so many people love books that they get together and form book clubs so they can share why exactly they love those books.

If book clubs are looking to read books, why not suggest they read your book? “How do I find out what book clubs exist?” you ask.

If your book is for young people, phone your local schools and libraries. See if there are local book clubs for kids. If not, could you start one, perhaps as part of an after-school or library program? Some schools even have book clubs that meet before school. Imagine kids getting up EARLY to go to school! That’s the power of books.

If your book is for adult men or women, contact local women’s clubs, men’s organizations and libraries to see if they know of book clubs in your area. Offer to be a guest at their meeting and lead a discussion after they have read the book. Offer a group discount for buying your book. And, of course, autograph every one of them.

If your book is for the Christian women’s market, join the book club on Women of Faith and see if it can be one of the books they select for discussion. Get involved with Girlfriends Unlimited and find churches that have active Lit n Latte book clubs. Many large churches have independent book clubs within their women’s ministry.

It’ll help you get your book selected by a book club if you can offer something special—along with your terrific book, that is.

WHAT’S THE BUZZ?

Create excitement for your book on your website by giving readers reasons why your book is the perfect book club selection. Part of the fun of book clubs is meeting to discuss the book.

Perhaps you’ve attended a book club meeting where members sit silently, flipping through pages, hoping someone will start the conversation. Don’t let that happen with your book. Give them something to talk about.

In other words, create discussion questions about your book. Make them intriguing and open ended. Provide a few questions that might lead to controversy, a few that tug at your heart and a few that bring a smile.

Then post those questions on your website. Make them easy to find and easy to print out. And ask for feedback on the questions. Invite your readers to share the most interesting points about your book; what touched them deepest or what they will remember most.

More about marketing to book clubs to come. Stay tuned…

My writing has begun a new phase–not moving away from writing for kids–but additionally moving toward writing for Christian adults.

Are you a writer, too? Or a reader? A lover of words?

Here I will post interviews and book reviews of authors I would like to share with you readers. I will also post writing, marketing and promotional ideas for you writers. And I will point to fun ways to make learning fun for kids and the adults who love them.

Please visit me often and join the fun as we explore the world of words.