7 Social Media Management Tips to Save Time & Improve Results

Why is social media management important? According to data from Mainstreethost, social networks are the 2nd most popular way to research brands, just behind search engines. We can google “Faux-suede shirt” and receive an ad from UNTUCKit—but it’s fairly unlikely that I would purchase that shirt before doing my research on the brand.

First, check them out on Facebook, see some reviews; check Twitter and Instagram for discounts. It’s like doing recon for a blind date! I want to know I’m not going to get ripped off; and in the process, the brand should utilize these social channels to develop a relationship with me as a customer.

That being said, I think we agree that social media management can be a stream of irritation. Your brand needs to be engaging, posting and sharing constantly—but who has time for that? I have gathered a list of tips that my colleagues and I use for WordStream’s social media management to help save time, save money, and grow and engage your audience.

1. Social Media Management: Focus on Quality

It is always good to have a constant flow of content and announcements, but I would much rather have nothing at all than abysmal posts with incorrect information.  We want to make sure that we are sharing content that is good enough to be re-shared or retweeted, passed on to colleagues across industries.

We also try to look for content that will last, not just trend for a week and disappear. If you are able to produce content or develop insights that will stay relevant in the industry, these are gold! For us, social media content does really well on—surprise!—social media. This tweet was posted in mid-June and I’m still seeing it being retweeted even now.

It’s a bummer that this doesn’t direct to WordStream, but we have content posted on it, too!

Think about it this way, if someone writes a terrible post without citing sources and shares it on social media—are you going to interact with it? And what does that post say about your credibility as a brand?

2. Analyze Data to Find the Perfect Quantity

…and almost as important, quantity. Because let’s face it, social media is about what is going on NOW, right this second. This is especially true for Twitter; we recently found that engagement rate increased 46% week over week after publishing 30 more tweets than the week prior. In fact, those 30 extra tweets helped push 30% more traffic to the website with 60% more link clicks than the previous week.

During the week with 30 extra posts, there was an average of 5.9K link clicks daily.

It can be hard to get visibility as organic reach continues to decrease, and the one way we’ve found to combat this is to post more often. My favourite trick is to re-post content multiple times—for blog posts, I’ll share it on Twitter up to 5 times on the day it is published. Just make sure you’re not being spammy on Facebook! People hate that. Truly, I’ve seen the comments…

Another good trick is to stay aware of demand—keep your eye on trending topics in your industry’s sphere. Chime in when you can! This will increase your engagement rate and potentially garner more followers.

3. Be Charming (Tools Can Help!)

When my mother complains about social media, she references her friends that only post to brag. “Tommy got into Harvard AND Yale! Such a hard choice!” *Insert picture of the son as the homecoming king*. But, being the charmer she is, she will congratulate them (with a “xoxo”) and as a result, they will like and share and comment on her posts as well. Be my mother! What goes around, comes back around: engage with others and they will engage with you. Though this sounds silly, Larry swears by it.

Yes, my mother’s last profile picture was a flower pot. For 4 years.

One of my biggest challenges is finding content to tweet and post about! A way to tackle this is through social media management tools like Mention and Buzzsumo, which will send alerts your way when a keyword you select is posted online. I currently use keywords like “WordStream” or “Larry Kim” to see if others are posting about us. Then I can retweet their content! Another great resource is Feedly, an RSS feed website that helps you read your favourite blogs all in one space, or Klout, which suggests original content that hasn’t been seen by your audience yet.

4. Use Scheduling Tools

Because no one expects you to manage your social media accounts so intensely that you are manually posting 20+ times per day. Actually, who is reading these daytime posts?! Procrastinators, I see you…

I personally use Hootsuite, which had been conveniently set up before I started working in social media. I’ve also tried Buffer, which works similarly. For a complete list, check out our post on Social Media Management Tools.

Hootsuite dashboard for WordStream

I have found that the most important part of these tools (other than the obviously time-saving) is their ability to auto-schedule posts when your account is most likely to see high engagement. It takes a certain amount of brain power to pick times for 10+ posts per day, and this a huge help. If you’d like to simply analyze your twitter sphere timing, Hubspot has a handy tool called TweetWhen which will select your most retweetable time of day, and Tweriod will select the best times to tweet.

5. Automate Repetitive Tasks with IFTTT

IFTTT, short for If This, Then That, is a social media recipe website! In a series of simple steps, this website will help you set up simple commands which link up different applications to automatically perform actions if triggered. For example, IF the weather app tells you there is a high UV index, THEN a reminder to put on sunscreen is triggered. IF you are tagged in a photo on Facebook, THEN save the photos to dropbox.

At WordStream, we have a few blogs that we follow and trust to post quality content consistently that is of interest to our audience. We were able to set up a recipe that automates the sharing process. IF a certain blog posts new content, THEN tweet the post to our followers on Twitter.

6. Utilize Social Media Analytics

Does this need an explanation? How do you know how many people are seeing your posts and engaging if you don’t look at the numbers! Make decisions based on data!

I won’t pretend to be an expert in analytics, but I appreciate the vast number of metrics available. Luckily, there are experts out there, like the fine people analyzing tweets at Buffer, Twitter themselves, and Kissmetrics, who are kind enough to give us a beginner’s guide to Facebook insights. Personally, I tend to watch post engagement (based on audience size) and URL clicks when managing social media because our goals are to expand and engage our followers while driving them to the site.

7. Be a Real Person

As individuals, we have a higher tendency to follow accounts of “real people” vs. businesses even if we don’t personally know the person. I have tried my hardest to show on social media that WordStream is a real place with a real person with a real personality behind it! To get some ideas, Gizmodo and Contently have companies that manage their social accounts with flair and sass and everything people love…about real people. My personal favourites are Chipotle, Seamless, and Nutella. This says nothing about my real-life favourite things, I swear.

My favourite thing to do on Twitter is to find disgruntled customers and respond, trying to solve their issues. In a survey from InSites Consulting, 83% of companies reported that they deal with questions or complaints sent via social media, so I’m not alone. This is a great way to show that your company cares and has a face and personality behind the façade.

This customer had tweeted @WordStream unhappily reporting his dashboard was broken. We were able to respond and get it fixed! Previous tweets have since been deleted.

We already know from Larry that posts with emojis receive more attention. Similarly, when examining our tactics with images, we found that photos will generally receive more attention. This was further affirmed by Convince&Convert, who report that posts with pictures generate 150% more retweets. At WordStream, we analyzed posts on Twitter and Facebook and found that the most retweeted or liked posts featured images of real people–#PPCkid and images of our employees worked fairly well, but even memes featuring a real human work as well.

This is the back of everyone’s head at WordStream. It received 200% more likes than a post directing to an article a few minutes later.

Just like PPC, managing social media accounts is a constant work in progress. I’m keeping an eye out to see how Facebook’s new algorithm will affect our organic visibility while being vigilant about metrics and engagement across all channels. Do you have any great tips that I missed? Let me know!

Wordstream

Post Tags:#Social media#social media management

9 Tips to Get More Preorders for Your Next Book

There are a lot of great reasons for you to boost your book’s preorders:

• Preorders allow your biggest fans to express their enthusiasm for your work
• Having a book available for preorder gives the impression that you’re a successful, “must-read” author
• Preorders give you yet another useful marketing angle to promote your work (while extending the promotional timeframe)
• Making your book available for preorder gives you an opportunity to identify your most ardent fans
• Preorders help you build hype and anticipation, making it more likely that your book will be a bestseller

But you can’t just make your book available for preorder and expect people to buy it en masse; you have to do some work to ensure that your preorder campaign is a success.   Thankfully, we’ve got some great tips to help you maximize the preorders for your next book!

How to Drive Book Sales Through Preorders: 9 Tips

#1 — Tell Everyone You Know   One of the best pieces of preorder advice we’ve encountered was given by author and entrepreneur Julian Hosp back in Episode 66 of The Author Hangout. Julian is a master of getting preorders, and one of his recommended methods is simple but incredibly effective: contact everyone you know personally, whether they’re in your phone’s contacts, your email, on your Facebook friends list or elsewhere.   Making this personal connection means a lot to people, and it can help you spread awesome word-of-mouth promotion for your book. This takes time and effort, but it’s something that can pay off in a big way!

#2 — Take Advantage of Your Email List   Your email list is the cornerstone of your author platform, and getting preorders is a wonderful way to make use of it. The people on your list are more likely to preorder your book, so be sure to let them know about it!

#3 — Set the Price Low   It’s much easier to get people to preorder when you provide incentives for them to do so. Set your preorder price low and you’ll give people a great reason to get on board!

#4 — Build Your Social Media Following Early   Promoting your book on social media is essential, but if you want to ensure that you maximize your preorder sales, you need to build a strong following. Don’t wait until you make your book available to start getting followers and fans!

#5 — Reach Out to Online Influencers   Identify podcasters, bloggers YouTubers and social media mavens who can help you build excitement about preordering your book. Provide them with something of value in exchange for preorder promotion.

#6 — Use Goodreads   Obviously, you’re going to be promoting your upcoming release on your website (you’re doing that, right?), but be sure to use the Goodreads platform, as well, so you can reach the world’s biggest book fans where they hang out.

#7 — Run Promotions on Existing Books   If you have a back catalog of titles, now is a great time to promote them aggressively, which will enhance your author profile and get more people interested in your existing output. By doing this, you stand a much better chance of getting them to preorder your next one.

#8 — Update Existing Books’ Back Matter   Another great way to leverage your existing selection of books is to update their back matter to include the preorder link for your next book.

#9 — Build Your Marketing Plan as Early as Possible!   Don’t make your book available for preorder and then create your marketing plan; instead, create a solid marketing plan (which will involve you doing something significant to promote your book every week, at minimum) and then make your book available for preorder. Have a great week, authors!

Culled from: Book Marketing Tools

How to Dramatically Improve Your Short Stories

I have long admired writers of short stories. Those talented people who can tell a story in only a few short pages — a story so compelling it grabs you in the first few phrases, and doesn’t let go.

Cleanly-drawn characters with an intriguing story to tell, usually with an excellent plot twist you never saw coming — they leave you breathless.

My usual efforts run from 10,000 words plus to full-length novels of about 70–85,000 words. I’ve always just started wherever and kept going ’til it felt finished. Sometime I write from both ends to the middle, and once in a while a story will actually start at the beginning. Most often it comes in chunks or scenes that need to be woven together.

I’ve always just used as many words as I needed to tell the story. I was more concerned with having enough extra, a bit of padding, to ensure there’d be a high enough word count after the final edit. So, the idea of writing a complete story in few pages was initially pretty scary, let alone telling a whole story in a thousand words or less.

Of, course, I didn’t know I could write a full-length novel ’til I tried. So, why not give it a shot?

I’ve learned a fair bit about the process, both from reading other works and from writing my own short pieces. And I’ve found there is a method to the madness. There are a few simple steps you can take to drastically improve your short stories.

The Plot

Your plot — whatever it is your characters actually do — may not be the first idea to tickle your mind when you start your story, but it requires careful attention. You don’t have a lot of time to meander around in flash fiction. A thousand words goes by fast.

Once you have your plot sorted out, you can usually navigate through your story pretty effectively.

The story starts with an action. Something you character needs to do, or wants to do, or must do… or find, or discover…

Your character make their journey, which can be either physical, emotional or both, from where we meet them at the start of your story, and on through their struggle or past their obstacle, to their destination. This is a pretty standard “quest” plot — think Hobbits. Frodo must carry the ring to Mordor and cast it into the pit to save the world.

Make a sentence about your story. Sum it all up.

Jack and Jill must find their way to the top of the hill and return with a pail of water.

Keep it simple. This is a short story. Save the multi-layered epic for your novel.

Your Main Character

Your protagonist, or main character, is the person around whom your plot revolves. The central person in your story. I often start with an idea or feeling about a character and then figure out what she/he needs to do as I go along. But there’s no right or wrong way to begin.

However, we need some kind of stakes to make our character interesting, and for us to care about them. There must be some cost involved in achieving their objective, and some kind of growth when they do. Something big enough and important enough to satisfy your reader.

That’s your character’s arc. Their growth or change — sometimes for the better, sometimes not. They were this when we met them, and at the end they’re this…

They could have gone from being a grumpy curmudgeon to a kindly friend. Like me before and after my first coffee. Or they could change from a naive young woman into a bitter, jaded socialite — it’s up to you. But they need to change or grow in some way or your readers will find them boring.

Make a sentence about their journey. Sum it all up. This is the heart of your story — what it’s all about.

Jack and Jill must overcome their fear of what might be lurking in the the very tall grass, so they can climb to the very, very top of the hill, and return with a bucket of water, or their family will die of thirst.

So, you have your character, their journey and the stakes, and you’ve hopefully ironed out the rest of the plot — the rest of what happens along the way. Now for the payoff.

The Plot Twist

A good writer makes it look easy.

They wrap it up in a nice tidy bow without appearing to. You reach the end of the story with a chuckle, a surprised laugh, maybe a feeling of satisfaction. Maybe the ending fits so perfectly, and is so completely satisfying you don’t mind having already figured it out.

A great writer will leave you amazed, possibly in tears.

No matter how good you are at sussing things out, at keeping one step ahead of the story, you never would have conceived of the ending they just sprang on you. Not in a million years.

And yet, it was so beautifully set up. You can go back through the story and see where they carefully planted the seeds, sprinkled the breadcrumbs. But they held back that one tiny piece of information…

But whether the plot twist is completely hidden ‘til the last few words, or you see it coming a mile away, the important things is, it works. It fits the story.

The ending — whatever it is — has to be believable within the world you have created. It has to stay in context, to fit the expectations you’ve set up in your reader.

You can’t just pull something out of thin air and say, “Voila!”

The Greeks called that old trick “Deus ex Machina”, literally, “God from the machine.” Except when they did it, it wasn’t old yet.

In Greek plays of a certain genre it was common to have some god, Zeus or Apollo usually, appear from the clouds of Mount Olympus (via a crane) and descend to earth to mete out justice or settle the conflict.

In modern usage, it generally means you’ve written yourself into a corner and can’t think of a good way out, so you use some crazy cataclysmic event or an intervention by some other-wordly being to set everything to rights.

For example, your reluctant, ex-navy-seal hero is trapped on the twenty-ninth floor of a burning building along with the beautiful teacher he kinda likes, and her entire class of kiddies on a school outing. 

What? School outing? Never mind — just go with me…

He’s just run out of ammo, and the terrorists are only two floors below them and closing in fast.

And here it comes, completely out of left field.

Suddenly, an earthquake sets off a tsunami which sweeps away the terrorists and douses the flames but miraculously leaves the skyscraper intact and all the good guys alive.

There you go — deus ex machina. But, I’ve seen worse. They could have been saved by aliens.

I’m sure you can do better.

Jack and Jill are terrified of what might be lurking in the the tall grass. Bravely overcoming their fears, they climb to the very, very top of the hill, finally reaching the well. On their way back down though, Jack slips and knocks himself out. He rolls helplessly down the hill. But plucky Jill, tumbling after him, manages to reach the bottom first and breaks his fall. She saves Jack’s life. And keeps their family from dying of thirst…

You notice, though we didn’t add an extra characters, Little Bow Peep could have been passing by, looking for her sheep. In fact, one of her sheep, in the already established context of Mother Goose land, could just as easily have broken Jack’s fall. That could have been more fun.

Also, we didn’t introduce a first-aid kit, or a passing paramedic. Remember, deus ex machina. Keep it real within the context of your story.

If your plot twist doesn’t work, then you either have to find a new ending that does fit the story, or go back and make everything else lead up to your big finish.

And now comes the really important part of your story…

Editing Your Finished Work

And I don’t mean for grammar, and spelling, and punctuation, and all that stuff. That’s a given. I mean now you’re going to go back and remove every single word you don’t need.

You can keep an eye on the word count as you’re writing. Just hit <Control> A to select/highlight your whole article and the program will give you a rough word count. When you reach six-hundred words or so, you know you’re about two-thirds done, so you better get busy wrapping things up.

Don’t stop ’til you’re finished the story, but try to stay close to a thousand words.

But then, once you’re done, re-read your story from start to finish. Looking for words you can cut.

For example, I just edited the above sentence. It used to read, “Looking for extra, or unnecessary words you easily can get rid of.” Now it reads, “Looking for words you can cut.” Cleaner. Removed five words from the overall total. Not troublesome in most articles, but they would be wasteful and excess verbiage in flash fiction where every single word must be made to count.

Look for sentences where you can say the same thing in fewer words. Say it better, tighter, and with more interesting words. The right-click activated min-Thesaurus is your friend.

Get rid of repetition unless it’s for emphasis. Highlight a phrase and click <Find> on the top menu, and your word-processing program will show you how many times you’ve used a particular words or phrase. Then scroll through the list and decide what to keep and what to change.

And please, please, avoid using “that” as much as humanly possible, unless it’s in dialogue. There are better words, stronger words, more specific words to say what you’re trying to say. Find them. Keep cutting.

And have fun. Don’t be afraid to play and experiment as you write your short stories. Find different voices for your characters. Make them different ages, from different backgrounds. Imagine real people you know well, or one of your favorite actors speaking their dialogue. How does it sound? Does it give you ideas for a different way to go with your character?

Culled from The Writing Cooperative

• FLASH FICTION
• PLOT TWIST
• WRITING

6 Terrific Tips to Writing a Gripping Horror Story

This guide to how to write a horror story covers the basics — a basic understanding of the definition of horror and common elements of horror fiction gives a good foundation on what is needed to write a gripping horror story. These tips can be applied to evoke an intense feeling in your readers, even if you don’t exclusively write horror.

The word ‘horror’ means ‘an intense feeling of fear, shock or disgust’ (Oxford English Dictionary). The word comes from the Latin horrere, meaning ‘to tremble or shudder’.

5 common elements of the best horror stories

The best horror stories share at least five elements in common:

1. They explore ‘malevolent’ or ‘wicked’ characters, deeds or phenomena.
2. They arouse feelings of fear, shock or disgust as well as the sense of the uncanny – things are not what they seem. There is a heightened sense of the unknown and/or mysterious.
3. They are intense (as the dictionary definition reminds us). Horror books convey intense emotion, mood, tone and environments. Together, these produce the sense that everything is charged with ominous possibility.
4. They contain scary and/or shocking and scintillating plot twists and story reveals (unlike episodes of the cartoon Scooby Doo, in which the bad guys are typically conniving realtors dressed as paranormal beings – ghosts, werewolves). In horror the ghosts and werewolves are very, very real.
5. They immerse readers in the macabre. Horror tends to deal with morbid situations, from repetitive cycles of violence to death-related uncanny scenarios. Zombies march, vampires make you join their legion, or (in subtler scenarios) long-dead friends or relations pay unexpected visits.

How do you write a horror story or novel like Stephen King, Clive Barker or (looking further back in the genre’s history) Edgar Allan Poe? Start with these six tips:

1: Learn how to write horror using strong, pervasive tone

Tone and mood are two elements that contribute to how your story feels. Great tone and mood can have readers’ spines tingling before a single character has even spoken or made a terrible decision.

How you describe settings, character movement and actions creates an overarching tone. In horror writing, a dark or frightening tone is often pronounced. Take this example from Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always:

‘Half closing his eyes, he crossed to the window and fumbled to slam it, making sure that the latch was in place this time.

The wind had started his lamp moving, and when he turned back the whole room seemed to be swinging around. One moment the fight was blazing in his eyes, the next it was flooding the opposite wall. But in between the blaze and the flood it lit the middle of his room, and standing there – shaking the rain off his hat – was a stranger.

He looked harmless enough. He was no more than six inches taller than Harvey, his frame scrawny, his skin distinctly yellowish in colour. He was wearing a fancy suit, a pair of spectacles and a lavish smile.’

The scene is suffused with a sense of the unsettling. Objects that should be stationary move. The room itself seems to move. The  viewpoint character is disoriented. A peculiar character seems to materialize out of nowhere.

Barker also creates an ominous tone through indirect means. ‘He looked harmless enough’ draws our attention to the possibility the man could in fact be harmful. The ‘scrawny’ frame and ‘yellowish’ skin both make the stranger unsettling and increase the sense of unfamiliarity.

Whether you are an aspiring horror author or not, work at creating consistent mood and tone. If you want to write a scary novel, focus on ways you can make actions and descriptions work together to establish an uneasy atmosphere.

2: Read widely in your genre

Whatever genre you write in, whether psychological or paranormal horror read as many books by respected authors in your genre as possible. Examples of celebrated horror authors include Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker, Bram Stoker, Neil Gaiman, Chuck Palahniuk, John Lindqvist and more.

As you read authors in your genre, make notes on what aspects of your genre the author excels in. Is it great, spooky settings? Copy out your favourite quotes that create an eerie sense of place and re-read when trying to make your own settings more vivid. Actively learning from great authors will improve your mastery of the horror genre.

3: Give wicked characters better, credible motivations

When you write a horror novel, it shouldn’t read as though a malevolent force is sitting at a bus stop, waiting to infiltrate your unsuspecting characters’ world ‘just because’. Give every malevolent character a strong, clear motivation. Revealing exactly what the motivation is can be part of the mystery that sustains your story and keeps readers guessing why unsettling things keep happening.

If there’s a malevolent force, being or stranger in your horror novel, make their motivation similar in magnitude to the character’s actions. Readers will scoff if a creepy doll goes on a murderous rampage in your novel simply because somebody took its batteries out.

4: Use the core elements of tragedy

This is excellent horror-writing advice from Chuck Wendig’s blog Terrible Minds. As Wendig puts it:

Horror is best when it’s about tragedy in its truest and most theatrical form: tragedy is born through character flaws, through bad choices, through grave missteps.

The horror genre uses the core elements of tragedy so nakedly that some of these have become clichés. ‘Don’t go in that house, idiot,’ you might shout at the screen while watching American Horror Story, because the character has the tragic flaw of being oblivious to personal danger. In horror stories, we get scared because, as readers, we see the signs foolhardy characters don’t.

At its heart, tragedy teaches some important lessons, for example:

• The destructive, rippling cause and effect acts of cruelty can set in motion (the frightening way the title character of Stephen King’s novel Carrie unleashes her powers due to bottling sustained psychological abuse is a good example)
• The value of seeing situations and scenarios from multiple perspectives (e.g. You could tell yourself, ‘That house is abandoned because the property market fell’. But also: ‘That house is abandoned because something terrible happened there (and keeps happening there) and people are afraid of it.’)
• The lesson that bravery means making a choice in full awareness of danger, whereas making choices in blissful unawareness of their potential consequences leaves people vulnerable

To write a credible horror novel, in other words, show that the horror-filled situation is dependent on a network of character choices, past or present. At its heart, horror fiction reminds us that cause and effect is real, even in the fantastical realm of storytelling.

5: Write scary novels by tapping into common human fears

If the point of horror writing (and horror elements in other genres such as paranormal romance) is to arouse fear, shock or disgust, think of the things people are most commonly afraid of.

Live Science places an interest choice at number one: The dentist. It’s true that you can feel powerless when you’re in the dentist’s chair. Couple this with the pain of certain dental procedures and it’s plain to see why a malevolent dentist is the stuff of horror nightmares.

Making readers scared creates tension and increases the pace of your story. Even so there should be a reason for making readers fearful. A terrifying situation should be central to the plot and should be driven by some or other cause (even if the reader can only guess, ultimately, what the precise cause is).

Here are some of the most common fears people have. As an exercise, list the reasons why we might find these things terrifying. Most relate to physical and/or mortal danger, but you can also draw on other common fears. Fears such as fear of humiliation, inadequacy or failure:

Most common fears – fodder for horror novel writing

• Fear of animals (dogs, snakes, sharks, mythical creatures such as the deep sea-dwelling kraken)
• Fear of flying (film producers combined the previous fear and this other common fear to make the spoof horror movie Snakes on a Plane)
• The dark – one of the most fundamental fears of the unfamiliar
• Perilous heights
• Other people and their often unknown desires or intentions
• Ugly or disorienting environments

Think of how common fears can be evoked in your horror fiction. Some are more often exploited in horror writing than others. A less precise fear (such as the fear of certain spaces) will let you tell the horror story you want with fewer specified must-haves.

6: Terror vs horror: Learn the difference

To learn how to write horror novels, it’s useful to understand the difference between horror and terror. Both have their place in horror writing.

‘Terror’ describes a state of feeling. Oxford Dictionaries simply define it as ‘extreme fear’. To ‘terrorise’, means to use extreme fear to intimidate others. Horror, however, also suggests elements of disgust and surprise or shock. Thus the word ‘horror’ describes not only extreme fear but also revulsion and a sense of surprise and the unexpected.

Horror writers share different ways to understand the difference between terror and horror:

For Stephen King, terror is a feeling the author tries to evoke in the reader before resorting to shock tactics such as surprising with the extreme or unpleasant:

‘I’ll try to terrify you first, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll horrify you, and if I can’t make it there, I’ll try to gross you out. I’m not proud.’

King’s quote suggests that if you can create terror in the reader before there’s even a gross-out moment or sickly reveal in your horror novel, you’re winning.

Culled from Now Novel

• HORROR STORY
• TIPS ON WRITING HORROR

5 Facts about Publishing That Could Change your Writing Career

I hear people tell me all the time they want to write a book. But wanting and doing aren’t the same, are they? It’s time to shed the myths about book publishing and start facing the facts. If you’re one of those eight in 10 people dreaming of writing a book, this might change everything for you.

What if everything you’ve heard was wrong?

We’ve all heard the old wives’ tales and urban legends about what it takes to get a book contract or hit the best sellers list. We’ve been subjected to silly little formulas and hype about how to go from “writer” status to author.

And we’ve all been duped.

I’m not here to tell you everything you know about publishing is wrong. But I can tell you for five years I believed a lot of lies that kept my writing career from taking off. Here’s what I believed:

“I can do this on my own.”

“All it takes is a good message.”

“Once I land the contract, the publisher will do all the work.”

“Media attention = best seller.”

“Once I’m published, I’m all set.”

Turns out, none of those were true. And for the longest time, I resisted acknowledging this, because I was scared of doing the work. But when I finally succumbed to the truth, it set me free.

Maybe it will for you, too.

Fact #1: You need an agent

If you want to publish a book through a traditional publisher, you’re going to need a literary agent.

Sure, you can start pitching your proposal or manuscript on your own, but the fact is authors with agents tend to be taken more seriously and get higher advances.hu

It’s in your best interest to hire an agent. You don’t pay this person until you actually get signed (much like how a real estate agent works), so it’s to your advantage to get one.

It’s always a win-win. He or she doesn’t make any money until you do.

Fact #2: Everyone needs a platform (yes, even fiction writers)

In the case of nonfiction work, your platform is often a blog or some kind of content delivery platform, like a radio show or podcast. It can even be your speaking schedule.

For potential novelists and the like, it’s your body of work. Which could mean a blog, but more often it’s something you’ve already published. Like a short story in a literary journal or magazine. Or a previously self-published book. It could even be your newsletter list.

A platform is a way of proving you have what it takes to sell books. In either case (nonfiction or fiction), the point is you can’t succeed without people knowing who you are — and a platform accomplishes this.

Fact #3: The publisher won’t do all the work

A friend who’s been in publishing for decades told me this when I got my first book deal:

Assume that the publisher won’t do any of the work to promote your book, that it will all be up to you. And if for some reason, they do something to help you, then it’s an added bonus. But never expect it. Publishing is venture capitalism.

This means that the publisher puts up all the money, taking the financial risks. And you are the investment. You need to come up with all the bright ideas and clever ways to get your idea or story to spread. They’re just the bank.

From what I’ve seen, publishers love it when authors think like this. It takes the pressure off of them to think like an ad agency and instead do what they do best: create great products.

But make no mistake: the only one who determines your book’s success is you.

Fact #4: Publicity doesn’t sell books

Getting on The Today Show won’t sell a million copies of your book. Neither will a ton of ads.

Think about it: When was the last time you bought something just because someone on TV talked about it? If you’re like me, the answer is never.

Granted, those things can help spread the word, but ultimately what sells books is word-of-mouth. Friends telling friends. That’s it. Nothing special or mystical about it.

So whatever cute ideas you have about getting your writing in front of a lot of people, try not to veer too far away from this basic strategy:

Ask permission.

Build trust.

Be generous.

If you are a first-time author (or about to be), the best thing you can do for your book is get a lot of people to talk about it. Even if it means giving it away for free. This is how Paulo Coelho became an international best-selling author. It can work.

Fact #5: Publishing one book won’t make you rich

There’s a popular misconception that once you publish a book, you are now a full-time author and a pretty big deal.

This belief hails back to the early days of Stephen King and Michael Crichton when publishing was a different animal. Those guys wrote their first manuscripts and got six-figure advances… for their first book!

It doesn’t work like that anymore. There’s too much supply, too much competition. These days, you have to write a few books before you can even call your writing a “career.”

Even then it can be difficult, because most royalty rates aren’t that great (8–20%). That’s why it usually takes years to make any kind of meager salary through writing books.

The alternative, of course, is to not try making money off your books. Instead, consider them a business card — an introduction to a premium product or service you offer.

This could be a course or seminar, even be something like a membership website or a video series. For a lot of authors, it’s their speaking platforms. The book spreads the idea and builds an audience; it’s up to you to make money off it.

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Jeff Goins

3 Essentials for a Successful Brand Diversification Strategy

In an attempt to expand their market size and invigorate their brand, many firms take a shot at diversifying their brand. ‘Brand diversification’ commonly refers to a process of launching a new product in a new market, as seen in Ansoff’s Growth Matrix; examples of such strategy are the McCafe, Nike’s golfing collection, IBM’s business intelligence & analytics, and UberEATS.

Some cases are more extreme; for instance, Amazon Studios. Most people would agree that there is little connection between ecommerce and movie production.

Typically, firms choose to diversify to utilize their current brand equity, leverage current know-how, gain economies of scale, or simply to become its own supplier.

McCafe is an example of using current brand equity to gain success in another area. McDonald’s is known for its cheap prices, consistent quality, and efficient operations, all of which can be used in a café as well. Essentially, they’re just altering the menu items, while delivering the same experience.

IBM’s move into business intelligence and analytics is an example of a firm using its current know-how (and partially its brand equity, too) for obtaining success in a new market. IBM has delivered corporate technology for decades, and have proved to be quite good at what they do, which they then take into a new market — with great results.

#1: Stay True to Yourself

Don’t lose yourself in the process! This may sound cheesy, but what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t dramatically change your brand positioning, especially not if the new product is in the same product category as your remaining portfolio. It makes sense for Nike to sell golfing attire, but luxury fashion clothing? Not so much. Not only will this not sell very well, it will also damage the rest of Nike’s products. It’s confusing, don’t go there.

This is not the same as saying you can’t move into completely different markets. Take Virgin, for instance. This conglomerate started out with Virgin Records, and now they’re operating an airline, a hotel chain, a telecommunication company, and fitness studios. While Virgin has moved into significantly different markets, they have maintained a somewhat consistent brand positioning in all these markets. The same goes for EasyGroup; EasyJet, EasyGym, EasyPizza, and EasyHotel are all perceived by consumers as low-cost options.

In particular, your price positioning is important: you want to make sure it’s consistent across different markets.

 

#2: Understand Your Customer

You found a new product you want to sell in a new market? Great! But remember, you don’t want to confuse your customers. Your new product has to seem credible as a product extension. Does it make sense that COMPANY X is now selling PRODUCT Y? You want your customers to think it does.

However, we often see managers basing the development of new products on their own perceptions of their current brand- and price positioning. And more often than not, this perception is different from the customers’.

In order to understand how your customers perceive your current brand, it can be useful to see how they perceive its value compared to the competitors’, by comparing their willingness to pay. In that way you’ll be able to develop a product that fits within your current portfolio.

 

#3: Get the Launch-Price Right

When you launch a new product, you want to make sure that your price will maximize profits in the long run, too. Firms are often tempted to employ a penetration pricing strategy in the beginning to gain some traction, but this is a short-sighted approach. Once you set your launch price, it is hard to make a drastic price increase, as your customers will feel that they’re now getting the same value at a higher price. There are some quite disastrous examples, where companies have set a low launch price and missed out on billions of profit in the long run, because it simply wasn’t possible to increase prices without too strong an impact on sales quantity.

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Culled from Price Beam

Post Tags:#brand#brand diversification#market size