Online Research: Scoping Out Your Competition

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Do you have a book idea? Would you like to know what’s already published on your subject? You pretty much have to know this before you can write a book proposal. My book idea has been hanging around in the far reaches of my mind for a couple of years now. I’ve finally started researching what’s out there so that I can know if it’s worthwhile to pursue my idea. Here’s what I’ve done so far (and my results).

Search Amazon.com

First, I searched my prospective title, Write What You Know: Finding Stories in Everyday Life. Didn’t get much. Next, I shortened the title to Write What You Know. I got a long list of items with similar titles, but only one book with a similar title. See results here. Finally, I put my title in quotes “Write What You Know.” Using the quotation marks limits my results to phrases with those exact words. I got a list of several titles, but only one book could be considered current (and stock is low). See search results here.

Search Publisher’s Site

The one title I found is a Writer’s Digest book, so I went to their site. I searched my title and the ISBN number of the book on Amazon with no results at all. I have to assume that the book is out of print.

Google It

Next, I went to Google and search my original title, Write What You Know: Finding Stories in Everyday Life, with this result. I took a few minutes to browse the first few links, bookmarking the ones with content similar to what I have planned for my book. I searched again using “Write What You Know.” Results were a bit different this time. Again, I browsed the results and bookmarked new sites of interest.

What Next?

Now that I have determined that there are few books with the title I’ve planned, I will take some time to study my search results. It appears that the books that have been published on this topic apply to writing personal experience articles or adapting your experiences to fiction. My book will be a how-to for beginning article writers. It might even be a workbook before I’m done.

I’ll need to do more research by talking with publishing industry professionals and with people who teach writing. No doubt, there’s a lot of work left to do, but I’m off to a great start with what I’ve found online.

I invite comments on this blog. If you use other research methods, please share them by commenting. If you would like to write a guest post, please e-mail me at [email protected].

Promotion/Networking: Social Media

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Most aspiring authors know they need to build their network of writers, editors, and publishers. They know that they need to understand the publishing industry so that they can be positioned to sell their book or articles. In my previous post on networking, I discussed what networking is and how word of mouth marketing builds your network. See that post here.

Social media are a great way to build your contact list. Although there are several options, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn seem to be the most popular with writers. The first two can be used to network with publishing industry folks as well as friends and family. LinkedIn is more for networking with other professionals. There’s a great article on the Writers’ Digest site entitled “A Writer’s Guide to Social Networking” that covers these three social media. Take a look at this article this week, and I’ll write about my own experiences with them in my next post.

Meanwhile, for those of you who have not tried social media, follow the links below to how-to information on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin:

Ehow/Facebook or Butterscotch.com/Facebook

Butterscotch.com/Twitter

Butterscotch.com/LinkedIn

Marketing Article Roundup

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

T. L. Higley has an interesting article entitled “Marketing Lessons from the World of Retail” on ChristianAuthorNetwork.com blog this week. Read it here.

Author Tech Tips blog featured a good one by Rob Eagar, founder of WildFire Marketing. His article is “Marketing Mistakes Top Level Authors Make.”

Literary agent, Chip MacGregor has a great article about marketing and fiction. I also found his article on “Blogging as Marketing” interesting. Read it here.

Next post will be about social networking (blogging, Facebook, Twitter).

Do You Have Backup?

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Policemen have them. So do quarterbacks, astronauts, and lead actors. OK, so a writer’s need for backup is not as serious as for policemen and astronauts. But, writers do need to protect their life’s work from a computer crash, lightning strike, or just plain “operator failure.”

Accept the fact that you should backup early and often no matter whether your project is large or small. There are a number of backup options. I’ll share methods I have used and then pass along some suggestions that have come to me from others. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Contests as Marketing Tools

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Guest blogger today is Marylane Wade Koch. She’s a writer, editor, speaker, coach, and adjunct professor (University of Memphis nursing school). This article first appeared in Tracy Crump’s The Write Life, a newsletter for writers available here.

And the winner is . . .

In my twenties, I dreamed of winning the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. Now each year I virtual-tour the HGTV dream house online, submit my entry, and envision myself as the owner. However, I only considered entering writing contests after I read an article in The Writer profiling authors who catapulted their careers to publishing success with their wins. Continue reading →

Free Web Sites: One Last Word

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I had intended to move on to other topics for this post, but I put a request for information about WordPress on one of my online groups. I got a response that I want to share with you. Although the article was posted last year, the information is still good.

Ways to get a free website
Monday, 29 September 2008
© 2009 - Deleyna’s Dynamic Designs

Writing with Banana Peels by Jim Watkins

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Odd title, you say? Well, the book is about writing humor, and it’s by one of the funniest guys I know, James N. (Jim) Watkins, author, conference speaker, editor, humorist, and threat to society (by his own admission). If you have attended a Christian writers’ conference in recent memory, you may have encountered Jim as a faculty member. Just in case you’ve never heard of him, check out his Web site at www.jameswatkins.com.

The subtitle tells you what the book is about: Principles, Practices, and Pratfalls of Writing Humor. It’s a humor course in one volume. Each chapter contains instruction and examples of Jim’s humor to get your funny bone in shape for writing your own humor.

Get the book for your writer’s how-to library. I promise you will be educated as well as amused. Banana is available on Jim’s Web site at http://www.jameswatkins.com/bananas.htm.

Read Romans 7:14-25

Key Verse: What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary. Romans 7: 15-16 (The Message).

Our town recently installed traffic cameras at certain intersections to catch people running the red lights. At first glance, one might think that we have lazy policemen or town coffers that need additional revenue. When I read the newspaper article about it, I found that accident statistics showed a high incidence of crashes at these locations. And, the mishaps were usually caused by people running the red light. We know the traffic laws, but we break them all the time.

We know God’s laws, too. We have the Ten Commandments on which our American legal system is based. And, Jesus taught the Greatest Commandment, loving God and loving our neighbor. But, we ignore or intentionally break those laws regularly. Imagine what our world would be like without God’s laws, though. Total chaos. Every man for himself. We need guidelines for living because we just can’t seem to do the right thing on our own.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for giving us your law as a guide for living. Forgive us when we fail to follow, and help us to do better in the future. Amen.

What I Learned from Marketing Class

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“Teaching is a great way to learn.” I don’t remember who told me that originally, but I’ve found it to be true. I’ve taught music, Bible studies, journaling workshops, and marketing courses. In every instance, I had to bone up on my subject matter in order to teach it effectively. Also, in most cases, I’ve learned as much from my students as they have learned from me.

My online marketing class (offered through The Christian PEN) that’s wrapping up now has been a great learning experience for all of us. We had 10 participants from all over the U. S. States represented are Washington, Idaho, California, Ohio, Virginia, Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, and Tennessee (my location).All students are aspiring freelance editors, many of them also freelance writers in the Christian publishing industry.

I’ve taught this class each year for four years now. This year’s class enlightened me on the following developments in marketing for Christian publishing.

Writers/editors know they need a Web site. In the first class, very few members had a Web site. Blogging was foreign to most people, and social networking was not yet a big thing. When we started this class, 80% of the class already had a Web site, and some of them also had blogs. Part of our course deals with promotion, and a Web site is recommended as a “must.” Those who didn’t have one at the start are well on their way to getting a site set up. Those who had one in the beginning have heard ideas about how to improve theirs. See my Wired to Write blog for how-information on Web sites and blogs.

 

They are intensely interested in how to present themselves online. Having accepted the necessity of being online, the students wanted to know what else they could do. Some of them cannot do much in-person networking to promote their business because of their location or family situation. Online networking is the next best thing. Twitter, Facebook, and Shoutlife are some of the most popular networking methods these days. There’s some information on electronic networking on my Wired blog, too. See it here.

Most are hesitant about “selling” themselves. All of my class members expressed hesitation or downright distaste about having to “sell” their services. All of the class members were women. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it or not, but I’ve observed that men don’t seem to be bothered by the idea of selling as much as women are. We spent some time discussing the fact that they have a product or service that has value for their customers. If they believe in their product, they should not have qualms about telling people about it and asking a fair price for it. I’ll develop an article for this blog on the subject of personal selling soon. In the meantime, take a look at the information on KnowThis.com.

DIY Web Sites: Should You or Shouldn’t You?

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Get a Web site! That’s one piece of advice freelance writers and editors get from marketing classes and consultants at every turn. Since I started this blog a couple of years ago, I have included a number of posts about how to produce a Web site yourself using low-cost or free site builders. Whether you’re in business or just have a serious hobby, you need to keep your costs low, don’t you? Continue reading →

Promotion/Place: Networking

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In the last few posts, I’ve talked about the Product and Promotion components of a Four P’s marketing plan for writers. See the Golden Rule Marketing article for a quick review of the Four P’s. Next, let’s move on to the Place component, being in the right place at the right time to get the business (writing assignment, book contract, editing client).

Networking is a way to develop contacts, people who may become customers or sources of word-of-mouth recommendations (referrals). It is “informal communication,” and it occurs in-person, over the phone, by mail, or online. You won’t necessarily make a sales pitch for your business with every contact, but you can use networking to establish yourself as a credible source of information on your specialty. Thinking back on my own experience, I realize that I chose my doctor, my dentist, and my child’s music teacher based on referrals from neighbors and friends. I did check their credentials, but it was the referral that started me looking at these people initially.

Word of mouth has always been the most effective means of promotion for products or services. Marketing professionals often use the term “viral marketing.” You know what a virus does to your body when you pick it up through your “network” of friends, family, and coworkers. An e-mail virus creates havoc by sending and resending itself through individual e-mail accounts. Each e-mail user’s address book represents his or her network. Each person in this address book has his or her own network. When network meets network, the virus propagates itself throughout the Internet community.

Do you have existing clients or customers? Give them an incentive to refer your services to others. Write down the names of all of the people you see every day. How many of them might need your services at some point? How many of them know someone who might need your services? Use your network to pass the word about your business.

More Info:

Word of Mouth Marketing: http://www.wordofmouthbook.com/book/

Article on viral marketing by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson: http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

Networking to create leads: http://www.marketingpower.com/content18916.php