Why Should Authors Twitter?

There are lots of knowledgeable people who highly recommend Twittering as a means of both building your own online platform/presence/following, as well as researching what the online world is talking about. At New Leaf Publishing, we Twitter for a lot of the reasons listed below:

1. Helps you listen to your industry or profession, whether it’s writing, publishing or the subject matter of your books
2. Condenses your thoughts into 140 characters, including spaces, helps make you a better writer
3. Directs you to useful research that may be unfamiliar to you
4. Improves your technical ability in a tech-savvy world
5. Helps you know what’s going on in the lives of your friends and readers
6. Gives you opportunity to reply individually to your readers efficiently and quickly
7. Like your blog, Twitter gives you a bully pulpit for expressing ideas
8. Connects you with interesting people and valuable information you may have never discovered
9. Makes you think about your life
10. Creates interest in your books and traffic for your blog or website

Our New Leaf Publishing Group Twitter account is http://twitter.com/newleafpress and we’d gladly welcome your “Follow.” Connect with us in 140 characters or less.

To Twitter or Not to Twitter?

We’ve presented the case for generating online visibility as a means of getting published. We’ve written about how to increase your platform. We’ve posed the conundrum of best-selling versus best-writing. We’ve quoted a multi-pubbed author about using Facebook and Twitter together. We’ve explained inbound versus outbound marketing. We’ve given tips for targeting one’s blog.

Today we’re eschewing the benefits of the now-mainstream social media phenomen known as “Twitter.”

Fellow author and founder of Writing White Papers, Mike Stelzner offers the following advice for those pondering whether Twittering is actually frittering away time:

“When people I respect started singing the praises of Twitter, I decided to give it a go. At first I just didn’t get it. However, after a short while I was shocked at the level of access to high profile individuals I was able to achieve.

“First, What is Twitter? “Twitter is instant messaging made available to the public,” stated talk show host and author Hugh Hewitt. I think that’s a fair starting point. I’ve heard others call Twitter a micro-blogging platform. Twitter allows you to post updates (called Tweets) as often as you want (and limited to 140 characters). When you follow other people on Twitter, you see their tweets. When they follow you, they see your tweets.

“Why High-Profile People Use Twitter. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com said, “We’ve found that Twitter has been a great way for us to connect on a more personal level with our employees and customers. We use it to help build our brand, not drive direct sales. It’d be like asking how does providing a telephone number for customer service translate into new business when they are mostly non-sales-related calls. In the long term, Twitter helps drive repeat customers and word of mouth, but we’re not looking to it as a way of driving immediate sales.”

“Practical Ways Twitter Can Help Build Your Online Presence. This is where it gets interesting. A lot of people are doing some very innovate things with Twitter. Here’s some of their stories.

“The Twitter Plan. Cindy King, an international sales specialist, saw a huge boost in business inquires by implementing a strategic Twitter plan. “Following the right people on Twitter was key. There are some people very gifted at building relationships on Twitter. As I followed these online community builders, I realized that some of them are also excellent direct response copywriters. They get their Twitter followers to take action,” said King.

“Light bulbs went off, and I spent a weekend putting together a tweet marketing plan and entered in 6 weeks worth of tweets, 5 a day, using TweetLater.” When King Tweets, about 90 percent of the time she presents useful information and resources to her followers. The remaining tweets are surveys and questions. Following this strategy, King saw an 800 percent increase in inquiries about her business after she setup her Twitter campaign.

“Are you beginning to see the potential here? Twitter has a whole world of available support applications you can employ to gain the most of the service for your business. Here’s a few of my favorites:

“TwitterFox: This Firefox web browser plugin allows you to view Tweets within your web browser (in a popup menu). This is very handy and eliminates the need to constantly go to Twitter.com.

“TweetLater: This powerful service allows you to schedule tweets (much like you would schedule emails). Another very powerful feature is the ability to receive email digests of keyword activity in the Tweetosphere. This allows you to join a conversation or track topics and trends.

“Ping.fm: If you have accounts with many services, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, this amazing site allows you to post updates across ALL of your social media sites in one single step.

“Twitter for Facebook: If you are on Facebook, this application forwards your Twitter updates directly to Facebook as status updates.

“And just in case you get addicted to Twitter, here’s some advice from one of the leading authorities on Twitter. Chris Brogan says, “Most people who see Twitter the first time either flat-out ‘get it,’ or they say, ‘why bother?’ Here’s what people miss. They believe one should read every single update that rolls across your screen of choice. Don’t. Just let it roll past like a stream.”

So what are you waiting for? Go check out Twitter and report back here with your experience.

Next: “Answers to the Top 10 Twitter Objections.”

5 Tips for Targeting Your Blog

Writing stuff people actually care about is what we authors do. Right?

Trouble is, that’s sometimes incredibly difficult. Here are 5 specific steps to blogging that make targeting our messages considerably easier than crafting 50,000- or 100,000-word books.

1. Test. Blogs let you discover what kind of content your public wants to read. What makes them subscribe to your blog, eagerly searching their email or RSS notifications for the latest wisdom from your keyboard? Write a few blogs and watch the “views per day” statistics. This same blog you’re now reading sees varying highs and lows among our stats which we can only attribute to “riviting” content versus “boring” content.
2. Personalize. Who are you to your readers, whether via your books or your blog? Most of us want to know who is the person behind the words, as much as we want to know what the words contribute. Blogs let you do that with freedom. Today you can rant and rave, tomorrow you can wisely opine, another day you can merely report. And again, your “views per day” statistics will tell you who your readers prefer you to be.
3. Crunch. Your book gives you opportunity to expand your thoughts, to share freely and widely, to explore emotions as well as ideas. Blogs, on the other hand, are most appreciated when they’re short, snappy and brief. Often, coalescing our brilliance into fewer and fewer words is painful, but nearly all editors will agree that powerful writing is generally less rather than more.
4. Vary. While readers typically follow you because of the specific focus of your blog, they also appreciate variety in what you write. Explore your focus thoroughly, while doing so with variety and interest. Some days post long blogs, other days post short ones. Your readers will appreciate you all the more.
5. Repeat. It’s likely your blog has a central theme and it’s likely you’ll repeat yourself over time. Our writing instructors emphasize the need for generous vocabularies, but even the most skillful writer will repeat him or herself. In blogging, that’s not all bad. In short, punchy blog posts, repetition is how you’ll get across your most important points. Yes, you’ll want fresh angles, musical metaphors, and new ways of presenting, but don’t hesitate to reiterate.

3 Tips for Building Your Online Presence

As we’ve discussed, it’s essential that authors establish themselves online. Not only are publishers pushing for more author-initiated marketing in the digital world, the Internet is where readers go first to find research new titles. A recent poll showed 35% of all online users are over the age of 40 and some of us should be retired.

There are 3 key building blocks to your online platform (full disclosure – these were first brought to our attention by blogger and social media guru Chris Brogan). Core to successfully using your online presence is listening to what your readers are saying about you and your books. You’ll want to know what they are saying and where they are saying those things.

1. Home base is where you focus most of your presence-building time. This is likely your website or your blog, and more often than not it’s your blog. At New Leaf Publishing Group we use WordPress.com as our blogging platform. Your home base must fit your personality so readers will get to know you beyond the covers of your books. Here’s where you connect with fans one-on-one; here’s where you discuss your approaches to writing, share your hobbies, become real. An author I recently read (Robert Benson, The Echo Within) shows pictures of his writing studio on his site – a small building behind his home in the midst of a beautifully tended garden. Turns out he’s the gardener and digging in the dirt is where he mines ideas for his next manuscript. I’m not a fan of gardening myself, but I like knowing Robert is; he now has personality beyond his wonderfully written book.
2. Outposts are social media sites where you maintain an online presence, where you interact regularly with readers while gently guiding them to your home base. Twitter is an excellent resource and it’s where I spend most of my outpost time. It’s where I form loosely-joined relationships, it’s where I keep up on what other writers are saying and what new titles they’re crafting. It’s great for conversing. Facebook is where I post covers of books and where my blogs are linked; it’s also where I can visit the Facebook pages of my children and grandchildren. Other outposts include LinkedIn.com which provides living, breathing business connections with friends, former colleagues, those looking to connect. Also YouTube.com and Tangle.com (formerly GodTube.com).
3. Outposts are places of presence you maintain for more casual interaction and promotion purposes. Passports are where it’s important to have an account or profile, but where you might not be a full-fledged community member. Flickr.com, gmail.com, yahoo.com, digg.com, stumbleupon.com, disqus.com, delicious.com, openid.org are all examples of useful outposts.

Listen. Give first, before you get. Comment on other people’s blog posts and tweets and share with others information you find valuable. Be open, transparent and relevant and you won’t go wrong.

Why Inbound Marketing?

Used to be when you had a product or service to sell, you figured out how to tell the world. You took your product to the marketplace (farmer’s market) or you bought or begged attention (advertising, public relations) or bugged people into trying your product (sales, direct mail, telemarketing, etc). It was you who went after customers.

For authors and publishers, that meant all the above, plus whirlwind tours of the country appearing on radio and television shows, holding book signings, conducting readings at local libraries, trekking to local bookstores with signed copies in hand, and meeting and greeting as many people as possible. All  that was what one of my favorite social media marketers, Hubspot, calls “interruption marketing.”

In today’s world, marketing your product, your service or your newest book can be accomplished far less expensively, more effectively and with more widespread impact via “inbound marketing” (another Hubspot term). Inbound marketing creates opportunities for customers to come to you.

In today’s world, the Internet and all its tools – search engines like Google and Yahoo!, blogs, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, etc. – are available to nearly all your customers 24 hours a day. They shop when they want, eliminating your trying to be in 7 different places all at the same time. Better than all the promotional activities you could possibly buy are recommendations from your customers’ friends shared instantaneously over the World Wide Web.

Key to your inbound marketing strategy are your blog and/or website that can be read anytime night or day, on any computer with Internet access, in venues from home offices to coffee shops to airports to offices. With your blog’s RSS feed or email subscription enabled, customers and potential customers can follow your every update at their leisure. And if you provide downloadable chapters or entire ebooks, if you videotape yourself passionately discussing the subject of your latest work, people will find you. They will talk about you.

Building your online presence, platform or following is an ongoing process, it’s a journey of discovery, of learning and growing. Be encouraged, however – none of this is rocket science. That’s already been accomplished. You and I have easy-to-use tools like WordPress.com, Blogspot.com and Typepad.com for blogs, YouTube.com and Tangle.com for distributing videos, and virtual blog tours for promoting your book. You can send news releases to media around the world in minutes, you can create and post book trailers, you can conduct contests and free copy giveaways online. And customers can buy you book online – from you, from amazon.com or their favorite bookstore.

If you’re a New Leaf Publishing Group author, you’ve already received your 2009 Author’s Guide and many of you have reported you’re at work building your online platform. If you’re not yet a New Leaf Publishing Group author and would like a copy, email robert@newleafpress.net and I’ll send you one.

“Use Twitter and Facebook,” Multi-Pubbed Author Says

Brandilyn Collins – @brandilyn for those of you on Twitter – is one hard-working author. I admire her marketing expertise and  willingness to share from that expertise. Nearly every week something on her blog, http://forensicsandfaith.blogspot.com, adds to my arsenal of marketing tools. She does this daily, in addition to always writing her daily word count.

Recently (June 4) Brandilyn wrote about the benefits of partnering Facebook and Twitter together as 2 key ingredients of her marketing strategy.  And because both services can be linked, what you write on 1 site automatically shows up on the other.  Brandilyn also notes that messages from fans which are posted on Twitter are public. That means every single @Brandilyn follower sees, reads, benefits from the fan mail of 1 individual. Is that great exposure, or what?

Brandilyn writes, “If you are a published author and are not yet on Twitter, I encourage you to start an account. It takes time at first to build followers. But at this point – I’m around 4400 followers now – my follow/unfollow

Best-selling or Best-writing?

The other day a fellow blogger posed the crucial question, “do you want to be a best-selling author or a best-writing author?” I was surprised at the number of authors/writers who prefer “best-writing” status.

It’s admirable to want to improve one’s craft, to write poetic prose, to so completely relate to one’s readers/tribe/platform/community, et al with powerful words. I’d love to become that level of writer, to win the Nobel Prize for literature. On the other hand, I write with purpose. I write with a message, and it’s more important (to me) that the message gets spread.

Key to spreading the message of my writing – and yours – is building our online platforms. Central to our platforms are our daily or weekly blogs. That’s what one blogger calls “home base.” Another calls this “your

Breathtaking Photographic Journey of Beloved Christian Hymns

New Leaf Press recently announced the release of Abide With Me, written by John H. Parker and photographed by Paul Seawright. This is the first joint venture of Messrs. Parker and Seawright.

Beginning with the history of John Newton’s favorite “Amazing Grace,” the book recounts stories of faith behind this and 24 other hymns from the past 300 years. In addition to Newton, hymn writers include Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, Henry Lyte and others. The book also includes a CD with 24 hymns performed in their traditional manner.

How To Increase Your Platform

So, the last time we chatted we talked about the need, and the opportunity, for authors to build their “platforms” via social media. Whether blogs or Facebook or Tangle or Twitter or YouTube or other online communities, generating a following is easy enough from the technology end.

As authors know, the hardest part of writing is staring at the blank screen. Whatever will you write? Whatever do you have to say that’s interesting and/or useful to anybody, let alone the entire blogosphere?

Wait a minute! You just wrote an entire book. Or you’re in the midst of writing one, right? What’s your subject matter? Can you expound on a specific fact beyond the scope of your book? If you’re a chemist (pay attention, Richard), what new developments are there in the world of beakers and test tubes? If you’re a geologist or

How Online Visibility Helps Authors Get Published

More and more often, publishers are requiring authors have “platforms” before considering their books for publication. Many authors, however, especially those who are unpublished, wonder how they’ll generate a “platform” if no one will publish their book.

Call it a platform, a community, a following, or a tribe, it’s much easier increasing one’s visibility to readers these days, thanks to the Internet and the World Wide Web. Authors who are passionate about the subject of their book can easily blog about said subject or speak to local groups or write columns for appropriate periodicals, thus creating the “platform.” When readers discover useful and valuable information in those blogs or columns or speeches, they’ll gladly tell their friends and associates. Many will recommend authors or books in their own blogs.

Today’s tip: Make your blog useful to readers. David Meerman Scott tells about an author who wrote about