12 Ideas for Email Updates (You’ll Actually Enjoy Writing)

Photo: erink_photography | FlickrI know, I know.

You saw the title of this post and thought, “oh man. Here’s Toni again, going on and on about mailing lists.”

Here’s the thing, though: mailing lists rock. In fact, sending an email is even more effective than social media for communicating with your fans.

Since I know so many of our author friends are short on time, when you grab those precious 30 minutes for book promotion, you want the biggest bang for your buck, right?

So, to help you become more mailing list-savvy, I’ve written a bit about writing email updates. And getting folks to join your list.

But, you still have some questions. I totally understand — this isn’t a cut and dry topic! There’s one especially big question that runs through your mind over and over…

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5 Mind-Blowing Facebook Stats

Here’s a fun fact that will make you feel really old:

THE Facebook’s original profile page in 2004

As of February 2013, Facebook’s been around for nine years.

Were you one of the first to join back in 2004 when it was exclusively for college kids?

I’m semi-proud to say I’ve been a Facebook user since late 2004, when my school (Florida State) was added to the elite list of colleges and universities allowed to participate in Mark Zuckerberg’s grand experiment.

In those days, we whispered about THE Facebook in class — daring to ask the cute boy in microeconomics if he was on the site so we could  run home, get on the computer and send him a friend request (because there was no such thing as a smartphone unless playing snake in black-and-white on an old Nokia was somehow considered smart).

Now everybody and their mom (literally…and in my case, my Nana too) uses Facebook to connect with friends and family all over the world.

But what can it do for us authors?Continue Reading

8 Book Marketing Tasks To Tackle BEFORE Your Book Is Published

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”
-Alexander Graham Bell

I like to be prepared.

As an INFP personality type (in other words, one of those crazy introverts), jumping into a new situation with only a vague idea of how things will go is  terrifying.

At odds with my penchant for preparation, however, is my spectacular ability to procrastinate. Perhaps honed from years of banging out rockin’ school papers and reports the night before their due date, I pride myself in my ability to work under pressure.

Earlier this week, those habits dovetailed to punch me right in the face.

True to my procrastinator nature, I started working on this post Tuesday morning. It wasn’t due to go live until Wednesday…no worries, right? I had plenty of time.

Our site crashed an hour later.

I hadn’t saved my work and had no way to finish writing the post. In other words, I wasn’t prepared. I waited until the last minute to get to work, and paid the price for procrastinating.

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Build Your Mailing List! 5 Ideas That Really Work

This post originally appeared as our entry for IndieReCon, a free online conference just for indie authors. Be sure to check out the site for other great content from folks who know self-publishing best!

Photo: CarbonNYC | FlickrWith all of the hats you wear as an indie author, have you ever wondered how in the world you’ll fit promotion into your already jam-packed schedule?

At the very least, I bet you don’t have nearly the amount of time you’d to spend on marketing your work. After all, you have to start writing on that next book sometime, right?

Well, what if I told you about a super-secret marketing tool that was 24 TIMES better than what you’re doing now…that would be pretty exciting, huh?

Even better, this tool is likely one you already have, but you’re not sure how to make it work for you. Wanna know what it is?

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How to Promote Your Book (When You’re Scared Out of Your Mind)

I’ll never forget my last day of college.

Don't hide behind your computer!I was an advertising major, and our final project was to create an ginormous, cohesive campaign for Coca-Cola.

Being a total design geek, I used my skills to help our team create a project that blew away our competition. But, I never got much credit for all of that work.

Why?

Because, when it came time to present and defend the campaign to our professor, I opted instead to run the Powerpoint presentation (which I totally rocked, by the way).

Even though I was proud of my work, I couldn’t muster up the courage and confidence to promote it to others.

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