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This is my year.
No more excuses.
2014, I will OWN you!
The ringing in of a new year forces us to think about what we’ve achieved in the past twelve months — and how we can do things a bit better this time around.
After the fireworks die down and the champagne stops bubbling, we sit down and make those dreaded…you guessed it: New Year’s Resolutions.
The funny thing about resolutions, though? Their success could be determined by a simple coin flip!
Yesterday, we made a pretty big announcement — the first three Weekend Workshops are HERE.
Grab your favorite pencil case and snazzy Trapper Keeper, it’s time to go back to school!
Don’t worry — you can stay in your PJ’s, skip the bus, and get your learnin’ on without ever leaving your desk chair.
Plus, *you* will pick the best days and times to step into our virtual classroom.
Because the interwebs are amazing!
Each of our three workshops (Facebook Facelift, Mailing List Magic, and Plan Your Own Blog Tour) consists of six, step-by-step video lessons you can take when it fits in *your* schedule.
Pretty sweet, right?
Even better, these courses are *not* theory-laden snoozefests.
(Come on, you know us better than that!)
Each workshop is a down-and-dirty hands-on experience in building a major piece of your author abode from the ground up, led by your fearless (and fun) instructors — the Duolit team!
So grab your gloves and let’s dig in, starting with the Facebook Facelift Workshop.
As of May 2013, Facebook has 1.11 billion users.
That’s a lot of people — more than three times the population of the entire United States.
By comparison, Twitter has 500 million users, Google + has 343 million, and Pinterest has 48.7 million.
With such a large, diverse, and active group of users (665 million users log-in on a daily basis) you are statistically bound to find some interested readers who *will* become your crazy-dedicated fans on Facebook.
But to connect with them you need a *great* Facebook page, a strategy to find new fans, and a plan to post content they will love.
Here’s the course breakdown: I will give you all of the above without sacrificing a huge chunk of your time.Continue Reading
Here’s a fun fact that will make you feel really old:
THE Facebook’s original profile page in 2004
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.
Recently, I popped into my local CVS to grab a Valentine’s Day card for my niece.
It started out as a positive experience. I approached the sparkling red and white display of Valentine’s cards with a smile on my face, imagining how excited my niece would be when she received a special note from her (favorite) aunt in the mail.
I picked up the first card that caught my eye because it had a cute puppy on it.
Then I checked out another with sparkly hearts.
I picked up one with flowers and one with a cute poem. I grabbed another with a Charlie Brown cartoon and opened another one with a teddy bear. I checked out one with Minnie Mouse and one with a rainbow and at least three others with more sparkly hearts.
Pretty soon, I’d gone through every card in the kids’ Valentine section — at least 30 cards in all.
I didn’t hate any of them and I didn’t love any of them, but I was overwhelmed by all of them.
Want more on Twitter, Facebook and Email Marketing? Grab the whole Book Marketing Basics series for less than a buck!
If you’ll grant me just a second here, I’d like to pull out my crystal ball and see if I can call forward your current blog predicament.
Ah, yes, I see it here very clearly.
You spend hours of time (when you’d rather be writing or hanging with your family) slogging away to write new posts for your blog. Your topics are all over the place because you’re desperate to find something that will appeal to someone. You know you have a few readers, but no one’s ever interested enough to comment.
The only posts that get any attention are the ones you write about your author career, and even then they’re only picked up by other authors — not a reader who might be interested in your book.
So, what I see here in my crystal ball is this:
You’re frustrated.
But before you give up blogging all together, take a couple of deep breaths (and if you’re of legal age, a drink) and let me help you.
See, this crystal ball is actually a snowglobe from my Christmas collection. My knowledge of your blogging frustrations comes from my own experience because I’ve been there.
Starting with my LiveJournal way back in the day, I’ve had a series of blogs over the last decade or so and have run into the same problem with each one. I had no direction.
No direction means no readers.
No readers means no point in having a blog.Continue Reading
We're Toni and Shannon, two gals helping passionate indie authors publish their work and build their crazy-dedicated fanbase.
Need help? We answer our emails, so don't be shy -- give us a shout!
