Authors and Marketers and Self Promotion

     Most people feel uncomfortable drawing attention to themselves. Oh sure, its fine if you’ve got a good joke or an interesting tale but nobody wants to be sucked into a sales pitch, especially by someone who is selling their own wares.

   However there is no other way to sell your stuff unless you have lots of money to pay an advertising firm to create a sales campaign. So if you don’t have venture capital, the only other option is to stand around pounding the proverbial bass drum and exercise your carnival barker skills while people slink by with their index fingers press together in the form of a cross or whispering the word ‘Unclean, as they pass.

   As the late Rodney Dangerfield used to say, “We can’t get no respect.

   However, if we’re clever we can disguise the sales pitch as a form of entertainment, or as a learning experience or as a quick joke.

   As all writers know: People love CONTENT.

   So instead of showing you another picture of my book cover (as seen here)

 

   I’ve created a YouTube video that entertains, educates and is fun to watch. It’s a little over two minutes and well worth your time, so why not have a look?

http://youtu.be/BhBYZFeY870

   Then again as writers and marketers we’re often get grief for self promotion. The premise being how good can you be if you have to hawk your own product?

   Well apparently VERY GOOD as Author Gigi Gait points out in her tongue-in-cheek blog post titled ‘Authors who self-promote-Oh the Shame of it all!

Here’s the link: http://gigigalt.com/

   Author Kimberly Grabas makes no bones about the importance of author self promotion and has written a blog post containing 71 ways to do it.

Here’s the link: http://www.yourwriterplatform.com/promote-and-market-your-book/

Thanks ladies.

   There is nothing wrong with self promotion especially if you’ve worked very hard to create a product well worth the price. Lately, because I own a small publishing company and understand how much effort is required to get a company off the ground, I prefer to purchase products from people online.

   They work harder to satisfy you as a customer and value your business. Plus I’d much rather see my money go into the pocket of a fellow small businessmen/women than into the pocket of the CEO of a big box store.

   So when the opportunity arises, purchase from a small online business. Or from a company that supports online business like Amazon. Once your product starts selling regularly they help promo it to their customers at no cost to you.

   A friend forwarded me this email he received, I took a screen shot of it. 

And there is my novel Noon: The Rise to Power.
Thanks Amazon!

     So when the opportunity arises support the people rebuilding the economy and maybe someday those very same people who will offer you a job.

Step #9 Start an Internet Business w/etc. Finding your niche in marketing.

   It’s common knowledge in the internet marketing business that Health, Wealth and Love are the top niches and generate the most sales. Why? because they have so many facets. Start with health; there is: How to stay healthy, how to get healthy, how to eat healthy, how to exercise healthy etc. Wealth runs the same gamut: How to get wealthy, how to stay wealthy, how to invest, how to buy real estate etc. And love, well that’s the biggest of all. There is dating, marriage, baby, college, retire, breakup and divorce, etc.

I even wrote an ebook and audio book called DIVORCE-The Middle-Aged Man’s Survival Guide, Here’s the link: http://amzn.to/19N2tQi

   The point is those niches are filled with affiliates who are highly experienced and already know which one to go after and which ones won’t convert (sell). If you’re new at this you probably don’t want to cross swords with the heavy-weights just yet. So 

   

   I’m going to show you a way to test out niches to see if the is a market for what your selling or not.

   For example, I’m a writer and so I went to www.google.com/trends and found out the level of interest there was in what I produce and sell, which are ebooks and audio books.

   Here’s the level of interest in ebooks:

Here is the level of interest in audio books:

    Both are doing well so apparently it’s a good niche for me to promote.

    As for what you might consider, here is a video by internet marketing guru Travis Sago where he explains exactly how to check the niche you’re considering for the level of interest and potential customer base.

http://youtu.be/LXHJOARjfA8

   We have a nice long Memorial weekend ahead and I’m sure you all have things to do and people to see so I won’t publish step #10 until Tuesday.

   In the meantime, when you get the chance, review steps 1 through 9. You have all the basic information you need to start making money as an internet marketer. What you need to do now is start practicing.  

   So here’s a quick guide:

Set up your business email address

Chose a niche

Test that niche on google trends following the video tutorial above

Go to www.clickbank.com and www.warriorforum.com and sign up

Check out the products and find something you want to market.

Set up a free account on www.usfreeads.com so you can write ads to sell the product

Set up account on www.ezine.com and www.goarticles.com so you can write an article promoting your product (*NOTE ezine will not let you put a link inside your article. There are ways around that, that are acceptable but more on that down the road)

Create a headline for your ad and article that will attract the most amount of viewers. There is a video that will show you how to create laser targeted keywords in the title that will drive traffic directly to your ad or article. Here’s the link:

            http://youtu.be/dcCn9SKuPHo

     

   There are a number of other ways to attract customers to your products other than writing ads and articles but this method is the simplest, cheapest and the quickest to master. As we move ahead I’ll show you more advanced techniques but for now, study the basics, get your feet wet and get a sense of what you’re doing. There is A LOT of money to be made BUT you’ve got to find your own way by figuring out what works, why it works and how you’re going to promote it.

    I’ll likely be beering and barbequeing it over the weekend but I still check my email so if you have a question or run into a problem with the above email me at czarrichards@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you ASAP.