How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt III - Starting from Ground Zero - Adding Tags to WordPress Blogs

This just came in from Lillie Ammann for those who have WordPress and didn't realize you could use a neat little plug-in called Simple Tags.

Lillie wrote"...Simple Tags lets you type the tags at the end of the post without having to go into the html at all. It's a free download at www.broobles.com/scripts/simpletags/. "

Thank you, Lillie, and WordPress bloggers thank you, too!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, WordPress, Lillie Ammann

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt.III - Starting from Ground Zero - Teach Me Technorati

Welcome back! I've had requests asking how to add tags onto your blog posts, so I guess I'll begin by telling you about Technorati--what it is, how to add tags and what they are there for.

To begin with, Technorati is a blog search engine. There are lots of blog search engines...did you know that? One of my favorites is www.blogsearchengine.com, but the reason why I like Technorati's search engine is that they give me this little code that I put at the end of my posts such as you see down there. What I like about this is because once I click on any of the search words I put inside the code, it takes me to Technorati and shows me how well they are faring in their search engine. Nine times out of ten, my blog shows up first a few hours after I make a post, so if I continually put certain search words in there, I will constantly be showing up first in most cases. But, that's not all cases. If you don't see your blog showing up first when you click on these words, then someone else is optimizing their blog better than you, and that's when you know you need to make some changes.

Remember, using key search words will help people find your books, and it does work!

So, let's hunker down now and learn how to get this code and how to insert it into your blog.

Let's start with going on over to Technorati at www.technorati.com.

Before we begin, look over on the main page there to the far right hand side and you'll see a bunch of words underneath an oblong blue box marked "Top Tags." These are the tags that are the most popular that people are using to "tag" their posts. Click on the first word in that box. At this time, it's American Idol, no doubt because American Idol is in its final episodes right now and draws a pretty big crowd of bloggers talking about it. Just in case the words have changed by the time I send this through, the link is http://technorati.com/tag/american+idol.

Go to that page and look at how many bloggers are blogging about American Idol. At this time, there 24,355 people blogging about that particular set of search words. When we were talking about search engine optimization and using key search words or phrases that we want people to use to get to our book blogs, our goal is to come up on that page you're sitting at right now. With 24,355 bloggers competing for that top spot, what are your odds?

They're stupendous, but don't think that's any reason to walk away. Look very carefully at the first three links there. Which one has "American Idol" in the subject line?

In case this has changed, I'll cut and paste:

American Idol Top 12
in Jeanette’s Celebrity Corner by JeanetteJ
http://jeanettes-celebrity-corner.com

Bookmakers Not Impressed by Sanjaya Malakar
in Sanjaya Malakar
http://sanjaya-malakar.blogspot.com

Trashy Antonella Barba Pictures Right Here!
in Antonella Barba Fan Site
http://antonellabarba.zenblogger.com

Do you see how important it is to use your key search words each and every time you make a post?

Okay, go back to the main page at www.technorati.com.

Look in the left hand sidebar and you'll see "Top Searches." This will tell you which of those key search words people are using the most. As of this moment, "Antonella Barba" is the number one set of search words people are using, according to Technorati search. Let's click on it.

I'm only taking you to this page because I want you to see how many people are putting "Antonella Barba" in search. There are 9,929 places that Antonella Barba is showing up. Quite a popular gal, but we won't get into why that is, lol. This is a clean show, folks!

Alright, now we're prepared and armed and ready to get started learning how to use Technorati on our own blogs so that our own blogs will show up in their search engine.

You know, I find it really funny that it's so easy and that the results happen overnight, whereas, on websites, it takes months sometimes for our key search words to show up. This is a very good reason we should all be blogging.

Okay, go back into Technorati (www.technorati.com) and look in the left hand sidebar for "Claim My Blog." Click "Start Now."

The next page is their sign-up page.

Join, then log in.

You should be on this page --> http://technorati.com/account/blogs/#start_claim.

Put your blog url in the green box and hit "Begin Claim." I know it's a lot to go through but you won't be able to use all the features of Technorati if you don't.

The next page will say "Choose Claim Method." Hit your choice, but I find "Quick Claim" the easiest.

Once you have claimed your blog, you can start adding tags.

To add tags, you need to zero in on your search words and place them within the html code at the end of your post. In other words, I have blogger, so in the post I am in right now, I would hit "edit html" at the top. I'm not sure how WordPress or the others operate, but what you are looking for is a way to add html to a single blog post.

Now, the code. Let's go back to www.technorati.com. See the search box to the top right? Put your key search word or words in that box and do you see the box beside it that says, "in blog posts"? Change that to "tags," then hit search.

The next page that comes up, you'll see who's been blogging using your key search words. But, look to the bottom right hand side and there will be an html code. Copy that.

Go back over to your blog and add it into the html of your blog post, and voila, you're complete.

Well, almost. Now you have to ping it.

The reason for "pinging it" is so that Technorati recognizes you right away. So, publish your blog post, then click on one of your tags. When you get to that page, look all the way to the bottom left and you'll see "ping us."

The next page will say "Ping Us." Find your blog, hit ping, and you are finally done.

One thing I have to mention is that when you have more than one set of search words like I have below, don't forgot to put a comma and a space in between or they'll run together.

And that completes our Technorati lesson for today. Have fun with it, let it teach you more about using search words and if there are any questions, you can leave them in the comment box. Have a wonderful week-end everyone and PUMP UP THAT BLOG!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, Technorati, blog search engine, key search words, Antonella Barba, blog search engines

How to PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell More Books - Pt.III - Starting from Ground Zero - Tracking Your Visitors - Q&A

Okay, we're back. I'm having the craziest time trying to upload a trailer onto YouTube. It's an incredible file...I'm talking huge, so I had to go in and take a couple things down and it's still huge. Arg. But, I will win this one!

I'm also taking applicants for May for the Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours. I'm booked for April, but I do have a spot left in May if anyone needs someone to set one up for them. I will be explaining how you can do this yourself in a future blog post...very soon..but if you're interested in having someone do all the work for you without you lifting a finger, I'm your man...er...woman! Email me at thewriterslife@yahoo.com for more information on that.

I'd like to jump right in with a couple of questions from Celise Downs. We left off at the point where we were talking about pumping up our blogs to sell more books and Celise had a couple of questions I wanted to answer before we go to the next step.

First of all, I have to tell you, Celise, that I'm very impressed with your blog. I understand the designer isn't taking anymore clients, and that's a shame because she has really pumped up your blog in design!

Now, your questions.

First, you ask, "I have a site meter at the bottom as well and wanted to know how you can find the search words being used to find my blog. You mentioned in your post that there was a way to find out. I clicked on the meter and it just gave me numbers. I'm not sure where to look."

Since it's been a few days since you asked this, I don't know if you've figured it out, but just in case, this is what you do. Go into your site meter stats, and look in the left-hand sidebar. Look under "Recent Visitors" and click on "Referrals." This will tell you where your visitors are coming from. In order to find out which search words they are using to find your blog, see if there is anyone coming from a search engine such as Google. If so, click on the link and it will take you to the search engine and show you which word or words they used to land on your blog.
Okay, Celise's next question was..."Also, OT about blogs---have you talked about--or plan to talk about--websites? In particular, separate websites for a series."

Actually, I do plan a workshop soon called Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion Workshop on April 9 - 30, which will include pumping up your website to sell more books, although I'm sure we'll be touching on website optimization in here at some point. If anyone is interested in the workshop, you can find out more about it by going to www.thewriterslife.net/workshop.html. I will most definitely be announcing it two weeks before it starts. This workshop will be a little different in that it will be more one-on-one and I'll be taking each person who participates through each of the steps I used to write "A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook," so that ought to be a lot of fun.

Hope this helps, but if there are any questions in particular you'd like answered about websites, leave your comment in the comment box and I'll tackle it in a future post. ;o)

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, Celise Downs, A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook, Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion Workshop

72 Short, Sweet Words About Google Ads

Just a small note here...please, please, please, please, if you are an author and if you have a blog or a character blog, pleeeeeze leave off the google ads. I have been to so many blogs tonight checking them out for one reason or another, and the ones that have these google ad banners are driving me beserk! Totally unprofessional. Do I need to call it a night? *grin*

Sorry, Google, but it annoys the living daylights right out of me.

The New Age of Promotion is Here

I would just like to take a minute to thank everyone for their private emails and comments left here at my blog. I never thought this blog would take off like it has. When I started it, I thought...well...I'll post a few promo hints to get a little buzz going, beef everyone up, give them a taste of what I've got, before my promoting classes start.

The thing is, I've had to put my classes on hold because this has exploded into something that I can't even begin to imagine it would.

What's happened to this blog is that it has metamorphasized into one of the best things that ever happened to me. Let me explain.

It is through this blog that I have met a whole lot of really nice people. I mean, gushy nice. People that you'd really love to sit down on the sofa and throw back a few Coors Lights with. Those kind of people. You know the ones...people who share common interests and out to have fun.

Because I think this is a happening place, I believe that people pick up on this enthusiasm and maybe that's why they're returning, or why they're commenting, or why they're signing up for my feed. Who knows...but I love it and don't stop.

Or, maybe, they are actually learning how to promote online in ways they didn't know before. If that's the reason, my hats off to you and another Coors Light on the house.

But, let me tell you what else is happening.

I've never even thought about working in PR. I wanted to be an author. I wanted my name on the cover of a book, and I wanted that book in all the bookstores in the country with not even having to lift a finger.

I wanted to be on Oprah, on the cover of Times Magazine, and maybe, possibly, have so much money, I could have that house of my dreams.

Well, it doesn't happen that way exactly.

But, it can happen and the only way it can happen is if I make sure I do everything I possibly can to make sure I reach my goals.

But, even saying that, the odds of having any of those things are slim because there are so many books being published each and every year, and I know that there are only a chosen few who gets the notoriety everyone wishes their book to have.

However, maybe we reach too high sometimes. Maybe, there are some things we can have now, at this point of our writing career, because we have learned how to go about getting them. And it might be as simple as getting more hits on our websites or having someone email us and tell us how much they loved our book...well...you can't put a monetary value on that.

But, getting back to what I was talking about before, this blog has become a phenomenol place to find authors eager to find ways to promote like they've never promoted before. They are realizing that the old school of promotion just isn't cutting it now. What worked before worked because there wasn't as much competition as there is now, and so a new set of rules has been forming. It has happened before your very eyes without you even realizing it.

And that, my friends, is the message I'm trying to get across. It's a new revolution of promotion going on and it's right in front of you. The Internet. This is where it is. This is where you're going to find the audience for your books and grab'em so hard, they won't know what hit'em. You're going to lure them in with your key search words, entice them to buy with your free ebooks, cyber-visit them with your virtual book tours and show the brick and mortar bookselling institutions a little something or two and that you're mad as hell and you aren't taking it anymore.

The New Age of Promotion is NOW...buckle up and enjoy the ride, my PUMPED UP friends... ;o)

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion

Sell Your Books on Craigslist?

I read this interesting article on Published.com tonight where you can sell your books on Craigslist.org. Anyone ever try doing that?

The link is http://www.published.com/home/Sell-Your-Book-on-Craigslist-.aspx to read the article.

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, sell your books, Craigslist

How to Use YouTube to Land a 7-Figure Publishing Deal

Just read this in Publisher's Weekly. A man by the name of Rupert Isaacson got the interest of Curtis Brown agent Elizabeth Sheinkman in representing him for his book, The Horse Boy, about his forthcoming trip to Mongolia with his son on horseback to visit shamans, which had a mysterious calming impact on his son, who had autism. After it piqued Sheinkman's interest, she immediately began proceedings to pitch it to the big publishing houses. But, as he was putting footage together about this trip, and was tinkering with the idea of putting this footage up at YouTube, Sheinkman decided to wait until it was up, then she pitched the idea to Little, Brown sending them the link to the trailer with the proposal. Isaacson ended up with a seven-figure major publishing deal. Sheinkman hesitates to say whether the trailer was the selling point, but she does think it helped.

I would say it definitely didn't hurt. Visual aids sell. Picture this. The main bigwigs are sitting at a big, oblong shiny mahogany table puffing cigars and listening to agents give their proposals and in walks Sheinkman with not only a proposal, but a video of the book. Well, actually, it was all done by email or sent by snail mail, but think about it. The bigwigs have called it a day and are sitting back in their boxers, chilling in their million dollar homes with a fire burning, a few martinis have been consumed, and the last thing they want to think about is more work. For kicks, one opens up his laptop to check on something not really important...maybe play a few online video games or check or a few games of online poker...and he sees an email from an agent. He groans as he's been doing this all day long, but something makes him do it...I call it the obsessive glutton for punishment syndrome.

He clicks on it and the proposal sounds interesting, but he yawns for lack of sleep. Not that the premise is bad, he thinks, but after all, this is HIS time and he knew better than to even bring his laptop home in the first place.

So, his eyes are glazed and he's not really making out the words (the martinis are starting to kick in) and he clicks on the link that the agent sent him.

It leads him to YouTube. By now, he's a little curious. Why did she send me to YouTube?

And...he watches...real footage of this guy and his son traveling to Mongolia by horseback to see shamans to help his son who has autism. Real footage.

He spills his martini in his lap as he's frantically searching for his cell so that he can call his comrades that run the big publishing house...and the rest is history.

And...Isaacson climbs out from obscurity into fame and fortune.

Interesting story and it really makes you wonder just how powerful book trailers have gotten in the last few years. Where once they were used for entertainment purposes (I still get a kick out of watching them), now we're using them for promotional vehicles to sell our books, whether it's to our readers...or perhaps...that NY publishing house.

So, let's give this another perspective. What if we made a book trailer of a book that we are pitching to agents and sent them the link in our proposal for them to check it out at YouTube? Would that entice them to ask for at least a partial?

And, what about pitching to movie directors for books that are already published?

I'd be curious to find out.

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, YouTube, free book promotion workshop, book trailer, online book promotion, Publisher's Weekly, Rupert Isaacson, Curtis Brown, Elizabeth Sheinkman, The Horse Boy, movie directors