Why write a blog?

I almost called this article ‘The lazy guide to marketing’!  I’m a believer in the old adage ‘If you want to find the quickest way to do something, ask a lazy person’.  What am I banging on about?

A blog article can be the foundation for your marketing activity.  Let’s be honest – who wants to reinvent the wheel?  How does this short-cut to marketing work?

The blog article

This can be as short as 300 words or much longer.  Some people like longer articles – as long as there’s value in there and it’s not just a lot of superlatives and flowery prose.

A blog is your base block to share your expertise, show off your knowledge and demonstrate that you know your stuff.

Social media

You could just paste the title and the link into your social platforms, but I prefer to pick out a short piece – one, or maybe two, sentences – that will intrigue and generate curiosity.  300 words can generate four or more posts.  A longer article, many more.

And don’t forget to post the article on your LinkedIn profile as an article.

Newsletter

If your newsletter delivers consistent value your audience will stick with you.  Using one of your blogs as the lead item is a great way to do that.  I usually publish the first 3-4 paragraphs and then a ‘read more’ button to take the reader to the full length article.

I follow this with a promotion or offer and then add any other blogs I’ve written during the month to finish off – just the title and image.

So far, you’ve already got quite a bit of mileage from your article, but it doesn’t stop there.

A podcast

You could paste your article into something like ElevenLabs.io and transform it into a podcast where two hosts discuss it.  

A video

You can turn this article into a video either as a simple talking head, where you talk to the camera, or use InVideo.io to paste the article in and it will create a video for you.

You could also use the audio track as a podcast, if you want something simpler.

A presentation

If you get the opportunity to do a short talk at your networking group, you can drop the article into gamma.app and it will create a slide deck for you to use as background to your presentation.

Lead magnet

If you’ve written a few blog articles around a specific subject, you could edit them into a longer ebook or report to use as a lead magnet.  This is a great way to grow your list.

Email campaign

A longer article can be broken up to create a short series of emails, maybe with one point per email.  This can be your value lead to accompany an offer or promotion.

If you have an e-marketing platform, these can usually be set up as an automated series.

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Don’t write your blog, post it and forget it – it can work much harder for you.  You just have to be creative!

How do you publish your book?

 

If you’ve had a brilliant idea for a book that will promote your expertise and impress potential clients, spent many hours slaving over a hot keyboard and finally put that final full stop on your manuscript, what’s next?

Publication.

But do you know what your options are?  These are the main four types of publishing, all with their pros and cons, depending on your circumstances and aims.

Mainstream publishers

The publishing houses that produce hundreds (or even thousands) of books every year, don’t publish everything they’re offered.

Some of the big publishers won’t even deal directly with the author, they only talk to agents.  Those that do expect you to jump through all their hoops – and may still say ‘No’, sometimes months later.

The pros: If you get your manuscript accepted, they will edit it, design your cover, have it proofread, assign an ISBN code, list it with the main book wholesalers, probably try to sell the foreign rights and advise the book reviewers that the book has been published.

The cons: They don’t do much other marketing, unless you’re an established author or a celebrity.  The letter that goes to reviewers is basic with a very short description of the book and an even shorter author bio.  They do expect the author to do the bulk of their own marketing.

The days of advances for unknown authors are almost over.  You’ll get a small percentage of net for sales (single figures!)

The lead time from submitting your finished manuscript to actual release can be as long as two years.  Your book will be scheduled into the publishing schedule well ahead of time.

Self-publishing

This is where you literally do everything yourself.  There are a number of self-publishing options, probably the most popular are IngramSpark and Lulu. 

There is also Amazon self-publishing, but read all the small print very carefully before you sign away your rights.  If you publish on Amazon, you may not be able to sell your book anywhere else and it almost certainly won’t be listed with the UK wholesalers, so you can forget book signings in Waterstones and other bookshops, because it won’t be on their systems.

The pros: You’re in control.  You only pay a per book price, so everything else on top of that is yours. 

Some self-publishing houses also do fulfilment, so they will post your book directly to the purchaser.

The cons: You will have to pay for editing, proofreading, cover design, page layout and design, ISBN, etc.  You will have to approach the main book wholesalers to get your book listed, so it can be sold through bookshops.

You will have to list your book on all the platforms, both as an ebook and a hard copy.  You will also have to carry out fulfilment for any book sold yourself in most cases.

Independent publishing

This category has a wide range of options.

Boutique publishers are similar to the mainstream publishers in that they don’t accept every manuscript, but do pay more.  Some of them have in-house editors, some don’t.  Some offer cover design, some don’t. Examples include ThinkPress and Matador.

Book services, such as AuthorHouse, BookBaby and iUniverse are just some of the options that will charge you a fee and then take care of the actual publication process.  They won’t edit or proofread your book, so there is no quality control as such.

Membership publishers where you pay a fee to get your book published and they usually offer cover design, page layout, ISBN, registration with wholesalers and ongoing support.  The best example of this kind of publisher I’ve come across so far is The Endless Bookcase, who also invite members to a monthly webinar and actively support their authors to help with marketing their books.

If you’d like to discuss publishing your book, drop me a note.

My website pet hates!

I’ve been writing copy for websites for more than 20 years and, during that time, the look and feel of websites have changed dramatically.  Who remembers the good old left hand menu and a narrow boxy-looking block of copy, with little tiny images?

Then bigger screens gave us more space to play with.  Search engine optimisation raised its ugly head and web creators demanded ‘keyword rich copy’ and 600 words per page.

The parallax effect became popular for a while with the text moving over a background image.

Then everything had to be mobile friendly and hamburger menus were invented.

However, most of my pet hates have weathered the changes time has wrought!

These are my top three – there are more, but you really don’t want to read an epic rant!

‘Welcome to our website’

This has never done anything for the website visitor, beyond – maybe – giving a warm fuzzy feeling!  It doesn’t tell them anything about what the website has to offer.  It doesn’t make them think ‘Yes, this is exactly what I was looking for’ – and it doesn’t improve your search engine ranking.

What you need are compelling, reader-focused headlines on every page to encourage your visitor to read on.

Things that move

The first time someone mentioned a scrolling marquee I had a mental image of a big white tent with text moving across it.  However, in web terms this refers to those strips with text moving along them like a teleprinter.  They use them on the TV on some news programmes.  They aren’t as popular as they were, but I still find them on some sites.  Some people use them for testimonials, but not all of them move at a pace that allows you to read what’s in them!

Something that keeps moving also distracts from the core message.  People struggle to stay focused on the ‘meaty message’, their eyes are diverted by the moving text.  

I once found a website that had a butterfly that flitted around the page from top left, finally settling bottom right.  It was the company’s logo and, while I love butterflies, it really irritated me when it fluttered around every page I opened.  

Things that move are a distraction.  Even if it’s the main home page picture that operates on a slide deck with three or four images along with different messages about your business offering.  I am not going to sit waiting for the next image to appear – and if the first headline doesn’t get my attention, I’m probably not going to hang around long enough to see if there’s a better one coming.

When I’m trying to read your message I don’t want some stop/start thing going on.

I once had a client who had some fabulous images of his holiday destinations on the home page on a slide deck.  His problem was that he got lots of traffic, but people kept contacting him with questions – that were answered in the copy on the home page.  The problem was that they were so distracted by the moving images that they found retaining focus on the text virtually impossible.

Eye candy

If you’re in the holiday business, you’ve probably got tons of fabulous images, but, if you’re in a business that doesn’t lend itself to visuals – like accounting or law – don’t fall into the trap of irrelevant images, just because they look nice.

Choose your images carefully – they should support the message, not just be pretty placeholders.

If you have a budget, get a professional photographer to take professional shots.  If not buy the licence to use a photograph from a stock site – but be careful you don’t choose one that everyone else also has on their site.