I can see the beads of cold sweat forming on your brow. But like it or not, testing and tracking helps know what marketing strategies work, and what do not.

Like any business, an author needs to develop and implement a strategic marketing plan. This is an essential part of any business success. And where you want to believe this or not – a writer or author IS a business.

Marketing is not universal. What work’s for one person may not work for another. You need to test and track to determine what works for you!

However, unless you’re traffic testing strategies, you may be losing a great deal of time and money.

Traffic Testing increases Sales

Dramatically increase your sales simply by taking the time to test and track your results. Not only will it help you to determine what’s working and what’s not, but it will also enable you to focus your efforts on the strategies that produce results.

When testing your marketing strategies, keep in mind a strategy that produces results for one author may not produce results for you. There is no ‘set in stone’ strategy that works for everyone. You must develop your own style and technique and test your results to determine what works for you.

If you have a hosted site, it will generate logs of your site visitors. You can also use the free and exceptional tracking tool: Google Analytics.

There are several online tracking resources to assist you in your testing and tracking endeavors. You can also opt to use some alternative methods. Here are two of several tracking methods you can use to track your online response rates:

URL

Advertising or Email tracking

You can track your ads simply by adding some special coding to your URL.

For example, let’s say you place a banner ad on another website about your or your book. To easily track the results of people clicking on your ad, you simply modify your URL to include the “ad” name or location.

To code your URL, add a question mark followed by a special tracking code to the end of your web address. The coded link will open your webpage normally and most visitors will be none the wiser.

Your code should look something like this:

http://www.yourdomain.com/?ad1

The text after the question mark should identify a specific location ad or banner. You can code it any way you’d like but do not add spaces. Keep it simple.

To view your results, you’ll need to look at your blog or website log files. Your code will be displayed within your log files beside your URL. If you do not know where these log files are, ask your hosting provider for help.

Email

Let’s say you put out a monthly newsletter and you want to know if people are clicking the text link or the image of your book more often. Email services, such as Mail Chimp, provide these statistics for you; however if your service does not, then you can easily track them using the code URL.

Tracking Email Responses via the Subject Line

You can track your email responses to specific ads by using the email subject.

Select a specific word to be placed within the email subject for each ad. Although you can request that a certain word be placed within the email subject, many times it won’t be supplied. To avoid this problem, you can create a special email link that will automatically fill in the subject when clicked on. Your link should look something like this:

mailto:you@yourdomain.com?subject=ad1

Conclusion

Testing and tracking your strategies is an essential part of doing business. By concentrating your efforts on strategies that produce results, you will not only increase your sales, but you’ll also save yourself a great deal of time and money.

If your Author Platform (whether a blog or website) isn’t attracting the visitors you want, it could be because you’re not providing quality content. Below are some tips that will help your content stand apart from the competition.

Make Your Content Error-Free

Whatever your topics, the content on your site should be free of grammatical and spelling errors. Nothing turns off visitors more than reading articles that contain obvious errors.

Research Your Content Well

It’s amazing how much misinformation appears on the Internet. If you’re providing biographies, for instance, make sure the birth and death dates are correct. If you’re providing information about technology, it shouldn’t be outdated. If the content on your site is about business, make sure all the quotes are correctly attributed. Whatever your topic, even a tiny error will stand out.

Write for Your Audience

The average reading level of the Internet user is 12th grade. And the reading level for 9th – 12th graders is only 5.3! (Source: Huffington Post) Yes, you read that right.

So, if you put content on your site that is filled with long sentences and words most people don’t know, it will only turn visitors off. If your site is meant to appeal to a certain group of academics, you won’t have to worry about the long words. But if you’re providing information to the general public, your articles need to be written in a manner they’ll understand.

Refresh Your Content Often

Visitors will return to your site more often if you have fresh content. There’s nothing more boring than visiting a site that has the same articles and photos that have been on the site for months.

Target Content to Your Visitors

Sure you’re interested in the Olympics and even the Mars Mission but your Author Platform needs to be about what you are interested in AND what you write. After all, the key is to garner traffic and make sales.

By targeting your visitors with content they can use, you can be sure they’ll return. Not only that, but they will recommend your site to friends (and this can be literally thousands with Social Media) and may even link to your site on their site.

Though not all visitors will return, relevant content will increase the chances that they will return.

Don’t Just Sell Products

As an author, you want to sell books. Period. So, it is natural to put all your “wares” in front of the consumer. But you can impress people with articles that pertain to the products you sell.

If, for example, your book is a Murder Mystery that happens in a Coffee Shop (Sandra Balzo) then you could include some great “latte receipes” mentioned in your book or around the net.

Or perhaps provide information on the area where your book takes place. My children’s book “Tyler Frost and the Freemont Troll” takes place in Freemont, Washington, where, oddly enough, there is a large cement troll under the bridge. I plan to include touristy maps and pictures of this sculpture along with its release in 2014.

Be bold and interesting – and your visitors will come back.

If You’re Not A Writer, Don’t Write (All) Your Own Content

Ok, this is kind of an odd statement, especially since 98% of my visitors are, indeed, writers. However, IF you are NOT a writer or do not write well, then you need to be honest with yourself. Consider getting help or at the very least a second set of professional “eyes.” (Grammarly.com is a good tool to check your grammar.)

Practice makes perfect…almost. The more you write the better you (should) become. I write every day, but not necessarily on my blog or my own novels. I do a lot of technical writing and have found over the years my structure has improved. however I am not beyond asking for editing help (thank you Kathy!)

A big mistake for many Author Platforms is the amateur writing to a professional world. Yes, I did state that the reading level is 12th grade (or lower) but you still want to be professional and professional writing takes time and skills. Without the skills, your writing will look amateurish and that won’t help you achieve your goals.

Conclusion

Writing good content isn’t difficult, nor is it hard to find quality content to add to your site. The link to the Huffington Post, for example, is a good way to garner interesting information for your readers in an easy to read article.

The Blame Game

Who really is to blame for lack of book sales? You? The Publisher? Both. It isn’t whether you are using SM, it is whether you are using it effectively. Because no matter how much you want to believe it “doesn’t work”, statistics have proven it does. Like any other form or advertising, you need to find the sweet spot- the place where it all comes together.

When author, marketer and social media guru, Catherine Yan Howard was asked whether or not social media actually helps sell more books. Catherine answered in “it absolutely does.”

“Having Twitter [and] not using it right
and then blaming it for not boosting your sales
is like having a treadmill, not using it
and blaming it for not losing any weight!”

Publishers Expect you to Have a Platform…PERIOD

If you have hopes of landing a publishing contract then you need to develop a platform. Most writers’ reactions to this requirement are disappointment and indignation. Then they blame the publisher. There’s that word again… blame.

The online presence of the author is, and always will be, the responsibility of the author. Publishers, for the most part, will market and promote your BOOK through their usual avenues and this includes their own Social Media. However, they aren’t in the habit of building your “home” (website) nor will they setup a mailing address (email). You should already have these basic elements in place – both real and virtual. In other words, you, and only you, are responsible for creating your Author Platform (HOME) — a place to talk about YOU.

Social Media is another platform. You can equate it to your local gym, restaurant, grocery store or even your dentist. Everywhere you talk about you (and your writing). This is the “Social” in Social Media.

Using Social Media…

The first step is to sign up. They are free, so you have no reason not to.

The second step is to manage your time wisely. You can easily get caught up in the hype — chatting endlessly on mundane topics. BE CAREFUL. It can be addicting for first time users. Use your time wisely and to the benefit of your business.

Third you need to know what to say and how to say it. Twitter, for example, only allow syou 140 characters. That isn’t a lot of space. Check out other tweets — see which one interest you and why. One aspect of the 140 characters is that it teaches you to be selective in your words – to say the most in the least number of words. Sound familiar?

Here are few of the top SM sources:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Goodreads
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn

Helpful Apps to manage your Social Media Life

Interacting on Social Media is easy. You can manage many of the top SM sites from one location, such as HootSuite. This allows you to post from one location without needing to login to each and every location.

Another great app is Buffer: A service that allows you to spread out your tweets over time, rather than at the time you are on the site. This handy app enables you to schedule your tweets, just like you can schedule your blog articles to post when you are gone, on vacation or sleeping. By using it, 5-minutes of writing equates to up to ten minutes of tweets spread out during the day. Extrememly convenient.

- – - – -

Social Media is still growing and even the new kid, Pinterest, is “the fastest growing network ever”. These are free sources that anyone can sign up and start using within minutes. They are FREE. and they WILL help you brand yourself and sell books… really.

Below are examples of covers from different genres (courtesy of Amazon.com). Notice that the typefaces are far from overly decorative. The typeface and image must work together, not compete for cover space.

Susan Mallery, Three Sisters
Womens Fiction

Karen Kingsbury, The Beginning
Romance

The above covers did a wonderful job of combining typefaces with images for their genre. Three Sisters: Contemporary Womens Fiction, effectively utilizes the simpleness and soft-strength of a sans-script for the author name with a feminine calligraphic typeface for the Title.

The Beginning also utilizes a calligraphic font but then chose a script for the author name, retaining the softness and appeal of a romance novel.

Stephanie Meyer, HOST
Science Fiction / Paranormal

James Patterson: Alex Cross, RUN
Thriller / Suspense

The above covers both utilize a sans-serif font, but in quite a different way. You can always tell a James Patterson book: because of his immense readership, his genre books are designed to catch the fan’s eye, and pull in the sale. Alex Cross, RUN uses a large, bold typeface with an understated image, creating the right balance for the cover.

Stephanie Meyer’s book HOST uses a simple sans-serif font with a twist. By adding a glow to the “O” the title moves from text to a brand-like logo. In addition, this simple artistic design provides “secret insight” into the book and by adding that same blue glow to the heroines eyes this ties it all neatly together.

The Right Balance

I don’t need to point out bad covers over good. You know it when you see them. Some scream amateurish but they don’t have to. Finding the right balance between typeface and image takes a creative eye; knowing what works and what doesn’t.

Free Fonts

I love FontSquirrel.com – excellent source for FREE, hand-picked, high-quality, commercial-use fonts that you can use not only for book cover design but eBook embedding.

Even though Font Squirrel has thousands of fonts not all are good for Cover Design. Keep simplicity and readability in mind.

And be sure, no matter where you obtain your fonts, to read the usage license requirements.

NOTE: Before downloading a typeface – take if for a TEST DRIVE. This means you can put in your title and “see” how it will look before having to actually download and install the font. What looks good on the screen may not work for your book cover needs, so taking a test drive will save you a lot of time and clutter on your computer.

Windsong is a nice typeface for a short titled book. Style: Calligraphic

Goudy Trajan combines my two favorite Adobe fonts into a useable “free” font, which I can embed in eBooks. GT is an elegant and versatile typeface. Style: Serif

I love strong, bold fonts for book covers, especially thrillers and suspense. League Gothic offer a condensed typeface that can easily be stretched (widened) and still retain it’s clean edge and lines. Style: Sans-Serif

Aquiline Two is a distressed font, indicating a handwritten note of the quill pen days. Great for historical, romance or period (17th-18th century) type novels. Style: Distressed Calligraphic

Optimization

You’ve heard the word, but what does it really mean?

op·ti·mi·za·tion
n.
The procedure or procedures used to make a system or design as effective or functional as possible, especially the mathematical techniques involved.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

The better you optimize and target your videos the more your video is seen and shared. You don’t have to be a math wizard to learn how to optimize It is important to simply apply these four steps:

1. Create Shareable Content.

We ALL know this. Fresh, interesting and sharable content is King. It rises above the rest and creates ripples in the pond.

People share videos they find entertaining or educational. The more your video is shared, the higher your rankings in search engines such as Googl, Bing, Yahoo! and Youtube. Therefore, your content will appear higher in search results, reach more people and drive new visitors to your site.

2. Use Optimal Keywords.

Youtube is the world’s second largest search engine. It is important to add keywords or ‘tags’ to your videos to make them more visible in search engine results.

How to find the best Keywords

Google Keyword Tool is a free tool that helps you find tags to use for your blog, articles, videos and more.

Once you find the terms you want to use, add them to your Youtube videos (see below)

3. Share Your Videos.

Increase your exposure by posting your videos on your website. Facebook and Twitter postings also help increase exposure. Consider other video networks such as Vimeo – low-cost video platforms with a large number of users. (From my research 3/13/13- Yahoo! Video and Google Video no longer accept video uploads. If I am incorrect, please let me know )

4. Analyze and Improve.

Gone are the days of “set it and leave it.” To keep a good ranking requires effort. You can use the following tools to track and improve your tags and rankings:

Google Analytics will track how many people come to your company website from YouTube. This is a good overall measure of the effectiveness of your video marketing strategy.

YouTube Analytics shows you how well each of your videos is performing. Use this information to determine what content viewers respond to best. This will guide your strategy for future marketing videos.

For works already self-published, View Writer’s Digest Submissions Guidelines in our Post: Writer’s Digest Annual Self-Publishing Book Award.

Submission Guidelines

You many enter as many manuscripts as you like in each of the following categories:

• Memoirs/Personal Essay, Children’s/Young Adult Fiction and Magazine Feature Article: 2,000 words max.
• Mainstream/Literary Short Story and Genre Short Story: 4,000 words max.
• Inspirational Writing: 2500 words max.
• Rhyming Poetry and Non-rhyming poetry: 32 lines max.
• Stage Play and Television/Movie Script: send first 15 pages

Enter online at writersdigest.com or submit via regular mail. Include name, address, phone number, email, line or word count and competition category.

Your entry must be original, unpublished, unproduced, written in English and NOT accepted by any other publisher or producer at the time of submission.

Submission Deadline: June 3, 2013

Early Bird Deadline: May 6, 2013

See more details…

Is your work Self-Published?

Do you have a self-published work but want to compete? The go to the Writer’s Digest Self-Publishing Book Awards here…

Our February Newsletter offered a quick book cover exercise to get your creative juices flowing. You were to create a fictional book cover around the following synopsis:

——-
It is the Super Bowl of all Super Bowls and the Cinderella team, the Oregon Argonauts are scheduled to pair off with the seasoned San Francisco 49ers.

An amazing first season, the Argonauts seem unbeatable.They swept through the season without a one injury or game loss, and they now seem destined to go down as the ultimate football team in history.

Frantic to sign players as spokespersons, sponsors are shocked to find their lucrative contracts ignored.

In spite of all the glory, The Argonauts, players, managers and owners, are unusually reclusive. They sidestep interviews and are so invisible – not one newsworthy blip appears on the radar.

Suddenly one of the players is found dead – the cause unknown. Medical examiners are stumped. The team isn’t talking.

Detective Steve Warren is assigned to the case. Only 3 months from retirement, this will be the final feather to a very long and illustrious career.

But how does a detective solve a crime with no leads, no suspects and no cause of death?
——-

The exercise included creating an enticing title, find images that correlate to the plot and tie them all up with typography, image and color.

If you remember, I was focused on the word “Silent.” I was sure I would use that in one of my covers but as you can see, the word fell silent.

The following are a few ideas I created from the simple exercise. Have a better idea? let me know and I’ll highlight it here.

IMAGES: Source: Shutterstock.com
TYPEFACE: Rockwell , Arial

Though you may not have the deep pockets of major publishers, you can still create, promote and market your book successfully.

Free Style and Formatting Guides

1. Smashwords Style Guide. This style guide helps you understand how to prepare your Word file for conversion. This is the first step in self-publishing. (Style Guide for major ebook retailers including Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and Diesel)

Smashwords also allows you to upload a “validated” epub file. This is good news for more complex book layouts. Read more About Smashwords Direct.

2. Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines (PDF link) – the leader in ebook publishing, this book is invaluable.

3. Barnes & Noble PubIt! Support & Resources Page – not one of the big ebook contenders (in my opinion), but worth the read.

4. Kobo Writing Life FAQ for Writers (PDF link)

5. Creating ePub Files with Apple’s Pages program – the process of publishing to iBookstore can be very painful, even for the most technically savvy. I highly recommend you read what is required to avoid frustration and pitfalls later on.

To obtain the free ”iBookstore Asset Guide” you must set up a free iTunes Connect account.

6. Calibre User Manual I must admit I am not a fan of Calibre, except for converting one format to another for my own purposes. I have not evaluated the program for “publishing purposes” since late 2011, so some of my objections may have been corrected. All in all, it is still a good program to have around.

Free Marketing & Publishing Guides

7. Smashwords Book Marketing Guide

8. The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success

Free eBook Formatting Programs

9. SIGIL EPUB EDITOR: Multi-platform ebook editor. (Mac, Windows, Linux)

This is my program of choice. When downloading Sigil Epub Editor, take note of the operating system required. Newer versions of Sigil only work on the latest OS systems. If you are running an older OS, then download a “Depreciated Version” of the program.

10. MOBIPOCKET CREATOR: (Windows ONLY). I cannot say good or bad on this program, as I am a Mac user. MPC is only available for Windows / PC computers.

11. CALIBRE: Ebook Management. (Mac, Windows, Linux) In the past I found Calibre far from acceptable when preparing files for publication. It is a great program to convert files for personal consumption in various formats.

ENTER TODAY!

Whether you’re a professional writer, a part-time freelancer, or a writing enthusiast who took the leap and published your own book, this competition is for you! The Writer’s Digest 21st Annual Self-Published Book Awards is the premier competition exclusively for self-published books – and we’re currently accepting entries!

What’s in it for you?

• A chance to win $3000 in cash
• National exposure for your work
• The attention of prospective editors and publishers
• A paid trip to the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City!

Early Bird Deadline: April 1, 2013

Enter your book into one or more of these categories:

• Children’s/Picture books
• Genre Fiction
• Inspirational (Spiritual, New Age)
• Life Stories (Biographies, Autobiographies, Family Histories, Memoirs)
• Mainstream/Literary Fiction
• Middle-Grade/Young Adult books
• Nonfiction
• Poetry
• Reference Books (Directories, Encyclopedias, Guide Books)

HURRY! The early-bird deadline for entries is April 1.

Upcoming Competitions

• Self-Published Awards: Deadline: April 1, 2013 – Enter Now!
• Annual Competition: Deadline: May 6, 2013 - Enter Now!
• Popular Fiction Competition: Opens June 2013 – Learn More
• Short Short Story Competition: Opens June 2013 – Learn More

Using images is not new when creating advertising. In my “younger days”, we had to set up the shot and hire a professional to shoot the exact image required for our project. Today, stock images houses abound with millions of professional and unique images at our fingertips. With so many choices the odds of choosing the same image is nearly impossible…. or is it?

The Hooded Man Appears… Again and Again.

Meet Mazarkis Williams, Author of The Emperor’s Knife. A fantastic book cover design, using light and dark to direct the viewer’s eye.  But then…. the hooded mad reappears…..

Sarmin’s Corner had this to say about four books that used the exact or very similar images.

He was Mark Charan Newton’s hooded man first on “The Book of Transformations”, he turned left and suddenly found himself striding the Cerana sands bearing “The Emperor’s Knife” on my cover. With an about turn to the right he menaced the world from Saladin Ahmed’s “Throne of the Crescent Moon” and found himself talking in Polish. A beat later and the man’s spouting fluent Spanish from Robin Hobb’s excellent “Assassin’s Apprentice.”

Putting to one side the issue of this stock-character-of-easy-virtue I hope that the fact four such varied and fine (though I say it myself) novels lurk behind his menace is a fact that puts fresh shine on the well-worn directive never to judge a book by its cover.

The hooded many isn’t the first to lurk on a variety of books, and he won’t be the last. Others have been spotted, skipping from cover to cover such as the scantily clad woman in a flowing red dress, or the menacing hit-man in the rain. The question is, where will they strike next?

If you truly believe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then do not worry. Your work will speak for itself.

I recommend, however, to think out of the box. Don’t accept canned images but strive to create book covers as unique as your own writing.

Consider the clean, less “obvious” image in the re-release of Oscar Wilde’s classic book “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. The peacock feather is the “perfect summation of Gray’s pride and arrogance about his appearance.” (Zoë Triska, “PLEASE: No More Insulting Classic Book Covers For Teen Girls”). I personally would have used a black-and-white closeup of a real feather, with hints of fading color a black field – but that’s me.