Strategic internet Marketing is about building a solid foundation and identity on the internet by writing frequent articles and cross posting them on blogs, podcasts, article marketing, and PR marketing sites. Most of these articles and posts will be popular for a short time and then fade into the background. They will continue to give you a steady stream of leads but no one article will be read by most of your audience. However, there are three “articles” that will be read by almost everyone i… Continue

A well crafted blog is one of the most powerful messaging and marketing tools any author can have. When you add in the fact that you can blog for free, it becomes clear that blogging is a core skill that any author who wants to become Well Heard & Well Paid must master. There are three key skills that must be mastered to create a well crafted blog :

• 1) Posting - Setting up your blog and posting entries
• 2) Writing - Writing and posting to a schedule
• 3) Writ
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The Author's Village the book : How to build a community around your message and become a best selling author. Along with this blog site and The Author's Village Community The Author's Village will be a book too. The book will be published in 2009 as I am developing the content this fall. Here is the outline for the book. These Wednesday posts will fill in more of the details of the book as we go. Introduction - Be Heard i - Find a Crow… Continue

This is a bold experiment in generating blog traffic on the internet, a Ning Ring. A community of six authors who have come together to write on related topics in one blog site. I call this a Ning Ring or a credibility cluster. The goal is to build more traffic, faster, and at lower cost for the authors. For the readers our goal is to give you more information faster and better than we could do writing individually. To get an idea of how this might work listen in on the strategy call between B… Continue

Two Boston-based research groups study word-of-mouth impact on brand marketing. They suggest that the value of a single WOM conversation about a brand is about 50 cents. One study found that on average a person talked about a particular brand to just over 16 people. 83% of the 16 people talked to about two others. So if you are speaking at an event and you can get 100 people within your audience to talk about your “brand” you end up with $2,128 worth of marketing. The challenge for us, as author… Continue

Converting browsers into buyers is as much of an art as it is a science. Fully understanding psychological triggers of website browsers is paramount to achieving success. Conversion Marketing explores what makes people tick and how to influence a buying decision in the absence of any face to face contact. Think of Conversion Marketing as equivilant to hiring a silent salesperson that works your business 24 hours a day. Thanks, Bryan Heathman Conversion Marketing… Continue

The cover article for this week's BusinessWeek ( June 2, 2008 ) is "Beyond Blogs" and is an update of their cover story three years ago on blogging. The article is a solid validation of all the work we are doing in this blog and the Author's Village community. I recommend you show a copy to your potential investors, advisers, or partners, anyone who needs to understand why you have spent the time and money to learn how to build your blog audience. Please read the article at :… Continue

Everyone who is in publishing is aware of press releases as PR tools. But are you aware that there are different types of releases? News Release - report a change in your business such as a merger, large orders, expansion, etc. New Product Release -announces new products or upgraded products with new features and applications. Personnel Release - announces new employees or employees who have changed postions, etc. New Literature Release - announces release of new brochures, e-books, chap books,… Continue

Why do mainstream publishing companies maintain such a tight strangle hold on what is printed and promoted as literary fiction and non-fiction in our country? Opportunities for traditional get smaller and smaller. Agents and publishers are not likely to pick up a new unproven author. They certainly do not want to risk the few publishing dollars they have available on an unknown entity. How can an author stand out, get published, and successfully launch their book under these conditions? Building… Continue

A select group of authors and author's coaches will be posting our thoughts, comments, and suggestions on how you can become Well Heard & Well Paid. Stay tuned for more posts soon, Russell Cox The Author's Village