The Big Bad Book Blog

Serving as an expert source and writing articles is an excellent way to build your credibility and promote your brand. Not only does it get you more publicity, but articles are also a great tool for connecting with potential clients and acquiring speaking engagements. Articles are quick, informative, and can be included in a speaker’s press kit or given as a freebie to clients.

To develop a database of articles, start by making a list of topics you can speak on, such as “10 Things Every Leader Should Know” or “5 Ways to Improve Your Health While on the Road.” Don’t worry if you can only think of a few. This list will grow as your career continues and as you research more outlets for your ideas.

Next, identify publications that cater to your audience and that submit freelance articles. Look on the publication’s website for the submission guidelines; it is important that you follow these to the letter. Ignoring guidelines is usually grounds for an automatic rejection and does not present you in a professional light.

Here are a few more tips for developing and submitting articles:

1. Make your articles concise and actionable.
2. Use startling statistics or third-party facts to support your ideas.
3. Tailor your article to the publication’s tone and audience. This may mean switching out certain terms. For example, you can substitute the term “customer” with “patient” if you are submitting an article on marketing to a medical publication.
4. Leave out the self-promotion—that’s what your bio is for.

Above all, provide value. If your articles don’t have substance, not only will no one want to read them, but media professionals will not want to print them either.

If you’re a nonfiction or business author, it’s easy to repurpose some your book content into an article. Simply pull out a page or a few paragraphs that focus on a central topic or concept and add an appropriate introduction or summary.

There are also many options for submitting articles for content syndication on the Internet. Content syndication can benefit your website’s search-engine ranking and enhance your web presence. Here are a few syndication resources:

Free Resources:

http://e-articles.info/ This free article directory provides useful free articles, tutorials, and information resources about various life issues. Subjects include Arts & Entertainment, Finance, Dating & Relationships, Business, Technology, Health & Fitness, Home & Garden, News & Society, Sports, and more.

http://www.articlealley.com/ This site helps authors promote and syndicate their content on a large scale. Web content managers from thousands of partner sites use Article Alley to source free content they can include on their own websites.

http://www.articlesbase.com/submit-articles.php Similar to e-articles.info and Article Alley, Articles Base allows authors to submit articles to a comprehensive database. Articles Base is unique in that it includes an author bio box where you can promote your own webpage and personal brand.

Paid Resources:

http://www.isnare.com A $2-per-article submission charge makes syndication available to 1000+ websites.

http://www.rcplinks.com/Article_Submission.htm $25 for 100 links to your article.

Rules when submitting articles to content syndication services:

#1: No links allowed within the body of the article.

#2: No promotion of your company or book within the article itself.

#3: Links promoting your Amazon page or book website should live in the bio or “about the author” section.  Use links sparingly in this section as an article will often be rejected if there are more than three.

You may have heard your book publicist or another marketing guru talk about the importance of building a “tribe.” This doesn’t mean traveling to a secluded island and recruiting a selection of indigenous craftsman to start a new culture. A tribe is a devoted group of followers, people who believe in your idea, values, and message and who participate in a community with other followers and evangelize your efforts as an author.

Why do you want a tribe? Because they are your consumers, advertisers, research and development team, and marketers all rolled into one. They help you grow your brand, hone your message, and create an ongoing relationship of service and value—not to mention that it is direct purchases from this group and their referrals that drive the majority of your sales, both of your book and of any other services you offer.

So, now you know what a tribe is and why you need one. But how do you get one? Start by doing the following:

1. Provide value: People don’t follow self-serving rhetoric or empty ideas. They follow trusted advisors, information sources, and value-based ideas they can believe in. Build on the ideas in your book and your message as an author, and grow your value by continually providing your readers with tools and information they need.
2. Provide community: Tribes thrive on community. So, establish forums, blogs, and other ways in which followers can interact with you and each other. Start conversations based on topics in your book, and even gather new ideas for follow-up books and seminars.
3. Provide content: People are always looking for what’s in it for them. Provide free information, resources, and tips to help them improve their lives, and people will follow you. This content could be a repackaging of material from your book, but it should also at times go beyond what you’ve already written. With every post, interaction, and article, give your readers something they can really sink their teeth into.
4. Tell people about it: It doesn’t do any good to lay the groundwork for your tribe and then never promote it. Get involved in social media, networking groups related to your industry, nonprofits, and communities both online and off. Mention your efforts, share free resources, and entice people to connect with you and your tribe.

Building a tribe takes time, so be patient. Above all, building a tribe means sticking to a clear and consistent message and continually providing value, without asking for anything in return. It will pay off in the end, not only in terms of followers, but also in terms of book sales.

Here are also some additional resources to help you with your tribe-building efforts:

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan

Tribes by Seth Godin

Part I of III: Build Your Brand

This post is part of the Guest Post Giveaway at the blog Unready and Willing. If you think articles about writing or personal development (or personal development for writers) sounds like a good fit for your blog, please take a look at the Guest Post Giveaway page and see if any of the articles spark your interest.

Marketing your writing is essential if you want your work to be read by a wide audience.

For many, marketing is an alien word that may conjure up images of people in suits sitting at round tables analyzing market trends, consulting with focus groups, and pouring millions of dollars into nationwide ad campaigns. It’s big company stuff that individuals don’t have the time, money, or skills to get involved in.

Because of this image, many writers have considered the job of marketing their writing as something that publishing houses or literary agents should do for them. The reality is, however, that although the big publishing houses may do a great job in promoting the next bestseller, they’ll seldom take the risk to market the work of an unknown author. If you want to take advantage of the marketing might of the publishing houses, you must first learn how to market your writing on your own, to get your writing read by enough people that you get on a publisher’s radar, and make it worth their while to consider promoting what you’ve written.

The goals of marketing your writing are simple: you want to raise awareness of your writing, get more people to read it, and to keep them reading. If you’re persistent and committed to your marketing effort, it’s only a matter of time before that book offer arrives in your mailbox.

Self-marketing, unlike what a large corporation would have to go through, is much simpler than focus groups and market trend research, and can be broken down into these three steps:

1.         Build Your Brand – Your personal brand is the combination of you and your product. You must establish your mission and identity as a writer, and this should be reflected by the writing that you produce.

2.         Make Connections – Marketing is all about making connections. It’s not just about making connections with the right people, but also making connections with the wrong people who know the right people.

3.         Build Relationships- You must make strangers into acquaintances and acquaintances into friends. You must build trust and affinity with your personal brand.

Build Your Brand

Just as Apple has Steve Jobs, and Virgin has Richard Branson. Your writing must have you.

Although you may have not consciously worked to build it, you already have a personal brand. A personal brand is all the thoughts and feelings that are associated with you and your work. A strong brand will capture people’s imagination and will make people remember you, your name, and your writing. A weak brand, however, can make it very difficult to promote yourself, no matter how much time and energy you spend on marketing efforts.

Stephen King has an incredibly strong personal brand. His name has become almost synonymous with horror, and just by picking up one of his books, without even reading word one, you can feel the uncanny weight of all his monstrous creations. Even if the book you read wasn’t one of his best, your reading experience would still be enhanced by its association with the Stephen King brand, with all the other books of his that you’ve enjoyed.

Michael Jordan has a strong personal brand, a brand which speaks athletic prowess and determination. When great athletes like him wear Nike merchandise, the power of the swoosh becomes amplified by association with their athletic talent. Because they wear Nike, you’re likely to associate their athletic skill with Nike merchandise, and you’ll probably even feel like a better athlete when you wear Nike because, on a real subconscious level, the athletic skill of these athletes have been transferred directly to you.

As you can see, a strong brand can have a powerful effect on how we view a product, movie, or book. If you can work to build your brand, to strengthen it and harness its power, it can be a tremendous asset to your marketing effort. So how can you work to start building an incredible brand? How can you make your readers tremble in anticipation even before opening your book?

As a writer, your personal brand has three elements: (more…)

Is there a place for product placement in books? With advertisers’ ever-increasing fears about the demise of the thirty-second TV spot, product placement has become a more and more popular way of promoting consumer goods, whether we’re aware of it or not. Books have mostly remained an untapped resource for advertisers, but readers are aware of brands in books. And some publishers and marketers are starting to explore the possibilities that can create. continue reading

Who Moved My Cheese?, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Chicken Soup for the Soul—their covers make self-respecting graphic designers cringe, yet they have astronomical sales. It’s common sense that attractive covers invite book shoppers and ugly covers repel them— so why do these unsightly titles consistently outsell their better-looking shelfmates? (And why do their creators keep producing similar-looking books?)

The simple answer is that, in a hypercompetitive, overcrowded market, branding trumps beauty. continue reading