Archive for November, 2008
Wordclay Blog Suspended Until December 2nd
Greetings all,
Please be advised that the Wordclay Blog will suspend posting until after the coming Thanksgiving Holiday, but rest assured, we will resume normal operations effective December 2, 2008.
Should you have questions about Wordclay or suggestions for future blogs, don’t hesitate to pitch your idea within a comment, and our blogging team will definitely address your submissions upon their return.
Thank you for your time and patience.
-The Wordclay Blog Team
When to turn your blog into a book: The fuzzy lines between formats
How many inches doth fill up one mile…-Wm. Shakespeare
The Power of Paper in a Paperless World
So many people out there are blogging. These daily (and sometimes posted several times daily) entries track concepts and topics while communicating content to friends, family and the general public. Some bloggers who place ads on their sites make some money. For others, it’s a serious career, earning enough to live comfortably. But for most bloggers, this is not the case.
One way to drive the traffic to your blog is to aggregate and publish collected thoughts in print. There are several books that have become bestsellers which had originally been published online as blogs. Often the publication of the book drives more traffic to the blog and vice versa. Perhaps having a printed version of your blog for sale is the equivalent of pop stars having fragrance lines and clothing lines. It’s a way to leverage your notoriety to further cement your own financial footprint, thus also preserving your ability to focus on citizen journalism and blogging with more of your time.
Moving across platforms to draw larger audiences is the rule for success in many creative fields. Many new bloggers are working at the local level to make a splash with their thoughts. By ‘crossing over’ to other media you can improve the odds that people might see your name more than once or recognize your brand as more prevalent.
This goes for those of you who are writing books as your main focus as well. You can go out there and start free blogs on the Web. You can use this platform to sell your books and to expand your perceived expertise in your field.
Our duty is so rich, so infinite, that we may do it still without accompt.-Wm. Shakespeare
Creating & Promoting Audio Books: Voices.com & Voice123
It’s no secret that audio books are a thriving business for authors, and if you’re already publishing a book, why not look into having a voice over talent record your manuscript for audio publication?
Think about it. Millions of people listen to podcasts and books on their morning commutes and even in their offices as they peck away at the keyboard. Making your audio book available can really get a great buzz going about your book. Even if one person purchases an audio copy of your title, you can bet that others will overhear, inquire about your book and perhaps even add your audio book to their online shopping cart for a listen.
Plus, with iTunes coupled with the iPod hardware so available as the modern listening technology of choice, recouping your investment can be easy with the right marketing plan.
Since Author Solutions, Inc. has yet to offer audio books, our marketing gang found two superb and trusted organizations that handles voice over talents, namely Voices.com and Voice123.
VOICE OVER TALENT AGENCIES FOR AUDIO BOOKS
Voices.com
Voices.com is a unique web service that helps you complete your voice over recording, music production and language translation projects online. It’s simple, fast, and web-based. You don’t need to download or install anything — everything happens in your web browser.
Helping more than 58,000 people, some of their clients include ABC, NBC, CBS, Dreamworks, Disney, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Bell South, Nortel Networks, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Xerox, Ford, GM, BMW, Shell, Texaco, NASA, the US Army and many more.
In addition to being fast and diplomatic, ensuring you get the best deal while connecting to the best voice over talents, their clients have said they have reduced their costs by as much as 60 percent by using their service. By working directly with professional voice talent you don’t need to book recording studios, hire an audio engineer or casting director to complete your project.
With their free Client Account you can:
- Post a job or search the database
- View voice talent profiles and listen to audio demos online
- Compare qualifications, quotes and availability of professionals
- Pay the voice talent using SurePay™ Escrow service
- Download finished work securely from Voices.com
- Satisfaction Guaranteed when you use SurePay™ Escrow!
Voice123
Voice123 is one of the biggest and most technologically advanced group of voice over talents and voice producers in the world. Whether you want a local voice talent for your next national TV commercial or a fully-produced piece of audio in Japanese for your book promotions in Japan, Voice123 can help. Voice123 allows you to hire thousands of voice over talent and voice producers from all over the world within your budge. Language, accent and geographical borders are now things of the past!
Post a project and let talents or producers submit auditions or proposals. No time for auditions? Easy: get in contact with the talent or producer right away. Use Voice123′s SmartSearch feature to find the professionals you like, or simply allow SmartCast find the best voice for you.
The entire process may take a couple of hours. Most of their talents and voice producers have their own recording studio facilities, saving you time and money.
Manage all your castings quickly and free! Talents submit their audition using their state-of-the-art online auditioning system. You manage the auditions as you wish grading them, sharing them, downloading them, storing them and much more!
The Point: An investment in audio books can not only earn you money, but also become a lucrative strategy to promote your book worldwide and even break into yet another marketplace.
Smashwords: Using E-Book Marketing as Free Book Promotion
What could be better than finding a great book marketing strategy? How about finding a free book promotion strategy. Well, you’ll be happy to know that there’s one that any author can use: Smashwords.
Smashwords is an online e-book publishing tool. If you’ve ever used another free publishing tool to create printable books, such as Wordclay, it’s only a short frolic down Internet road to Smashwords. Of course, you might be a bit leery of this practice if you’ve never published content online before. Fear not.
I was impressed with all of the options and freedom when publishing content with Smashwords. For instance, you can choose to earn royalties from selling your e-book, or you can give it away for free. Plus, there’s a cool feature that you can offer a (more…)
Free Book Promotions: Generate Book Buzz with Giveaways & Incentive Offers
Free stuff, sign me up. Truth is, everyone loves a chance to get a book for free, especially if the book in question might be one these folks actually like or use. The more honest and accessible your content, the more tempted Internet surfers will become by your book. And it don’t get much better than free!
For that matter, asking for an e-mail address to send them information or even suggesting they subscribe to your blog is usually safe. What’s the worst that could happen? They simply unsubscribe? But that won’t happen if you keep them interested with new content and previews of your book that actually keep their attention. Running promotions and distributing free copies of your book are both great strategies for luring new readers to your site and ensuring they stick around to see what you’re all about.
You can run an annual giveaway for your book, or you might want to invest time and money into a monthly contest, to cull even more readers within your target audience. The choice is yours. One things for certain, limiting the risk and investment to readers will not only keep them interested in your book, but increase the likelihood they’ll discuss the book online within forums or offline with friends.
Plus, free book giveaways are quite simple to implement. Say you maintain an author Web site, you can easily promise a free ebook or perhaps a PDF of chapter 1 to all those who subscribe to your newsletter or mailing list. Then, hold a monthly drawing, and send a free copy of your book to whomever you select from the pool of e-mails.
Even if a subscriber only gets your first chapter of your book, that may be enough to pique their interest and buy your book, or talk about the content with friend, which can only help your promotion. Once people get talking, it’s only a matter of time before your subscription base grows, and you can start sending info about discounts you’re offering on books. The possibilities are endless.
The Point: Remember, people love free stuff, and subscribers are less hesitant to invest an e-mail address for a chance to get some free, quality information. Giveaways not only keep you in touch with your target audience, but provide an opportunity to intrigue new readers and generate book buzz both online and beyond.
The King is Dead, Long Live the King: Writing about Current Events
I will have that subject newly writ o’er…-Wm. Shakespeare
People walk a fine line in the publishing industry. I will use the timely example of the Presidential election. If somebody wanted to sell books about the race, they would have had to have been clairvoyant to know in January ’08 that Obama and McCain were going to be the finalists after the primaries. That would probably be about the time that the hypothetical author would have wanted to start finalizing their effort toward a book about the campaign.
I don’t mean to pull a ‘now you tell me’ type of moment with regard to the last election. I wanted to start a fire under anyone who might decide sometime in the future to do a book about the next election in 2012. You should start performing and organizing your research now if you would like to have your work in print before the next election.
Many of them become frustrated and nervous about completing their book before it is too late. Any time you print something about a current event you are running the risk that the public interest in the topic will be limited to the general time around which the event takes place. You would have been able to sell more copies of an expose about McCain/Palin and their negative campaign approach before the results were in than you could sell now that it is all recent history.
One way to safeguard against writing something that would be obsolete before it was printed would be to focus in on a specific area of interest or character involved. You could write a book about the potential variance between polls and the final vote in any election. If (and I am sure they are out there) some writers were well on their way to completing an in-depth study of the life of Sarah Palin, they could pivot the focus of their story and hypothesize as to what Palin’s future will be. By the time 2012 came around whoever had started their study now in 2008 would be top experts in the area of Palin-osophy just in case she decided to run for the Presidency.
The big newsrooms out there have more resources than grassroots political activists. The only way to level the playing field and help your book compete against their products is by staying informed and devoting yourself to the quality of the final product.
From our debate, from our dissension; we are their parents and original.-Wm. Shakespeare
NaNoWriMo.org Week One: Novelist Begin 30 Day Book Writing Journey
Emerging writers from across the world have accepted the National Novel Writing Month Challenge, and they’re already on day four of what could become the first step in a lengthy writing career.
What is NaNoWriMo.com?
NaNoWriMo.org is an innovative, yet fun approach to novel writing. Anyone can register for free, and join the thousands of others in your area who want to finish a novel. All participants began writing Nov. 1, 2008, and everyone will try to write at a 50,000-word novel by midnight, Nov. 30, 2008.
Because of the limited writing window, the only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and simply write. Reread, rewrite and revise later, but get your draft out in November.
As you spend November writing, take comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows, taking breaks and heading to work in the morning. Wrimos in your area even meet throughout the month to offer encouragement and support.
Why NaNoWriMo.org?
Especially since there isn’t a prize beyond finishing your manuscript, which you could complete any month. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Naturally, with such a lengthy endeavor as a novel, we tend to procrastinate. Now, with the support of fellow aspiring writers, you can finish the first draft of your book, revise later, and start sending pitches to publishers within a few months. Sounds like a pretty cool idea to me!
Please offer your support and encouragement to all writers in November, especially the ones who are participating in the intense NaNoWriMo writing marathon. Plus, check out their new addition WrimoRadio, where you can keep tabs on group progress from around the world.
