http://sethgodin.typepad.com

Seth Godin recently wrote a blog post about how subtlety can be a better approach in marketing. His post really got me thinking.

Subtlety is really about the confidence that you have a great product and that your quality will be shown over the long term.

Subtlety is also about letting the reader take ownership of your message (or your book, indeed) because it was not blasted at them in hi-fidelity.

Ownership of discovery of details is what happens when people read a sample chapter.

Ownership is what makes people feel trust for you as a marketer and an Author.

Trust is what lets people give themselves permission to buy.

Smart guy, that Seth.

I had a great time this year at the Northern Voice conference. The conference was full of incredible people, including Cathy Browne, Kimli, and Rob Cottingham, but there was one other presenter that really stood out for me.

Steffani Cameron’s (@smuttysteff on Twitter) talk about How To Screw Up Your Personal Blog was inspiring, and not just because the content was so personal. Her shoot-from-the hip style of presentation was refreshing and real. She had no overhead slides, and we were able to solely focus on her voice, her story, and her cautionary tale. I felt a familiarity so many times during that talk that it made me rack my brain for where I must have met her before, but of course I hadn’t. Her story is just one that many of us can relate to.

Steffani is a great example of what this conference is all about. Occasional Accountant by day, and sex blogger by night, she is a creator of great content, and her content is created mostly for the sheer joy of creating it.  How different from all the techy and marketing conferences that I’ve been to lately: somebody who actually lets the content drive the blog. That is what Northern Voice is all about, and the importance of Story in blogging was once again brought home to me in a way that was moving and meaningful. Steffani is a normal person who happens to also be a great writer, and that great writer happens to blog about sex. She identifies as a blogger first, and by her topic second, which I loved about her.

When I asked her about all of my writing under a pseudonym, she responded, “Peggy, look at your hair. Who do you think you’re kidding?” Her honesty about her topic has gotten her into hot water with conservative religious bosses and snarky co-workers, but as she so rightly said, “Bloggers have to stop worrying about who they’re going to offend…” and “It’s our job to create great content, and other people’s job to just get over it.” She brushed off the applause to these comments, but really, she was the only one that talked about her failures in such an unprogrammed, clear and unapologetic way.

Steffani, please come back next year. Organizers of Northern Voice, if she doesn’t volunteer, please make her come back.

I’ll be speaking at Northern Voice (#nv10) this weekend in Vancouver, Canada. This is the Canadian personal blogging and social media conference that’s now in its’ sixth year, and is being held at the Life Sciences Centre out at UBC.

I’m very proud to be co-presenting with Angela Crocker and Kim Plumley as The Book Broads. The title of our talk is “Flog Your Blog“, which is all about how to turn your blog into a book. The talk is scheduled for 1:45pm on Saturday May 8th, in room 1510. (That’s a bigger room than we were originally scheduled to use.)

Topics we’ll cover include;

- traditional publishing vs. self-publishing
- how to tell if your blog is a good candidate for publishing
- examples of bloggers who’ve successfully turned their blogs into books
- what *not* to do to turn your blog into a book
- how to use social media in conjunction with traditional publicity to help market your book
- how to choose the right options for various types of publishing
- eBooks vs. print books (and other options you may not have considered)
- how to market your book long before it’s published
- what the real job of a successful Author is
- your first, second and third steps to get it happening

I’ll be following up this session with my workshop on June 19th in Langley (near Vancouver, Canada), the eBook Jumpstart: http://ebookjumpstartlangley.eventbrite.com/.

Hope to see you all there!

Before undertaking any marketing or product creation activity, be sure to setup some free Google Alerts on your business. You may be shocked at what you can discover.

Google Alerts is a free tool provided by Google. The Google search engine is constantly indexing new content all over the web, including content that is directly about you, your company, your name, your competition, your industry, etc. Essentially, this service alerts you by email when any of your chosen key words or phrases appear in their gigantic index of fresh content on the web.

Google Alerts makes fast work of;

- monitoring your brand

- gauging the success of your current marketing efforts

- researching the visibility of key figures/companies in your industry

- watching out for new trends in your market

- being the first to know of major news in a specific area (and then being the first one to re-break that  to your own sub-market!)

Note that Alerts are not a report that people are searching for you – it just means that you’ve been indexed. When people search for those same words and phrases in the Google search engine, only the content that has been indexed will appear in the search results. If you have a website to promote, being indexed is a very good thing – it means your content is easily available to those searching for you.

Google Alerts is selective, in that it will only alert you of fresh content, or rather, content that has recently come to the attention of the index. The more often you update your content, the more you will appear in Google Alerts for the key words and phrases contained in your content. Google’s index prioritizes content with certain characteristics, such as video over text content, and content from sources that are reliably updated on a regular basis. This is part of what forms the mystery of “who gets ranked highest” on Google search results. You can also choose to only find content from blogs, news, video, or other options. (I always choose ‘comprehensive’ so I hear about everything.)

Let’s say that you’ve already performed a good keyword exercise for your business, so you know what words and phrases you want to be associated with. By entering of them into Google as an Alert, you will be notified by email when any fresh content comes up with those words.

I’d also be sure to add;

- your company name,

- your very own name,

- the city or location of your business,

- the names of your competition,

- any applicable industry terms, even if they’re not in your list of marketing keywords because they’re considered “buzzwords” or “insider talk”

Small business can especially benefit from Alerts, because it can be used to filter quite a bit of content very quickly, leaving only local or other highly-specific content available for you.

Before developing any sort of product, try entering some keywords related to the project into Alerts, as part of your product and market research. Monitor it for a couple of weeks and see what comes up. Witness what people are talking about, what their needs are in your niche, and if you have any competition. Is this a busy market? Are people really talking about your niche? Are they using alternate language to talk about you and your niche? Do you need to shift your focus to meet their needs?

Another important discrimination to make is where the conversations are already happening. We all know that rather than trying to get customers to come to us, we should find where the customers already are, and go to them in their own backyard. Alerts can help significantly with this, as it will make a distinction between Twitter entries, FaceBook comments or groups, bloggers talking about the product, news outlets, or other locations. Is one happening more often than another? If there are plenty of bloggers talking about your niche, but no news outlets, then publicize your product by approaching bloggers rather than approaching traditional media. If people are tweeting about your niche, but nothing’s happening elsewhere, don’t bother to write articles – get tweeting!

Overall, Google Alerts is more than just about knowing who’s talking about you; it’s also about knowing what they’re saying, and where, so that you can jump in and join the conversation.

Want to witness the power of this first hand? Try setting up an Alert for “Justin Bieber” – you’ll soon see what I’m talking about, whether you want to know about teen pop stars, or not!

I’ve been saying for some time now that if you don’t start to take video seriously as a major marketing/educational medium, you and your book or other business are toast.

In this article on Biznik.com, Contributor Michael Shuett (who works with a video production company in Washington State) clearly states it yet again. “Being without a professional video will soon be equivalent to not having a website; it will be as necessary as it used to be to have a listing in the Yellow Pages.”

Shuett offers statistics from the Unica State of Marketing 2010 study, which clearly demonstrates that most organizations intend to use video (especially in mobile social media content) this year as part of their marketing strategies. We have known for some time that search results always favour video content over any other content, including text, blog updates, and even audio.

The big obstacle for most of us? We freak out when someone suggests that we should be on camera. I also have a face made for radio, but I still get up there and do video regularly. Consider these options for freaked-out video creators;

• Narrate A Slide Show: This is the least threatening and easiest way to start with video. If you do any sort of speaking or teaching, a good first video exercise might be to take one of your training sessions and simply narrate it while you flip through your slides. This way, only your voice is present, and people will see your presentation, not your face. You can use a variety of tools to create this, including Jing (free) and/or Camtasia (not so free).
• Prioritize Audio Quality: Use a good quality microphone – sound quality is essential. You can get away with crappy lighting and bad photography if people can still hear your message, but if they can’t hear you, they stop watching. A headset is my preference, and seems to get the best results, partly because it’s maintained at a steady distance from my mouth at all times and doesn’t move around. However, I recognize that this can make you look like you’re trying to launch a space shuttle. If you’d prefer a handheld (and there are cases where I prefer a handheld – see a future post about that) you can get away with a surprisingly affordable one. I paid about $160 US for my headset a couple of years ago (here’s a link to something similar – very comfortable, as I wear these a lot) and about $35 for my handheld (including shipping) on eBay. Test everything before you start shooting. (Best tip: be sure the microphone switch is turned to the ‘on’ position. No joke – I’ve done it.)
• Do It Yourself: Although Shuett suggests that video should be professionally-produced or nothing, I must say that I disagree. Video created on-the-fly with a gritty home-grown quality can provoke a better response than professional quality. I mean really, who trusts a script? (You can always tell when it’s a script and someone’s reading from a cue card.) It’s so easy to just sit in front of your webcam and make a fast recording. I’ve even created video while driving. (Safely and legally, I swear.) Homegrown is better than nothing.
• Use YouTube’s Natural SEO Benefits: The overwhelming majority of video viewed on the web these days is still ultimately hosted on YouTube.com. When uploading a video there, you’ll be prompted with a variety of fields, including one specifically for keywords. (Be sure to do your keyword research up front.) Don’t neglect all these other fields – fill them out completely! People don’t necessarily have to find your very own website to discover you. Simply searching YouTube will help them find your video, and this will lead them back to your site, because of course, your URL is clearly present there for them to click on.
• Don’t Edit: After the first few years dealing with editing video, I’m now really a one-take sort of girl. If I mess up seriously, I’ll re-take it, but I hate chopping in second cameras, voiceovers, etc. What a drag, and a delay to posting. I just shoot and post. I will vaguely outline what I want to say verbally before turning on the camera, but I rarely even write it down anymore. If you know your stuff, it comes easily anyway.
• Be Funny: This is synonymous with being real, keeping it loose, etc. Boring = viewers who leave. Funny = believability. If you’re not naturally funny, don’t try to fake it, but keep it friendly at least.

Recently, for the first time, I was recognized in a crowd at a business event, because people had seen me on video. They already trusted me and my company, because they had seen me talk about their subject, and they knew my style. I’ve always said, if a fat chick in her late 30′s isn’t credible these days, who is? It’s the one thing I have going for me. (Along with good teeth.) Find out what you’ve got going for you, and use it on video.

Today was the release of “A River in the Sky“*, the 19th book in the Amelia Peabody novels by Elizabeth Peters. There’s a reason readers keep coming back.

The multiple NY Times bestselling Author Barbara Mertz (aka Elizabeth Peters, and aka Barbara Michaels) was a housewife and mother when she wrote her first novel, The Master of Blacktower, (now available on your Kindle in under a minute) in 1966. Mertz’ numerous pseudonymns make it easy to miss what a prolific writer she really is, with a total of 69 books to her solo credit. She holds a Ph. D in Egyptology from the University of Chicago’s famed Oriental Institute, and many of her books have something to do with archeology or Egypt. The Amelia Peabody series of novels focus almost exclusively in this area, and so far are all set between the years of 1884 and 1923.

Mertz’ character of Amelia Peabody is so involving, so enticing, and so electric that I’ve re-read all 18 of the previously-published books in that series* up to 14 times. They are murder mysteries, with a feel that might resemble the bastard child of Agatha Christie and Indiana Jones. (Having not yet read today’s release, I can still say that “The Last Camel Died At Noon” is her best from the series.) There are no other books that I’ve read with that much enthusiasm since I practically lived in the school library’s Nancy Drew section at age 10.

While many could comment on the literary devices and other romantic reasons that Amelia keeps me coming back, I can reduce it to a few simple points that one might also try to include in a non-fiction work.

1. Higher Purpose

Amelia always has something bigger than herself happening, and while it’s not always life or death, Amelia interacts with a wide variety of famous characters in history, plays a part in incidents of the first world war, and is even present when the tomb of King Tut is first opened. While I’m not talking about creating a grand mythology around non-fiction content, Readers want to know that they’re part of something bigger than themselves. Everyone’s work has a higher purpose of some sort, so it’s important to tap into that and involve Readers in that same sense of purpose. Amelia’s missions are much like many that we all have in our own real lives.

2. Constant Movement

Amelia is in many ways typical of the ladies of her class and era, and yet in many more ways, extremely atypical. She is of course self-disciplined, and extremely British in her general outlook, but she constantly bucks trends and acts very modern. She is an adventurer and discoverer, and she needs little sleep. Her mind is so quick that it blindsides not just other characters in the books, but occasionally, the books include various bits of narration to piece together certain puzzles for the Reader as well. She climbs mountains, both literally and figuratively, and she does so on a daily basis. It is not just important to maintain pace of story, but also to maintain pace of information, and that it is dished out in bite-sized pieces that the Reader is ready for, right when they need it. When creating non-fiction materials, the voice of the Author is often that of a Teacher, and the pace of that teaching is extremely important.

3. Level of Detail

Mertz’ descriptions of tombs, methods, how archeological finds are treated or cared for, and descriptions of tools, Victorian clothing, medicine and medical treatment, and even buildings and transportation are rich and full of detail. Her details of locations paint a clear image of what the area must have looked like, and make the reader feel as though they are walking on the same street. She describes the people of her era in Egypt with respect and deference to their glorious heritage, and the racial prejudice of many of the British people present as loathsome and narrow-minded. Her crime scene descriptions rival that of any modern homicide detective. Readers want to hear about the guts and the glory, and to put themselves in the position of the problem, and then of course, in the solution. And importantly, the content that augments the books adds additional enrichment, including maps and timelines to further clarify things like excavation areas and pre-historic locations. Things like tip sheets, checklists and web links augment any type of non-fiction material.

4. Heroes and Archetypes

I’ve talked (at least, verbally, if not here on this blog) about this concept many times in relationship to the Archetype (versus Stereotype) concept as described by screenwriting trainer Robert McKee*. Mertz does an excellent job of creating heroes and villains, and uses a variety of archetypal-characters, including a number of cats, which form an additional family of personas that many of us can relate to. She has masterfully used many elements of the classic archetype in creating her Sethos character, who is my favourite literary villain of all time. Sethos is Amelia’s dark-ish nemesis, and even though he waits until the third book in the series to appear, he plays a strong role from that point onward. Again, pacing is important here, as more and more details about Sethos are revealed so very very slowly, keeping the reader in suspense. (While the objective in non-fiction is not typically to create a sense of suspense, the importance of deciding on an appropriate pace is the same.) Sethos eventually becomes a hero in his own fashion, and anchors the story in a classic way that cannot be accomplished through any other method. The hero in non-fiction might be a concept rather than a character in that same sense, but the effect is the same.

5. Letting the Reader Think For Themselves

I admit that I have rarely been able to anticipate who the murderer is in any mystery novel, but Mertz doesn’t force the Reader into any sort of conclusions – false or real – too early. She merely presents all the (fictional) facts of the case, and the Reader is encouraged to try to figure it out. Not too coincidentally, this is an essential component in adult education. Since most non-fiction is about educating your Reader (in some way), letting the Reader/Student take ownership of the story or problem/solution combination is essential to getting them on-side, and making them loyal to your point of view. Just look at how I’m evangelizing about Amelia here – I’m one of her peeps because I’ve “helped” her with so many adventures.

As you can see, fiction and non-fiction both rely on classic tools and devices, and in surprisingly similar ways.

*Affiliate link.

(This article reprinted with permission from Joan Craven of InexpensiveKidsFun.com.)

One of my heroes is Joan Craven, of Craven Communications (JoanCraven.com) in Calgary, Canada. Joan is a Mom, Grandmum, Business Owner, Professional Speaker, and about a million other things to boot. She is what I hope I can learn to be like: happy, fulfilled, and most importantly, completely organized. (No kidding. You should take a look under her bathroom cupboards. Everything’s in neat little piles and rows.)

She’s written an article that I feel compelled to share with you as Writers. While she may not have had Writers in mind when she wrote this, it certainly applies to all of us obsessive writing types, who once an idea enters our brains, we cannot sleep/eat/do laundry until it has been purged by writing it out. Balance is not one of my fortes, to which Joan will attest. This simple article seems to set me right, and I’ve posted it on my office wall, to re-read it often.

Sometimes as we think back on our past work week we begin to beat ourselves up over what did not accomplish. That nasty little voice in our head says “why couldn’t you get it all done?” or “if you just used your time more wisely you would have been successful.”

Are you asking too much of yourself? Where is your time being spent?

The value of any work week is based on two things:

1. what we accomplished
2. what we have learned

The first question to ask yourself is “What goals did I accomplish and what ones need more time? Why didn’t specific goals get accomplished? Was I realistic in my goal setting? What have I learned?”

Once you have answered those questions plan out your next week, keeping in mind your professional and personal priorities. Devise a visual method that works for you.

Personally I use a “Things to do list” that has professional and personal goals for the day. When something isn’t accomplished one day I add it to the next day’s list. This has helped me in two ways:

1. I set realistic expectations for myself because I try to jot down estimated time each item will take. I include some stress-reduction type activities. For me that is chatting with a friend, going for a walk, baking, preparing a meal or visiting a library or bookstore.
2. As soon as I think of something to do, I jot it down so it doesn’t keep circling in my head. Once I see my list getting too long for one day I start a sheet for the next. Sometimes I have to juggles items from one day to the next.

Once I trained myself to check my email only twice a day and return phone calls once or twice a day, I had more time for other items. Two other strategies I consciously started were:

1. To turn off my computer at 6 p.m. each night.
2. To only watch 1 hour of TV a day.

All of a sudden I had much more time and I began to sleep better. When I travel to do workshops I now plan for the day-after to be a shortened day where I do ‘mindless tasks’ like filing or sorting or even just some professional reading because my energy is depleted from delivering the workshop. I try to set realistic expectations for myself.

By asking “what have I learned?” when I’m not successful in completing my goals make a huge difference to the way I talk to myself. Sometimes I fall off the wagon and am up completing a project until the wee hours of the next morning or I watch TV all night. Exceptions happen; they are just no longer my norm. What I consciously try to do is build high fences around personal time and strive to balance work and home.

What do you do to find balance in your life? What methods work for you?

Thanks, Saint Joan, for putting me back on track, once again.

Check out this article from iStock.com, about 6 things to keep in mind when designing a logo. These tips can also be handy to keep in mind when designing books, book covers, and typesetting books or ebooks.

Don’t spend valuable time creating your viral marketing video until you examine these simple-but-important tips. All of them are FREE, but essential.

If you’ve heard about video marketing, but are unsure how to really hit the streets with it, all that we’re talking about is creating a small video that helps to generate awareness and enthusiasm around your book, ebook, or other product. You can easily create videos yourself, or hire the pros to do it for you. The video is then distributed through social media channels like YouTube (and other video outlets), FaceBook, Twitter, on blogs, etc. The idea is to use the video as an automated sales device, driving buyers back directly to you or your retailers. You can read an earlier article I wrote about this subject by clicking here.

1. Display the URL on every single frame. Any simple video editing software (yes, including Windows Movie Maker) will allow you to do this in one way or another such as a simple band across the bottom of every frame that displays the URL where people can go to purchase the book.

2.Be sure you have a landing page in place before you release the video. It’s no use inviting traffic unless you have a place to drive that traffic. Simply driving traffic to your standard website is not enough – be sure that you create a page or mini-site especially designed to sell your book.

3. Keep it short and sweet. Videos with long, useless intros or dragging scenes that frustrate the viewer are wasted screen time. Chop them out. The entire video should be less than 90 seconds, and 30 seconds is ideal.

4. Include the techy stuff. In the book universe, people need to know stuff like page count, ISBN, distributors, etc. A teeny splash page at the end is enough to convey this clearly. All products have some sort of techy details, like pricing, style and size choices, etc. Be sure to give the basics for interested potential buyers.

5. Take into account multiple audiences. Authors need to direct the video at not just readers, but also booksellers, reviewers, librarians, etc. These may have many of the same needs, but including a few different details to address each of these viewers is important. This can be done carefully without diversifying too much.

6. Use humour. Who wants to watch a boring, dry, video? Unless your video is about the stress of bankruptcy or the death of a loved one, there’s always a way to use a gentle hand with a bit of a smile. Your goal is to keep them watching until the end. (And in the case of death or bankruptcy, the smile comes from the relief you provide.)

7. Don’t neglect the metadata fields. In YouTube (98% of all viral web videos are distributed by YouTube*) there are fields that you can add a description, keywords, and other behind-the-scenes stuff that gets picked up by the search engines. This is what makes the video viral – it gets found when people search. Do your keyword research and get that stuff nailed down before you even start creating the video.

See a future article very soon about keyword research, which should be the first thing you do before you even think about creating your video.

* See this additional article for similar stats and info.

Here’s a clip I took today during this morning’s keynote at BlogWorld, “The Death and Rebirth of Journalism”, with a panel consisting of (from left to right) Joanna Drake Earl (Current TV COO), Don Lemon (CNN News Host), Jay Rosen (Journalism Prof at NYU and Blogger), and Hugh Hewitt (Radio host and lawyer). The panel was moderated by  Brian Solis (Principal of FutureWorks).

In this video, Don Lemon is describing his feelings about social media vs. big media.

I should note that Mr. Lemon took a few major checks against the boards this morning at this panel discussion, and in my personal opinion, while some of them were rather tough, some of them were deserved. There were some heated moments when I turned my head to see if there were any security guards in the room. Being that I was sitting in the very front row, not 10 feet away from these panelists, I admit at times I felt rather uncomfortable, uncertain how far people might exercise their obviously strong feelings.

The essential points from the Blogger community amount to that they find traditional media to be slow, cumbersome, incomplete, and not without a certain amount of unjustified self-assurance that comes across as arrogance. The traditional media claims not to feel threatened by social media, and furthermore, they want to work with social media to form a more “horizontal” system of news gathering and distribution, rather than a “vertical” one. “Let us in the loop,..” they ask. (This particular comment inflamed the Bloggers in the audience, who felt that they were being asked to do the “dirty work” of data-gathering for journalists, rather than being treated like equals.)

Another heated point related to the issue of fact-checking. While it’s true that the gatekeepers of traditional media make judgements about what to report based on what they feel will be of greater interest to their viewers (read=have greated ad-selling potential), they also perform an essential task when reporting on events: fact-checking.

Lemon openly stated that of course the system could not be perfect, and it was simply not possible to fact-check every single bit of information before it makes the airwaves. Bloggers however, want it understood that while there are some “bad apples” who perpetuate misinformation, perhaps maliciously or more often simply out of ignorance, most bloggers consider themselves ethical enough to want only to report that which can be substantiated and which they know to be true and accurate.

The debate will doubtless rage on for decades more, but this was a very interesting event for me to witness. As I said, heated moments, which made for stimulating and thought-provoking conversation for the rest of the day.