Author Holly Tucker is about to release her book “Blood Work” on March 21st. Check out her pre-release activities to help market her book.

Holly has great cover artwork, and she uses it. She also happens to be adorable herself, so she has her photo in her newsletter. She has created regular and clearly-written contact with her potential reader base, and she’s quick to remark on things like positive reviews (in Publisher’s Weekly – congrats, Holly!) in her neatly crafted newsletter.

But here’s the thing I like the most about this newsletter: the opening line. “My amazing agent, Faith Hamlin, wrote something today in response to a bunch of questions that I had sent her. ‘You’re doing. Fine. Don’t worry.’ ” The periods are what caught my eye. It’s subtle, reassuring, and you want to know the answer to the implied question. It’s like a promise stating, this will not bore you. It slows down the reader and forces them to pause and pay attention.

A good subject line or opening line is tough to write. It must convey excitement, create good feelings in the reader’s brain, and encourage them to read the rest of it. I rarely read an entire newsletter, I confess. So many of them are poorly-written, contain no useful information, etc. But Holly’s style is very readable, and even though she’s not giving me anything scientific I can use in my business, I want to know about her journey as a Writer, as the creator of the “second baby” as she refers to it. I feel her excitement. I want her to succeed.

Good luck Holly! You can learn more about the book here: http://www.holly-tucker.com/blood-work/#about and follow her on Twitter as @history_geek.

If you are trying to sell ebooks to mobile readers (and who isn’t?) you must read this post by blogger Piotr Kowalczyc. The entire post is written in bullet points, with exact instructions on how to sell more ebooks to mobile phone readers.

(And by the way, this is precisely what I do every day. Trust me. It definitely does sell more ebooks.) I might add, that you can use your own affiliate link (Amazon calls these “Associates” when referring traffic to your own books. He also gives great points on using hashtags on Twitter.

Here are the first few lines of the post, just to whet your appetite:

“If you are a self-publisher actively using social media to find readers and draw their attention to your books (probably published in an electronic form), this post is for you.

I’d like to share a simple way to make your e-book available for instant purchase by mobile phone users. As you’ll see – it’s very easy.”

Good luck!

I really like Chris Garret’s honest comments in this article about his experiences with affiliate marketing. While he talks about it more from the standpoint of running ads for someone else’s product, rather than having an affiliate program for your own products, he gives encouraging advice that mirrors my own.
Pay special attention to his remarks about mistakes that he made while starting up: as a product owner with your own affiliate program, you can use quality documentation (good written instructions) to make it easier for your affiliates, build their trust, and help them to avoid potholes.

Jill Exler is a Mum, Author, and Entrepreneur who is really hitting the streets with her tool for self-published Authors, Jexbo.com.

Jill’s smile isn’t the only bright thing about her. Jexbo only takes 5% for any self-pubs that list their books on her site, as compared to (ultimately) over 50%, depending on the variety of services available for Authors. Jill created the site herself after stuggling with her own self-publishing issues.

I love that Jill took things into her own hands, and that she’s kept her business model so simple. Her service is complemented by an interview series (Hey Jill! I’m available!) and a newsletter aimed at self-pubs. It’s all about helping self-pubs advance their businesses.

Jill takes things seriously, and she doesn’t mess around. You can follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jexbo. What a clever cookie.

I’m heading to BlogWorld Expo (#BWE10) this week, this year to focus on podcast and blog syndication. I’ll be live tweeting (@peggyrichardson) from the conference, including a mixed bag of speakers and conference sessions.

Last year, I had a similar mission, to learn about video blogging. But this year, having changed some of my podcasting approach to be more spontaneous and less edited, I’m now eager to learn more details about things like syndicating my podcasts, expanding my audio podcasting efforts, and learning more about the relationship between blog content and the various types of RSS syndication.

This year, BWE has slightly changed their approach as well. They are now the largest social media conference, and they’re actively promoting the social media aspect of the show. The speaker list reflects this, and @AngelaCrocker will also be livetweeting from the sessions. She and I often have different takes on these issues, so it may be of interest to compare her notes to mine. We may be in man of the same sessions, or we may not.

If you have any questions or things you’d like me to explore while I’m there, feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to answer your queries.

If you’re also attending, please introduce yourself! I’ll be the tall geeky chick hanging around with the other tall and slightly-less-geeky chick, @AngelaCrocker, one of my fellow @TheBookBroads.

Tweet you later!

This past weekend, I attended two events. Friday was #bcvan10, or BookCamp Vancouver, and Sunday was #smcv10, or Social Media Camp Victoria. Both events made quite an impression on me.

Here’s a bulleted list of what I learned at Social Media Camp and BookCamp. (I’m too tired to turn my notes into prose.)

1. I need to leave the house more often. (So much for the glamorous benefits of being self-employed.)
2. Book publishers are trying really hard to succeed in the area of eBooks. Some are fighting the ePub revolution tooth and nail, but many houses are working to convert entire back catalogues to ePub format. The problem is, they’re spending far, far too much money to do it. Their methodology for this needs serious re-examination.
3. Social media ROI is measurable after all – it’s not just about karma. Correlating the relationship between tweets and visits to my blog is easy. Visits to my blog has a direct relationship to new client intake. (But don’t mess with karma, regardless.)
4. I’m not the only one who wants to know the real people behind my social media connections. People can build a certain amount of trust online, and that’s accomplished best with video (I know that from personal experience – nobody said it this weekend) but meeting people in the real world is what closes the deal.
5. My personal understanding of the way SEO and social media work together was not fantasy – it was bang on. (Blog post or white paper forthcoming.)
6. I think I’m going to re-issue a number of the eBooks I’ve created under various pseudonyms with my real name slapped on the front. Re-brand, re-market.
7. People trying to self-publish fiction need a whole new way of connecting and doing business. I hope that some of the people I met on Friday at BookCamp have a chance soon to attend Social Media Camp. Everyone in that business is either lost, frustrated, or slowly going broke. It’s crazy. Non-fiction has it much easier, but there’s a reason I don’t do fiction. It’s just sooooo hard.
8. It was very encouraging on Friday to hear that so many people are on the eBook bandwagon. I had serious concerns about being the naughty eBook girl in a room full of hardcover lovers. (Which I still am, by the way.) But instead, I felt encouraged and optimistic about the relationship between eBooks and traditional publishing houses, for the very first time. Many companies might survive, including ones that only a year ago had self-prophesied their doom.
9. I need to be much more consistent about my own application of social media. My Klout rating had dropped to *6* from 24. But, after today, it’s now up to 35. @meganberry was right – it’s not about the number of followers.
10. This is going to be a crazy next three months.

And one more thing: #11. Affiliate marketing is still the big pothole that I see missing from both the book marketing picture and the social media picture. (Document of some sort forthcoming.)

Cool people I met, connected with, or otherwise admire from this weekend:

- http://twitter.com/unmarketing (Scott Stratten, Keynote at #SMCV10)
- http://twitter.com/julien (Julien Smith, Keynote at #SMCV10)
- http://twitter.com/jmaxsfu (John Maxwell, Professor at SFU, co-organizer of #bcvan10, eBook advocate)
- http://twitter.com/justyn (Justyn Howard, Speaker at #SMCV10)
- http://twitter.com/brendonjwilson (Speaker at #bcvan10)
- http://twitter.com/raincoaster (Lorraine Murphy, Speaker at #SMCV10)
-  http://twitter.com/Kathleen_Fraser (Speaker at #bcvan10 and Mpubber)
- http://twitter.com/stitchtowhere (Cynara Geissler, Speaker with Kathleen at #bcvan10)
- http://twitter.com/seancranbury (Host of Books on the Radio, guy with camera, co-organizer of #bcvan10, Mpubber)
- http://twitter.com/daveohoots (Marketing Dude for Hootsuite.com and Speaker at #smcv10)
- http://twitter.com/tpholmes (co-organizer of #smcv10)
- http://twitter.com/meganberry (Marketing Manager for Klout.com and Speaker at #smcv10)
- http://twitter.com/somisguided (Monique Trottier, Social Media chick and consultant, co-organizer of #bcvan10)

I’m super proud to be speaking at this year’s The Word On The Street Festival in Vancouver, BC. On Sunday, September 26th, the other two Book Broads and I will be hosting a FREE panel titled “Build it and they will come – NAH!” It’s all about book marketing, publicity, and generally being in people’s faces.

The description of our talk goes something like this: “Many writers assume once the book is complete, it will sell itself, right? Wrong. No matter the method of publication — traditionally published, entrepreneurially published, or electronically published — the onus of promotion falls on the author. The Book Broads offer practical advice for writers (published or not) to raise their profiles, extend their reach and build their fan base.
Join Angela Crocker, Kimberly Plumley, and Peggy Richardson as they take the sting out of the overwhelming prospect of media interviews, blog posts, Facebook updates, podcasting, and so much more.”

Queue up early! We start at 1:45pm downstairs in the Peter Kaye room of the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. (Yeah, that building that looks like the Roman Colloseum.)

See you there!

I’ll be speaking with the other two Book Broads on Sept. 25th for the Editor’s Association of Canada (Editors.ca), about Creating and Editing Social Content, from 10am to 4pm at SFU’s Harbour Centre Campus, in downtown Vancouver. George Plumley, the Author of WordPress 24 Hour Trainer will be joining us to talk about WordPress, the world’s most widely-used blogging platform and content management system. (And the platform upon which this blog you’re reading is built.)

The focus of our talk is about creating that which really drives social media: CONTENT. Without loyalty to platform, we’ll talk about various platforms and their advantages and disadvantages, including blogging, FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many many others. We’ll send you away with some fast tools that you can put to use right away, and of course, some chocolate.

Early Bird pricing ends Sept. 14th, $100 for Members of the EAC, and $160 for non-Members. Click here to register.

Read this fantastic blog post by Tim Ferriss; book marketing guru, world traveler, and Author of The 4-Hour Workweek. Please pay special attention to the part where he mentions, “First off, writing books is a terrible revenue model for authors.”

His summary of the opportunities in eBook marketing are very clearly pointing to using affiliate marketing as the way to make that huge hit really happen. This is the important component that I see missing from almost every single plan that every Author has put in front of me, like, ever. If you want to make money from eBooks, learn every little thing you can about affiliate marketing, and then do it for a couple of years before you decide to get serious about the details.

I love this guy.

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.