002 Build and Grow Your Author Platform with Shelley Hitz

October 22, 2015 by Lorna Faith

I had the privilege of interviewing Shelley Hitz in this Podcast Interview. Shelley has coached thousands of authors through her books, training programs and through workshops and conferences. She is the owner of AuthorAudienceAcademy.com where she helps writer become authors and grow their business. She also blogs at ShelleyHitz.com and writes on the topic of helping authors succeed in writing, publishing and marketing their books. She has written over 35 books and has sold more than 100,000 books. You can also find her chatting almost daily on Periscope or connect with her on Facebook or Twitter.

Watch the Video Interview Here

Summary of the Interview:

*Shelley was a physical therapist for 12 years before she resigned her job in 2011. She never imagined she would write and publish books. But when she resigned her job, she had a defining moment as her and her husband needed more income. So after she went through a kindle course in 2012, her and her husband published 23 books and publishing became their primary source of income.

*Shelley says as writers, when you have a strong why, you’ll do it. Authors have other jobs and families to take care of but there needs to be a reason to get more books out there, to help people and grow your author business.

*She says her main topics for her books are in Christian Living or in helping authors to build and grow their author platform.

*Shelley encourages writers to write their message in a book, because a book is a business card that people will no throw away. So go ahead and print out your books.

*Other ways she connects with her audience is through Periscope and Video. She says she did 40 videos in 40 days and did everything from her iPhone. She got better at doing videos simply because she did it everyday. She says writing is similar. Practicing everyday you’ll get better.

*Shelley mentions a book that really helped her by Dr. Gary Hendricks called, The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level. She’s says from reading that book she learned the 4 different zones you work in.

First is incompetence: This is stuff you’re not good at and you outsource it.
Second is competence: This is those things that you can do, but you’re not really happy.
Third is Excellence: This is where you’re really good at something but you haven’t quite hit your sweet spot.
Fourth is your Zone of Genius: This is where you’re God-given gifts are and where you’ll face the most resistance.

*She says to keep your why in front of you. Writing a book has many benefits like growing your business, ministry or list of readers. She says she has put her book How to Write a Book From Outline to Finish Line: 10 Simple Ways to Outline Your Nonfiction Book on permafree on Amazon. And she says she gets about a 1000 new downloads every month. She encourages authors to do that as it’s free promotion for you as an author.

*Learning keywords that people are searching for and the categories will also help you target your readers for your books.

*Shelley says she got an idea for a book while sitting in church one Sunday. It was her book 9 Strategies to BUILD and GROW Your Author Platform: A Step-by-Step Book Marketing Plan to Get More Exposure and Sales and she got an acronym for the words BUILD and GROW.

B is for creating a Bridge for your readers so people find you.
U is to understand your target audience.
I is to invite people into your space… like inviting them into your home for coffee.
L is linking together with others through guest posting, or podcasts.
D is to deliver helpful content to others.
G is to give to your blog, podcast or to your email list.
R is to always be checking your results and see what’s working and what’s not.
O is for your offer. Don’t be in reader’s face about ‘buy my book’ but instead create a relationship and give them a chance to buy.
W is to write more books.

*Shelley encourages writers to don’t think that they need to be the best writer on the planet. Instead remember if you have a message to share, if you have a strong why and you’re willing to put in some work, you can get a great book out into the world. Get it onto paper and then find the support team you need to help you take the next step.

*Right now Shelley is working on a new book about her personal struggles and journey and her passion is to offer hope to people through that. She also just launched her New Podcast to help authors write, publish and market their books.

Shelley would love to connect with you on her website or you can find her on Facebook or Twitter.

What questions do you have about building and growing your author platform? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

How Do You Start Writing Your Book?

October 20, 2015 by Lorna Faith

I struggled for a many years, with fear, self doubt and insecurity… basically procrastinating by reading books on writing before I actually got to writing the words down.

I’ve talked to other writers who have had a similar struggle.

First time writers have asked me: “How do you start? of they’ve told me they’re having trouble with the beginning of their book. Sometimes they’ve spent months doing research for a novel or their memoir, and after filling several computer documents with notes and random thoughts and ideas, they still haven’t started writing their book.

These writers had lots of ideas and information, but the big question that loomed in front of them was “how do I start?”

I’ve also been stumped many times by that very thing. That’s where I was when I first started writing.

You see, my big dream was to write books when I was younger. But in elementary school a teacher who I admired told me my writing was like chicken scratchings. And being a farm girl I knew what that meant.

I was so devastated. I stopped writing down my stories. Instead, I only spoke my stories aloud where it was safe… to my dog, cats and horse. They were willing listeners.

I didn’t write stories again for 20 years. Finally, when I started homeschooling and teaching my own kids how to write stories, my dream was sparked again. Yet for months I tiptoed around that desire. I was afraid to go there again.

The thought of writing wouldn’t let up. So I thought to myself, I could try to learn to write. That seems safe enough.

So after reading books and blogs on writing and listening to podcasts and taking a few writing courses, I started writing and 8 years later I finally published my first novel.

I totally understand the fear, insecurity and self-doubt that most of us have when trying to write our stories.

As writers, when we stare at the blank page, we feel exposed, vulnerable and unsure of where to start.

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Ideas to Help You Start Writing

Each day I ask myself questions like: where do I go from here? or how to I get unstuck?

I think for many writers who are constantly facing this question, the bigger hang-up is that we’re anxious about starting our story off on the wrong path.

Maybe you have a great idea for a story, but before you actually start writing, there are so many different possibilities and ideas that your story could take that you wonder where you should start.

But once you get to writing your story and begin moving on your chosen path with your characters and setting, pretty soon the possibilities for your story aren’t so endless. Now you’ve picked which way you’re going… but at this point you might be worried about whether you’ve gone down the wrong path.

So what are some steps you can take to start writing your book?

1.Brainstorm your ideas into a mind map. This is where I start and it makes a massive difference. All you do is write down all your ideas onto a big blank paper, a whiteboard or even the back of a pizza box. Basically this is a brain dump of what’s in your head of all the possibilities you have for your story. I talk more about how mind mapping works here, but this is something that works well for either fiction or non-fiction.

2.Start writing a couple of sentences that are not from the beginning of your story. Some writers start their books by writing a sentence or a couple of paragraphs that’s from much later in their book. There’s some authors who have even started jotting down ideas from the very last chapter and it works great for them. You can even work backwards from the last chapter toward the first and by doing that, you’ll end up with somewhat of a road map before you even write the first sentence.

3.Write about a character that you find intriguing. Try jotting down a character you have envisioned being the hero of a story. Explore the character’s appearance, her or his name, write this character doing something or saying something in a scene. If you want, add another character as a friend to your first character and describe that person too. Be really descriptive about their clothes, how they look(eyes, hair, height, weight) and their personal likes and dislikes. Also, explain where they are – the setting – in great detail. By the time you’ve done this, who knows, you might just keep writing and have a full blown story ready to be written.

4.Write little nuggets of small-ish scenes, or part of a chapter. The scenes don’t have to relate to each other. Maybe there’s a favorite romance scene you thought of, or a suspense filled idea for the ending, write that. For non-fiction, maybe there’s a part in your book that you know inside and out and would be incredible easy to write. Start with that. You’ll not only boost your confidence, but suddenly writing the rest of the book won’t seem so intimidating.

So those are some ideas that have really helped me to start writing, when I’ve felt stuck. I talk about more ways to get unstuck in my new release Write and Publish Your First Book: A Step-By-Step Blueprint to Write, Self-Publish and Market Your Fiction or Non-Fiction Book.

I hope it helps to give you more ideas on how you can begin to write your book.

What are some ideas that help you start writing when you’re staring at the blank page? Please share, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

6 Ways to Market Your Book

October 15, 2015 by Lorna Faith

What are the steps authors can take to market their books to their targeted readers?

Getting books into the right readers hands is a little selling coffee.

Think about this scenario: What if a new flavour of coffee was offered at your favourite coffee shop, and it was a flavour of coffee you’d been waiting to hear about. But what if you went there day after day for weeks or months or even years – ordering the same regular coffee you always get – without realizing your favourite cup of coffee had been offered at your favourite coffee shop all along?

You might be a little upset that no one had told you about it.

Well, it’s very similar when you publish your book and upload it to digital retailers like Amazon, iBooks, Kobo and others. It’s not enough just to have your book sitting there, you need to have some kind of marketing strategy, or no one will know it’s there.

So what are some ways you can get your book into the hands of potential readers?

*Photo created with Canva

6 Ways Authors Can Successfully Market Their Books

Marketing your book to your readers, is sometimes the most difficult task we do as authors. For two reasons: As writers, we would rather stick to what we know best… writing; and the other reason is that somewhere in our past, we’ve come to see marketing as sleazy and salesy. And that’s the last thing we want to be.

The good news, is that marketing your book to your specific readers, doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it can be interesting and even fun!

Here’s some tips that I want to pass along to you so that you can compel readers to look at and buy your book.

1.Understand Your Keyword Research. This is important to know which keywords to use for your book. What is a keyword? It’s simply a word or phrase that is associated with your book. So for my book – a Historical Romance – it’s important that I don’t just write “Historical Romance” in the Amazon search categories. I could also include: mystery, suspense, religious historical fiction and a few other keywords. Since Amazon allows you to type in 7 keywords and keyword phrases when you upload your book you can make this even more specific.

Use the keywords and keyword phrases that people will be searching for. You can go to the Google Keyword research to maximize your search discoverability for your book. Type in the genre of your book or your book title and see what comes up.

For non-fiction. You can choose a title that is the best by search the Google Adwords keyword research tool and choose a title based on search terms that is more popular.

2. Content Marketing. Blogging, Vlogging, Podcasting, creating Videos these are all forms of content marketing. When you are using content marketing – like blogging – the whole idea is that you are using attraction marketing. You are giving to your readers information that is helpful, entertaining, engaging, and original content.

So think about how you’re going to create content that will attract people to your book. Blogging is great because the more content you put out there, the more people see you as an expert because the more you share what you know – the more they see you that way the more they know like and trust you. When they trust you, it’s more likely they will buy your books and other products.

My blog is where I connect the most with people and where people can buy books as well as other future helpful courses. This can be for fiction or non-fiction.

Also consider audio. Podcasting or using Video is a great way to connect with people because they hear your voice and they start to know, like and trust you quite easily through this medium.

3. Optimize your Book Sales Page on your website. Make your book available on all the digital retail sites. And optimize your book sales page. Have a awesome book cover, and a sales description to pique readers interest. Use keywords, categories and tags(romance, suspense, memoir) for your book on each of the digital retail sites.

Also ask people who have read your book to review it. When you have reviews, the book sites algorithms moves your book higher up on the list so more readers see your book.

4. Build an Email List. Really important to create a email list specifically for your non-fiction and fiction books. Create a sign up at the end of your book with a link and the link should go to your webpage where people can sign-up to be notified when you have a new book.

You can say something on your webpage like: “If you enjoyed this first book, you might also like (the name of your next book). Add your name and email address to be notified when the next book is out! What really helps is when you give away a ebook or something else of value to your readers.

When you have people interested in your book and they signup to your email list, then you also have the potential for readers to review your books.

5. Use Social Media. You might not be sure about the usefulness of social media in marketing your book, or how to use it. In simple terms, social media is a great way to reach a huge global audience. It makes it really easy to chat with people who connect with you and you get to know them and they get to know you.

When using Facebook or Twitter(or really any of the social media channels), you don’t want to be all salesy and say “buy my book” all the time. Instead try to be helpful and inspiring to people. 80% of your tweets and updates should be about retweeting others and giving away great information, and only 20% should be about you and your books. This is what I’ve been trying to do, and it has really helped to connect with more people. I love tweeting and chatting on a daily basis and honestly after awhile I begin to see people I meet there as friends. It’s really quite fun.

Another tip is to double check that your profile is updated with what you are doing, your brand and how you help people and of course include a link to your website.

6. Set up your Author Profile on Amazon, Goodreads and any other digital retail sites. It’s important that you have your author profile set up on Amazon, Goodreads and any other place where you have your book up for sale. Readers will often read the author’s profile and then click the link to check out your website. So keeping it up to date is important too.

To set up a Author Page on Amazon, go here and follow the instructions. To sign up for a Goodreads Author profile go here. You can sign in with Kobo here and create a free account with iBooks here.

So those are the six ways that really help to get readers connected with you and your books so that you sell more books as an author.

The great thing about being a self-published author, is we can continue to tweak our books and our websites and social media profiles as often as we like. It’s really empowering to be able to change a book’s cover or title or even change our profiles on social media or webpages, if we discover a better way to do things. That kind of freedom is awesome 😉

What tips do you have for marketing your book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

*Photo created with Canva

5 Ways Writing a Blog Helps Authors Grow Their Platform

October 13, 2015 by Lorna Faith

Building an author platform, is important if you want to reach out to more readers. A great way to grow your list of readers who are interested in what you have to say and your books, is to have a website where you blog on a regular basis.

This doesn’t mean you need to write every day or even once a week. Even if you only wrote something every two weeks, but did that consistently, you’d find more and more readers connecting with you.

If you are a writer who wants to continue to put books into the world, readers need to easily find you and your books. There are other ways, besides blogging, to connect with readers. I wrote a list of some different forms of content marketing for authors that help readers to discover you.

In my experience, blogging has been the most beneficial content strategy I’ve done to grow my relationships and connections with readers.

In a recent survey where I asked what readers #1 struggle was with marketing their book there was one question that came up the most. It was: Does an author need a website or blog to sell their books?

My answer to that is: I think the advantages of being a blogger outweigh the disadvantages, especially if you are a new author.

But, I would also say that the writing journey and goals are different for each author. There is no ‘one’ way. I would venture to say that having some type of strategy for content marketing is vital so you can connect with more readers who want to read your books. This is important for all authors, whether you are traditionally published or self-published.

I’ve definitely benefited from writing a blog for the past 3 or so years. Writing a couple times each week has really helped me grow as a writer and at the same time has continued to grow my platform.

5 Ways Writing a Blog Helps Authors Grow Their Platform

As writers and authors, asking the question of why should you blog, or why be on Twitter or on Facebook, are important to consider. When you don’t understand your goals, you can’t make informed decisions on how to manage your writer life and get a great strategy – that works good for you – on how to market your books.

Here are three successful indie fiction authors that I know who have chosen to Podcast once a week instead of write blogposts. This is a unique content strategy that has worked well for them. Popular New York Times Bestselling authors like John Grisham or Stephen King, have websites where readers can find them, but as far as I can tell they don’t write a regular blog.

For non-fiction authors, it helps you network with other bloggers/writers in your niche and readers who are interested in your subject will find you. Two great examples of helpful blogs that have also grown the authors list of potential readers are goinswriter.com and thecreativepenn.com.

Personally, I’ve experienced so many benefits because of a commitment to regular blogging.

Here’s 5 ways writing a blog can help you as an author grow your platform:

1.It gives you a home base where readers can find you and opt-in to your email list. As your hub, your blog is your home base where you can direct people to as you surf the internet. When you post on forums, leave comments or guest post on other blogs, readers who want to find out more about you have someplace – your blog- where they can find you. As they read different blogposts on your blog, they can sign up(opt-in) to your email list when you have an opt-in form on your blog. This is a great way to have more conversations with your readers and it also helps you learn to really listen on how to give your readers more value.

2.Blogging gives you another place for creative expression. I have blogged every week since the start of 2012. This has not only given me an outlet but has encouraged me to create a publish what I write. I’ve learned to practice in public, which has helped me find the courage to also write and publish books. As a writer/author blogging helps you find your writing voice, and you learn how to tell a riveting story. All good reasons to blog.

3.Helps you grow content over time and test out ideas. Since it can be overwhelming to sit down and write a 80,000 word book, if you write 80, 1,000 word blog posts, that’s seems much simpler and do-able. Making the task of writing your ideas into small bites, can really empower you to help you meet your writing goals. Each blogpost, is also a awesome way to test out your ideas on a subject that you’re passionate about. Listen to how readers respond and what topics they would like to see you talk about more.

4.A place where other bloggers, podcasters, book reviewers and others can find you. It’s so important that people online can find you. Whether it’s other bloggers, podcasters or book reviewers, you need a place where they can ‘stop by’ to find out more about you and your book. This is also true for people who find you via social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, etc. – they can find you easily and if they read your blogposts, very often if they like what you’ve written, they’ll share it on social media. It’s good to have a place where people can find you online.

5.Helps you create and grow amazing relationships. This might be last on the list, but it’s definitely not least. One of the most rewarding details my blog has helped me sort out, is to create amazing relationships with other writers and authors who are in my niche. I now have close friends that I never would have had without my blog. My blog says a lot about who I am and it like it sends a signal to the world to reach out to like minds. I love that. As an author, there’s not more valuable to create relationships and to get into a conversation with your readers. Sometimes the comment section on a blog can be the most interesting part of a blogpost, where others weigh in with their own ideas and experiences. It gives great feedback and grows your community of readers… which is incredible.

I hope this post gives you food for thought on ways that a blog might be useful for you as an author.

By far, the most successful author blogs I’ve seen, are those where the blogger is passionate about their topic. They really listen and have conversations with their readers and are constantly thinking of new ways of how they could offer more content, value and resources to the people who subscribe to their blog.

If you’ve been sitting on the fence about whether to start a blog, I want to encourage you to start one today. You can start a blog for free at wordpress.com. It doesn’t cost you anything except time. At some point – later on down the road – you might consider switching to a WordPress blog that gives you a little more freedom. I talk about how to set up a wordpress.org blog and email list here.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed about writing a blogpost, you can make it super easy on yourself. You don’t have to write a post everyday or even every week. If you write a 500 – 1000 word blogpost every two weeks, about a topic you are passionate about and just have fun with it, and let people know you’ve started blogging, you’ll be surprised at how many readers you start to grow relationships with. And that’s a beautiful thing.

Do you have a blog? If not, have you considered starting one? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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