Searching for SEO Content and Butter Knives

Indie authors, we are not alone!! I hear that even published authors, these days, are responsible for finding SEO content for their platforms.  Blogging and social media is not enough?  When do we have time for more?!!  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, so isn't that just Google's problem or the spiders that help websites and blogs 'show up' in search results?  No.  Sorry.  We are now quite encouraged and motivated (as the results are often the difference between lots of fans and no-ownership platforms) to find content that brings in new fans, and helps us connect with readers.

In otherwords, the content part of the word SEO content is the hook: or, the reason searchers go to your blog from their search results page - or, your website, your fb page, and so forth.  So, a book-buying mother, who is looking up fairies might have typed in Fairy Birthday Parties.  She has typed just one of the reasons, as a book buying mother, that she might look up (and go to) my blog with a faerie-based book.

All this leads me to the reason I am writing this post.  If you are an Indie author, think twice - no 13 times - before choosing vlogging as your SEO content.  Shakespeare's Rosalind took up less of his time, honestly; and though he probably didn't shower as often, sleep in his own bed, or smell that good during his musings around between writing time; he did get back to writing as his focus.  Not so sure that vlogging as a mistress muse is as giving, forgiving?  Understanding?  No.  She isn't.  She is quite the demanding whore, as I have found out - and relentlessly impossible to ignore.

Run.  If you have chosen vlogging, you already know.  You need a shower.  You need your 4 food groups on a plate, instead of eating with just one hand.  You need two hand free, not just one holding a caffinated beverage.  We all have needs.  Vlogging extinguishes yours like a prima-donna girlfriend with a hot temper.  I don't want a girlfriend.  I wanted young readers to discover my books. I hope after bags of craft supplies, hours of crafting, videographing, editing, and drinking coffee, they do discover my Faerie Project and love my books.  Try the link if you don't believe me.  I have to go now.  Part I of a vlog post is requiring my undivided and overly-stressed out attention.

FYI: If you do choose vlogging, choose a topic you LOVE.  I'm not sure I even like Faeries anymore, and I have at least 2 more books to go before they love me back, if in fact, our relationships do last through the vlog years.

How to Become An Amazon Best Selling Author

I've done it! I have become an Amazon Best-Selling Author.  However, its not quite what I had thought it would be.  For one thing, it is slightly an overly noble title for what actually occurred.  It is, however, every bit what the many Youtubers and bloggers told me it would be.  It has perhaps opened doors for me too, I've been accepted to appear among Oregon authors at Holiday Cheer - a 50 year old event with authors and their 2014 published books in the room.  My neck began to sweat and my toes tingle just typing that!  I must tell the truth, the genre menus are as important as the webinars say.  And, free promotions help.  Um, okay, they more than help.  To an Amazon search engine, a free promo book is the same as a sale; and, with the Kindle Select

How to Code a Book Description on the Kindle Bookshelf

Self-Published and Indie-Published authors, watch this short video to learn the basics of coding your Amazon book descriptions.  If you hired someone to put your book into the Kindle book store for you, take a minute to check the look of your book titles and descriptive information to be sure they match with promoted books, which are offered in the online store's platform.  This video tells you how to put your book title listing in Amazon's branded orange, and your first line in bold for ratings within the store.  I put this video together, so comment if you have questions and don't forgett to click on the like symbol.

Watch: How to Code Your Book Description

Facebook Pages for an Author's Book - is it Really Effective?

During most Facebook interactions, creative types and authors often find less business, more chat, and liking hilarious, puppy photo posts rather than getting down to selling more books.  So, when working on a platform, knowing how much extra work, writing, formatting, and posting goes into each spoke of the platform wheel, it is crucial to make decisions about where these efforts will be most effective for an author's valuable time.  Afterall, it could be book writing time that is spent at these outposts, but these are where a readership gets met with and believes in the value of the author's content.  In other words, a post about the author's cat, just might get people thinking about trying or downloading the book sample on the same page.  Buried under posts that are beyond an author's control, however, could be the link to the book or even an excerpt.  That's when Facebook pages, in addition to the Facebook site come into play as being worth the effort, although they are like their own page, they can have all the friend links and friend posts, as exist on the main page. In other words, authors should definitely add the page feature - just for author/novel content.

Two effective strategies to making this time consuming - and tangent creating - social media avenue worth every hour

1.  Use Aweber's mail list creator to add to your novel's page.  A great tutorial can be found at The Creative Penn, by Joanna Penn.
2.  Create a blog tour for your book.  A terrific tutorial can be found on Youtube by Mandy Lynn, a teen author who shares her experiences in self-publishing and what she calls 'doing it right'.

Both strategies, along with a page for the book on Facebook, can bring along a readership with a place to connect and be heard.  Readers and book bloggers have a resource to connect with the author, directly, or comment and share, well, hilarious puppy photos.  : )



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Writing Does Not Always Mean Writing Literature

For those who did not read the classics, and cannot recognize staunched literary quotes, all is not lost when willing to find a voice within the writing of their own.  Many genres are open to writers with a particular skill set that is not literary, necessarily.  Here are a few niches where the authors who fit into these genres, can find life-long, financially rewarding careers through inclusion of specific elements sought by the publisher and the readership.

• Horror
• Erotica
• Romance Novels - with publishers like Harlequin
• Non-fiction How-to as a Professional in Specific Topic 
• Travel Writing
• Environmental

Adherence to grammar is not the same thing as literature, as occasionally assumed.  Many great authors of literature made grammatical errors which came out more as artistic decisions rather than errors, as these notable choices led to distinct voice in the writing, or soul in the prose.  The niches, listed here, require writers to adhere to recognizable aspects within the writing that readers of these niche groups look for; even then, however, there are rule breakers who surprise and astonish their readership with fresh, new, and different writing.

Author's Website - A Must for Self- and Indie Published Authors

Tips for Creating an Author's Website

When signing up with hosted websites such as Blogger, an author's website is more of a blog than a full service, e-commerce website. Authors who wish to sell books right on their website opt for buying a domain name and URL from a site like GoDaddy.  Since my books sell on Kindle for Amazon.com, I decided to publish a blog hosted by Blogger - Wordpress is another good option, and has even more features specific to helping an author succeed.

Hosts like Blogger and Wordpress can accommodate a purchased URL with a program where you buy your domain name in order to have a dotcom as your address even though your site is under the umbrella of the blog host's platform.  Its very inexpensive, only $10 per year and there are a few extra bells and whistles, at first, although the features of the blog remain virtually the same.  Its not the same as a full-service site, but you don't have to be your own web developer to own your dotcom URL.  An author's website is a necessary step in building a platform, so appearing to own the URL is, for some, a status symbol.  Authors who have built a platform on the web, already, probably went this extra step to help brand their name; or, they own their domain with web developer tool access.

Either way you decide to go, you'll need an author's website or blog with your name on it.  The next step is to decide what kind of SEO content you'll add to its pages, and the specific aspects to include to sell your book and provide information.

SEO Content Isn't the Same as Book Selling

As an author and writer, I keep two seperate blogsites which link to my Indie publishing blogsite. This helps me keep each purpose in its own package (I try to refrain from going off on tangents or mixing content up, this way).  Some authors like to keep it all on the same page - book selling and SEO content - however, understanding the difference between the two, first, helps you include both the salad and the entree in your website's content.

A blog with SEO content helps you sell books, moreover, it helps you create a platform.  You are a person, with a book, and a cart to checkout or buy the book.  This equals book sales. Prompts for finding your best SEO content can be questions like "Well, what else do you do?" or "Why does that matter to a reader who lands upon/looks for your site?" In other words, imagine a viewer of your page asking you, "How does this help me?"  Base the next prompt on what your content is about and ask if you can help: "I am trying to find a book market, (a sewing machine, a tomato cage, etc)."

As a self-published author, you will have more than one book. And, yes, probably more than one Facebook page or Google+ page as you go.  Marketing the places you sell your books, your books, and your social media sites is now involved in your marketing task.  All of these pages now must contain links to your events, online book tours, book festivals, signings, or launches, and links to buying your books.

A good rule of thumb for the self-publishing niche:

1. The author's site contains the information readers look up
2. The SEO content is the information authors look up.

How This Translates with Other SEO Content Subject Matter

Here are other ways of seeing this concept (or rule) played out on your author sites with your web content:

1. The author's site features your book covers, sample chapters, book signings, a raffle.
2. The SEO content is a fan page about your fictional characters with quotes, sign-ups for whatever fans of your characters like to read about, or is referenced by.

Another idea to illustrate the differences:

1. The author site features your photo, bio, press releases, and books about sewing.
2. The SEO content has sample fabric patterns used in the book, links to sewing community pages, articles about sewing techniques, and maybe a pattern download, or something.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  Its really the content a person looks up who isn't looking exactly for your book - but can be reached by your book which offers the kind of entertainment, or

Tips for Promoting Self-Published E-Books

Authors who've self-published usually learn as they go along how to market their books effectively.  The problem with the learn as you go method is that sometimes methodology changes and there is no refresher course.  Technology for book-selling sites is often updated and e-book readers have rapidly improved so it isn't easy keeping up.  Self-published authors and Indie publishers who've learned about changes and updates are the best source for clueing in to what has changed. If you have an e-book already online and even if you haven't yet pressed that publish button, here are some recent updates for the self-published author's book marketing to-do list to help you improve your book's online visibility and its chance for success.

• Get your Amazon.com description coded.  Not too long ago, html code was not necessary to add to your book's description area, but now it is required.  Html coding not only improves visibility, but Amazon requires that their books have the same professional product page.  You can get information about where to find this code from a book called Crush It with Kindle's Youtube.com channel, or you can learn to code it yourself.  The coded description goes on the kdp bookshelf description rather than the Author Central page.
• Reviews and reviewers are not easy to find, but once your book has been reviewed, you can display your reviews from both Amazon.com and Goodreads.com on your author's website.  Goodreads has a widget which allows authors to embed code to add reviews to your own pages.
• TweetYourBooks is a great resource for reviews and reaching a wider audience with book marketing efforts online.  
• Creating a book on Createspace? Formatting pages and the cover to the 6" x 9" format automatically opens up a retail distribution channel that is blocked from other size formats.  If you already have your book out through Createspace you might want to go back and examine whether changing its format would be worth the effort.

Writing is a Career - So Why Are You Looking For a Job?

These days, unless you have an impressive list of awards and award show invites with your name on them, you may as well load the ink into your arm. When does 'writing' become the job that qualifies as a career - the honorable author not the cliche excuse? To your family, its when the sales and bank deposit slips equal the best job you could get  - in today's market and with the skills you already have. For the author, its often the moment you discover your first novel has sold, or when it is sitting on the library's shelf among all the favorites you read as a child.

Writing novels takes time. It requires a dedication not just to writing but also to marketing.  Having a book out often adds to your workload a complete list of duties which a publisher's marketing department has in-house but that you may be expected to do on your own.  Add