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NO EXCUSES 3-Week Author Blog Challenge

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NO EXCUSES 3-Week Author Blog Challenge

Tag Archives: author credibilty

Blog challenge benefit: Increase your exposure! Join us on 9/13!

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by marciebrock in 5-Week Author Blog Challenge

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Author Blog Challenge, author blogs, author credibilty, author platform, Phoenix Publishing & Book Promotion, publishing insiders, readers

Blog challenge benefit: Increase your exposure! Join us on 9/13!

When it comes to publishing your book, your platform is more than the stage you stand on to give your readings. To quote a Marcie Brock post:

If you are unfamiliar with the term “platform” as it relates to the publishing world, it’s time to get familiar with it! An author’s platform is his/her ability to reach their audience of book-buyers, or their plan to do so. It is a measure of your EXISTING INFLUENCE and your ABILITY TO SELL to your market. This is why celebrities find it much easier to land book deals than unknown writers – they already have a built-in audience.

The thing about growing a platform is that it’s kind of a cruel joke, because the moreMarcie on a platform famous you already are, the easier it is for a publisher to take notice of you. For example, how many publishers would give their left arms to be able to add Stephen King to their stables of authors? And how much money will they spend on the marketing and displays for the next E.L. James book? Authors who – for good or ill – do not need the support get it because they are already known quantities.

But once upon a time, these blockbuster authors were just Joe and Joanna Average. Then they caught a break and their books burst through, catapulting them onto a perhaps emptier stage than the one you’re trying to conquer. Read the biography of your favorite famous author if you want the details. The point is that you probably don’t have those kinds of resources at your disposal – yet.

Blogging can help you get there. And blogging every day for 35 straight days can begin to give you that kind of exposure, especially if you’ve got good social media running in tandem with your blog. Publishing insiders are on Twitter in HUGE numbers. LinkedIn is a great place to demonstrate your writing chops! Answer questions to achieve expert status on Quora.

If you’re looking for increased exposure for your book, your writing, your person – a blog may just be the vehicle to help you do it! You don’t have to be a published author to come on board – but you’ll get more out of the Challenge if you’re already at least thinking about the book you will write.

We’ll be providing a daily prompt, or you can write on any topic of your choice. It’ll be YOUR blog where you’re posting, after all.

This is a 35-day challenge, so if you fully commit, you’ll have lots of opportunity for to get in front of new readers and GROW. YOUR. PLATFORM! Read the guidelines here, and if you have something to donate for the daily giveaway, please be sure to make note of it on your REGISTRATION FORM.

In the  meantime, if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to email: ABC@writemarketdesign.com.

Looking forward to reading all of your excellent posts!

________________
The 5-Week Author Blog Challenge is hosted by Laura Orsini and her alter ego, Marcie Brock, of the Marcie Brock – Book Marketing Maven
blog. Register TODAY! All who register for the 5-Week Author Blog Challenge will receive a complimentary copy of Laura’s special report: “138 Tips to Help You Blog Like a Pro.”

46-1-052114-akp

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Blog challenge benefit: Improve you writing! Join us on 9/13!

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by marciebrock in 5-Week Author Blog Challenge

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Author Blog Challenge, author blogs, author credibilty, author platform, readers

Blog challenge benefit: Improve you writing!  Join us on 9/13!

 

Bradbury on practice

I got to hear the man himself speak to a packed auditorium at the University of Arizona, back in the late 80s. The one thing I still remember hims saying – and something he repeated again and again throughout his life – was that a writer must write EVERY day. I’ve never forgotten hearing him say it in person, and have read iterations on that advice for years.

So … if you’re still on the fence about joining the Author Blog Challenge, which gets underway on Sunday, perhaps the idea of an opportunity to practice, practice, practice will move you off the fence and into our pool of amazing writers. 

Thus far, we have among the registered participants: a minister, a body language expert, a retired adoption worker, and a retired college professor, to name just a few. You don’t have to be a published author to come on board – but you’ll get more out of the Challenge if you’re already at least thinking about the book you will write.

We’ll be providing a daily prompt, or you can write on any topic of your choice. It’ll be YOUR blog where you’re posting, after all.

This is a 35-day challenge, so if you fully commit, you’ll have lots of opportunity for practice! Read the guidelines here, and if you have something to donate for the daily giveaway, please be sure to make note of it on your REGISTRATION FORM.

In the  meantime, if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to email: ABC@writemarketdesign.com.

Looking forward to reading all of your excellent posts!

________________
The 5-Week Author Blog Challenge is hosted by Laura Orsini and her alter ego, Marcie Brock, of the Marcie Brock – Book Marketing Maven
blog. Register TODAY! All who register for the 5-Week Author Blog Challenge will receive a complimentary copy of Laura’s special report: “138 Tips to Help You Blog Like a Pro.”

46-1-052114-akp

Blog challenge benefit: Repurpose your content later!

04 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by marciebrock in 5-Week Author Blog Challenge

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Author Blog Challenge, author blogs, author credibilty, author platform, repurpose content

Blog challenge benefit: Repurpose your content later!

So you enter the 5-Week Author Blog Challenge and you make it all the way through day 35. Now you’ve got a boatload of new content, so what else can you do with it?

repurposing

The folks over at BufferSocial offer a list of 14 ways you can reuse the content from your blog to increase your reach and visibility, and presumably, grow your author platform. Understand that these are super-skilled social media experts, so not every idea will necessarily resonate with you. But even if you implemented a handful, you’d get more mileage out of your material and see a bump in your visibility.

  1. Update older blog posts with new information, graphics.
  2. Create SlideShares.
  3. Republish content to Medium.
  4. Republish content to LinkedIn.
  5. Republish content to Quora
  6. Create video content from blog posts.
  7. Create audio content from blog posts.
  8. Create ebooks based on your blog posts.
  9. Create new email drip campaigns based on your blog posts.
  10. Build an MVP version of a learning center for greater discoverability of posts.
  11. Create infographics.
  12. Create Pinterest images.
  13. Bundle tools posts into Product Hunt collections.
  14. Use posts to experiment with email communication.

Let’s create lots of content during the Challenge and inform the world!

________________
The 5-Week Author Blog Challenge is hosted by Laura Orsini and her alter ego, Marcie Brock, of the Marcie Brock – Book Marketing Maven
blog. Register TODAY! All who register for the 5-Week Author Blog Challenge will receive a complimentary copy of Laura’s special report: “138 Tips to Help You Blog Like a Pro.”

46-1-052114-akp

Blog challenge benefit: Grow your platform and get more readers!

01 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by marciebrock in 5-Week Author Blog Challenge

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Tags

Author Blog Challenge, author blogs, author credibilty, author platform, readers

Blog challenge benefit: Get more readers!

 

If you fully commit to a blog challenge, you may be posting a LOT more frequently than you normally do. This requires dedication, focus, and organization. The good news is that we’ll be providing prompts for you to use so you needn’t come up with your own topic grow your platformevery day, unless you want to.

Presumably, if you’re taking place in the AUTHOR Blog Challenge, you are an author — or would like to be one day soon. If you’re already published and are looking to grow your platform and readership, participating in a blog challenge can do just that. Here’s why.

Unless you’re babysitting your SEO and adding new content constantly, your regular old website probably doesn’t attract too many new viewers or readers. However, a regularly updated blog can generate a constant stream of new eyeballs from around the world. The quality of your posts will determine whether those visitors keep coming back, share your posts with others, or give you the grand daddy of all compliments by tweeting (or retweeting) your posts.

When you write rich, deep blog posts that intrigue your prospective readers and/or help them solve a problem, they perceive you as trustworthy, accessible, and someone they want to keep reading. If they want more than you can offer in a blog post, they may want to buy your book.

Don’t enter the Author Blog Challenge with your sole goal being to sell more books. Look to expand your reach, grow your platform, and introduce yourself to prospective new readers. Then, keep writing and keep following up!

________________
The 5-Week Author Blog Challenge is hosted by Laura Orsini and her alter ego, Marcie Brock, of the Marcie Brock – Book Marketing Maven
blog. Register TODAY! All who register for the 5-Week Author Blog Challenge will receive a complimentary copy of Laura’s special report: “138 Tips to Help You Blog Like a Pro.”

46-1-052114-akp

Winter Author Blog Challenge – Writing Prompt #12 and Recap of Day 11

12 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by marciebrock in Winter Author Blog Challenge

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

#authorblogchal, Author Blog Challenge, author credibilty, author social media, authors, blog challenge, social bookmarking, social media, squidoo

Winter Author Blog Challenge – Writing Prompt #12 and Recap of Day 11

StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Reddit … where do YOU bookmark socially?

You had to know that GoodReads was going to be a popular topic with Authors, right? Some are using it more than others, but as with everything, there’s usually room for growth. Now we’re talking Squidoo! Saw great enthusiasm for this nifty platform. Keep reading for more thoughts…

Yesterday’s prompt was about Seth Godin’s platform:

Do you have a Squidoo lens? Founded by Seth Godin, Squidoo is a popular ROCKETSQUID_rocketeer2free site that enables users to create single webpages (known as lenses) about their interests and recommendations. Users can even earn money for charity or themselves. The credibility-building potential rivals Quora, but unlike question-answering sites, Squidoo users are free to create content of their choosing. The SEO rankings are quite high – but it remains incumbent upon the site’s users to double-check the veracity of information provided. Challenge questions: What are the benefits to using sites like Quora and Squidoo for building credibility? What can they offer that your website or blog doesn’t already do? How could this help you sell more books? If you are on Squidoo, remember share the link to your favorite lens.

SNIPPETS FROM YOUR POSTS

ALANA MAUTONE. I am on GoodReads, but, I rarely update. Why?

I like to browse around in my local library. Most of what I read is books in the new book (new-to-the-library, that is) shelves that catch my eye. Sometimes I’ll devour the book in a couple of sittings. Sometimes it will sit for most of the three-week period my library allows you to take books out for, and then “suddenly” I’ll get an urge to read it. Sometimes, time’s up and I haven’t even cracked the book. Back to the library it goes. Other times, I read 3 or 4 books at the same time. So, enough times, by the time I think about getting onto GoodReads, I’m done. READ MORE HERE.

Oh, Alana, I can so relate to the way you read. Isn’t it amazing how sometimes the books that call to you in the library don’t warrant a second look at home, and the ones you where you thought, “Oh, what the heck – I’ll see what this is about” sometimes grab you and won’t release you till they’re read? LO

ASHLEY HOWLAND. The prompt for today was about Squidoo. Now I thought I was doing okay with the whole social media thingamajug. However I have recently discovered I don’t use it very effectively at all. What do I need to be better? Well the answer is simple and it’s also impossible. I need more time! Who doesn’t? So I am making a plan and I will blog my process because I will need to get some feedback, but also because what I have learnt over the last week or so might help other authors. I am more than happy to help others, that’s why I started the Stitch Says blog! READ MORE HERE.

When you figure out how to make more time, Ashley, please come back and let all of us know! LO

MELISSA KHALINSKY. I signed up with Squidoo years ago, mostly to get names for my business before anyone else did. It was so long ago that I no longer have the email address I originally signed up with!! OK, it was 2010 – but in Internet terms, this is almost ancient history! It’s a pity I can’t change my username there, though… When looking at this prompt, I reactivated my account. I can see that I didn’t know how to use it properly back then, but now I can see a lot of potential for promoting books, especially some of the non-fiction work I’m writing. READ MORE HERE.

I love your user name, Melissa! Had the same issue with MySpace. My page still exists, and portions of the info are still correct (from 2001), but I cannot get into it to update it anymore. LO

LINKS TO ALL POSTS

Revisit the Mister Linky site to see links to ALL of DAY 11 posts.

DAY 11 WINNER

Congratulations to Rundy Purdy, winner of the drawing for Day 11 of the Winter Author Blog Challenge. He has won a gift from Tweaking MADD. This collaborative magazine caters to students, artists, photographers and writers. Its goal is to facilitate the publication of unpublished writers and existing artists, photographers, and administrative talents enabling smaller narrators a voice in the world of publishing. Tweaking MADD offers one free year of hosting for an individual or corporate blog, complete with links allowing for promotion within Tweaking MADD. By advertising and networking, the successful blog will be highlighted as an individual and star feature along with a joint product within the structure of Tweaking MADD. This is essentially free advertising for the owner of the blog.

Thanks to Cheryl Van Hoorn for this donation! We’ll email Rundy with info about claiming his prize.

WRITING PROMPTS

The end is in sight! Here we go with the Day 12 writing prompt for the Winter Author Blog Challenge…

A social bookmarking site is a “centralized online service” that gives its social bookmarksusers the ability to add, annotate, edit, and share links to web documents. Bookmarking, also known as “tagging” is a significant feature of social bookmarking systems, enabling users to organize their bookmarks in flexible ways and develop shared vocabularies known as folksonomies. Popular social bookmarking sites include Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg. Do you regularly use any social bookmarking sites? Why do you use the ones you use? What are the benefits of social bookmarking? What are the specific benefits of social bookamarking to authors? If you’re not using a social bookmarking site, you’re missing out on a key aspect of social media: referrals by the users. Is social bookmarking something you should consider incorporating into your online book marketing strategy? Give us links to your profiles, if you have them.

POST YOUR LINKS

In order to qualify for today’s drawing, you MUST post your link on our Linky. Click the image below to access it. In the field that says YOUR NAME, you write your name AND the name of your post (not the title of your blog). In the field that says YOUR URL, include your link to TODAY’s post. Your post will not count for drawings and toward overall winner if you do not add your link to the Linky page. However, we still encourage you to share your posts on the wall for the Author Blog Challenge Facebook group.

As we head into the last few days of the WABC, we continue to encourage you to read each others’ blogs. The Author Blog Challenge works because you support each other by reading, promoting, sharing, and talking up the great posts you come across from your fellow participants. Explore each others’ social bookmarking sites – they may be sharing cool stuff!

Let the blogging continue!

Laura & Marcie

__________________

The Winter Author Blog Challenge is hosted by Laura Orsini and her alter ego, Marcie Brock, of the Marcie Brock – Book Marketing Maven blog. Please visit Marcie’s blog for loads of great info about low- to no-cost methods of marketing for self-publishing authors.

Winter Author Blog Challenge – Writing Prompt #11 and Recap of Day 10

11 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by marciebrock in Winter Author Blog Challenge

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#authorblogchal, Author Blog Challenge, author credibilty, author social media, authors, blog challenge, goodreads, social media, squidoo

Winter Author Blog Challenge – Writing Prompt #11 and Recap of Day 10

Twenty-four Squidooooooooooooooo…

LOVE the participation in the Winter Author Blog Challenge! Even the old pros are being introduced to new social networking platforms and getting new ideas for marketing their books. That’s the whole idea! If you like what’s happening here, please tell your friends! We’ll do this again in August … so let folks know it’s coming.

Yesterday’s prompt was a little more accessible to a lot of you…

Are you on GoodReads? It seems a pretty obvious place for authors to hang goodreadsout, yet I’m not sure authors are using it to quite the maximal benefit. If you are on GoodReads, how often do you visit/use the site? How often do you update your reading list? What other kinds of things do you post? Are you finding yourself using it the way social media was intended: to create a community? If you are NOT on GoodReads, have you made a deliberate choice to skip it? What other mechanisms do you utilize for meeting other readers/writers/authors? How else could you begin to create your very own community? Share your GoodReads profile with us.

SNIPPETS FROM YOUR POSTS

MERLENE FAWDRY. I’ve been on GoodReads since 2009. It is a good place for writers and readers to hang out but I, like many others I suspect, do not use it to maximum benefit – notice I have found a way to avoid pointing out once again how intention has not met expectations. READ MORE HERE.

Merlene, I could well relate to your periodic use of GoodReads and wondering what happened since last time. Kind of like noticing a new building that’s gone up on a corner you haven’t passed in a while. Thanks for sharing. LO

Kebba and Alana wrote on other topics.

KEBBA BUCKLEY BUTTON. There are many ways we can participate in peace ministry.  Today, I had an extraordinary experience.  I took a group to a showing of the film, Jun-Ai.  The film tells the story of Japanese settlers abandoned in China, the day Japan surrendered at the end of World War II; in it, one of the Japanese women changes the lives of all she meets, gradually, through patience, love, and kindness. READ MORE HERE.

Loving your peace series, Kebba! LO

ALANA MAUTONE. What does a former British rock group that formed in 1968 and disbanded many years ago have to do with the U.S. Civil War? Two weeks ago, when I was researching my Civil War Sunday blog post, I visited a couple of newspaper and magazine websites and read some Civil War related articles.

Have you ever noticed what happens when someone writes an article about the United States Civil War (or any other subject), posts it online and allows comments on the article? Allowing people to comment on newspaper and magazine articles online is a form of social media I could normally do without. … When you read the comments on Civil War articles, it quickly becomes obvious that we, the American people, are still fighting the Civil War that officially ended in 1865.  Usually, within 5 or 6 comments, the posting people, North vs. South, are going at it with a ferocity that makes you wonder if this war, 152 years old in our hearts and minds, will ever end. But this time, in one of the comment sections, there was a difference. READ MORE HERE.

Every bit as intriguing as it sounds, Alana! LO

LINKS TO ALL POSTS

Revisit the Mister Linky site to see links to ALL of DAY 10 posts.

DAY 10 WINNER

Congratulations to Ashley Howland, winner of the drawing for Day 10 of the Winter Author Blog Challenge. She has won a copy of Merlene Fawdry’s My Magdalen Home, which can be reviewed at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/288361. Thanks so much for the donation, Merlene! We’ll email Ashley with info about claiming her prize.

WRITING PROMPTS

Forward! Here we go with the Day 11 writing prompt for the Winter Author Blog Challenge…

Do you have a Squidoo lens? Founded by Seth Godin, Squidoo is a popular ROCKETSQUID_rocketeer2free site that enables users to create single webpages (known as lenses) about their interests and recommendations. Users can even earn money for charity or themselves. The credibility-building potential rivals Quora, but unlike question-answering sites, Squidoo users are free to create content of their choosing. The SEO rankings are quite high – but it remains incumbent upon the site’s users to double-check the veracity of information provided. Challenge questions: What are the benefits to using sites like Quora and Squidoo for building credibility? What can they offer that your website or blog doesn’t already do? How could this help you sell more books? If you are on Squidoo, remember share the link to your favorite lens.

POST YOUR LINKS

In order to qualify for today’s drawing, you MUST post your link on our Linky. Click the image below to access it. In the field that says YOUR NAME, you write your name AND the name of your post (not the title of your blog). In the field that says YOUR URL, include your link to TODAY’s post. Your post will not count for drawings and toward overall winner if you do not add your link to the Linky page. However, we still encourage you to share your posts on the wall for the Author Blog Challenge Facebook group.

As we head into the last few days of the WABC, we continue to encourage you to read each others’ blogs. The Author Blog Challenge works because you support each other by reading, promoting, sharing, and talking up the great posts you come across from your fellow participants. See who among you is already on Squidoo and connect with them!

Let the blogging continue!

Laura & Marcie

__________________

The Winter Author Blog Challenge is hosted by Laura Orsini and her alter ego, Marcie Brock, of the Marcie Brock – Book Marketing Maven blog. Please visit Marcie’s blog for loads of great info about low- to no-cost methods of marketing for self-publishing authors.

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