First Word

The 10-minute blog results from a full morning schedule of back-to-back meetings. It's the one you do when you already woke up early (and you're not an early-riser) and now you have 10 minutes to write and you don't know what to write. The 10-minute blog is designed to keep your blog readership consistent, posting regular, and writing fresh. Well, fresh is relative when you have 10 minutes and nothing to say. I could, though, prove that I type really fast in 10 minutes ;). Daily blogging is important. It keeps the search engine optimization on the "labels" or keywords out there being picked up by the search engine crawlers. It keeps Google alerts alerting. The ideal is to blog every day. At the same time, don't kick yourself if life gets in the way. Or just do the 10-minute blog.

If you're and author, you should realize that writing is only half the job. The other half is the true business end, which involves promoting and marketing the book. In my writers' group Writers Who Mean Business , I teach writers the "business" of writing not just the writing. While some writers' groups focus on craft, I focus on making the book do more than gather dust on the bookshelf. As a publisher , I feel that is my job. We are right in the middle of promoting the new book Vengeance is Now and my book California Girl Chronicles, Brea's Big Break . I want to break apart the media campaign so if you work in this business you might get some ideas. Please note: An effective promotional and marketing campaign should run at least six months to a year. Media and Book Reviewers -- this is the most popular promotional methodology. You promote the book to the mainstream book reviewers, which these days it's mostly bloggers. (When doesn't the Inter...

A website today is your most important marketing collateral. Yet even in this day and age when everyone generally knows the importance of a website, business owners continue to try and design their own, which is a colossal mistake. If we know your website is an essential marketing centerpiece for your business, why are you attempting to create it yourself? You're not alone. Many small business owners try to build their own websites? They literally waste hundreds of hours trying to "figure" out HTML. They mistakenly believe their abilities to push around a few graphics qualifies them as a graphic designer. They think that English class they took in college and got an A on a paper qualifies them as a professional writer. First, let me debunk why all three of these beliefs are fallacious. 1. Web development is an entire profession . Professionals go to college to learn how to do it. It's not something you can learn overnight. And while you might master the basics, you ...