Today I have nubbin lucky enough to visit the blog of fellow Crooked Cat author, Rose McClelland We chatted about our writing routines, what it’s like being a published author and book marketing techniques. Click Rose’s name to see the full post.
marketing
Ninja School Mum blog tour!
Today is the start of my first ever blog tour for my latest book, Ninja School mum. A big thank you to today’s host, author Michelle Abbott for her support and wonderful post.
Check out Michelle’s blog post here:
http://michelle-abbott.weebly.com/blog/launch-of-ninja-school-mum-by-lizzie-chantree
I am currently organising the paperback launch for this book and have set up a Facebook page that explains my whole journey of planning my first ebook launch online, which is on the 30th Jan, to my paperback launch and organising my own blog tour. If you are planning an event for your own writing, there might be some tips from what I have learnt there. Anyone is welcome to join. Enjoy!
Click photo for book link.
Too much information.
Last weekend I had been trying to manage my work tasks, plus organise Christmas for my family after a week of being unwell. Sometimes my head felt like it was full of too much information for it to be productive at all. After climbing a mountain of wrapping paper and filling the cupboards with two Christmas puddings and various festive treats as we have people coming to stay, I decided to stop worrying about what I had to achieve and do something completely different.
I was probably thinking of a brisk jog with my dog or getting some housework done, but I must have walked past the kitchen and I cooked and scoffed one of the Christmas puddings… it was a very small one… instead! The change of thinking (and probable sugar rush) from the process of stepping away from my work load, managed to clear my mind and I was then able to sit at my desk and complete most of the work I had been fretting about finishing for two days.
We sometimes overload ourselves with useless information that holds no relevance to what we need to do. By thinking of them over and over and procrastinating, we are adding to our own confusion and wasting precious time not doing the things we are thinking about. This week i’m going to try not to overthink and also to not walk past the Christmas cupboard too often, as although it was helpful in this instance, the repeat journey to the shops to replenish what I ate is definitely not the way forward!
Making a DreamBoard.
Happy Monday everyone. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I like to have inspiring things around me while I work. In front of my desk is a board with important information and some of my favourite things, like messages from my children, or notices of a few of my past achievements. I read once that its’ good to be able to glance up when you are feeling under pressure and realise what you have done so far. Some of the items I have pinned up are drawings from family, or inspirational quotes or notes from friends. I also have a few certificates or invitations.
Next to my desk is what I call my DreamBoard. It is a huge canvas which is hanging on my wall. On the front of the canvas are pictures of things I’d like to achieve. Gradually I add new dreams and cover old ones with pictures of my own fulfilled dreams, like pictures of my book covers, or work i’ve done to reach towards those dreams. This can be a great way to motivate yourself to keep moving forward towards your goals and a daily reminder that you are doing your best and trying hard.
Example of an Inspiration Board from Pinterest.
I call mine a DreamBoard as it’s ever-changing and is about fulfilling my dreams.
Working while asleep.
This week i’ve had an awful cold and have been half asleep at my desk. What has surprised me is that i’ve still managed to complete quite a lot of work, when I feel like i’ve slept through half of the week. A friend on Twitter said she was up working at 2am and I mentioned that sometimes we are more productive when we’ve had a rest. Time away to restore and recuperate can mean you achieve twice as much when you do get back to work. I know I haven’t actually done any work while asleep, but the amount i’ve accomplished while awake, means I feel like I must have done!
Do you feel more productive after time away from your work, or does it make you panic and feel like you are not getting enough done? I’d be interested to hear how you all manage time away from your daily tasks.
Marketing merchandise.
Happy new week everyone. This week I’ve been working on some new merchandise for my blog tour and launch. I had this brilliant photo taken for me and it’s a wonderful way to spread the word for my work and make people smile. I have also made promotional keyrings and had posters printed. The theme of my book content and colour scheme follows through all of it, so that it is easily recognisable. This is a good idea, as it refers to your work and hopefully encourages people to pick up your book and give it a try. You never know who you might meet whilst wandering round, as my promotional photo shows, so take every opportunity and make the marketing fun for you and your readers.
When you bump into Batman and he’s reading your book! 🙂
Making a book trailer.
Hello everyone. Today’s Marketing post is about book trailers.
Here is the latest trailer I have made for my latest book Ninja School Mum.
The problem I came across when creating this video, is that I work from a Mac computer. This threw up all sorts of issues when I tried to save the file as a movie to publish on Youtube. Transitions were lost and the music disappeared. I searched the internet and there are not many solutions unless you download new programs onto your computer. I managed to get around the problem this way:
- I designed my sides and added transitions.
- I added music. This must be WAV and not MP3, as MP3 will not register on Youtube correctly.
- I also checked that the music was added to each slide by clicking the transitions tab, then clicking the sound tab, this is found under the duration tab. On the sound tab, scroll down until you find your uploaded music file and click to add.
- Make sure your timings and music match. If they don’t you can click the format audio tab and select ‘loop until stopped,’ on the playback tab.
- Next you need to convert the file.
- I downloaded a free version of Quick Time Player.
- Keeping your powerpoint presentation open to the slideshow tab, click on your Quick Time file tab and go to ‘New screen recording. A small recording icon appears in the window.
- Selected the tiny arrow next to the red record button and add your sound. This is the third option.
- Click the red record button.
- A box appears to tell you to click the screen to record. As soon as you click the play button on Powerpoint presentation, Quick Time Player records it.
- Play your whole book trailer.
- Click exit at the end, as you would to end the slideshow.
- Click on Quick Time Player and it will ask you to save the file.
- On Quick Time Player, open recent file and find your new file.
- You can trim the beginning and end of your video here. Click ‘edit and ‘trim’.
- You will be shown the video in still form.
- Drag the slider at the bottom across the video and click trim to take out the bits you don’t need at the start or end.
- Save your video and upload to Youtube.
- You will lose some fluidity, but this is the best result I had from the different practices I tried. I hope it helps!
Ninja School Mum Book buy link: Click here.
Are you a master of time management?
I’ve been pondering on the thought of how hard we all push ourselves to be creative and get our work done. This month I’ve taken on a lot, with #NaNoWriMo which I have only written a few thousand words for and my latest book launch. I also have a new book to edit. Last week I began to have raised stress levels. No one put this pressure on me, other than myself. I keep piling more jobs onto my ‘to do’ list before I have completed the last one, as many of the jobs interlink.
I’ve come to the conclusion that what I am doing is good enough and that panicking or overdoing things is not going to work for me. My priority is to get all of my book launch information to my tour hosts, which is gradually happening. Next will be marketing for my new book. Further on the list is getting some new words onto paper for #NaNoWriMo and finally to edit book 5. All of these jobs are important, but if my head feels like it is packed full of too many tasks, I will feel counter-productive and start procrastinating.
If I happen to manage task one and two quicker than planned, then the other items on my list can swoop in and take over. This week has begun far more efficiently with jobs being ticked off of the list at a fast pace. The key for me is to do one job and do it well, then move on to the next, rather than half completing it and starting something else. I’ll let you know how much I get done in November. It’s exciting and the possibilities are endless, I just have to curb how many ideas I write down on that list and how many I add to a different notebook and store until a later date.
Do you push yourself to hard at work, or are you a master of time management?
3 time management tips (I’ll be using these too!):
- Do the most important job first.
- Don’t let unimportant tasks drag you down. Sideline them.
- Say ‘no’ to some things. If you are busy, it’s ok to decline social or work offers. Only take on commitments you have time for.
Buy your copy of Ninja School Mum today!
Have your own Twitter ad designed. Click here.
Piling on the pressure.
Instead of my regular marketing post on Mondays, I thought i’d mix things up a bit. The reason is because I have been looking into website analytics and Google doesn’t like content that appears anywhere else on your site. This can be a title, like my Monday posts about marketing, or it can be a an overused photo, or a tag that you use to often. This means that although this isn’t my usual format, it’s still a post that might help you with your blogs, or websites, but presented in a different way!
I’ve been working towards finishing the promotional material for my blog tour for Ninja School Mum and each day I feel like I need to do more. I still have the author Q&A’s to write, the fun facts, the Twitter ads to design and now I have signed up for #NaNoWriMo without a plan at all, even though it starts today! My thoughts were that if I am about to publish a new novel and have an idea for the second book in the series, then I need to get on and write the sequel. If I write a few words a day, the community of writers that take part in this month long writing challenge, are working alongside me with their own novels to inspire me to do more every day.
I will post about my progress on my blog, which in turn refreshes the content and keeps everyone up to date on how the new novel and book tour are progressing. I know we all put pressure on ourselves to cram more into our days and this can sometimes seem impossible, but I am imagining myself having a well earned rest a while after launch date, preferably on a hot beach surrounded by piles of good books to read. I can dream… 🙂
SEO tips for your website.
Welcome to my blog. Today I thought I’d share 3 quick ideas about how you can improve the SEO on your website or blog. SEO is important as in ensures the visibility of your website and helps your content discoverability by search engines. This means that if someone puts a word in the search engine to find a topic, that your page is higher on the list than other peoples pages.
1. You need SEO to provide clear navigation for the search engines to find your site. Make your articles relevant to your page and don’t veer too far off of subject. Too many terms on one site become confusing and don’t rank your site.
2 . Write content that will keep visitors on your page and use internal links to interest them enough to stay on your site for longer. If they enjoy one article, they may like another you have written.
3. Don’t load too many photos onto one page or have too much content. If a page is slow to load, people will rapidly click off of the page and find another website with quick loading times. Always name photos what they are and not pic 1,2,3,5, or 5! The picture for this article is called Lizzie Chantree SEO tips.
View Lizzie’s Books Here: Click link.