Monday

Monday Marketing. 3 Quick tips.

/ lizziechantree / 12 Comments

Hello everyone. Happy new week. I have my first author talk in a library this week and have been researching the best way to schedule the talk. They have booked me in for two hours, but my chat needs to be about 20 minutes and then an author Q&A and tea and coffee. I’ll let you know how I get on as I’m extremely nervous and two hours seems a very long time!

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Tips for planning an author talk:

  1. Have seven points of interest and explain them to your audience, so that they understand the structure of the talk. For example: Point 1. My working life before I became and author. Point 2. Fun facts about my career. Point 3. Why I changed career path. Point 4. Self-publishing. Do I think it’s a good idea? Point 5. Publishing contracts. What it’s like being offered one. Point 6. How some books become bestsellers. Point 7. Life after you’ve published a novel.
  2. Plan questions you might be asked and write your answers, so that you aren’t caught off guard.
  3. Hold a Q&A session, so that visitors can ask any questions you haven’t already answered.

Good luck if you have your own author talks planned. If you have any top tips to share, feel welcome to leave them in the comments section below. Much appreciated! From Lizzie:)

 

Happy Marketing.

/ lizziechantree / 9 Comments

 

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Happy new week everyone. Today’s Monday marketing and 3 Quick Tips is about sprinkling kindness around like confetti. I recently read a magazine article where it said that having a positive mental attitude, treating others fairly and reaching out to assist people, also helps to boost your  mood, triggers good endorphins and raises productivity during your own day. It’s not hard to share a social media post for someone else, add their product links to your emails, or to use word of mouth to recommend someone else’s products or services. It could take you a moment, but have positive effects on someone else’s day or business for days or weeks to come.

  1. Take a moment to share a post on social media that you think will help someone else’s products or business.
  2. When you are talking to friends, recommend someone. Word of mouth is a very powerful form of advertising that can be overlooked when everyone is so busy and doesn’t have a lot of time to catch up with friends or colleagues. Share a business card from someone you know, or spread the word about their websites or blogs.
  3. If you meet someone who might help a friend or colleague’s business, take a business card or jot down the details and then introduce them via social media or in person. Email them the details and spread the word about both businesses. They in turn will remember you for being kind and connecting them.

Monday Marketing.

/ lizziechantree / 1 Comment

Hi everyone. Today’s Monday Marketing and 3 quick tips are about Giveaways. I am currently holding my first #giveaway on Twitter and Facebook for my book Ninja School Mum. The giveaways have only been running for a day or so and I will keep you updated on the progress, but here is what I’ve learnt so far. My book jumped up higher in the bestseller’s lists than it had been for the previous few days. What has also happened is that people downloaded Ninja School Mum when they found out about it after being tagged into the giveaway by friends, as they didn’t want to wait to read it, which is incredible and something I am very thankful for. To view the details of my giveaways click here for Twitter and here for Facebook. Below is the image I used for my Twitter giveaway.

NSM tweets

  1. Pin your giveaway to the top of your Twitter page as your pinned Tweet for the duration of the giveaway.
  2. Ask people to tag their friends in the comments section under the giveaway post. To do this they simply type in their friend’s Twitter/Facebook name, for example, @Lizzie_Chantree/ Lizzie Chantree as a comment. This expands the giveaway reach and is a great way for book lovers to share a read they like the look of, with their friends.
  3. Don’t forget to add a universal link to your book or product at the bottom of the Twitter or Facebook post as well as a clear image. You can create a universal link at places like BookLinker. A universal link is a link that works for all Amazon stores and takes the viewer to the correct site for the country they live in.

 

Also bought on Amazon.

/ lizziechantree / 2 Comments

Hi everyone. Today’s post is about also bought on Amazon. It is the section that offers similar products to people who have purchased something on Amazon. It is important because it works on Amazon’s algorithm and sends your book or product to customers who might also like to buy it, as they have purchased something similar before. For example, someone who has bought a romance book, might enjoy a romantic suspense novel. Someone who has bought a bikini, might also like suntan lotion.

The full article here explains that although selling to your friends and family first is wonderful, it also adds them to your products ‘fans’ and then your books/products would be sent out as an also bought. If you have other customers who buy your products first, then they will be the ones seen as ‘fans’ and they will be sent your new products as something they might also like. Friends and family buying your book first, may be detrimental to your future sales as the promotions would be sent to them, when it is likely they would know about them already.

Read the full article here. I posted this in my Facebook book group Lizzie’s Book Group a couple of weeks ago, so some of you may have read it there. Feel free to join the group if you aren’t there already.

Understanding also bought on Amazon, click here.

Lizzie Chantree biz quotes 1

Making a DreamBoard.

/ lizziechantree / 16 Comments

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.

Tips for creating an inspiration board that's actually inspirational| Studio McGee ||
Example of an Inspiration Board from Pinterest.
I call mine a DreamBoard as it’s ever-changing and is about fulfilling my dreams.

 

Making a book trailer.

/ lizziechantree / 28 Comments

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:

  1. I designed my sides and added transitions.
  2. I added music. This must be WAV and not MP3, as MP3 will not register on Youtube correctly.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Next you need to convert the file.
  6. I downloaded a free version of Quick Time Player.
  7. 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.
  8. Selected the tiny arrow next to  the red record button and add your sound. This is the third option.
  9. Click the red record button.
  10.  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.
  11. Play your whole book trailer.
  12. Click exit at the end, as you would to end the slideshow.
  13. Click on Quick Time Player and it will ask you to save the file.
  14. On Quick Time Player, open recent file and find your new file.
  15. You can trim the beginning and end of your video here. Click ‘edit and ‘trim’.
  16. You will be shown the video in still form.
  17. 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.
  18. Save your video and upload to Youtube.
  19. You will lose some fluidity, but this is the best result I had from the different practices I tried. I hope it helps!

 

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Ninja School Mum Book buy link: Click here.

Effective social media management.

/ lizziechantree / 11 Comments

Hello everyone! How are you all today? It’s Marketing and 3 Quick Tips Monday. This post is about ways to help manage your social media. Here are 3 great tools to help you improve work flow and stay on top of time management.

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ManageFlitter: ManageFlitter link, click here.

ManageFlitter is very easy to use. The free option works well, but it depends on your requirements. This platform helps you to work faster and has lots of great features.

You can sort your followers/following lists by criteria.

Find new people to follow.

Find out when your followers are online and schedule tweets appropriately.

Unfollow people. Some people follow Twitter accounts to grow their numbers, then unfollow as soon as they get a follow back. ManageFlitter helps you unfollow them too.

You can manage multiple accounts easily here.

Track keywords.

SocialOomph: SocialOOmph link, click here.

SocialOomph is a great way to boost your productivity on social media as you can schedule posts, add photos, and access multiple accounts across Twitter, Facebook, blogs LinkedIn, Tumblr, RSS feeds and more for a basic fee. The free option is good, but the cheapest paid option works for me.

Updates are easy to schedule and it has features to save posts for use later, copy old posts, make posts run on a recurring timeline and more.

Hootsuite: Hootsuite link, click here.

About Hootsuite: This is a great platform for managing multiple accounts from a single dashboard. You can schedule your own posts to go out at certain times of the day or you can RT or auto schedule from your own social media streams or lists. The downside is that it can be a bit sluggish and I tend to use it as a back up. It’s easy to use, but I wish it worked faster. It has to update information regularly, so this slows it down. It can be very useful and has a free option, which is suitable for most small businesses and creatives.

You can use Hootsuite for real time analytics and it has a trend spotting feature, which can be helpful if you want to see what’s popular on Social media and follow trends.

What time saving platforms for social media do you use? 

 

Babe Driven TwitterAd 20

Click photo to go straight to Amazon and grab your copy of Babe Driven for £0.99!

Monday Marketing. #3QuickTips

/ lizziechantree / 8 Comments

This week I’m going to tell you about visibility and loading times for a WordPress website. Most of my Monday Marketing tips are ones I’ve discovered on my journey as an author, but I have been in the retail and wholesale business for over 20 years and studied design, marketing and advertising at college and university, so the #3QuickTips may be helpful to other businesses too.

Lizzie Chantree blog. WordPress

 

1.  Some wordpress themes contain code that slows them down. Some of the content you add can also slow the site down. By visiting a site called GTMetrix.com and typing in your site address, you will be shown a report on how well your site is loading for users.  Ideally you want an A or B rating.

2.  You will be shown Page speed, YSlow, Timeline and History tabs. Click on these to be shown elements of your site and how they preform. Here you can check if the theme of your site is slowing it down. If the theme is causing problems, then you might want to think about changing the theme.

3. Creating fresh content for your blog or website is a great way to make it load quicker. If text is copied from the internet, it can have hidden links and code inside from the originator which shows search engines that it’s not new and should be ignored.