The Business of Writing by @KimHeadlee: Promoting Your Books Online and #giveaway!

Woman behind veil
(c)2008 Jose Antonio Sánchez Reyes
Dreamstime ID 4932489

Last week on The Maze I introduced the concept of the Promotion Plan for authors of all stripes in the publishing spectrum.

Online promotion is an entire topic in and of itself that I have chosen to address with you this week.

I selected the "Woman behind veil" image for today's post because for many authors, online promotion is a lot like this young lady: we peep out from behind our veils just long enough to interact a little bit with our audiences now and then.

Here are some ways to lower the veil even further:

Blogging. When I first took the plunge to actively expand my social network, everyone said I needed to start a blog. Which I did. And it got very few views, something on the order of maybe a couple dozen a day. To be honest, that was a couple dozen more than I was expecting, since I had (foolishly, I admit) neglected the "care and feeding" of my readership and could host my entire fan base in my living room. To increase blog reach, I took the following steps:

• I joined Facebook and, eventually, Twitter and now share blog posts to those platforms on a regular basis. Some aspects of social media still send me screaming off into the night, but I have embraced its usefulness in spreading the word about my books.
• I set up automatic cross-posting of my blog to my author profiles on About.me, Goodreads, and Amazon, and posts get automatically shared to my Google+ profile by Blogger.
• I started scheduling promo posts for other authors in exchange for their posting of my book spotlights on their blogs.
• I engaged the services of auto-tweeting and auto-retweeting apps, both of which have long since been squashed by the TwitRNazis, but these were instrumental in boosting my Twitter following up over the 5K mark last year. Now I'm over 18K and growing daily, thanks to judicious tweeting and retweeting via Hootsuite. I recently upgraded to its pro version to take advantage of its bulk message scheduling feature.
• I started scheduling virtual book tours, which have spread the word even farther into the blogosphere. Whenever possible, I visit the promo pages and thank the bloggers for hosting (and sometimes reviewing) my books, and I answer other visitors' questions too.
• I began posting a version of my monthly newsletter, The Dawnflier. BTW, if you would like to receive the lovely MailChimp edition, please CLICK HERE, thanks! :)
• I set up contests (usually via Rafflecopter) in conjunction with my blog tours, and I run a monthly contest on my blog (please scroll down for details).
• I joined Triberr (a post-sharing service for bloggers, of which the free service is just fine for my needs) and became a member of 50+ tribes there. Now my potential Twitter reach is over 22M thanks to the sharing of posts by my 1K+ tribemates. This has been the single biggest factor in jumping my blog's page views, the all-time number of which is displayed in the right sidebar (500K+ as of this writing).

Other potentially useful post-sharing software that I haven't used yet includes Roundteam and Tweet Jukebox. If you have used either of these services, or any others, please let me know what you think of them!

And of course there are other social media platforms I haven't mentioned, mainly because I don't keep a presence on them, or I use them strictly for professional rather than promotional reasons (e.g., LinkedIn). I do recommend that you claim your name on those platforms, however, in case you change your mind and decide to participate at a future date.

Content. Whether it's a blog, a Pinterest board, or profiles on Facebook or Twitter or some other platform, when I visit another author's page, I am instantly turned off when the content is exclusively about his or her own books. Think about it, people: it's like tuning to a shopping channel! At least, that's how I imagine it would be like if I actually ever did tune to a shopping channel. :D

Posting news about your books is essential for spreading the word, but balancing that content with other items will keep your readers coming back for more. I achieve balance by:

• Scheduling spotlights of my friends' books on my blog.
• Participating as a book tour host.
• Cross-posting my Pinterest pins to my Twitter account and, on occasion, to my personal Facebook profile.
• Sharing an excerpt each week--along with a writing tip or other non-writing introduction--from my current work-in-progress, Raging Sea.
• Posting an article about the business issues related to writing each week, of which this post is an example.
• Occasionally posting an article on my blog about a non-writing or non-book topic that interests me, such as this post about my having met one of the last living Pearl Harbor survivors in 2014.
• Using my Facebook personal profile mainly to interact with my family and friends. Here I post fun slice-of-life snippets, humor, and links to non-writing articles I enjoy, and I hope others do too!
• Automatically cross-posting my Facebook posts to Twitter. If I want the Facebook post to look as if it originated on Twitter, I keep it less than 140 characters and don't include a link. 
• Using my Facebook fan pages to post research-related articles, as well as updates about my books.
• Sharing other authors' Facebook posts about their books.
• Visiting the Twitter profile of each person who follows me every day. I will perhaps retweet a thing or three, and I follow back as many accounts as possible within the bounds of my conscience. If you discover that I have blocked your account, it means that I found your content utterly objectionable. Among the accounts that I don't block but don't follow back are those that advertise selling followers, those whose content is mildly objectionable and/or is not provided in English, and those wherein the profile and/or cover pics look stalker-y.
  
  BTW, if you're one of these authors out on an ego trip to amass what appears to be a huge fan base by following me, and then unfollowing within a nanosecond of my following you, be aware that I check my Crowdfire numbers daily and will unfollow you. I respectfully advise that you instead get your ego stroking from your book sales and reviews.
• Scheduling my book-related tweets no more frequently than once an hour. If you ever happen to see more frequency than that from me, it's because I'm doing a one-time tweet of a blog tour page or something along those lines.
• Scheduling the sharing of other bloggers' posts that appear in my Triberr stream every day.

What are you doing to achieve balance in your online promotion, and how is it working for you?

*** Special announcement: I need your help! ***

Twitter has unjustly blacklisted this blog as a "spam or malicious" website. As you can see by its content, it is neither spam nor malicious. If you enjoy this site, please consider performing the following steps:

1. Visit the Twitter website reporting page (https://support.twitter.com/forms/spam).
2. Select the button that reads "I can't tweet a link because Twitter thinks it's spam."
3. Specify https://kimiversonheadlee.blogspot.com/ as the "Problematic link."
4. Fill out the rest of the pertinent details and click "Submit."
5. (Optional but greatly appreciated) Tweet this blog post but in the link replace ".com" with ".ca", ".co.uk",".ie", or any other Blogspot mirror site so that Twitter won't block your tweet from being posted.

Thank you so very much and have a blessed day.

***

I'm running a giveaway for an e-copy of The Challenge!
To enter, click HERE.

MailChimp subscribers to The Dawnflier receive exclusive giveaway opportunities.
Subscribe today so you don't miss out!

***

All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
— Follow Kim on Pinterest
— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.
Please enter often, and good luck!

The Business of Writing: Advanced Applications of the Amazon Kindle Book Previewer

STOP WISHING. START DOING.
c2015 by zzoplanet.
Depositphotos ID:86051516.

Being a programmer for the past four decades means I like to experiment with software to get it to do exactly what I want.

Strike that. I =LOVE= enhancing code! And now you get to benefit from my experimentation. :)

Last time, I introduced you to the nifty book-blogging tool that is the Kindle book previewer. In case you need to catch up, you may find my commentary on this blog post.

Today on The Maze, I get even more technical by offering ways to tweak the code to better fit the needs of your blog.

I offer two customization options, both of which refer to making modifications to the default HTML code fragment that Amazon gives you when you click on the "<Embed>" hyperlink on your Kindle book's product page (located with the other share options below the "Add to List" command bar).

The default HTML code fragment Amazon gives you follows this format:

<!-- AMAZON EMBED CODE DEFAULT HTML FRAGMENT: -->

<iframe type="text/html" width="336" height="550" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen style="max-width:100%" src="https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?asin=Your_Books_ASIN&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_mUS4wb0MK4WVG&tag=Your_Affiliate_ID" ></iframe>

<!-- END DEFAULT HTML FRAGMENT -->

Once you replace Your_Books_ASIN and Your_Affiliate_ID (or delete &tag=Your_Affiliate_ID if you are not an Amazon Affiliate), this will cause the preview to be displayed on the page with no blog text beside it, like so:



This display is fine for a quick spotlight post, but blog visitors can be impatient, so if you have a lot of information to impart, you might want to consider:

Modification 1A: Making the book preview smaller

The basic way to reduce the preview size is to change the height= parameter from its default of 550, as in this code fragment:

<!-- AMAZON EMBED CODE HTML FRAGMENT 1A:
HALF HEIGHT  -->

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="250" src="https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?asin=Your_Books_ASIN&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_mUS4wb0MK4WVG&tag=Your_Affiliate_ID" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe>

<!--END FRAGMENT 1A -->

I went through several iterations, modifying the height= parameter to get a version that was as small as possible without adding a clunky-looking scroll bar. Applying my book's ASIN in place of Your_Books_ASIN, the result looks like:




Note that all of Amazon's options to buy, share, and preview are available. My sidebar needed a narrower version, however, so with further experimentation I hit upon:

Modification 1B:
Making the book preview narrower as well as smaller

To get the preview pane to appear narrower, you must modify the max-width parameter AND enclose it in a table. Just modifying max-width isn't enough, nor will it work if you enclose the <IFRAME></IFRAME> within a <DIV></DIV> section.

If you don't believe me, I invite you to copy the following code fragment, and strip out the <TABLE>, </TABLE>, <TBODY>, </TBODY>,<TR>, </TR>, <TD>, and </TD> tags:

<!-- AMAZON EMBED FRAGMENT 1B:
HALF HEIGHT AND HALF WIDTH: -->
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="250" src="https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?asin=Your_Books_ASIN&amp;preview=inline&amp;linkCode=kpe&amp;ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_ABj3wb11WCT68&amp;tag=Your_Affiliate_ID" style="max-width: 50%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!-- END FRAGMENT 1B -->

Note that I changed max-width to 50% in addition to making height=250. These changes yield:



The Amazon "SHARE" option disappears, but of the three, that was the option I was most willing to sacrifice for the sake of blog aesthetics.

And now for an even more advanced application:

Modification 2: Floating the book preview

I like to display a book cover on one side with text flowing along the other side. My default post layout when I'm spotlighting someone else's book is to display their cover in the top left corner of the post with text flowing past on the right. At the end of the post—as with today's—I display whatever book of mine that I'm featuring on the right, with the text on the left.

Fragment 2 gives you the former option:

<!-- AMAZON EMBED CODE HTML FRAGMENT 2:
BOOK COVER WITH TEXT BESIDE IT -->

<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; text-align: center;">

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" src="https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?asin=Your_Books_ASIN&amp;preview=inline&amp;linkCode=kpe&amp;ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_Omd4wb0K7BQ5Q&amp;tag=Your_Affiliate_ID" style="max-width: 96%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe>

</div>

<!-- END FRAGMENT 2 -->

This fragment yields the following display, with subsequent blog text flowing past it on the right:

To display the cover on the right and the text on the left, change clear: left; float: left; to clear: right; float: right; within the <DIV> tag.

Also, I changed the max-width attribute to "96%" so that the blog's text does not appear crowded, but the "BUY", "SHARE", and "PREVIEW" options still appear within the book's preview pane. I discovered that at 95%, the "SHARE" option disappears, which isn't entirely a bad thing, but it looks a little odd underneath an otherwise large book cover.

The other way to simulate floating would be to set up a table with two columns, one for the cover and the other for the text. The basic layout for a one-row, two-column table is:

<TABLE><TBODY>
<TR>
<TD>Whatever goes in row 1, column 1</TD>
<TD>Stuff for row 1, column 2</TD>
</TR>
</TBODY></TABLE>

The disadvantage (other than the HTML's complexity, which can lead to more mistakes being made) is that if you have a great deal more text to display than the book's cover is tall, the you will wind up with a lot of space above and below the cover, while the text's table cell is completely full. But if those issues don't bother you, then by all means go for it.

Happy coding! :D

***

BTW, I'm running a giveaway for an e-copy of Dawnflight!
To enter, click HERE.

Last month's copies of Kings got snapped up fast, so don't delay; enter today!

MailChimp subscribers to The Dawnflier receive exclusive giveaway opportunities.
Subscribe today so you don't miss out!

***

All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
— Follow Kim on Pinterest
— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow<

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books.

Please enter often, and good luck!

The Business of Writing: Introduction to Amazon's Kindle Book Previewer

STOP WISHING. START DOING.
c2015 by zzoplanet.
Depositphotos ID:86051516.

I have been a programmer since the days when to program a computer meant flipping a series of switches on its console—and a deck of punched cards was a vast improvement. 

So please forgive me if I geek out on you a bit and get technical today. I promise I will make it up to you next week. :D

Amazon tops my list of companies that I love to hate (with Microsoft and Google coming in a photo-finish second and third, in case you were wondering), but earlier this year the wit-heads behind the arrow-smile rolled out a feature that I actually like: the embeddable Kindle book previewer.

Before I get too far along, I want to give a shout to author Stacy Juba. It was via this blog post of hers that I first learned of the embeddable Kindle book previewer. Thanks, Stacy!

Why would you want to avail yourself of the Kindle book previewer?

I can think of several reasons:

• The cover images are stored on Amazon's servers, not yours.
• The covers load faster for blog visitors.
• The latest cover image is always displayed.
• Amazon gives you access to "Preview", "Buy", and "Share" options without a visitor ever having to leave your page.

The good news is that implementing the Kindle book previewer is as easy as 1-2-3, as shown in Amazon's tutorial on this page. The process allows you to generate either a link or a chunk of HTML code.

In case you're too busy to click the link, the basic steps are:

1. Display the Amazon product page of the Kindle book for which you want to generate the preview link or code.
   NOTE 1: If you are an Amazon Affiliate, do not display the page with your affiliate tag; Amazon's browser software doesn't know how to process that, and the page will sit and spin forever. Not to worry, however; they give you an opportunity to specify your affiliate ID in the code-generation popup window.
   NOTE 2: The most compact form of the Amazon.com link for your book, without having to grind it through link-shortening software, is
   

   http://www.amazon.com/dp/Your_Books_ASIN
   For example:
   http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BLNN6XS

2. On the product page, click the "<Embed>" link. It is located in the same line with all the other sharing options (email, Facebook, etc.) underneath the long bar that reads "Add to List".
   NOTE: If you are working off a tablet, laptop, or (God help you) an even smaller screen, you will have to scroll down a bit to find the <Embed> hyperlink.
3. On the popup window, select either the "Get a link (URL)" (default) or "Embed on your site (HTML)" option, and then copy the result by clicking in the display area and pressing the <CTRL> and <C> keys. (To dump the contents of the paste buffer into another application, press <CTRL><V>.) These are near-universal hot-key shortcuts.
   NOTE: If you have an Amazon Affiliate ID, click the link to enter your ID before you copy the code or link. Type your ID where they tell you to, and the system will update the result as you watch. Then click in the box displaying the code or link, and copy it.

If you have requested a link, you will see something like this:

https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=Your_Books_ASIN&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_5G2hxb127NHFS
&tag=Your_Amazon_Affiliate_ID

To save yourself the hassle of steps 1, 2, and 3, create a copy of the above link and replace "Your_Books_ASIN" and "Your_Amazon_Affiliate_ID", or delete all text beginning with "&tag" to the end of the string if you don't have an affiliate ID, and you're all set to embed the link.

The link code gets pasted between the "" in your <A HREF=""> HTML tag.


If you have requested an HTML fragment, you'll get:

<iframe type="text/html" width="336" height="550" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen style="max-width:100%" src="https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?asin=Your_Books_ASIN&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_5G2hxb127NHFS
&tag=Your_Amazon_Affiliate_ID" ></iframe>

Same drill as with the link as far as customizing this fragment for your needs, but do not delete the "></iframe> part at the end of the fragment.

Next time, I'll go into detail about how to customize the HTML to "float" the book's cover with text flowing to one side or the other, as shown below, as well as reducing the cover's size as in my sidebar's images.

Meanwhile, happy embedding and promoting!

***

Enter this great Rafflecopter giveaway
for a signed copy of KASIWC and more!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***

All this month, you are invited to…

— Follow Kim on Twitter
— Follow Kim on Pinterest
— Subscribe to Kim's YouTube channel
— Leave a comment on any page of The Maze, especially if you have done the Twitter, Pinterest, and/or YouTube follow

… and each action this month is good for one chance to win a copy of any of Kim's e-books. 

Please enter often, and good luck!