In the previous two blogs we’ve talked about engaging the senses and using tone to help connect with your potential customer. Now we’re going to talk about saying the same things in different ways.

This is particularly helpful when you look at the new way that social media is developing over the last year to five years. Consider things like
• blogs
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• White Papers
• ebooks
• vlogs
• and all of these various forms of social media.

All of these appeal to a different segment of your population. We learned this in our previous blog on tone. And all of them appeal to different senses. We talked about this in our previous blog engaging the senses. What I’m talking about today is focusing our style to different people and different segments in different ways.

To clarify, people who read blogs are not necessarily people who read newsletter articles, whether e-newsletters or print newsletters. Likewise people who follow Twitter are not always the same people who follow Facebook. While there is overlapping readership, each of these areas appeal to a specific kind of consumer. Therefore, whenever you’re working on marketing copy, if your target market is found in any of these areas you need to make sure that you’re using copy that will appeal in each of these areas

For example, blogs are more conducive to more up-to-date information or expounding on an issue or linking to things. (Like the blogs that I’m doing here.)

Tweets, on the other hand, are more short bursts but are very well suited to finding a relevant article. These are for the person who is frequently reading up on the industry. You want to be the first to inform your customers of updates and innovations. Twitter lets you do that.

Blogs are designed for fairly contemporary information that can be used as a reference later.

Twitter would appeal more for if there was a new industry update I wanted to get out to my readership immediately. That’s when a Tweet would come in.

Enewsletters are more about developing relationships over time, making business connections and getting to know people. Ebooks and digital downloads, or e-newsletters, are better suited to expounding on a particular topic with a company that you’re either in relationship with or developing a relationship with.

Therefore, each of your customers is at a different stage stages, whether just finding out about you, or wanting to be on the cutting edge of what’s happening in your industry through Tweets, someone who wants to continue to learn gradually through your blogs, or someone who wants to see that information expounded on through your newsletters, each person has a different preference in their interaction with you. Therefore using all of these kinds of networking tools are imperative to helping develop your complete customer base.

Don’t miss a single posting! Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail. Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com.

     Okay, maybe I’m behind the times. Maybe all of you have known about the more than 100 free books available on Kindle for a long time and I’m just now catching up.

     For those of you who didn’t already know this, let me enlighten you. There are more than 100 books available for free to Kindle owners from Amazon.com. When I got mine on Christmas day I was a bit tapped out financially so I was geeked when I saw the free books I could get. These included classics like The Scarlet Letter and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I was having a blast filling my library with books like Frankenstein [a book I’ve always wanted to read but never did] and Dracula.

     Then I started poking around in the Kindle Top Sellers and I was finding relatively new books available for free. I soared passed geeked and moved right on to spazzed [those of you reading now realize I graduated from High School in the 90s by my out dated slang].

     The week after Christmas a writing group I’m a part of [ACFW.com] did some chattering about the free books. I was also reading “The Long Tail” on CD. All three things came together in a Perfect Storm [ha-ha, another book title] and I realized how brilliant these free books were.

     See, this is what authors are doing. They are offering their books for free download which is sending their books to the most downloaded list. We live in a society of lists. When a book makes the Kindle top 100 list there is a perceived value.

“Wow, this must be a great book to be 25 on the Kindle list.” And when we see it is free it DOESN’T diminish the value of the book. That is the crazy thing. If you saw a book in the dollar store you’d think “Reject”, but since it is still pretty on the Amazon site [or your Kindle reader] you think “BONUS!!”

     So you download it, read it, like it….

And go buy other books from the authors.

     This all comes back to the thing I harp on the most. As writers we must have incredible content continually to offer our readers. I spend hours every week researching to present new information here. That is because when you come you expect to learn something or be presented something you already knew in a way that it makes sense to you.

     I present this day after day, week after week because I want to help aspiring writers grow. I want to help people just like I was helped. I want you to remember me when the time comes for you to have your project edited. I want you to buy the books I write and the magazines I contribute to.  I want to develop a relationship with my readers.

     That is what makes this Kindle Freebie thing so brilliant. Just think about it, these authors are offering thousands of people who just got a new toy for Christmas the opportunity to play with it. This is the single best time there is to allow someone to find out about who you are and what you write. What better way to do it than by giving out a novel.

     So, while you may not have a book on Kindle you can do the same thing by giving your best to your current readers. Give them something that will make them want to come back. Give real content, not “free” stuff that is little more than a thinly veiled infomercial.

Don’t miss a single posting!  Subscribe here to receive these postings by e-mail.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at writingcareercoach.com

It is no secret that publishing is in a state of transition not unlike what many businesses were going through in the 70s and 80s as computers really began to become a part of the mainstream. Furthermore, technology is opening opportunities for increased growth and exposure.

Transitions are hard but how you approach them will determine your success.

In the book “Good to Great” the author examines a number of businesses that out performed the market and others within their specific industry. Their research focused on businesses that sustained their strong position for at least 15 years so that the overall culture of the company could be examined, not simply a single strong leader. One of their findings has important implications for today’s writers.

The authors of the study found that the businesses that were able to grow and succeed-nay OUTPERFORM their competition and the stock market as a whole-had some fundamental similarities. One of them was their willingness to test changes in the market and adapt based on findings. In one example A and P was compared to Kroger. These are two grocery stores that had been around for nearly 100 years at the time of the transition. Both began to find in the 60s and 70s that people were increasingly interested in super stores. A&P saw those findings, didn’t like what they found, and became obselete. Kroger on the other hand saw the findings, made adjustments and outperformed all competitors in their industry for more than 15 years. By 1999 they were the #1 grocery store chain.

How many writers are beginning to see changes from the way writing and publishing has been done for years? What have you done to adapt based on your findings?

“But I’m not published yet. I don’t need to change.” I would say that you likely need to change something much deeper than a marketing plan. You must change your expectations. You must recognize that publication with a royalty publishing house is not the magic that will transform your life from employee to superstar. Also, you need to learn that the mystery surrounding the industry a decade or two ago is now gone. Readers expect to connect with the authors on a much more personal level. Are you prepared for that? Do you have the discipline required to work like that.

Also, what false expectations have you held on to? What is your goal of publication? When Kroger realized their identity as a smaller grocery store would have to change fundamentally to include prescriptions, flu shots, fresh baked bread and grills they didn’t have to change a single mind, they had to change a locomotive that had been plugging along for nearly a century. They had to listen to “but this is the way we’ve always done it”. Despite that they did make the change. They brought their employees along willingly by showing real results. They brought their customers along by showing they were listening.

Would you like to be the best at what you do? Then it will involve not only building strong craft but implementing a strategy that is in tune with current market realities.

For more on this topic read the book “Good to Great”.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Tiffany is a speaker and teacher. Find out about available topics for your group’s next event.
Tiffany is a National Examiner. Read her articles here.
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website. [www.TheBalancedLife.com]
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog. [http://tiffanycolter.blogspot.com]
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.[http://writersrest.blogspot.com]

Today I want to reflect on the blog posting with Robin Jones Gunn. Here we had the author of 70 books who has continued for years in an industry that isn’t always loyal.

Not only that but she said that when she started it was series focused and she has been able to stay a writer during the shift to a more author focused marketing strategy.

That made me think even more about what is necessary to success in our chosen profession [mine being writing]. It was not only that she was great at what she did, but it was because she was flexible enough to adapt to change.

What changes are you seeing in your own life? Are you lamenting the change or are you looking at ways to thrive in your new environment?

Your answer to that question could be crucial to your success.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Common-sense money management is free at The Balanced Life website.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

In my pursuit to be excellent in my field I spend a great deal of time studying the lives and careers of excellent people. I enjoy pioneers and famous people. By that I don’t mean the latest “tabloid tartlette” but rather great performers who have stood the test of time.

One of those is Billy Joel.

I was watching part of a documentary put out the summer of 2008 where he recounted his breakout album ‘The Stranger’.

I have been a huge Billy Joel fan since…well, since Piano Man came out [the song] which I think was some time around Kindergarten or first grade for me. I’ve always been intrigued by the swing and flow of Billy Joel’s songs [and I really enjoyed the show "Bosom Buddies" which had a Billy Joel song during the opening credits].

He had a great way of creating a story out of a song. His songs Lenningrad, Noreastern Alexa, Piano Man, Don’t forget your second wind, Goodnight Saigon…well, a good number of his songs, drew us in to the lives of people we knew. We felt we experienced these songs. We lived these songs.

So I was surprised to learn that “The Stranger” was a surprise hit, and Joel’s 5th album.

I wondered how he had felt when he signed with his label in the years leading up to that career changing work. I imagine it had to be the same way most writers feel with their first book deal. But what separates an amazing career like Billy Joel from many writers is they see that first deal as a sign that they’re there. They’ve arrived. They no longer need to learn, nor do they need to grow.

If you look at great writers and performers you’ll see that the voice always stays recognizable, but the craft grows. They realize that there is no such thing as “Arriving”. Former Press Secretary Tony Snow said as much after he was named Press Secretary to President Bush.

So what does it actually mean to arrive?

I think that arriving is when you come to the place where you’re so comfortable with your own unique writer’s voice that you’re able to begin to let it mature without fear that you’ll lose it totally. I think it is when you stop sounding like a conglomeration of your favorite authors and you begin to sound like yourself.

I think it is when you become fully teachable.

Have you arrived?

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

So, I imagine that one of the goals for you guys would be earning some money. What are you going to do in Feb. to make that happen? With fewer and fewer magazines buying articles these days it can be really tough to figure out where to start.

One thing I’ve done is offer additional services. Of course, you need to have some knowledge about the service you’re offering. I don’t offer medical transcription because I don’t know medical jargon. I do offer Newsletters, however.

What made me decide to write and design newsletters for others?

As I was researching on marketing I came to the conclusion that Newsletters are a great way for businesses and non-profits to keep in touch with their readership. E-newsletters are less expensive than traditional newsletters and offer the option of linking directly to a specific blog posting or website. They offer tight copy with click through options. This is what I specialize in. I’m an author. I know how to write in a way that engages readers. That is what I’m doing. I’m taking the skills I’ve learned in sales and marketing the Writing Career Coach and my own writing to create another stream of income.

What are skills you’ve developed that you could market to others?

What are some things you’ve learned to do that you can use to create another stream of income? What need can you meet? We’re in a down economy so what skills do you have that can help advance others? Can you earn an income doing this?

What foundations can you lay now for the future?

History shows that some of the greatest fortunes were from people who sowed in a time of lack. What skills can you acquire now? What businesses can you plan? How can you set yourself up for a future with greater success than you now have. What you’re doing now is setting the course for future success or failure. What you do today determines your long term results. These are facts, not cliches.

Take this slow down to reassess whether your spending is in line with your goals. Is the way you spend your time going to give you the tools you need? Have you changed what you’ve been doing? That is the only way you’ll change what you get [unless you've already made positive change and you're simply building momentum. In that case, keep going.]

So spend some time finding out what the needs are you can meet. Maybe it is doing some website design? Maybe writing business letters for a few local businesses for $20 each. Or maybe, like me, you’ve discovered a way to offer a service with high quality but a lower price than what others are currently doing. Larger firms can be locked in to higher prices because of high overhead. You can be nimble. You can adapt.

So find the positive in every change of circumstance. Find the hidden money. Consider writing content for brochures or descriptions of products. All of these can build you financially and create a sphere of influence for the future.

If you’d like to know more about my low cost newsletters email me through my contact page. You’ll find that keeping in touch with your clients is less expensive than you thought.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

There has been a huge hubbabaloo on a email loop I’m a part of. The group is ACFW which is a group of writers who are, or hope to be, CBA fiction authors.

The basis of this conversation rests on a NYT Article.

I’d encourage you to go read it [I linked to it above], but if you can’t, here’s a summary. The author talks about buying used books online. Then claims that this is leading to the decline of bookstores and back lists.

I may not be very old [early 30s]-so maybe there’s something I’m missing- but what is the point of fussing about something we can’t control?

Nothing.

We cannot go out and force people to purchase new books for $15 when they can get an old one for $3. It’s called common sense.

So, our role as writers is to recognize this reality and find out how to build our writing income in the current environment.

Negative: Sales of back list books are down from publishers.
Positive: Sales of back list books continue through online retailers.
How we can use this: People are still buying books. The decreased cost of resale allows people who might not otherwise want to purchase our book the opportunity to buy our book.

Negative: Amazon is taking over the world.
Positive: Innovations like Kindle and Sony’s version offer the opportunity to eliminate the lost revenue of the previous negative.

Negative: Brick and Mortar stores are closing.
Positive: The establishment of online purchases allows authors the opportunity to link to websites that sell their books. Instant gratification as well as increased personal interaction between author and reader.

Negative:Online resellers are driving second hand bookstores out of business.
Positive: The power of the internet allows people who previously could not earn money selling books the opportunity to resell their books. These people use their proceeds to pay gas bills, eat food and, yes, buy other books. As long as we keep money flowing in the economy we are able to keep the gears of industry moving. This is necessary to avoid depressions, recessions and other yucky things.

So, instead of trying to find ways to STOP the inevitable-we need to adapt.

For far too often people have tried to block things they don’t like. UAW factories say no “foreign” cars on their property while their domestics are full of foreign parts. Oops. In France they tried to legislate the percentage of foreign language entertainment allowed on their airwaves. Now you can buy a Big Mac in the streets of Paris.

It is the innovators who rise above. Do you want to be an innovator or a Chicken Little pointing at the sky?

Find out about my coaching, editing and products from my website and make 2009 your year of innovation.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

…honestly, is this the attitude of people today?

Usually I keep the focus of this blog focused on marketing your own business but sometimes as I’m reading things in the industry and I get furious. Today I was reading about the News Guild and their strike with the AP. One line in particular made me furious.

“The Guild said it had opened with a 10 percent wage increase proposal, “but has indicated flexibility at the bargaining table.”

I am a writer and I understand the need to make a living and it is hard as a writer sometimes to sell an article for $80 and try to make a living on those but LET’S BE SERIOUS.

Yesterday I found out a friend was laid off from the job he’s worked at for 39 years. He was the 3rd person in a single group of friends to lose work in the last month. Then I heard from a newspaper journalist who lost her job after years with the paper.

And the people working for the AP look around and say “Hey, I think I’d like a 10% pay increase.”

Now, I’m not an idiot. I know this is a negotiating tactic and they were responding to a rate freeze proposal from the AP, but we need to stop being so obsessed with being able to upgrade every year and realize that there isn’t a magic money tree.

I am working on a product that I’ll give FREE to subscribers that talk about ways to keep your writing business strong in a down economy. That is because the reality is THINGS ARE CHANGING. The change could be temporary but certain things will never be the same. We can’t say “Hey, I want it this way.”

It’s not viable.

I minored in college in history and I have been frequently reminded of the enclosure acts enacted by Feudal Lords in the middle ages. These acts forced many serfs to face the end of their way of life but it led to the rise of the middle class-and the death of feudalism as an economic system.

That is a pretty brief summary, but it serves to make my point. [If you're interested read more about it in a western civ book...one that isn't revisionist.]

We have decided that we want change without the pain. It won’t happen. We can’t keep bailing people out by printing worthless currency…just ask Germany.

We can’t continue to demand huge salaries for people who aren’t working…just ask France.

We need to look realistically at economic situations, recognize that change is necessary and sometimes painful.

And, as smart people, we need to look for the opportunity in the changes. It is the innovators who will find blessing in this tough time.

Otherwise you’ll be the people asking for scraps when the market corrects itself again…

Friday I’ll be back to my usual, chipper self. Today I had to unload.

I’d love to hear your feedback-just use professional language please.

And if you want that special report I’m writing then click the subscribe link to the right. I will only email it to subscribers.

If you’d like to read the entire article that started this rant, click the quote above. I’ve linked directly to it.

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.
She writes a blog for the Christian writer Tuesdays at Writer’s Rest.

One thing about running a successful business is that there are so many different things that businesses have in common-especially when it comes to marketing-that it is useful to look at them to build your business. While there are some things that are specific to each industry [like for writers perfecting POV is something an author would need to know but an accountant might not]. Branding, however, is something that professionals in both industries will benefit from.

Therefore, as authors, we can learn a great deal from the music industry and how they have adapted to the recent innovations.

Consider for a moment the iPod and its impact on music [and more specifically cd sales]. While the Time Life Music collection still targets the generation who is accustomed to listening to CDs, the iPod is revolutionizing the way todays teenagers buy and consume music.

Authors are seeing similar online products in ebooks, digital downloads, Sony Readers, Amazon’s Kindle and other related materials.

While originally the music industry sought to fight these changes [a la Napster] they eventually embraced the change and capitalized on it. Now I see websites big and small selling music by the song [99 cents per song and up].

Likewise MTV brought out the music video but now artists are using YouTube to deliver videos on demand for any person with internet access. With PDAs and Cell Phones now offering Wi-Fi technology-this is nearly constant.

I remember in jr high [around 1990] that the first ads were on TV for Satellite television. One of the characters for “Murphy Brown” [his name now escapes me] was trying to explain in 30 seconds that now you could watch your favorite movies WHENEVER YOU WANT!! This was followed by increased access to Pay-per-view.

So this brings us full circle…With these new technologies that allow instant access to a book in a Sony Reader, a website that offers instant access to your favorite author and a world wide web that offers instant information.

How can writers follow the lead of music and movies to build their marketing for the online generation?

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany’s Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany’s award winning manuscript “A Face in the Shadow” on her fiction blog.