Using testimonials just makes good marketing sense. From blatant celebrity endorsements, to Jared (the guy who lost a ton of weight eating Subway sandwiches), to any infomercial you’ve ever seen, to direct marketing brochures used by businesses in your own city, testimonials SELL.

Think about it. Third party endorsements—things other people say about something—work better than first-person ads that just push information at you. Let’s look at what influences YOUR buying decisions. For example, if your sister told you about a travel agent that got her and her husband-to-be 40% off of their honeymoon trip to Spain, would you ask for the agent’s phone number to help you score a great trip to the Bahamas for your 10^th anniversary? Do you use someone’s services (i.e. lawn care, barber, auto mechanic, house painter, etc.) because a friend said they were good? Have you ever gone to a restaurant, bought a book, or seen a movie because you read a great review about it in the local newspaper? These are all third-party endorsements.

If that tiny bit of marketing strategy works on you, rest assured it will Read the rest of this entry

Professional bloggers are fast becoming the magazine feature writers and newspaper columnists of this decade. Depending on who you work for, you can make anywhere from a pitiful $2 per post to a respectable $200 per post. And big businesses pay their professional bloggers as much as $10,000 a month to manage their blogs. Yet, with writers typically expected to meet a strict, high-volume posting schedule, should you set your sites on becoming a professional blogger? Before you jump on the blogging bandwagon, consider these pros and cons. Read the rest of this entry

In a previous post, I introduced you to a handful of people who attracted book deals from their blogs. Since then I found more bloggers-turned-authors and, in reading about their journeys to “Authorville,” many of them mentioned that Tumblr was instrumental to getting exposure for their professional blogs.

What’s Tumblr? I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know but, with so many mentions of it, I decided Read the rest of this entry

I received an email from one of my ezine subscribers asking if having a blog is a good idea for an aspiring book author.

My response is a resounding, “YES!”

There are increasing opportunities for a blogger to be approached by an agent or publisher to pen a book deal. Here are just a few: Read the rest of this entry