If You Can’t Predict the Future, Invent It!
June 15th, 2011
By Guest Blogger John Kilcullen
Creator & Original Publisher of the …For Dummies Books, Executive Chairman of Fast Pencil & CEO of Brand Revolution LLC
I enjoy talking about the book biz. Over the course of 17 summers I shared a ton of stories and publishing strategies in my lectures at the Stanford Professional Publishing Course. I got as much out of it as I put into it.
Part of the fun was to intellectually challenge participants: Why not dare to be different? Why not lead instead of follow?
The questions (for publishers and authors) continued: Do you have a carpe diem culture or an analysis-paralysis operating philosophy? Do you follow a “done is better than perfect” credo? Are you constantly experimenting and tinkering? Are you spending enough time living inside the hearts and heads of your customers and qualified prospects?
Winding down: Are you in the products business or in the service business? Is customer service an obsession or a necessary evil? Are you converting nameless, faceless book buyers into customers you know a lot about? Is the publication of the book the celebratory end of the process or the beginning of a lifelong relationship with customers?
At times, there was radio silence. Often, we engaged in a spirited discussion about this crazy business we call publishing.
Today, I feel like I did when I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair when the wall was coming down …. Some people were clinging to the past as if they were holding on to the railings of the Titanic. Others bravely supported the winds of change. Those same feelings were evident last month when I walked the aisles of Book Expo America.
My advice to today’s aspiring authors and to publishing professionals alike: If you can’t predict the future, invent it! Embrace ambiguity. Make change your friend. Build your digital/mobile/social DNA. Be open to new partnerships. Build a direct to consumer customer data base. Mine it regularly.
Apple’s famous advertising campaign summed it up best: ”Think Different.” I would add … “Act Differently, too!”
Almost 20 years ago I defied conventional wisdom and published the first For Dummies book. Time and time again, we would sign, launch and market another bestselling title by first time authors, great “explainers” and sometimes even celebrities. Together, for 10 consecutive years, we created a dominant, how-to brand supported by a great authorial-editorial-marketing services team. I understand – and implemented – a consistent brand architecture driving brand preference (measured in repeat foot traffic and recurring revenue streams). Those early branding and publishing decisions continue to deliver value to this day.
Most importantly, we understood that our best brand ambassadors (now numbering 250 million) were our customers. Treat them right and they will reward you with their purchases and their evangelism … a powerful combination.
Let me know of your branding and serial success stories. Ping me at johnkilcullen@yahoo.com. If you are an aspiring author with any question, don’t hesitate to ping me as well.
Carpe diem!
How to Use Google AdWords with the Google AdWords Evangelist Frederick Vallaeys & Author Brad Geddes
August 2nd, 2010
By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com
This week on the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show, Frederick Vallaeys, Google’s AdWords Evangelist, will talk with radio personality and host Jennifer S. Wilkov about what Google AdWords is and how to work effectively with this targeted advertising tool.
Mr. Vallaeys will also share best practices for running a successful campaign using Google AdWords along with specific tips, techniques and resources that Google provides to advertisers so they can capitalize on their use of the service. He will also discuss why Google AdWords is particularly beneficial for authors when using their book as their hook and how to optimize their campaigns by leveraging the nature of Google AdWords to target your desired advertising audience.
Brad Geddes, author of Advanced Google AdWords, will discuss with radio personality and host Jennifer S. Wilkov how an advertiser can maximize their use of Google’s AdWords program.
As the author of the most advanced book ever written about Google’s advertising program and as the first advanced AdWords Seminar Leader and a trainer who works directly with Google, Mr. Geddes will reveal why he wrote this book, how he connected with Google while he wrote it, how he enrolled Frederick Vallaeys, Google’s AdWords Evangelist, to write the foreword for the book and how he got published. He’ll also talk about how he is using his book as his hook to reach more advertisers who are seeking to use more advanced strategies with Google AdWords.
A no holds barred trainer at heart, Mr. Geddes will share with listeners how to write an effective ad that is conducive to the limited number of characters allowed by Google’s AdWords program. He’ll also provide suggestions for how to properly set up your AdWords account and reveal why testing your campaign is essential for your advertising success.
3 Tips to Jumpstart Your Google AdWords Campaign For Your Book
August 2nd, 2010
By Guest Blogger Frederick Vallaeys, Google’s AdWords Evangelist
www.google.com/adwords
If you are you an author looking for new fans, search marketing can help you connect with potential readers at the exact moment they are searching for information about your area of expertise. With Google AdWords, your ads can appear on the Google search results pages when a user types in one of the keywords you’ve selected. Because you only pay when someone clicks your ad, you control your budget, and since there is no minimum term, this is a low-risk method to give yourself and your books more exposure, hopefully leading to increased sales.
Here are a few tips to get your campaigns started off on the right foot:
1. Pick relevant keywords
When a user does a search, their query tells you exactly what they’re looking for and if you have a great solution or answer for them, it’s an opportunity to pitch your book. AdWords lets you choose which keywords should trigger your ads, but keep in mind that some keywords are better than others. Pick good keywords by putting yourself in the shoes of a user who might be looking for your type of book and imagine what they might search for. Those are the types of keywords you should select.
Don’t waste money on keywords that are too broad and could have multiple meanings because those are less likely to lead to sales. For example, the keyword “floral arrangements” could come from a user who wants to buy a floral arrangement whereas the keyword “floral arrangement ideas” is more likely to be from a user who wants to do it themselves and who might consider buying a book on the topic.
2. Write compelling ads that highlight the relevance of your keywords
When a user sees ads on Google, they make very quick decisions about which sites to visit. If it’s not immediately obvious why your ad could solve their problem or fulfill their need, it’s likely to be passed over. Make sure you use the keyword in your title and ad text so that the user knows immediately that you can help them.
A common pitfall is to use your name or the title of your book as the headline. But, unless you or your book are very famous, that’s unlikely to get the user’s attention. Instead, give the user a compelling reason to click your ad; for example, you could include a discount, a free shipping offer or recognition your book has received. Also take advantage of the fact that you can write multiple ads and let Google choose the one that gets the best response.
3. Measure results and bid sensibly
AdWords is a low-risk way to advertise because you only pay for clicks. Figuring out what a click is worth can be challenging though so you can start with the option to let Google figure out the best bids to drive the most clicks possible for your budget. After your ads have been running a few days, look at the detailed reports in AdWords to see which keywords are driving clicks to your site and at what cost. If you installed free conversion tracking from Google on your site, your reports will tell you how many conversions like sales and newsletter sign-ups you got from each keyword. With this data, you’ll be able to make smart decisions about how much each click is worth.
Stop by our help center for a more detailed AdWords Beginner’s Guide or check out the AdWords videos on YouTube.
Writing A Google Ad May Be Harder Than Writing Your Book – Advanced Tips & Strategies
August 2nd, 2010
By Guest Blogger Brad Geddes, Author of Advanced Google AdWords
www.bgTheory.com
One would think that writing a good ad would come naturally to writers. Rarely is it true. Most writers are too skilled at grammar and punctuation to write a good ad.
When you conduct a search on Google, you often see ads that line the right hand side of the page. These ads are a maximum of 140 characters. They are short and concise. Yet a good ad needs to perform these tasks to be successful:
- Call attention to itself
- Showcases a benefit
- Incorporate a call to action
Doing all of this in the space of an inch of text is possible, if you check your grammar and ego at the door.
Call Attention to Itself
Many search results contain up to twelve ads. When you combine that with ten natural results, and possibly other links from Google products, there can be more than thirty options on a search page. It is essential that ads stand out in this crowded page of links.
This is the first place where most writers get stuck. There is more to writing a catch headline than just choosing the correct words. Most writers naturally use sentence casing.
For many demographics, title casing is more effective than sentence casing. As a general rule, the younger the audience, the better title casing performs. The older the demographic, the better sentence casing performs.
Writers need to let go of their preference for proper casing to write a good headline when reaching younger demographics.
Showcases a Benefit
There are two items you need to know about when writing ads: features and benefits.
- A feature is a component of a product or service
- A benefit shows how that feature will improve your life
For instance, the statement “The Sony Z Vaio has a six hour battery” is a feature. It just tells a searcher that this laptop computer will last for six hours before the battery dies.
Features are easy to list, they are the bullet points you see listed on the side of a product’s packaging. They are simple to write, and outside of comparison shoppers, no one cares about the features.
Consumers spend money based upon how they perceive a product will improve their life. This is known as the benefit. A benefit shows someone how a feature will improve their life.
The statement, “The Sony Z Vaio has a six hour battery life so you can be productive on a cross country flight” is a benefit to business travelers.
Turning a feature into a benefit is simple. Take the benefit and finish the sentence.
Incorporating benefits into ad copy almost always increases its performance.
Incorporate a Call to Action
The best written Google AdWords ad is useless if it does not receive a click and send traffic to the advertiser’s website.
Many ads showcase benefits, but a benefit just highlights what a product will do for the searcher. A benefit is educational, not actionable.
Your ad should direct someone to take action. What would you like the searcher to do?
- Buy a new Plasma TV
- Subscribe to our newsletter
- Call us for a free consultation
These are calls to action.
However, they are boring calls to action that are taking up valuable ad copy space. You can combine benefits with a call to action.
- Bring the Cinema into your home by Buying a New Plasma TV.
- Signup for Powerful Marketing Tips
- Call us to Look Younger in just 10 Days
Did the capitalization of those ads annoy you?
Did you focus on the words: Buying New Plasma TV, Powerful Marketing, Look Younger?
By combining mixed casing, with benefits, with calls to action your ads can both stand out from the crowd and bring higher revenues to the advertiser.
You’re Never Always Right
A single sentence inside a 500 page book rarely matters if the words are not precise. As a writer, you are immersing the reader inside your world and have the other thousands of sentences to make up for one poorly written line.
When the ad only contains three lines, each line matters. The ad must move the searcher forward from glancing at the ad to clicking on the ad to visiting the website to performing the desired action (such as checkout, filling out a form, or calling a company).
However, there is no way to know what lines will resonate with the searchers if you only write a single ad.
In AdWords, it is simple to test different ads and messages. Instead of focusing on a single ad, you should write a few ads for each product. You do not have to know which is best, the searchers will tell you based upon what ads they are clicking that lead to sales.
This is where you can harvest the power of the internet and creative writing.
Creative writing gives you ideas.
The internet gives you statistics (such as sales, clicks, and revenue).
By combining these two together, you can be creative in your ad copy writing without having to worry about the end result. You have to give control to the searchers. Most writers hate this. When you write a book, you have control over the world. When writing ads, ‘best’ is generally based upon sales of the product, not how many people like the ad copy.
Just remember, no matter how good of a writer you are you will not always write ads that searchers like.
That is OK. If you can give up control, the statistics will tell you which is the best overall ad.
Writers can create excellent Google AdWords ads by following these simple guidelines.
The hardest part of writing AdWords ads for writers is giving up some creative control to statistics.
Brad Geddes is the author of Advanced Google AdWords, the founder of Certified Knowledge and bg Theory which are internet marketing training companies, and the only Advanced Google AdWords Seminar leader officially supported by Google.
The Fundamentals of Advertising Your Book & Hook
August 2nd, 2010
By Jennifer S. Wilkov, host of the “Your Book Is Your Hook!” Show on WomensRadio
www.yourbookisyourhook.com
As authors and writers, we’re always learning about resources and industry tools that we can use to improve our book project performance and the enjoyment of our writing and marketing experiences. Today let’s talk about the fundamentals of advertising your book.
Advertising, by design, is the very mechanism through which you create greater exposure for your book. Through advertising, you find places where your audience and reader are already present and place an ad there to inform them about your book and why they’d want to read it.
Let’s take an example from every day living to demonstrate this. Let’s say, for the purpose of illustration, that instead of a book you had created a food item. You would probably use the advertising strategies that food companies use all the time where they advertise that food item everywhere they think the buyer is going to be: in the grocery store, on television and radio programs directed at their same audience, in magazines that their consumers read and so on.
You know. You see these ads all the time. Yet when it comes to your book, maybe you’re not sure how to apply these very same strategies. So let’s talk about them.
The structure of an advertising strategy is simple: it’s the Who, What, Where, When and Why of your book.
Targeting your audience is fundamental when you are looking to advertise your book. More often than not, you will have to pay for advertising your book in one form or another so it behooves you to pay attention first as to whether or not the venue is really reaching the audience you want to talk to about your book.
By understanding WHO you want to reach with it, you’ll be able to determine the best advertising opportunities for it so you can talk to the right audience filled with your readers.
Now you have tell them WHAT you have. It’s a book. It’s an experience. It’s an adventure, a resource, a guidebook, a thriller or a great bedtime story. That was easy.
Next, you’ll want to be sure to include WHERE they can get a copy of it. Where is it sold? Where can they buy it? Online? In the big booksellers and in the local bookseller down the street from them? Can they get a copy in Costco when they go grocery shopping? Where can they get it?
WHEN is it available? Can they buy it now? Should they reserve their copy before it comes out? Is it available to pre-order? People want to know whether your book is coming out this Fall or whether they can go buy it now.
Finally, you’ve got to hit them with your hook – about WHY they should read your book. Your hook has got to grab them, make them want more and interest them in seeking out your book.
It’s about the benefits of reading your book. Is it a great escape into another world filled with desire, romance, a mystery to solve, a treasure to discover, a lesson to learn or a skill set to acquire?
Why should the reader invest hours of their valuable time and lay down their good money for your book? WHY?
Once you have identified these pieces of the advertising puzzle, it’s time to seek out advertising venues that can help you distribute your message to the audience you want to reach.
Programs like Google AdWords help you to target your audience by using short, effective ads and thoughtfully selected keywords to assist you with reaching the readers who will be interested in your book. By targeting their millions of users and allowing the right people to reveal themselves as your audience as a result of what they’re searching for online, programs like Google AdWords take the guesswork out of where to find the exact people you want to reach and help match your ad with the people who want the kind of experience and expertise you’re providing.
Now let’s face it: Writing advertisements is a lot different than writing a 300-page novel, a 200-page business book or a 32-page children’s book. Advertisements are short, concise and are designed to get to the point, or your hook, quickly. You’ve got to be able to focus the buyer on what you have and why they want it. Then you can tell them where to get it and when.
As an author, you have to be so much more than just a writer. You must become a marketer of your book. Learn to embrace the role of the town crier about your book, shouting “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” politely to everyone you meet, everyone you email and all those in your social media networks.
One Last Tip:
Every great advertiser knows that just because you think you’ve written a great ad, you’re not necessarily going to sell a boatload of books. The secret you may not realize about advertisers large and small is that we all test and test and test what we’ve created as an ad to see if it will really reach the people we want get the word out to. So just because you feel like you’ve nailed it when you write your ad, understand that your audience will be the final judge and tell you whether you’ve got it right…or not.
So get ready to embrace humility and treat advertising as a puzzle that you can get excited about solving. It’s a game, after all. The person who reaches the right readers and tells them why their book is what they’re looking for in the most effective yet concise way…wins.
If you want to sell more books and you want more people to read it, then you’re going to need to invest your time and effort first in advertising and marketing your book.
It will make it a lot easier for you to generate the success you seek and make it a win for everybody including you, your publisher and your reader.
