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How to Grow Your Customer Network

Let me just start off by saying that growing your customer network takes focus and hard work.  It is not easy.  You must remain loyal to the two bulleted networking best practices I’ve provided below.  I don’t say this to discourage you but rather to prepare you for the reality.  Your first run at this will not produce turnkey results.  If you want to begin driving free organic traffic to your blog’s website you need to education yourself with some long-time expert advice.  I’ve been researching blog networking experts like April Tucker and David Wood.  They’re both great resources for much better advice than a newbie like I can give.  They offer expert advice on how to drive tons of traffic to a blogger’s site fast.

In the meantime, there are a few tactics I can explain to help you get started.  Since I am an author, my blogs are focused on marketing to book readers.  We’ve talked about identifying your target market in previous blogs, so the advice I’m going to give is assuming you’ve already done that.  My novel, Extra Innings: The Diamond Thieves, is a young adult, historical fiction and also it’s important to note that it’s a trilogy.

  • NETWORKING with BLOGGERS:

Use Google to search for blogs within your book’s genre.  Find a blog that truly interests you.  Read it from beginning to end.  If you like it, then post a comment on that blogger’s page below the blog you liked.  However, be a critical thinker, if you didn’t like it, don’t try and make false friends with a fake comment.  It’s just not worth it unless your comment is sincere – believe me that blogger with know the difference.  I recommend posting on at least 1 relevant blog per day.  Your comments should be professionally written.  They should begin with a positive compliment.  Remember what I’ve told you before, it’s always smart to gain favorable attention first by appealing to an artist’s pride.  Just because you feel a kinship to the blogger doesn’t mean your response should include: What’s up!  Hey there, or dude – great advice!  Save these blogs in your favorites so you can continue to revisit them.  A productive relationship with a blogger takes multiple comments on multiple blogs and if they respond to your comment then you may invite them to visit your blog’s site.

NOTE:  Commenting on a bloggers site should be FREE.  If they are asking you to sign up or pay a fee, click out of that page and find a different blog to comment on.

  • NETWORKING with TWITTER USERS:

Use hashtags to search for Tweets that are relevant to your book’s genre.  For example: #historicalfiction or #youngadult.  I also recommend searching for #newauthor.   Thousands of Tweets will generate from this these searches.  Focus only on recent Tweets.  If a Tweet was posted more than 2 days ago, don’t bother.  You may feel tempted to start firing off Likes or Retweets or Comments but I really advise only responding or liking Tweets that you sincerely found interesting or had a link to a site or blog that was educational or beneficial to you.  If you find a Twitter user who truly is in sync with your scope of writing then Follow them.  Send them a comment introducing yourself and use hashtags relevant to your book and/or writing mission.  You only get 140 characters in a Twitter post so it’s important to craft an impactful comment.   You want to be positive, professional and unique.  If the Twitter user responds then I always explain that I am a new author, I provide the title of my book and I invite them to visit my website.

The fruits of your labor will begin when start to develop online relationships with a host of authors, literary agents and publishers within your target market.  The overall objective of persevering in this targeted effort is to make a fruitful connection.  I anything, you will at least gain a tremendous amount of free advice.

July 9, 2014 by
Publishing

Identifying an Author’s Target Market

Targeting a specific market essentially means you will aim your marketing efforts and cater your storytelling towards a specific group of consumers.  The consumer marketplace is like a giant beehive of billions of individuals each with their own unique set of interests.  When you are a new author (like me) it’s critical to obtain a clear sense of where your market opportunity lies, or else we can waste a lot of precious time and money executing initiatives that produce little, if any, return.

WEEK1:

So what’s a smart starting point in identifying your target market?  I would say it’s probably safe to assume that you as the author fall within this group of consumers who would read your book(s).  Ask yourself: what type of consumer am I?  When I am looking to read something what are my propensities and where do I go to find it?  I typically read young adult, historical fiction novels that deal with social and psychoanalytical factors such as social justice, radial injustice, defense mechanisms, coping and so on.  I also look for stories with core elements of drama and action.  I’m not much for fantasy, sci fi or romance.  Sometimes I’ll pick up the occasional biography or autobiography.  However, this is not a theme of my writing so I would exclude it from my key word list.    I would suggest conducting a consumer segmentation analysis on yourself and most importantly: take notes!  Once you have a list of your buying behaviors double-check that it’s relevant to your book as well as narrow (keep it between 4-5 key words).  A list that’s all over the map is going to defeat the whole purpose of a target market by stiffening your competition and losing control of your prospective customers.  Title this list “Key Words.”

For example: the genre of my Extra Innings trilogy (The Diamond Thieves) is historical fiction and young adult.  Also search Twitter for #newauthor and #author.  I search for Tweets and blogs with these key phrases.  When I find a Tweet or blog that I enjoyed reading or (even better) learned something from, I comment, therefore, trying to build a relationship with this individual Twitter user or blogger who shares the same relevant interest.

Next search Google, Twitter, Amazon and Goodreads for those key words.  (Note: when using Twitter hit the pound sigh before each word with no spaces.  For example: #historicalfiction or #socialinjustice Google’s search engine connects you with millions of advertisements and services.  Some of these services are blogs and by narrowing your search down via key words, look specifically for people writing blogs about that topic.  Twitter is a social network for connecting people, organizations and businesses with in-the-moment updates.  Amazon.com is a MSP (multisided platform) connecting consumers to purchase goods and services.  Craigslist does the same thing.  Networking on these sites can gain you access to a segmented audience that may otherwise be unattainable.

Once you have found a blog that falls into the same space as one of your keywords, then read it.  If you like what it has to say, leave a comment with your website address inviting the blogger to check out your site.  Your # search in Twitter will bring up a list of Tweets referencing that specific keyword.  Read the Tweet, if you like it click on the tiny star symbol below the Tweet. If you wish to comment Click the left-pointing arrow to message the initiator of that Tweet.  Or click the double arrows to Re-Tweet the post and it will appear on your Twitter feed. This process is called networking and I recommend doing so with at least 1 blogger and 3-4 Twitter users per day.  We will get more into using Twitter on future blogs as today’s focus is Identifying Your  Target Market.  As a beginner, I kept a log of the bloggers and Twitter users I was following.  I also recommend saving blogger sites in your Favorites so they are easily accessible.

At the end of Week 1, review your log and make sure that everything lines up with your original key word list.  Anything falling outside of that give it a full review.  If the list becoming too wide it needs to be scrubbed for non-relevant relationships.

WEEK 2:

Now we’re going to dig a little deeper to define the more specific segments of our target market.  Scan your book for any specific places, year or decades (ie. the 60’s or 90’s) brand names (especially ones that are unique or if you are writing an historical novel brands or products that are no longer being produced), ethnic backgrounds of your characters, special events or holidays, special interests, hobbies or activities.  You’re allowed to have more than one niche market, just remember not to allow your consumer segments to become too broad of it defeats the purpose of targeting.  Try and stick with common themes used throughout your book versus obscure ones mentioned only once or twice.  For example, if your main character is a writer or poet or dancer or real estate agent or banker then this would be a key word falling within the special interests, hobbies or activities category.  Two common themes used in my first book (The Diamond Thieves) is baseball and social injustice.  Write these down.  These will also become key words.  Now, use Twitter or Google to search for those key words.  Begin to network with these users as you did in Week 1 with your first key word list. Hopefully after these three targeted weeks of networking you are identifying your target market and learning something about your relevant segmentation of readers.

During the following 2 weeks I would recommend individually repeating the networking steps in Weeks 1 & 2.  Once you a comfortable you can begin merging them together.  Hopefully this gains you some viral traction on these sites.  I would also recommend reading the works of your Twitter followers and posting something positive on Goodreads.com or Amazon.com to help promote them. Notify them on their Twitter page when you’ve done this.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to share.  If in reading this you share the same interests as mine check out my first-ever published book Extra Innings: The Diamond Thieves at www.bwgibson.net.  If you like it, I would love to hear your thoughts on Goodreads.com.

July 6, 2014 by
Publishing

Top 2 Mistakes Authors Make with their Target Market

I am pumped to be able to talk about a topic that is so important to the success of a writer’s novel. Defining your target market is the most important first step for an author. It’s also one of the most difficult. It involves an understanding of who is your ideal reader (notice I have not puralized ‘reader’).

First start with asking yourself: What is the genre of the story you wish to tell? This is should be simple as most stories typically fall into one bucket. For example, the Extra Innings trilogy is Historical Fiction. Other book genres include:

  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Drama
  • Romance
  • Mystery
  • Horror
  • Children’s
  • Biographies
  • Poetry
  • How To/Self-Help
  • Cookbooks
  • Comic Books (which is what I grew up mostly reading)
  • Travel
  • Religion
  • Art History
  • Science (I think you get the point)

On an interesting side note, publishing houses consider trilogies to be a genre of their own. I, however, disagree. It’s sort of like a journal or diary where an author’s fictional or non-fictional work is told with a certain style or platform. Styles would be first person, second or third person narrative style. Platform is the mode in which the story is packaged (ie. journal entries, a single novel, a series or a trilogy).

So anyway, let’s get back to defining your story’s target market.   Among the authors I have researched, are are the Top 2 Mistakes being made with their Target Market:

#1 Mistake is NOT defining a target market.

#2 Mistake is not defining a CLEAR target market

Believe, this occurs quite often with new authors. They have an interesting concept for a story and they may have even completed storyboards or an outline of each chapter and the may have created all their characters and even given them al names. But if you don’t know specifically who you are targeting this story, these chapters and these characters to you will run into a multiple difficulties when it comes to fine-tuning the details of the story and even more difficulties when it comes to marketing your finished product.

So we are going to solve the #1 problem now by accepting that you MUST define your target market. Now that we’ve gotten that out o the way, let’s move onto #2.

Defining a clear target market can quite frankly be a real pain. I, personally, really struggled with this because, like most new authors, I was in love with my book and truly believed that EVERYONE would love it too. However, that is simply not the case. Sorry fellow authors! But your ideal reader (meaning the customers that help you the most to get the word spread with positive feedback) is a specific niche of individuals that you need to identify. Focusing on them will not only save you time but also save you money instead of marketing to groups of people with other interests. I also want to point out that when you are trying to define this target market, disregard “friends and family” as a target group. Your friends and family will (most likely) support you.

When deciding your target market there are two general families of consumer groups you want to research.

  1.  Demographics
  2.  Psychographics

In order to answer what group your readers fall into, you must identify 3 or 4 books similar to yours and identify the specific groups that are interested in that genre.

DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP: Age, Gender, Education, Social Class, Geographic Location and Occupation

PSYCHOGRAPHIC GROUPS: Special Interests, Activities/Hobbies, Occupation (I believe falls in both categories as some people are stuck working a job they have no interest in), Social Factors, Cultural Associations and Philosophical Beliefs.

For example, your research may show that your Target Market is Young Adults (which are people between the ages of 16 and 28), primarily females, who are in high school or at least high school educated in the United States. Primary interests include staying active, family-oriented, social disorganization in communities, social prejudice and environmental racism in America with a particular focus on the US Deep South.

Secondary Target Market could include family-oriented adults who grew up in the United States during the Cold War period with at least a high school education.

Identifying the demographic and psychographic groups in which a typical fan of your book’s genre will gain you faster and more productive results when you go to market your book.

Once you have mastered this, I also advise tracking all feedback you receive on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads.com as well as your own website. Reach out to your first batch of responding, liking and sharing with your followers via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, or email and conduct some deeper research.

Collect this data and then get out your microscope. This is where you are truly going to be able to define your customer. This is called consumer segmentation. We can get more into this in future blogs, but I will say that understanding your consumer segments will help you to fine-tune your next book. It’s that fine-tuning that produce a story that appeals directly to your existing fans and that’s when they will really start to spread the word and your legacy will begin.

Best of Luck to you all!

B.W. Gibson

Author of Extra Innings: The Diamond Thieves (Book 1 of the Extra Innings trilogy)

July 4, 2014 by
Publishing

Why Twins?

Identical twins have always fascinated me.  It was purely a selfish reason to have the main characters of Extra Innings be identical twins because it gave me a purposeful excuse to research the topic.  As the original storyboards were being developed and my excitement grew I realized that this topic gave the story very unique opportunities.   After all there are very few fictional novels on the market about identical twins.  I think the trilogy would make for a fun movie.

I was fortunate enough to encounter a handful of identical twins throughout my research.  One question in particular, I will not disclose in this blog as it will give away too much information. Readers will just have to complete the trilogy to find out.

One of the first and very apparent concepts I learned was that the general stereotype of identical twins acting identical is grossly mistaken.  Learning this really helped me to develop the characters of Jimmy and Billy McGee.  I wanted them to be almost polar opposites so I was pleased to learn this concept is widely justified.  At the same time, this is where the pieces throughout the story become intellectualized WITHOUT becoming ponderous.

The correct term for identical twins is monozygotic.  This is where two embryos are formed from a single (mono) fertilized egg.  Because the two embryos are formed from a single egg/sperm fertilization, the twins have the same genetic origins and, therefore, the identical DNA.  However, despite this shared gene set, they have clearly individual personalities.  Studies are done as to whether parents should encourage this individualization more by not permitting the twins to share the same bedroom growing up or not to dress them alike, etc.  Right from Chapter 1 of the Diamond Thieves the reader learns that Jimmy and Billy both share the attic as their bedroom  I touch a little bit on their infancy and the whole concept of “twin ESP” and “twin talk” but mostly the story focuses on how the cavern of their individuality expands as their teenage years move along.  Still, what I find fascinating is how despite their differences they both often find the same platform with which to express themselves.  My favorite example of this is in Book 3 (A Hero Among Thieves) when both twins are experiencing stress they both express it through writing.  Jimmy, the more deliberate and intellectual of the two, completely emerges himself in a research paper at Ole Miss (The University of Mississippi) while Billy, the more free-spirited and creative type begins to write songs and poems about his experiences in Korea (during the Korean Conflict).  It’s also interesting that Jimmy naturally begins to develop a rigid routine to his mornings at college while Billy is forced into a rigid routine with the United States Air Force.

In book 1 (The Diamond Thieves) the reader is immediately told that Jimmy and Billy McGee are “clearly individuals.”  Behaviors, actions, expressions and thoughts help to illustrate this.  However, this book constellates more around the battle over their baseball diamond and how to handle the prejudice of their enemies “the mob” with respects to their good friend T.J. who is black.  With respect to this topic, both Jimmy and Billy have the same feelings although Jimmy (like his character describes him) is more in tune and responsive to T.J.’s emotions.

Book 2 (Race of the Gemini) lives up to his title by digging deep into the progression of these boys growing more different.  The story describes a lot of how one twin (Billy) feels like a living shadow of the other (Jimmy).  This was an interesting idea that I picked up in many of my interviews with twins.  They felt that the other was more of a favorite of one or both parents.  Some felt the jealousy of one twin being more popular in school or better at sports or a natural at socializing.  As I asked more questions I was very intrigued by the pressure and jealousy that was felt around this topic.  Often times these feelings sparred a sense of competition between then, hence the title “Race of the Gemini.”  The trick with writing about this was trying not to intentionally downplay one twin over the other.  If the readers found themselves having a favorite among the two brothers, I wanted that to be their choice and not triggered by some intentional or subliminal seed I planted.

In book 1 (The Diamond Thieves) both twins love baseball, however, Jimmy is a team’s all-star batter while Billy has the Ace pitching skills.  Also, Jimmy has a closer relationship with Skip, who is more mature and logical while Billy was closer friends with Whitey – the wild and fun one in the group.

Lastly, I wanted to play around with the whole concept of “switching places” or “trading places” as this was asked of each set of twins I interviewed.  I was surprised to find that this was not just a childhood experience but also performed on more of a strategic level as teenagers.  This was executed for various reasons allowing one of the twins to practically be in two places at once.  For the McGee twins, Billy insisted on Jimmy covering for him multiple times so he could sneak out of the house and be with his girlfriend or go drinking with his friends.  Jimmy, not being a big fan of drinking became almost the victim here so Billy, who was grounded, could still go out and party.

Overall, I had as much fun writing Extra Innings as I did doing all the pre-writing research.  I hope its readers fall in love with the McGee twins and all their friends as much as I have.  #extrainnings

June 29, 2014 by
Publishing

Why Baseball?

Now that my first book is out, I’m getting a lot of folks asking: “why did you choose baseball?”

Well, as most people know my goal was to write a fictional book that required a vast amount of research, however, I did feel the need to incorporate some theme with which I was familiar. Considering the age of the characters I tried to think of what might interest them during this period in American history and baseball felt the most appropriate to capture the essence of this era. I grew up playing ball with my friends either during recess or during the summers in the town I grew up in a small town (named Wentzville) just outside St. Louis, Missouri. Other than building forts and trails in the woods that surrounded my house, I spent countless hours playing baseball. I also have some great memories of going to Busch Stadium to see the Cards (Cardinals) play. Speaking of major league teams, my dad was definitely more of a following fan. I didn’t watch sports at all growing up but I do recalling overhearing games my dad watched on t.v. or listening to on the radio. Again, these were great memories all positively influencing my current love for baseball. Now, I am a proud Boston Red Sox fan. I love listening to the games on our MLB app and posting fan messages on my Facebook page.

Once baseball was the decided theme for the beginning of the book (remember that the Extra Innings trilogy was originally plotted to be one single book) I began to create storyboards detailing the plot. Obviously, since the baseball portion of this story took place in 1947 and I wasn’t born until 1975, I did have to do some research. This mostly came in the with the help of Google. I had fun digging into the baseball archives for player and team information as well as specifics on rules and regulations of the game which have since changed. This was important because I could not always rely on my current knowledge of how the game is played. Certain illegal moves now were legal back then or had just been outlawed a few years prior to the year of this story.

For example, spitballs were originally outlawed in 1920.  The example of a balk mentioned in Book 1 is when the pitcher makes a motion associated with his pitch but does not complete the delivery.  The balk rule was first introduced 50 years prior to this story taking place but it was mentioned to help reinforce how the opposing team (“the mob”) had to be watched closely for cheating.

I want to specifically talk about Chapter 2. There is a scene between two friends (Fist and Boston) who are trading baseball cards. Researching this was tricky, because I really wanted to feature the more popular players at the time with a particular focus on rookie cards (like Brooklyn Dodger’s Pee Wee Reese’s rookie card from 1941) as those leverage the highest bargaining ability during a card trade.  But at the same time, I didn’t want to select too famous of a player because I believed that might appear too far-fetched to the reader. After all, avid baseball fans would know any and all current players (current being mid 1940’s) and not just the major celebrity players with now legendary status.  One interesting fact to note was that some major league players didn’t get issued an actual “rookie” card until a few years after they were playing.  One example was outfielder Ralph Kiner who began playing for the Pittsburg Pirates in 1946 but wasn’t issued a rookie card until 1948.

Another interesting point to mention is that major league baseball was shut down during WWII as the men were away fighting the Nazi’s. This is when the AAGSL (All-American Girls Softball League) came about (later to become the All-American Girls Baseball League in 1943. (Remember the movie A League of Their Own with Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna).  This era of baseball is not mentioned in the Extra Innings trilogy at all. Based on the nature and personalities of these characters (and their relationship with one character in particular), it would be contradictory for them to speak of this league unless it was negative.

I do feel it’s important to mention that the story of the twins goes beyond the topic of baseball. Only in Book 1 (The Diamond Thieves) is this even a focus. Chapters 10 and 11 give solid closure to the baseball-themed plot and I believe that Chapter 12 does a good job communicating that the reader can expect for Book 2 to incorporate a completely different theme. For the purpose of peaking a prospective reader’s interest to buy my book, I am going to refrain from explaining what that theme is in this blog.  Speaking of Chapter 12, I hope everyone who reads the book really enjoys Chapter 12 as this is absolutely my favorite chapter in the entire book.  Readers have already reported to me that they are (pleasingly) shocked by this chapter.  I love it!

Additionally, keep memorable moments and memories in a lovely commemorative book. Then, share the experience with loved ones and learn about stories you never knew existed. You may get started right away. You’ll make a keepsake to treasure for years with the storyworth login page.

#extrainnings

June 24, 2014 by