Sarah R. Yoffa's Blog: -sry's Goodreads Blogosphere, page 10
August 28, 2012
TUESDAY TIP Shelfari vs LibraryThing and Goodreads #pubtip #indie #selfpub
Last week, I wrapped up the little miniseries on how to use Amazon's Shelfari site, which is designed to be a community much like Goodreads while also being a book information source like LibraryThing. Today, I'll explain what I mean by that last, taking a brief fly-through LibraryThing for those who don't know what it is or have never used it. Click through the jump break to get started.
LibraryThing - for Libraries and Other Bookish Things
You may not have known this, but LibraryThing has a whole separate set of tools called LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL). The LTFL toolbox is slightly different than what we, readers and authors, have available. For instance, the LTFL toolset includes scripts to generate a virtual shelf for each author the library lists (which is all authors the library carries for even one book, 99% of the time).
In other words, if you have your books on LibraryThing and a library using LTFL adds even just one of your books to their system, all of your books will show up on their Virtual Shelf for you. Anytime any library patron visits the page for your book, they'll see the Virtual Shelf with all of your books. It's fantastic FREE promotion of your entire book list. Shown below is the "full screen" view of Nora Roberts's shelf. Since she has hundreds of titles, even the "full screen" view doesn't show them all but it does take over the screen (note the greyed-out areas around the shelf graphic).
Drawback #1
Just one catch: all of your books must be listed on LibraryThing if they are to show up on the Virtual Shelf generated by LTFL. The script generates the Virtual Shelf dynamically (i.e., whenever a library patron visits a page containing the Virtual Shelf script, it is built "on the fly) but your books must be added to LibraryThing MANUALLY . This is one of only two drawbacks I've found to LibraryThing so it's not that big deal in my mind.
Drawback #2
The other drawback is only relevant if (a) you're broke and need the freebie account or (b) you're an Indie Publisher or someone like Nora Roberts who has over 200 titles to her name. Why? There is a 200-title limit to the free LibraryThing accounts. You can pay to upgrade your account if you need to list over 200 titles but it won't be worth it if you're not using the whole 200 titles. Since I haven't done this, I'm not sure, but I suspect that upgraded account will also have access to LTFL tools ^_^
Who's Using LibraryThing
It doesn't take much to get access to LibraryThing. You just log in. Theoretically, anyone could use the site. When you go to http://www.librarything.com/, you have a choice to create a new user account (which I did) or you can just log in with an existing Facebook or Twitter account if you like using APIs to log in around the web. I use my Facebook to log into my SciFi Goodreads account and a standalone login for the one under my real name, and I use my Twitter accounts to log into blogs I visit under either name.
Notice that LibraryThing is promoting itself as though it's a "community" site like Goodreads. Compared to Goodreads's 10 million members, the 1.5 million number shows how young LibraryThing still is. I suspect it is used more by librarians and authors (or publishers, marketers for publishers or agents) than it is by everyday readers, but it's free to use for everyone.
Much like the little "hidden" prerequisite we had with Shelfari (where you had to first create an Amazon Author Central account before you could link it and become an official Shelfari Author), LibraryThing has a process for becoming an official LibraryThing Author.
1) Use the LibraryThing Search to find yourself on their site. I did a search for "Sarah R. Yoffa" (my real name pen name) and was disappointed to find I did not yet exist on their site.
My sole book, Dicky's Story, is not there either. That's not a coincidence. You have to have at least one book on the site before they'll recognize you exist. Kinda stupid but kinda makes sense. So I checked for my SciFi self, knowing that I (and one other user) had already added When Minds Collide to the LibraryThing database. Voila! There's Friday.
Notice the "(2)" after Friday's name? That indicates how many copies of this author's work have been shelved by unique LibraryThing users. If I search for Nora Roberts, there are two pages of entries with multiple works indicated.
Once you've found yourself, on the right side of the screen is a link to click after the words "Is this you?" Click the link to submit a request to become a LibraryThing Author. If you have more than one book on the site, you can add a comment suggesting the LibraryThing Admin reviewing your request look at the additional titles for proof of your validity as an Author. Because they feed their database directly into library system catalog generation engines, LibraryThing is much more strict about who becomes an official Author. I submitted my Amazon link to my book, since that seems to validate an author's existence for LibraryThing. I tried it with Smashwords, and Friday's titles, but she is still not an official LibraryThing Author so apparently Smashwords isn't official enough for them. Seems odd.
I'd like to try submitting just my Goodreads Author account URL but they require a book first and for that, I had to use the Amazon link to Dicky's Story.
After you submit your request, a human Admin at LibraryThing reviews your existence and approves you or (I'd assume) sends you a message explaining why not. This is as far as I've gotten and seems like a good place to stop for this week's blog anyway. I'll run a few more posts by the Tuesday Tips series as and when I learn more about the usefulness of LibraryThing. For now, I'd suggest every Indie Author create an account and add your own books. At the very least, it cannot hurt.
What's Next....
Next Monday's marketing blog will be the Immutable Law of Branding 17 (for Indie Authors): Law of Color. It's the second half of a discussion started yesterday with Law 16: Law of Shape. It's a holiday weekend here in the USA but I'll still be working (on Labor Day) and publishing this blog series. I know, such a slave, I am!
Next Tuesday, I'll report back in on how my first-ever free promotion has gone. I did not use Amazon's KDP and I think I've done quite well without it. Tune in after Labor Day to hear the details!
Thanks for stopping by.
LibraryThing - for Libraries and Other Bookish Things
You may not have known this, but LibraryThing has a whole separate set of tools called LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL). The LTFL toolbox is slightly different than what we, readers and authors, have available. For instance, the LTFL toolset includes scripts to generate a virtual shelf for each author the library lists (which is all authors the library carries for even one book, 99% of the time).
In other words, if you have your books on LibraryThing and a library using LTFL adds even just one of your books to their system, all of your books will show up on their Virtual Shelf for you. Anytime any library patron visits the page for your book, they'll see the Virtual Shelf with all of your books. It's fantastic FREE promotion of your entire book list. Shown below is the "full screen" view of Nora Roberts's shelf. Since she has hundreds of titles, even the "full screen" view doesn't show them all but it does take over the screen (note the greyed-out areas around the shelf graphic).
Drawback #1
Just one catch: all of your books must be listed on LibraryThing if they are to show up on the Virtual Shelf generated by LTFL. The script generates the Virtual Shelf dynamically (i.e., whenever a library patron visits a page containing the Virtual Shelf script, it is built "on the fly) but your books must be added to LibraryThing MANUALLY . This is one of only two drawbacks I've found to LibraryThing so it's not that big deal in my mind.
Drawback #2
The other drawback is only relevant if (a) you're broke and need the freebie account or (b) you're an Indie Publisher or someone like Nora Roberts who has over 200 titles to her name. Why? There is a 200-title limit to the free LibraryThing accounts. You can pay to upgrade your account if you need to list over 200 titles but it won't be worth it if you're not using the whole 200 titles. Since I haven't done this, I'm not sure, but I suspect that upgraded account will also have access to LTFL tools ^_^
Who's Using LibraryThing
It doesn't take much to get access to LibraryThing. You just log in. Theoretically, anyone could use the site. When you go to http://www.librarything.com/, you have a choice to create a new user account (which I did) or you can just log in with an existing Facebook or Twitter account if you like using APIs to log in around the web. I use my Facebook to log into my SciFi Goodreads account and a standalone login for the one under my real name, and I use my Twitter accounts to log into blogs I visit under either name.
Notice that LibraryThing is promoting itself as though it's a "community" site like Goodreads. Compared to Goodreads's 10 million members, the 1.5 million number shows how young LibraryThing still is. I suspect it is used more by librarians and authors (or publishers, marketers for publishers or agents) than it is by everyday readers, but it's free to use for everyone.
Much like the little "hidden" prerequisite we had with Shelfari (where you had to first create an Amazon Author Central account before you could link it and become an official Shelfari Author), LibraryThing has a process for becoming an official LibraryThing Author.
1) Use the LibraryThing Search to find yourself on their site. I did a search for "Sarah R. Yoffa" (my real name pen name) and was disappointed to find I did not yet exist on their site.
My sole book, Dicky's Story, is not there either. That's not a coincidence. You have to have at least one book on the site before they'll recognize you exist. Kinda stupid but kinda makes sense. So I checked for my SciFi self, knowing that I (and one other user) had already added When Minds Collide to the LibraryThing database. Voila! There's Friday.
Notice the "(2)" after Friday's name? That indicates how many copies of this author's work have been shelved by unique LibraryThing users. If I search for Nora Roberts, there are two pages of entries with multiple works indicated.
Once you've found yourself, on the right side of the screen is a link to click after the words "Is this you?" Click the link to submit a request to become a LibraryThing Author. If you have more than one book on the site, you can add a comment suggesting the LibraryThing Admin reviewing your request look at the additional titles for proof of your validity as an Author. Because they feed their database directly into library system catalog generation engines, LibraryThing is much more strict about who becomes an official Author. I submitted my Amazon link to my book, since that seems to validate an author's existence for LibraryThing. I tried it with Smashwords, and Friday's titles, but she is still not an official LibraryThing Author so apparently Smashwords isn't official enough for them. Seems odd.
I'd like to try submitting just my Goodreads Author account URL but they require a book first and for that, I had to use the Amazon link to Dicky's Story.
After you submit your request, a human Admin at LibraryThing reviews your existence and approves you or (I'd assume) sends you a message explaining why not. This is as far as I've gotten and seems like a good place to stop for this week's blog anyway. I'll run a few more posts by the Tuesday Tips series as and when I learn more about the usefulness of LibraryThing. For now, I'd suggest every Indie Author create an account and add your own books. At the very least, it cannot hurt.
What's Next....
Next Monday's marketing blog will be the Immutable Law of Branding 17 (for Indie Authors): Law of Color. It's the second half of a discussion started yesterday with Law 16: Law of Shape. It's a holiday weekend here in the USA but I'll still be working (on Labor Day) and publishing this blog series. I know, such a slave, I am!
Next Tuesday, I'll report back in on how my first-ever free promotion has gone. I did not use Amazon's KDP and I think I've done quite well without it. Tune in after Labor Day to hear the details!
Thanks for stopping by.
August 27, 2012
MONDAY MARKETING Branding Law 16 Shape: A Logo Should be Designed 4 the Eyes. Both Eyes. #pubtip #indie #selfpub #marketing #IAN1
some image rights reserved by Paulo BrandãWelcome back to my marketing series on Branding (for Indie Authors). Over the course of the series, we've been talking about something called "branding." It's not a book cover design you copy from one book to the next. In reality, a brand is far more than a graphic design. A brand is an idea in the mind of the consumer whose power lies in the ability to influence purchasing decisions.
The marketing activity called "branding" is all about focusing the idea down to that "one word" which is uniquely you and planting it inside the reader's mind (called "positioning") so you can establish and grow your foothold in their minds. Through branding, you make yourself, as an Indie Author, interchangeable with the "idea."
Review earlier entries in the Branding (for Indie Authors) Series here to learn more about how to focus your marketing in order to strengthen your brand. Click through the jump-break to learn what impact shape has on your sales and how to use it correctly.
Finally, I've come to a Branding Law that actually talks about visual impact of your book's cover. Yay! Okay, enough celebration because now comes the time for hard work. Your best bet is to hire a professional graphics designer and I'll say that up front, but ultimately, no matter whom you hire to design your book covers, you are going to have to say "yea" or "nay" to the designs they show you. It'll be your name on these suckers so it's going to become associated with you--choose wisely, Grasshopper.
There are actual "laws" to visual design. Many professional graphics artists just "fly by the seat of their pants" and do quite well that way. They may have had no formal training but have what we call "the eye" for good design. I have an eye, two even, but I'm a mediocre designer. I know the CRAP rules of design and my "eye" knows what looks good or doesn't. My brain still craps out when I try to get ideas out of my brain and through my fingers. I'm a writer, not a visual artist. I'm creative in other ways but for some reason, drawing and sketching is a struggle for me (to wit: it took me 10 months to cartoon Dicky).
Some of us can create the images; others just "know" what looks good. The human mind receives all of its impressions through our five senses and for shapes, usually, we get most if not all of our data through vision. We have two eyes, they operate in unison, from a horizontally-mounted position on the front of our heads. That deeply impacts how we perceive the world. If our eyes were mounted at the ends of antennae rising up off the top of our heads--or at the ends of our fingertips--we'd see the world differently. So when we design, we need to design to deliver images in the way the human eyes are designed to receive them.
Although the camera may not lie, the human mind does . Remember, perception is everything and the human mind perceives shapes in ways that make sense based on their "over-simplified" context. You can immediately tell when a book cover is working and when it's not, right? Today, you'll learn why .
Shapes that Work
In his original book on branding, Ries discusses logotypes (or logos, for short) and what shapes they should be as well as which ones work and which ones don't. The same lessons can be easily adapted to the cover of a book.
1) Since human eyes are mounted, horizontally, and only in the front of the head, human vision is limited to a roughly rectangular area directly in front of us--like an automobile windshield. The #1 best shape for recognition and retention, therefore, is "windshield" shaped. That is, rectangular.
Last week, I used the Darden Concepts, Inc. restaurant conglomerate as an example of a corporation that really understands marketing and branding. They not only spun off several great "sibling brands" to correctly create a "family" of brands, but the logos designed for each individual sibling brand is unique, distinctive--and effectively shaped. Let's take a look.
The Original Brand: Red Lobster
Note that the actual logo is only the material contained within the black rectangle. They even made the white lettering curve, like it would on a windshield. Why? Because because it "leads" the eye along.
The First Sibling: Olive Garden
Notice that they still maintained a rectangular "box" background but now the "mood" of the fontography is more relaxed. The eye (or eyes) take this image in whole, in one "eye-shot" as they say.
The Second Sibling: Longhorn SteakhouseHere, they eliminated the rectangular box background but maintained the sense of a rectangle, or windshield. It is no accident that the horns of the cartoon steer are pointing up and to the right--that's how English readers' eyes track. Note also that the name "Longhorn" stands out more than "steakhouse." That's designed that way because the word "steakhouse" is generic while the name "Longhorn" is the actual Brand Name. The cartoon steer's long horn, pointing up and to the right deliberately lead your eyes so you read "Longhorn" more often than "steakhouse."
Not only that, the word "steakhouse" is actually "lean" in shape. That's on purpose, too. When you get around to reading that second word, you think of lean, red meat--an oxymoron, sure, but Longhorn was launched at a time when red meat was considered the #1 cause of obesity in the U.S. So, "lean red meat" was a positive subliminal message to send with this logo.
How Does Logo Design Translate to Book Covers?
It's nearly the same process and objective. You want to cluster the important visual elements into a rectangular shape and keep the eye tracking (moving) from top left to right bottom. See the "Z" shape of the movement in the diagram at left (click to enlarge).Typically, for an Indie Author, this means the book's title should be at the top in large print (from "1" to "2") and the imagery scanned along the path from "2" to "3" should be designed to be viewed in that direction (not from "1" to "3"). The words between "3" and "4" might be the Indie Author's name or a tagline for the book. If you were a NYT Best Selling Author (like Nora Roberts), then probably, it'd be your name up at the top, since that's the selling point more than the book title.
Purpose of Design with Typography
There is only one purpose to designing with typography: to draw the eye in so that the person will read the words . It's not which font you use to write the words that matters; but rather, the words being conveyed. The font is the tool used for conveying the words--and the mood.
Take this test. What font does Rolex, Mercedes or Rolls-Royce use? Don't know? I bet you know all of those names, however, and unless you saw them displayed in a cartoon font (indicating a light-hearted, cavalier attitude), you'd recognize them in an instant, wouldn't you? The names are what communicate the power of the brand, not the fonts used to display them, however fonts do convey messages.
Just as using the right font for the right message can enhance your logo or typographical design, using the wrong font can send a mixed message. Bold, sans serif (block) fonts are considered masculine (see Longhorn Steakhouse) while light-weight, serif fonts are more feminine (see Olive Garden).Even without the gender biases, serif typefaces are considered "old-fashioned" (see the New York Times masthead or Reader's Digest). Likewise, a sans serif typeface is a modern invention so it's associated with more modern brands (see Nike's famous logo or consider some of the famous brands displayed below).
For a book that is crime fiction or detective mystery, you'll want to use a masculine font. For a romance novel, a serif font, definitely, and maybe even a cursive script. If it's a Regency or Historical, something with a lot of curly-queues and for a Romantic Comedy, a "fun" font (like Disney's). One thing all of the logotypes above have in common, however, no matter how exotic or exaggerated their font faces are, the words are still legible.
It's a Balancing Act
If your font selection isn't exaggerated enough, it won't communicate the mood you want. If the exaggeration is too extreme, it won't be legible anymore. You can't just take an exaggerated font and make it larger; choose a more legible font. Sorry. No matter how fun a font might be in theory, if you cannot read the words it spells out, in practice, the book is not going to sell as well as it could. Yes, your book will be judged by its cover--and how its name is displayed.
Instead of exaggerating the font's details, try using color to draw the eye. I'll discuss the Law of Color next week (yes, there's a whole Immutable Law of Branding called the Law of Color!) but for now, notice the way Showtime and Cinemax have both used color to focus you on their 3-letter acronyms (the SHO and MAX that you'll recognize in your cable TV guide). Notice also how Mobil gasoline made the red "o" stand out, like the gaping hole of your open gas tank waiting for Mobil to be delivered.
If you're unsure as to how to get the book cover to look just right, hire a professional. If you can't find one, find a book cover you like and as that author who designed it for them. Unless they say they did it themselves, you can just ask their designer to do one for you, too.
What's Next....
Tomorrow's Tuesday Tip will briefly discuss LibraryThing, the top competitor for Amazon's Shelfari and a tool you might be surprised to learn is used by libraries in the U.S. Hope to see you then!
August 26, 2012
Webbiegrrl Marketing Series Coming Soon to an eBook Near You!
If you signed up to be a Beta Reader or proofreading/format-checker for this series, first of all, thank you, and secondly, you can expect to receive your copy of the eARC (Advance Reader Copy) in the format you requested a little later today (Sunday, August 26, 2012). Hopefully, with the help of these great volunteers, the eBook will be released by this time next week--September 1st in a bookstore near you (or at Smashwords, anyway).
Since I'm sure that one reader cannot even begin to look, let alone submit her feedback, prior to Wednesday, Aug. 29th, I can take more volunteers today. Please do NOT post a comment here (this blog post is being syndicated through to multiple sites, including Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon and Twitter) but rather, please send an email message to webbiegrrlwriter (at) Gmail (and you need to put .com after Gmail but I need to trip up spammers harvesting email addresses).
Please be sure to include in your email what you would like to volunteer to do (read and critique for content *OR* read and review in a specific format for formatting errors). Although everyone should be on the lookout for typos, I don't think there's much proofreading left to do. Once I get your email at webbiegrrlwriter's Gmail box , I'll send you a file via email in the requested format. Thank you in advance for volunteering your time!
I'm so excited to finally see one of these series getting out into the world ^_^
-sry
Sarah, The Webbiegrrl Writer
@webbiegrrl
Since I'm sure that one reader cannot even begin to look, let alone submit her feedback, prior to Wednesday, Aug. 29th, I can take more volunteers today. Please do NOT post a comment here (this blog post is being syndicated through to multiple sites, including Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon and Twitter) but rather, please send an email message to webbiegrrlwriter (at) Gmail (and you need to put .com after Gmail but I need to trip up spammers harvesting email addresses).
Please be sure to include in your email what you would like to volunteer to do (read and critique for content *OR* read and review in a specific format for formatting errors). Although everyone should be on the lookout for typos, I don't think there's much proofreading left to do. Once I get your email at webbiegrrlwriter's Gmail box , I'll send you a file via email in the requested format. Thank you in advance for volunteering your time!
I'm so excited to finally see one of these series getting out into the world ^_^
-sry
Sarah, The Webbiegrrl Writer
@webbiegrrl
August 21, 2012
TUESDAY TIP Using #Shelfari to Update #Amazon Categories, Not Tags #pubtip #howto #indie #selfpub
Welcome back to my little miniseries on Amazon/Shelfari's "Book Extras" feature for Kindle books. These little enhancements are only available for Kindle books (not other formats) but anyone can create them--you, your readers, your fans, your enemies (haha, scratch that last one). As the Shelfari Author account owner, you have final control over the content.
Click here if you need to review how to create your Amazon Author Central account (a prerequisite to setting up a Shelfari Author account) or check out my earlier discussion on how to log into your Shelfari Author account and edit a field. Once you're all caught up on establishing your book's existence in Shelfari, click through the jump-break to see how to control the categories and tagging for your book using the Shelfari web site.
Categories, a Subject by Any Other Name
Or by Shelfari names, anyway. Since Amazon owns Shelfari, I'm not sure why they suddenly renamed categories "subjects" but they did. If you go to your Book Extras page and scroll down a bit, you'll see the "Subjects" area. If your book has been added to more than a few categories, you'll have to click to see them all. I've added Dicky's Story to 7 as shown below.
Just because you set up Shelfari Book Extra Categories for your book, does not mean all of the data will propagate through to your Amazon Kindle Book's page; however, some of it will. For instance, when I set up my book in KDP, I did not add it to the "Kindle eBooks > Fiction > World Literature > Jewish" category, yet there it is on my book's Amazon Kindle page:
I'm delighted that it got there but then, why didn't all of the others? I'm thinking this part of Shelfari is either broken or still in process. To edit your categories (add or remove them) you can just click the edit button (
) then select them from a pull down list, just like you would on Amazon's KDP platform. It should take no more than 24 hours (and probably less!) for the data to propagate through--if it's ever going to--no clue how to tell or how to force it. On the KDP platform, as you know, you are only allowed to select two (2) categories. The others are "assigned" by Amazon with their algorithms. The additional categories you set up via Shelfari, however, might "help" those algorithms assign your page the way you want it.
Tags - The Keys to the Amazon Kingdom
In all fairness, I have not been tracking all of my tags for the entire year and a half that Dicky's Story has been on sale. It's totally possible that people have been adding or removing or liking or disagreeing with the original tags I attached to the book. In fact, it's pretty likely that others have modified my tags because there are 20 tags on Amazon and only 11 on Shelfari. I don't recall all 20 of the tags on the Amazon page and they have wildly varying numbers of clicks (in the following screen shot of the book's page on the Amazon Kindle Store, the numbers in parenthesis indicate how many people agreed with each tag).
I do notice that on Shelfari, the tag "sweet" is the largest in the tag cloud and it's definitely one of the strongest attributes of the book so I'm delighted it seems to be dominating the tag cloud. The curious thing is that I never entered the term "sweet" as a tag on Amazon. Neither did anyone else if the following screen shot of all 20 tags on Amazon is to be believed.
So how did "sweet" show up on my Shelfari Book Extras tag cloud? It was added to someone's personal Shelfari for this book. I'm not sure whose since I appear to be the only one who's got Dicky's Story on their Shelfari shelf :-( You can add it here if you'd like: http://www.shelfari.com/books/22692179/Coming-Home-%28Dickys-Story%29
As all Indie Authors know, the more your book gets tagged, the better, since some readers browse books by tag (just as some browse books by category). It's not how many tags but how many times a single tag has been clicked/agreed with that matters. For instance, "inspirational romance" was clicked 15 times where as "romance" only 4 so it'll be more likely that Dicky's Story will show up when someone cruises the Kindle Store looking for "inspirational romance" than it will be likely to show up in a list of all "romance" in the Kindle Store.
But if tags from Shelfari do not match or propagate through to Amazon, why use them on Shelfari? The answer is you probably shouldn't bother. Sorry but 1-1 isn't too bad of a score on this week's Book Extras adventure, is it?
If I hear of a good way to get extra tags added to a book (or existing tags "liked" and "agreed" upon through some external method, I'll be sure to share. I hope you'll do the same! I'd love to see some new tips for making Amazon worth all the hassle.
What's Next....
Next week's Monday Marketing on branding shall cover Immutable Law of Branding 16 (for Indie Authors): Law of Shape. It's the first half of a 2-part discussion on how branding and your book cover are related. Yes! At last, book covers are discussed as an element of branding. Hope to see you then.
Click here if you need to review how to create your Amazon Author Central account (a prerequisite to setting up a Shelfari Author account) or check out my earlier discussion on how to log into your Shelfari Author account and edit a field. Once you're all caught up on establishing your book's existence in Shelfari, click through the jump-break to see how to control the categories and tagging for your book using the Shelfari web site.
Categories, a Subject by Any Other Name
Or by Shelfari names, anyway. Since Amazon owns Shelfari, I'm not sure why they suddenly renamed categories "subjects" but they did. If you go to your Book Extras page and scroll down a bit, you'll see the "Subjects" area. If your book has been added to more than a few categories, you'll have to click to see them all. I've added Dicky's Story to 7 as shown below.
Just because you set up Shelfari Book Extra Categories for your book, does not mean all of the data will propagate through to your Amazon Kindle Book's page; however, some of it will. For instance, when I set up my book in KDP, I did not add it to the "Kindle eBooks > Fiction > World Literature > Jewish" category, yet there it is on my book's Amazon Kindle page:
I'm delighted that it got there but then, why didn't all of the others? I'm thinking this part of Shelfari is either broken or still in process. To edit your categories (add or remove them) you can just click the edit button (
) then select them from a pull down list, just like you would on Amazon's KDP platform. It should take no more than 24 hours (and probably less!) for the data to propagate through--if it's ever going to--no clue how to tell or how to force it. On the KDP platform, as you know, you are only allowed to select two (2) categories. The others are "assigned" by Amazon with their algorithms. The additional categories you set up via Shelfari, however, might "help" those algorithms assign your page the way you want it. Tags - The Keys to the Amazon Kingdom
In all fairness, I have not been tracking all of my tags for the entire year and a half that Dicky's Story has been on sale. It's totally possible that people have been adding or removing or liking or disagreeing with the original tags I attached to the book. In fact, it's pretty likely that others have modified my tags because there are 20 tags on Amazon and only 11 on Shelfari. I don't recall all 20 of the tags on the Amazon page and they have wildly varying numbers of clicks (in the following screen shot of the book's page on the Amazon Kindle Store, the numbers in parenthesis indicate how many people agreed with each tag).
I do notice that on Shelfari, the tag "sweet" is the largest in the tag cloud and it's definitely one of the strongest attributes of the book so I'm delighted it seems to be dominating the tag cloud. The curious thing is that I never entered the term "sweet" as a tag on Amazon. Neither did anyone else if the following screen shot of all 20 tags on Amazon is to be believed.
So how did "sweet" show up on my Shelfari Book Extras tag cloud? It was added to someone's personal Shelfari for this book. I'm not sure whose since I appear to be the only one who's got Dicky's Story on their Shelfari shelf :-( You can add it here if you'd like: http://www.shelfari.com/books/22692179/Coming-Home-%28Dickys-Story%29
As all Indie Authors know, the more your book gets tagged, the better, since some readers browse books by tag (just as some browse books by category). It's not how many tags but how many times a single tag has been clicked/agreed with that matters. For instance, "inspirational romance" was clicked 15 times where as "romance" only 4 so it'll be more likely that Dicky's Story will show up when someone cruises the Kindle Store looking for "inspirational romance" than it will be likely to show up in a list of all "romance" in the Kindle Store.
But if tags from Shelfari do not match or propagate through to Amazon, why use them on Shelfari? The answer is you probably shouldn't bother. Sorry but 1-1 isn't too bad of a score on this week's Book Extras adventure, is it?
If I hear of a good way to get extra tags added to a book (or existing tags "liked" and "agreed" upon through some external method, I'll be sure to share. I hope you'll do the same! I'd love to see some new tips for making Amazon worth all the hassle.
What's Next....
Next week's Monday Marketing on branding shall cover Immutable Law of Branding 16 (for Indie Authors): Law of Shape. It's the first half of a 2-part discussion on how branding and your book cover are related. Yes! At last, book covers are discussed as an element of branding. Hope to see you then.
August 20, 2012
MONDAY MARKETING Branding Law 15 Sibling Brands in 5 Easy Steps #pubtip #indie #promo #selfpub #WWND #romance
some image rights reserved by Paulo BrandãWelcome back to my marketing series on Branding (for Indie Authors). Over the course of the series, we've been talking about something called "branding." It's not a book cover design you theme from one book to the next. It's more than just using the same font for your name on the cover. In reality, a brand is far more than a visual or graphic design. It's an idea!Definition: A brand is an idea in the mind of the consumer whose power lies in the ability to influence purchasing decisions.
The marketing activity called "branding" is all about focusing the idea that will ultimately become your brand down to "one word" which is uniquely you. Then you plant that idea inside the reader's mind (called "positioning") so that you can establish and grow your brand's strength in their minds. Through branding, you make yourself, the Author Brand, interchangeable with the "idea."
Today, I'll discuss the idea of "sibling" brands, which is another way of saying creating a new Author Brand related to, but distinctly different from your current Author Brand. It's not for everyone and is a lot of extra work so until you've mastered what brands are in Indie Publishing and how to use them correctly, hold off on this one. Creating a second, third or entire family of brands will only multiply your problems, not solve them. If you're struggling with the branding concept, review the earlier entries in this series here. If you've got a solid handle on this stuff already, click through to learn more.
Siblings, Not Line Extensions
I can't stress this enough, Branding is a challenging marketing activity and if you haven't mastered the first 14 Immutable Laws, you should probably skip over Law 15, as it'll only lead you astray. Laws 16 and 17 (the next two Monday Marketing entries) might help you but learning about Law 15 might actually lead you into destroying what little you've built up.
Here's why. Line extensions will weaken your brand. I've repeatedly warned you against them. If you don't know (clearly) what a line extension is and why it will kill an Indie Author Brand, your efforts to spawn a sibling brand could destroy what little foundation you've built. Think long and hard about this. It's not nearly as beneficial a strategy for Indie Authors as, for instance, last week's discussion of Immutable Law of Branding Law 14 (Law of Subbrands).
Review the Law of Extension in both Immutable Law of Marketing Law 12 and Immutable Law of Branding Law 10 just to be sure you know what a line extension is, why not to use it and why it's a brand-killer. I am not reversing position with Law 15, but it might sound like it at first if you're not really, really clear on what we've discussed up to this point. Okay, enough couching and prefacing and qualifying remarks. Onto the new material!
We Are Family
A Sibling Brand is independent of, but related to, your Author Brand--much the same way your real-life sister or brother might be completely different from you but related at a family level. A sibling brand strategy is not for every company. If handled incorrectly, it can turn into a line extension (sorry, had to warn you one last time); but if done right, there is some strength in numbers.
A family of brands can support each other and cross-promote each other, and even "compete" in a friendly way with each other (sibling rivalry, anyone?) without resorting to rebranding themselves in the process. The key to a successful family approach is to make each sibling unique and different--just like in real life.
How then do you know the siblings are related, you might wonder? Let's look at an example from the restaurant industry to illustrate how then I'll give you 5 easy steps to creating your own sibling brand strategy.
Here in the United States, there a lot of chain restaurants--fast food and mid-priced eateries. There is a "family" of mid-priced or "casual dining" restaurants owned by General Mills Corporation. Actually, they were owned by General Mills but were later spun off together with its sibling under the international "casual dining" conglomerate, Darden Concepts, Inc.
The first of these restaurants was the Red Lobster chain. Since General Mills is a producer of food products (breakfast cereals, cookies and crackers or snack foods), it was exactly in line with the General Mills branding strategy of "feeding your family" to open a "casual dining" restaurant like Red Lobster where families could get a full-service meal at a family-friendly price. They focused on having fresh food, prepared to order and served with all of the accoutrements of fine dining without the high price (and they never pushed the liquor though they do serve alcohol).
For those outside the U.S.A., Red Lobster is a fairly large seafood chain here in the U.S. Red Lobster is not "cheap" or "bargain" priced but reasonable enough that families can afford to go there--at least, for a special occasion. They are substantially lower in cost than eating in, say, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel restaurant. Red Lobster also has annual "sales" such as the one going on right now: all you can eat shrimp, any style, all you like, one price.
Every Red Lobster meal comes with a House salad (or choice of an alternative dressing), a special-recipe roll, an entree and two sides (a cooked vegetable and starch like rice or potato, usually). Red Lobster became famous in the 1980s for its Cesar dressing on its House salads and the rich, buttery buns--not to mention great prices on seafood throughout the year.
Red Lobster was the first of its kind--a chain of casual dining where a "family" was not only welcome but could afford to eat fresh seafood. Then General Mills decided to launch another chain of restaurants and they did it very deliberately and very carefully--and very well! Most generically-named companies would fail. General Mills refers to grains which made sense for breakfast cereals but why were they getting into restaurant chains? General Mills made sure not to connect their established brand name with the new business they saw emerging in the form of Red Lobster and their new, second restaurant chain.
The new one was called Olive Garden and it sells Italian style food. The "family" atmosphere is still there and in fact, part of the slogan for Olive Garden restaurants. More importantly, though, General Mills learned from Red Lobster's success and from the start, Olive Gardens offered you a full-service meal with fresh food, prepared to order and included an "all you can eat House salad and special bread sticks" gratis with every meal.
The salad and bread sticks became popular enough that Olive Garden actually started selling them alone in the 1990s--as a meal unto themselves! That's one of their best-selling lunches actually because it's very low-cost and although it is fattening as all get-out, it feels healthy to eat salad for lunch. Olive Garden's branding was and is all about feelings and the "feel good food only family can bring you."
Olive Garden is an Italian "sibling" company to the original seafood restaurant Red Lobster. When General Mills launched Olive Garden, they even built their new restaurants physically adjacent to their existing Red Lobster outlets because they are smart enough to know that the Law of Category insures them Red Lobster customers will also be interested in Olive Garden food. They exploit one sibling's established market share in the category of "casual, low-cost fine dining" to launch a new competitor.
They are siblings: related, but totally different, each one unique unto itself. They are alike but totally different, just as real-life human siblings are. They share traits (price point, family atmosphere and of course, getting a salad and bread product gratis with your meal). What makes them "siblings" and not "line extensions," however, is that they each have their own distinct brand or "style" of delivering these shared attributes.
Sibling brands share attributes. Like a Venn Diagram, there is overlap between siblings, but each has a distinctly unique area of branding as well.
Both Red Lobster and Olive Garden brands are now owned by Darden Concepts, Inc., which proclaims to be the world's largest full-service restaurant company. They have spun off multiple sibling brands, following the same successful marketing steps they took to spawn Olive Garden out of Red Lobster's success. They are extremely good at doing this--repeatedly.
Each sibling Darden produces is unique and special. Click here to see some of their brands. You might just be surprised they're all owned and operated by the same one parent company! As Darden's marketing department, themselves, put it:
We work hard to deliver an exceptional guest experience that involves more than just fresh, delicious food at an affordable price. At each of our restaurant brands, that special experience differs.
The Darden folks really understand marketing and branding.
How to Create a Sibling Brand in 5 Easy Steps
As an Indie Author, you only have one product--books--and you probably don't immediately see how to spawn off siblings without completely losing your brand. You can write in multiple genres, formats, voices. That should be an obvious way to do it but you have to brand each pen name you spawn separately or they become the dreaded "Line Extension." Try to choose genres that are as different from each other as possible--apply the Law of Opposites to yourself!
If you're a thriller writer, you could try your hand at children's illustrated books, like James Patterson has done, but don't make his mistake. He hasn't actually branded any kind of "sibling"; his efforts are a line extension of his famous Author Name. He has weakened his market shares in both of the genres as a result.
Instead, you could design and launch a Sibling Brand the way romance novelist Nora Roberts has done. Her two brands--Nora Roberts and J. D. Robb--write light and cheery or dark and edgy stories, respectively. They are not quite opposites, but close. Here are 5 easy steps to doing it right (WWND or What Would Nora Do).
1) Focus on a common product area. That is, find some element of your original Author Brand which you intend to carry forward. Maybe you have a distinctly snarky style of narration. Maybe you are exceptionally good at describing settings. This is what Nora Roberts did when she launched her Sibling Brand for J. D. Robb. Both of her Author Name Brands are known for the exceptionally descriptive settings with strong visual imagery.
2) Select a single attribute to segment. You want to avoid overlap among the siblings so as to keep each brand unique and special. In the case of J.D. Robb and Nora Roberts, she did it thusly: her stories have rich setting, visual descriptions but each brand is distinctly different in terms of pacing, plotting, style of characters in the stories. There has to be a common element, however, or the siblings are not related.
3) Set up rigid distinctions between the brands. Nora's primary Author Brand is extremely well-known for a certain kind of romance novel. They are sweet and light and easy to read--and easy to put down and pick up again, repeatedly. You never have to "figure out where I was" when you're reading a Nora Roberts romance.
Although she carries her own writing style forward to J. D. Robb's sibling brand, the J. D. Robb books are distinctly different--so much so that some readers still don't realize they are written by the same person! The primary Nora Roberts brand is what I call "peaches and cream" light stories while the J. D. Robb brand turns out more edgy, dark stories.
Note that these two brands, while sharing a single attribute (rich descriptions written in a visually-striking manner) are practically "opposite" each other in style. They are each distinct but related, like real-life siblings.
4) Create different, not similar, brand names. Notice how Nora Roberts and J. D. Robb are related but different names? That's on purpose--and note, they are both pen names. Yep, neither one is her real name. The woman behind them was born Eleanor Marie Robertson and she deliberately chose pen names that were similar but distinct from her own, real name. She was just that smart from square one--that's how she got over 400 million titles in print with most of them landing on the NYT Best Seller List. You must do the same with your pen names if you want them to stick, because they are your sibling brand names.
5) Launch a new sibling when you can create a new category for it. If you aren't already familiar with the Law of Category (Immutable Law of Marketing 2 and Immutable Law of Branding 8), become familiar with it. Understanding how and when to launch a new category--and then how to keep it alive by inviting the competition into it while holding onto your "top-rung" ranking--is critical to launching a sibling brand. Nora launched J. D. Robb after Nora Roberts Brand was firmly-established as a best-selling author and in the 1990s, when paranormal and dark romances were just starting to gain popularity again. In romance genre, it's a cycle but she hopped onto the cycle as it relaunched.
A family of sibling brands is not for everyone, but where appropriate, a sibling strategy can be used to dominate a category--or family of categories--over the long term. With over 400 million titles in print, this woman born Eleanor has been writing romance novels (in multiple genres of the category including "category romance") for over a quarter of a century. She's made it work--in the very long term--and she shows no signs of falling off the best seller lists anytime soon! Next time you're unsure which way to go, ask yourself WWND? ^)^
What's Next....
Tomorrow's Tuesday Tip will cover another Amazon Shelfari Book Extra. Hope to see you then!
August 14, 2012
TUESDAY TIP Optional Book Extras to Enhance Your Amazon Page #pubtip #howto #indie #selfpub
Welcome back to my little miniseries on Amazon/Shelfari's "Book Extras" feature for Kindle books. These little enhancements are only available for Kindle books (not other formats) through the Amazon Kindle Store web site, the Shelfari web site and of course, from inside the Kindle eBooks themselves. That's the bad news.
The good news is anyone can create them--you, your readers, your fans, your enemies (haha, scratch that last one). And don't worry, the Shelfari Author account has absolute power over the content. If you want to delete what some random person put onto your book you can--and only you can do that!
You must be an Amazon/Shelfari Author to control your book(s), so click here if you need to review how to create your Amazon Author Central account (a prerequisite to setting up a Shelfari Author account) or check out my earlier discussion on how to log into your Shelfari Author account and edit a Description field. Once you're all caught up, click through the jump-break to see how to create some optional fields for your book.
Aren't They ALL Optional Fields?
I'm calling these "optional" because really, you don't have to have these (as you do really need a description) but I think you should avail yourself of these fields. Why not? They're there and whatever you enter will automagically propagate through to your Amazon page. They only enhance your book, right? Take a few minutes and play with some of these. I've listed each of the purely "enhancement" fields below followed by my remarks on how to use it or what to put there.
First Sentence
Over on LibraryThing (Amazon's Shelfari competition) they're big on "first words" and libraries like to have this field filled in so as to confirm they have the right book. Plus people are quoting opening lines all the time. Who doesn't know the words It was a dark and stormy night or now that it's in an iPod commercial, Call me Ishmael ?
Table of Contents
I wouldn't worry about describing the chapters if you have chapter titles, but if you just numbered your chapters, take advantage of this field by putting a 5-10 word (or less) descriptor in here for each chapter.
Themes and Symbolism
This is actually a very useful field if you're trying to target a specific kind of audience. For Dicky's Story, I wanted to be sure people knew it addressed themes of traditional Jewish life and touched on multicultural prejudices in the plot. This field allows me to create sections, "free form" so I created one for each theme I felt was important in the book.
Series & Lists
This is pretty self-explanatory. You list the series to which this book belongs--if it does. Since Dicky's Story is a standalone novel, I left this field blank. That's an option, too ^)^
Authors & Contributors
Again, I think this is self-explanatory. You list yourself and if you had an Illustrator or Co-Author or someone else to whom you want to give credits, this is where you'd list them.
First Edition
This is a "list" of fields to fill in actually, so I'm not sure why Amazon clumped them all together under one heading. Here's what's in there and the data I entered for my book, Dicky's Story:
Since Dicky's Story is available in eBook only (for now, anyway), I left "page count" empty. If your book is available in paperback or hardcover, list the page count. It helps readers know how long the book is to read. I'm tempted to input the number of words (164,000 for Dicky's Story) but libraries will actually pull this data into their systems (automatically) so I don't want to break the system. Put only page count in here, not word count.
Awards
Here you list any awards that you've received for this book. Since I haven't gotten any for Dicky's Story, unfortunately (or yet), I left this blank.
Notes for Parents
Here you select the reading level you think is appropriate for your content. If your book has sexual content or explicit violence, for example, you might put a note in here that it's NOT appropriate for young readers. You choose a preset reading level from a pull down list but there's a text box where you can enter notes--from you to parents of potential readers. Obviously, this system only works if parents actually read these things.
There are a couple more of these "optional" fields but next week, I'll discuss the "Subjects" and "tag" fields in more depth (and with screen shots) because those will be of greater interest to most of you.
Thanks for stopping by!
The good news is anyone can create them--you, your readers, your fans, your enemies (haha, scratch that last one). And don't worry, the Shelfari Author account has absolute power over the content. If you want to delete what some random person put onto your book you can--and only you can do that!
You must be an Amazon/Shelfari Author to control your book(s), so click here if you need to review how to create your Amazon Author Central account (a prerequisite to setting up a Shelfari Author account) or check out my earlier discussion on how to log into your Shelfari Author account and edit a Description field. Once you're all caught up, click through the jump-break to see how to create some optional fields for your book.
Aren't They ALL Optional Fields?
I'm calling these "optional" because really, you don't have to have these (as you do really need a description) but I think you should avail yourself of these fields. Why not? They're there and whatever you enter will automagically propagate through to your Amazon page. They only enhance your book, right? Take a few minutes and play with some of these. I've listed each of the purely "enhancement" fields below followed by my remarks on how to use it or what to put there.
First Sentence
Over on LibraryThing (Amazon's Shelfari competition) they're big on "first words" and libraries like to have this field filled in so as to confirm they have the right book. Plus people are quoting opening lines all the time. Who doesn't know the words It was a dark and stormy night or now that it's in an iPod commercial, Call me Ishmael ?
Table of Contents
I wouldn't worry about describing the chapters if you have chapter titles, but if you just numbered your chapters, take advantage of this field by putting a 5-10 word (or less) descriptor in here for each chapter.
Themes and Symbolism
This is actually a very useful field if you're trying to target a specific kind of audience. For Dicky's Story, I wanted to be sure people knew it addressed themes of traditional Jewish life and touched on multicultural prejudices in the plot. This field allows me to create sections, "free form" so I created one for each theme I felt was important in the book.
Series & Lists
This is pretty self-explanatory. You list the series to which this book belongs--if it does. Since Dicky's Story is a standalone novel, I left this field blank. That's an option, too ^)^
Authors & Contributors
Again, I think this is self-explanatory. You list yourself and if you had an Illustrator or Co-Author or someone else to whom you want to give credits, this is where you'd list them.
First Edition
This is a "list" of fields to fill in actually, so I'm not sure why Amazon clumped them all together under one heading. Here's what's in there and the data I entered for my book, Dicky's Story:
Original Language: English
Publisher: Sarah R. Yoffa
Country: USA
Publication Date: March 21, 2011
ISBN: 9781458062734
Page Count: Add the page count.
Since Dicky's Story is available in eBook only (for now, anyway), I left "page count" empty. If your book is available in paperback or hardcover, list the page count. It helps readers know how long the book is to read. I'm tempted to input the number of words (164,000 for Dicky's Story) but libraries will actually pull this data into their systems (automatically) so I don't want to break the system. Put only page count in here, not word count.
Awards
Here you list any awards that you've received for this book. Since I haven't gotten any for Dicky's Story, unfortunately (or yet), I left this blank.
Notes for Parents
Here you select the reading level you think is appropriate for your content. If your book has sexual content or explicit violence, for example, you might put a note in here that it's NOT appropriate for young readers. You choose a preset reading level from a pull down list but there's a text box where you can enter notes--from you to parents of potential readers. Obviously, this system only works if parents actually read these things.
There are a couple more of these "optional" fields but next week, I'll discuss the "Subjects" and "tag" fields in more depth (and with screen shots) because those will be of greater interest to most of you.
Thanks for stopping by!
August 13, 2012
MONDAY MARKETING Branding (for Indie Authors) Law 14 Subbrands #pubtip #indie #promo #selfpub #WLCAuthor #IAN1
some image rights reserved by Paulo BrandãWelcome back to my marketing series on Branding (for Indie Authors). Over the course of the series, we've been talking about something called "branding," which many Indie Authors do not actually understand. Often I find Indie Authors think of a "brand" as a book cover design which they copy from one book to the next. In reality, a brand is far more than a graphic design. Here's the definition:A brand is an idea in the mind of the consumer whose power lies in the ability to influence purchasing decisions.
The marketing activity called "branding" is all about the focusing the idea down to that "one word" which is uniquely you and planting it inside the reader's mind to establish and grow your "position" there. You may want to review some of the earlier entries in this series here to learn more about how to focus your marketing in order to strengthen your brand. Today's entry in the series discusses the idea of "subbranding" which is another way of saying "ways to weaken your brand. Click through the jump-break to learn what subbranding is and how to avoid doing it.
What is a Subbrand?
The Law of Subbrands asserts that what the branding activity builds, subbranding can destroy. The reason why is the same reason that applying Immutable Law of Marketing (for Indie Authors) Law 9 (Law of Opposites) succeeds. The problem is, applying Law of Opposites to your own brand isn't hurting the competition; it's self-destructive.
It's easier to see what a subbrand is through illustration, so I'll use the examples Ries gives in his original book (The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding) on which this series is based. He uses brands, which were strong until they started subbranding:
Example 1
Cadillac branded themselves as an upscale domestic automobile manufacturer--that is, a "Made in the USA" alternative to expensive European cars. Wealthy Americans could be patriotic and stylish in their automotive choices.
Then Cadillac wanted to offer an alternative, less-expensive car to people who couldn't afford a Cadillac or didn't want a large vehicle. A smaller, cheaper Cadillac Cimarron. Isn't that the opposite of "expensive"? The subbrand was short-lived and probably not even remembered by most of you reading this.
Example 2
Waterford branded themselves as an equisitely crafted, very expensive fine lead-crystal manufacturer. To own Waterford crystal was a mark of your class and opulence.
Then Waterford wanted to offer lower-cost crystal to the middle-class who couldn't afford to buy fine lead-crystal glasses (this was targetting the wrong market in direct violation of Immutable Law of Marketing 13!) Immediately, Waterford crystal lost its lustre of "exclusivity" and "elite only" ownership. In the USA, Waterford never recovered their popularity or allure.
Example 3
There is one subbrand which Ries uses an example and which actually worked--for the subbrand, not the original brand.
In the 1980s, Donna Karan was a designer of haut coutre, luxury clothing designs that were attainable only on the runways of Milan, Paris and the high fashion circuit. By the mid-90s, she wanted to reach the average consumer who could not afford high-fashion designer clothes but wanted to feel as though they could.
Same problem as Waterford, right? DKNY was borne and unlike Waterford, the less-expensive, DKNY subbrand available in all popular department stores became very popular among the middle-classes. Even the upper classes began wearing DKNY as everyday wear.
In Karan's case, as I said, the subbrand campaign to be "opposite" the main brand was so successful, DKNY persists today--and is strong--while Donna Karan's original line was sold off to the luxury-product conglomerate handling high-end fashion, LVMH, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. This was very smart of Donna Karan. Rather than losing both markets, Karan salvaged the lower-end DKNY brand and has grown it by focusing on it exclusively.
In fact, slowly but surely, she has crept the DKNY Brand up the price brackets and infused a certain flair of high-end fashion panache. Click here to see her 2012 fall lines and you'll see what I mean. Not your average department store bargains while also not quite haut coutre. Karan created a new category--her own--and she is the leader in it.
Why Subbranding Does Not Work
The number one reason is that subbranding violates the immutable laws of marketing. I'm not just saying that to use buzz words. Ries was not just saying that to validate his own terminology. The reality is, you cannot launch your own system of marketing in conflict with what the customers perceive. Perception is everything--whether you like it or not.
By deliberately making a subbrand "opposite" your main brand, you are basically competing against yourself. You might as well, close shop and not waste the marketing dollars trying to put yourself out of business.
The essence of a brand, recall, is the idea or attribute which you can own in the minds of the consumers and, as a result, influence their purchasing decisions. If you have established yourself to be "A" and then launch subbrand "Aa," you cannot expect "A" to remain a strong, clearly-defined concept anymore. In other words, you have destroyed your "position" in your prospect's mind.
Because branding succeeds or fails in the mind of the consumer, you must use the concepts inside their minds, not create your own or dilute one you previously established. The new definition of what you just managed to get them to accept will lose all meaning. Worse, the tendency toward the "over-simplified mind" will cause the customer to toss out all of your branding efforts and you'll have to start from scratch.
Cadillac recovered from their misstep by refocusing on being the high-end, American-made luxury car they were originally.
Waterford never recovered their lost market. They're not out of business. As Immutable Law of Marketing Law 7 (Law of the Ladder) points out, there will always be a small market for "low-interest" (high-cost, not bought in high-frequency or large quantity) products. However, Waterford's name is no longer common among the middle- and lower-classes as something to which to aspire to own. In fact, the Waterford brand might not even be known to the middle- and lower-classes as something still available today. It might well be thought of as a thing of the past, like a Ford Model T car.
DKNY recovered by abandoning the high-end line and focusing on the new brand.
Subbranding an Indie Author
So how, you might wonder, does any of this apply to Indie Authors and the publishing industry? We've talked about the Law of Line Extension--and the evils thereof--in both Immutable Law of Marketing Law 12 and Immutable Law of Branding Law 10. For an Indie Author, the concept of subbranding is the same as extending our Author Brand into a new genre instead of spawning a new Brand Name (pen name) under which to do business in the new genre. Subbranding in the Indie Publishing business definitely would be like competiting against yourself. You might even end up virtually repositioning yourself--as though you were the competition. Don't do it. Follow the advice of Immutable Law of Marketing Law 12 and Immutable Law of Branding Law 10. Stay focused.
What's Next....
Tomorrow's Tuesday Tip will be another entry in the miniseries on Amazon/Shelfari's Book Extras. Hope to see you then. Thanks for stopping by!
August 7, 2012
TUESDAY TIP Entering a Cast of Characters in Your #Shelfari #BookExtras #pubtip #selfpub #howto #indie #WLCAuthor
Welcome back to my little miniseries on Amazon/Shelfari's "Book Extras" feature for Kindle books. These little enhancements are only available for Kindle books (not other formats) through the Amazon Kindle Store web site, the Shelfari web site and of course, from inside the Kindle eBooks themselves. That's the bad news.
The good news is anyone can create them--you, your readers, your fans, your enemies (haha, scratch that last one). And don't worry, the Shelfari Author account has absolute power over the content. If you want to delete what some random person put onto your book you can--and only you can do that!
You must be an Amazon/Shelfari Author to control your book(s), so click here if you need to review how to create your Amazon Author Central account (a prerequisite to setting up a Shelfari Author account) or check out last week's discussion on how to log into your Shelfari Author account and edit a Description field. Once you're all caught up, click through the jump-break to see how to create a Character field for the people in your book.
3 Flavors of Description - A Review
Before I move onto the Characters/People field, I should note that Shelfari has 3 fields for descriptions of your book. The first one (actually titled "Description") is the one that appears on your book's page in the Kindle Store. Any text you put here will propagate through to your book page.
The second one, titled "Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis," cannot be more than 115 characters (that's not words but characters) long. That's shorter than a tweet! This field does not propagate through to anywhere.
The third one, titled "Summary," is not limited in length and Shelfari's prompt advises you can put a full, detailed summary of the plot and every little thing that happens in the book into this field. Don't. Just...don't. Not only do you not need to give away spoilers on a public page, but you won't sell anything that way. If you feel you "must" use the "Summary" field, put Editorial Review quotes into it. They will not end up in the field of the same name on your book page, but if you'll feel better filling in that field of the Shelfari page, do it with review quotes.
Characters
The next field on the Shelfari page of Book Extras for your book is called "Characters" and can hold a fairly large cast of characters. I don't know if there's an upper limit to the number. I haven't found it yet. I'm going to use Dicky's Story for the example here, just for continuity's sake.
Think carefully about what you want to put here. You may not want to write up a full biography for each character the way you might write for yourself. These are not biographies to "sell" the characters either. These should be similar to the data you might see in the library catalog when you click "Fiction/Biography" links.
For instance, when I looked up one of Nora Roberts's recent releases (The Next Always) at my local library, I got this:
Name:Beckett MontgomeryGender:MaleAge:Occupation:ArchitectAttributes:Giving the historic hotel his mother, his brothers, and he own a major facelift; has been in love with Clara since he was 15Name:Clara BrewsterGender:FemaleAge:Occupation:Bookstore ownerAttributes:WidowMotherHas returned to her hometown after the death of her husband; has three young sons; drawn to Beckett's transformation of the inn
Notice that these are concise, standardized descriptions, not rambling paragraphs describing plot activity or a character's role in the plot, or not until the final "attributes" remarks.
I tried to make multiple lines on the Shelfari book page section and unfortunately, the web site does not allow for carriage returns, only one long, rambling paragraph. How ironic, eh? (LeSigh, Amazon gets it wrong again) Instead, I just put hyphens between the sections and described Dicky, the Hero and protagonist of Coming Home (Dicky's Story), thusly:
Dicky, The Lost One : Name: Dicky - Gender: Male - Age: 32 - Occupation: Master Thief - Summary: Dicky is the Hero and narrator of this book. He used to be a lot sweeter before I edited the book for release into the wild in 2011. He's still a sweet guy but his Alpha-ness is a spillover from the UberAlpha character "Rainey" in my Banbha Series, which I was also working on at the same time I was editing this. Oops.) I don't think Leah (the Heroine here) really minded Dicky's extra dose of testosterone ((grin))
I just did this to the description this morning so it might take a few hours to propagate through. Last week, I'd entered just the text paragraph description so that's all that shows up in my screen shot here; but today, the section as it is given above should appear on the book's page on the Amazon Kindle Store web site--or it will within a few hours. It'll be at the bottom of the book page, just above the About the Author section, as shown here:
Magic, huh? I entered data on Shelfari, and Amazon automagically pulled it and put it onto my web page in the Kindle Store. How did I do it? I did this much the same way I did the Description field last week, so if you need screen shots for getting to your Book Extras sections, click here to see how to edit a field. All the fields on the Book Extras page will operate the same way.
1) Click the "EDIT" button next to the section you want to edit to get a text box in which you enter your new data.
2) Enter your new data.
3) Tick the "Notify me when this page changes." checkbox
4) Click "save"
In the case of Characters, since you can have many of them, for the first one, you'll need to click the "add a new character" link. Notice that the first character you enter will be assigned a "1" in the little box to the left of his or her description field. When you create a second character, they'll be assigned a "2" and so forth. You can change those numbers if you want to change the order in which the characters appear on the web page in the Kindle Store.
Although I'm only entering one character (Dicky) in my example here, under my SciFi pen name, I entered 5 for Conditioned Response . You can click here to see that book page on the Kindle Store and scroll down to see how multiple characters are shown. As far as I know, this feature will not be propagated through to the Kindle UK Store. That is, if you click here, you can see the page for Conditioned Response in the Kindle UK Store . No Book Extras at all. The fact Amazon does not connect its ".com" store in the US with any of its non-US Kindle Stores is pretty sad. It's as simple as connecting Shelfari to the US Kindle Store and they managed that, right? Ah well, this is Amazon.
Regardless of how inconsistently Amazon shows books on their collection of web sites, the books should carry the same information in the Kindle files, on Kindle devices or apps, regardless of what country you're in. Hopefully, the same book is delivered everywhere!
As I type this, it occurs to me, it's possible Amazon is censoring and filtering books for distribution outside the US. I have no idea. Someone in the UK will have to tell me if the characters in Dicky's Story and/or Conditioned Response show up in your Kindle.
Checking for Changes
Now some of you might be a little wary of the fact that anyone can enter data into these Book Extras fields. I was until I saw what kind of notice I'll get via email by simply ticking the checkbox marked "Notify me when this page changes." When I changed the character description of Dicky last week or the week before, I got an email that looked like this:
As you can see, initially, I input the character with my own name, then I realized it was supposed to be the character's name and I changed it. Shelfari notified me of the change. Today, I changed the content of the description of the character (to make it like the library list) and I'll be notified via email of that, too. The red highlights what was taken out; the green, what was put in. If someone else changes this and I disagree with what they've done, I'll have received a "change record" in my email so I can put it back. Now that is a nice safeguard for this "community" activity! Thank you, Amazon for doing that "right."
What's Next....
Next Tuesday I'll go over how to change your book's cover art or add an alternate image file. Hope to see you then!
The good news is anyone can create them--you, your readers, your fans, your enemies (haha, scratch that last one). And don't worry, the Shelfari Author account has absolute power over the content. If you want to delete what some random person put onto your book you can--and only you can do that!
You must be an Amazon/Shelfari Author to control your book(s), so click here if you need to review how to create your Amazon Author Central account (a prerequisite to setting up a Shelfari Author account) or check out last week's discussion on how to log into your Shelfari Author account and edit a Description field. Once you're all caught up, click through the jump-break to see how to create a Character field for the people in your book.
3 Flavors of Description - A Review
Before I move onto the Characters/People field, I should note that Shelfari has 3 fields for descriptions of your book. The first one (actually titled "Description") is the one that appears on your book's page in the Kindle Store. Any text you put here will propagate through to your book page.
The second one, titled "Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis," cannot be more than 115 characters (that's not words but characters) long. That's shorter than a tweet! This field does not propagate through to anywhere.
The third one, titled "Summary," is not limited in length and Shelfari's prompt advises you can put a full, detailed summary of the plot and every little thing that happens in the book into this field. Don't. Just...don't. Not only do you not need to give away spoilers on a public page, but you won't sell anything that way. If you feel you "must" use the "Summary" field, put Editorial Review quotes into it. They will not end up in the field of the same name on your book page, but if you'll feel better filling in that field of the Shelfari page, do it with review quotes.
Characters
The next field on the Shelfari page of Book Extras for your book is called "Characters" and can hold a fairly large cast of characters. I don't know if there's an upper limit to the number. I haven't found it yet. I'm going to use Dicky's Story for the example here, just for continuity's sake.
Think carefully about what you want to put here. You may not want to write up a full biography for each character the way you might write for yourself. These are not biographies to "sell" the characters either. These should be similar to the data you might see in the library catalog when you click "Fiction/Biography" links.
For instance, when I looked up one of Nora Roberts's recent releases (The Next Always) at my local library, I got this:
Name:Beckett MontgomeryGender:MaleAge:Occupation:ArchitectAttributes:Giving the historic hotel his mother, his brothers, and he own a major facelift; has been in love with Clara since he was 15Name:Clara BrewsterGender:FemaleAge:Occupation:Bookstore ownerAttributes:WidowMotherHas returned to her hometown after the death of her husband; has three young sons; drawn to Beckett's transformation of the inn
Notice that these are concise, standardized descriptions, not rambling paragraphs describing plot activity or a character's role in the plot, or not until the final "attributes" remarks.
I tried to make multiple lines on the Shelfari book page section and unfortunately, the web site does not allow for carriage returns, only one long, rambling paragraph. How ironic, eh? (LeSigh, Amazon gets it wrong again) Instead, I just put hyphens between the sections and described Dicky, the Hero and protagonist of Coming Home (Dicky's Story), thusly:
Dicky, The Lost One : Name: Dicky - Gender: Male - Age: 32 - Occupation: Master Thief - Summary: Dicky is the Hero and narrator of this book. He used to be a lot sweeter before I edited the book for release into the wild in 2011. He's still a sweet guy but his Alpha-ness is a spillover from the UberAlpha character "Rainey" in my Banbha Series, which I was also working on at the same time I was editing this. Oops.) I don't think Leah (the Heroine here) really minded Dicky's extra dose of testosterone ((grin))
I just did this to the description this morning so it might take a few hours to propagate through. Last week, I'd entered just the text paragraph description so that's all that shows up in my screen shot here; but today, the section as it is given above should appear on the book's page on the Amazon Kindle Store web site--or it will within a few hours. It'll be at the bottom of the book page, just above the About the Author section, as shown here:
Magic, huh? I entered data on Shelfari, and Amazon automagically pulled it and put it onto my web page in the Kindle Store. How did I do it? I did this much the same way I did the Description field last week, so if you need screen shots for getting to your Book Extras sections, click here to see how to edit a field. All the fields on the Book Extras page will operate the same way.
1) Click the "EDIT" button next to the section you want to edit to get a text box in which you enter your new data.
2) Enter your new data.
3) Tick the "Notify me when this page changes." checkbox
4) Click "save"
In the case of Characters, since you can have many of them, for the first one, you'll need to click the "add a new character" link. Notice that the first character you enter will be assigned a "1" in the little box to the left of his or her description field. When you create a second character, they'll be assigned a "2" and so forth. You can change those numbers if you want to change the order in which the characters appear on the web page in the Kindle Store.
Although I'm only entering one character (Dicky) in my example here, under my SciFi pen name, I entered 5 for Conditioned Response . You can click here to see that book page on the Kindle Store and scroll down to see how multiple characters are shown. As far as I know, this feature will not be propagated through to the Kindle UK Store. That is, if you click here, you can see the page for Conditioned Response in the Kindle UK Store . No Book Extras at all. The fact Amazon does not connect its ".com" store in the US with any of its non-US Kindle Stores is pretty sad. It's as simple as connecting Shelfari to the US Kindle Store and they managed that, right? Ah well, this is Amazon.
Regardless of how inconsistently Amazon shows books on their collection of web sites, the books should carry the same information in the Kindle files, on Kindle devices or apps, regardless of what country you're in. Hopefully, the same book is delivered everywhere!
As I type this, it occurs to me, it's possible Amazon is censoring and filtering books for distribution outside the US. I have no idea. Someone in the UK will have to tell me if the characters in Dicky's Story and/or Conditioned Response show up in your Kindle.
Checking for Changes
Now some of you might be a little wary of the fact that anyone can enter data into these Book Extras fields. I was until I saw what kind of notice I'll get via email by simply ticking the checkbox marked "Notify me when this page changes." When I changed the character description of Dicky last week or the week before, I got an email that looked like this:
As you can see, initially, I input the character with my own name, then I realized it was supposed to be the character's name and I changed it. Shelfari notified me of the change. Today, I changed the content of the description of the character (to make it like the library list) and I'll be notified via email of that, too. The red highlights what was taken out; the green, what was put in. If someone else changes this and I disagree with what they've done, I'll have received a "change record" in my email so I can put it back. Now that is a nice safeguard for this "community" activity! Thank you, Amazon for doing that "right."
What's Next....
Next Tuesday I'll go over how to change your book's cover art or add an alternate image file. Hope to see you then!
August 6, 2012
MONDAY MARKETING Branding (for Indie Authors) Law 13 The Company vs. The Brand #pubtip #indie #promo #selfpub #WLCAuthor #IAN1
some image rights reserved by Paulo BrandãWelcome back to my marketing series on Branding (for Indie Authors). Over the course of the series, we're talking about something called "branding" which many Indie Authors do not actually understand. I'll define the term for you below but you may want to review some of the earlier entries in this series here. To help refresh your memory, here's the definition of a brand:A brand is an idea in the mind of the consumer whose power lies in the ability to influence purchasing decisions.
Branding is all about the idea, the "one word" which you plant inside the reader's mind to establish and grow your "position" there. Okay, you're thinking, so if that's your brand, then what is your company? Click through the jump-break to find out.
The Company vs. The Brand(s)
As an Indie Author, you might not have formed an official business. You might be operating as an individual who pays "Self-Employment Tax" on your "additional earnings" that come through as royalties from various eTailers where your book is on sale. I've done this for the first year I was in business, but in this, my second year of earning money from my writing, I decided to expand a little and establish a Company so I could operate as an Indie Publisher. You might still be the Indie Publisher's only Indie Author (as I am for mine), but you decided to create a company name under which to do the business of writing and selling your books.
That makes you both a Brand and a Company.
From a marketing standpoint, you benefit from being an Indie Publisher with individual Author Brands rather than being an Indie Author who writes across multiple genres for one reason: your Company can be branded as well. Why would you want to do that? Because although readers buy an Author Name Brand and 90% of the time don't care who the publisher is, readers do come to associate a publishing Company with a specific kind of book--the Company ends up branded even if it's in spite of themselves. Sadly, in most cases it is indeed in spite of themselves.
Also unfortunately, this is where the grey lines start blurring. People really become confused as to what's the Company versus what's the Brand, so to alleviate a little bit of the confusion, I'll use the term "Author Brand" rather than just "Brand" in today's discussion. I'll also capitalize the word "Company" when I'm referring to the Indie Publisher entity acting as an umbrella over multiple Author Brands.
Widget Brands vs. Author Brands
In the widget world, it's easy enough to see the difference between the Company and the Brand. As the following 3 questions:
What's a Coca-Cola?What's a Zippo?What's a WD-40?And you'll probably have no trouble guessing the answers (at least, if you're American and over 40):
A cola-flavored soft drinkA windproof lighterA lubricating sprayI should note, these answers are also the "one word" concept which applies to each of these Brands (none of which is literally ONE word but all of which are extremely effective brands that have lasted for decades, dominating their fields). These Brands are so effective now, they are no longer just a name on the package; the brand has become the product inside. People don't ask for the facial tissues; they ask for the Kleenex -- because Kleenex brand has become synonymous with the concept of facial tissues. This is the goal of a strong brand, to become the "thing."
So how does this relate to Author Brands? When a customer asks a sales person in a book store for a scary horror story, they might ask "Are there any new Stephen King novels out?" and the salesperson will know what kind of book they seek even if they don't have any new Stephen King titles. If a customer wants a spy thriller, they might just ask "Do you have any new Tom Clancy novels?" instead of asking for a spy thriller. These are strong Author Brands. Do you know who the publisher is for any of these books? Probably not. Do you care? Again, probably not.
As I said earlier, readers buy Author Brands, not the publishing Company name.
Then again, readers do often come to expect certain types of Author Brands from the publisher Company names. For example, if you buy a Tor/Forge book, you know it'll be science fiction or fantasy genre. You would notice if it were not.
Likewise, if you buy a Kensington book, you know it'll be a romance novel. You definitely would not expect it to be a science fiction or gritty detective novel.
As an Indie Publisher, we have to maintain two branding campaigns:
the Company Brandthe Author Brand(s)
In the widget world, a marketing executive at General Motors (for example) never wants to hear people asking for a General Motors Luxury Sedan. Instead, they want to hear people asking for a Cadillac as though the Cadillac Brand is all people think of when they think of luxury sedans.
In the Indie Publishing world, however, a marketing executive at Tom Doherty (the parent company which owns Tor/Forge or Simon & Schuster, the company which owns Tom Doherty) might enjoy hearing people asking for a Tor Book--but they'd be cutting themselves off at the knees to promote that behavior.
When a Company Name is used by a customer instead of an Author Brand, you have a serious branding problem.
In fact, your branding strategy has turned upsidedown if the Indie Publishing Company Name is used instead of the Author Brand Name. How could you possibly know you'd be getting a "Stephen King" if you were offered a "Simon & Schuster" book? They publish him but they also own and publish science fiction through the Tom Doherty Company called Tor/Forge.
The point is your readers are going to buy your Author Brand. The purpose of your Publishing Company is to make your Author Brands recognizeable Brand Names. As a Company, your Indie Publishing name can become a Brand unto itself (as Tor Books has done; every librarian will know Tor publishes SF); but the purpose is to be the company behind the Author Brand. Keep your priorities straight as you define your branding strategies.
What's Next....
Next week's entry in the Monday Marketing series will be Immutable Law of Branding (for Indie Authors) Law 14: Subbrands, which will revisit and continue this discussion of "Simon & Schuster" versus "Stephen King." I hope to see you then!
Tomorrow's Tuesday Tip will be another entry in the miniseries on how to use Amazon/Shelfari's Book Extras. Stop back at 10:00 AM Eastern (ET/USA) to learn more.
August 1, 2012
Dicky's Story reissued with new artwork!
It's here! :) I'm still not sure I "love" it but this is the artwork I'm going with for now. Check it out on the book page here on Goodreads.
NOTE:
If you previously purchased a copy of Coming Home (Dicky's Story) from Smashwords, you are entitled to a free upgrade to this new edition with the new artwork (without paying the new, higher price!) If you purchased your copy elsewhere (e.g., Amazon), sorry but there's no free upgrade available to my knowledge.
-sry
@webbiegrrl
NOTE:
If you previously purchased a copy of Coming Home (Dicky's Story) from Smashwords, you are entitled to a free upgrade to this new edition with the new artwork (without paying the new, higher price!) If you purchased your copy elsewhere (e.g., Amazon), sorry but there's no free upgrade available to my knowledge.
-sry
@webbiegrrl
