M. K. Theodoratus, Fantasy Writer, blogs about the books she reads--mostly fantasy and mystery authors whose books catch her eye and keep her interest. Nothing so formal as a book review, just chats about what she liked. Theodoratus also mutters about her own writing progress or ... lack of it.

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Monday, March 14, 2011

Gaining Marketing Smarts

At least, I hope I'm gaining some marketing smarts.  Time will tell.

Half-Elven Marketing Stuff
Spent most of the week-end torturing my hip and learning writerly stuff at the Northern Colorado Writers conference.   I spent most of my time in the marketing/promotion sessions and talking to people.  Learned lots.  Now, I have to put it into practice.

First, change ... as you see ... is that I've combined the writer's blog with the Half-Elven blog ... again.  [Yeah, I'm something of a worm on the end of a hook, but I'm learning, I think.]  Seems I was diluting the blogging audience.  The URL link to the Half-Elven Blog is gone.  It's now "Half-Elven News", of which there is precious little to say.

Other than that, I'm still dinking with the website after combining the blogs.  Translation:  I have to get on the phone to bug the GoDaddy customer service people.  Tried for a couple hours to change my URL navigation link to a page where I give "Half-Elven" news.  Yeah, the klutz struck again.

Marketing Example:
I've been watching Nancy R. Williams marketing her new book, The Treasures of Carmelidrium,* which came out recently on Amazon.  Her blog, N. R. Williams, Fantasy Author, recently gave some interesting information on meta-tags and marketing.
    
      Insight 1) She asked friends to tag her at Amazon to increase her rankings.  I didn't know you could do that.  So, if you have a book on Amazon, you might study what she did.  I'm giving this info to my harpist daughter.  It's well worth studying ... and maybe adding some tags for Nancy as a thank you.  I know I did.

     Insight 2)  The tags look suspiciously like metatags.  You know, the do-hickies that help you rise or fall on the search engine pages.  So, it might be a good idea to look at your websites and blogs to see how you can improve the pesky things.

The time would be well spent if it gives your writing a marketing boost in the search engines.  Of course, if you're already a metatag marketing wizard, you probably skipped this.

Have you written any blogs on how your marketed your books.  Why not mention them with the results in the comments?

*Hope I spelled it write.  The name's so long the letters keep jumping around, and I never know which syllable I read is correct.


5 comments:

Mary Mary said...

Well, in the end, at least you got something useful out of your writer's conference. I think you made a good choice on combining the two blogs. It probably does dilute your audience somewhat otherwise.

Unknown said...

The fact you made a comment, makes me think maybe I did make the right decision. Thanks.

Donea Lee said...

Hello Kay! Hopped on over after seeing a plug for your blog on EJ's (of the Open Vein) blog. I've never considered metatags? Something worth looking into, for sure, if it makes your writing more easily found. Thanks for the tip! :)

Margo Berendsen said...

The pink hair thing among YA writers/bloggers wsa a great marketing windfall.

Thanks for the tags/metatags tips.

Unknown said...

Yeah. Even I noticed the pink hair deal. Hope everyone finds the metatag thing useful.