email – The PBS Blog

Remember to Back Up Your Content!

I logged into my WordPress dashboard this morning, and my last 5-6 posts were gone, including paid book reviews.

Can you hear my heart breaking?

Thankfully, after about thirty minutes, they showed up!

My face after deleting my tweets cause I thought the links were dead.
Photo by MART PRODUCTION

Too bad I had already deleted the tweets to what I thought were now dead links. Way to go, Yecheilyah.

A glitch, maybe, but the scare was real!

Chile, I almost cried.

Then I put my big girl panties on and understood today’s message.

ALWAYS back up your content!

Make sure your photographs, graphics, videos, and articles are stored in a folder on your computer or on a USB drive. Before composing your posts in WordPress, it’s simpler to write them in a Word document (or whichever program you prefer) and save them to your computer.

Never depend on ONE social platform to reach your audience

I have never been a fan of putting all my eggs in one basket, and this experience reemphasized the importance. I am all for monogamy, but cheating on your other social media profiles with a backup plan is okay, lol.

It is not a smart idea to rely only on one platform, whether we’re talking about Instagram bugs or if US companies and content creators will no longer be able to use TiKTok. (Are you following the case with them? Back those videos up!)

Keep your options open and stay as informed of all the developments as you can. Even if we disagree with AI, for instance, it would be a bad idea to ignore how it is affecting the book publishing industry and how authors and publishers create and distribute their works.

Email is still useful

If these social media apps change their policies, having an email list can let you stay in touch with your customers, business partners, and author friends. Twitter and Instagram have already started using paid verified badges. Even further, Twitter claims that those who earned their blue checks will soon have to pay to keep them.

It is not farfetched to say that we might one day have to pay to use these apps. If that’s not your flavor, you will want to maintain contact with your people somehow.

Blogs are great alternatives to email lists since subscribing to someone’s blog mean you get an email for every update anyway.

If you simply use your blog, however, always refer back to point one and backup your blog content.

After all, we don’t own WordPress either.

Interested in joining my email list for updates you won’t get here or anywhere else?

Click Here!

If you only want updates on poetry contests, be sure to check poetry contest updates only when you get to the form!

Dear Indie Author, Remember to Guide Your Readers to Your Own Platforms

None of us can deny the power of social media to impact businesses, big and small. As we’ve seen repeatedly, what we post to our accounts can have positive and negative real-life effects, destructive and groundbreaking. With it, we can reach people worldwide without leaving the house. It is no longer just about posting family photos. People are making real money and establishing real connections.

However, an over reliance on social media to hold up the core of our business can prove disastrous since we do not own them. Lately, I have heard many complaints of Instagram pages being hacked, Facebook jail, and TikTok suspensions.

And these are not complaints from people with small accounts. People with tens of thousands of followers have had to start from zero.

People who operate systematically, moving their tribe (those genuinely interested in their content because everyone isn’t), over to their own platforms, do not lose when their accounts are hacked or when IG decides to glitch.

They do not lose because they understand a basic principle:

Social Media is the vehicle, not the destination.

Social Media is a powerful tool for socializing and networking with your target audience. Still, you want to always be moving them along your funnel.

This looks like adding them to your blog, email/text list, website, or membership site.

To do this, use a call-to-action at the end of your posts to tell people what you want them to do.

The call-to-action or CTA is when you give your people direction. What do you want us to do after seeing your post?

Do you want us to visit your website by clicking the link in your bio?

Do you want us to leave a comment? Are you asking for feedback?

Do you want us to buy something? Are you having a Black Friday sale?

The goal is to avoid getting too comfortable with the followers you get from these social media platforms. Only some people following you are interested in what you have to offer. You can ensure they know where to find you outside Instagram and Facebook. This allows you to nourish relationships and build stronger bonds with those who care.

In a matter of seconds, your thousands of followers can be gone if someone hacks you or your account is deleted for whatever reason.

Protect yourself by establishing an online home.

Indie Author Basics simplifies and streamlines the Self-Publishing Process so authors can Self-Publish high-quality books without pulling out their hair.

Click Here to Access the Archive.

Dear Indie Author, No One Wants to Subscribe to Your Newsletter (Do this Instead)

I used to ask people to subscribe to my email list, and almost no one ever did. It was also cringy to ask.

And then I realized I was working harder than I needed to.

How people look when you say subscribe to your author newsletter.

The truth is, asking people to subscribe to your email list is boring, and no one wants to do it. We have enough emails.

And if you are a new author, no one’s ever heard of, saying we will get a free copy of your book doesn’t work either.

As I alluded to in the last post, authors must start to think like readers if they want to attract them.

Instead of asking people to subscribe to your list directly, do this instead.[mepr-show rules=”31881″ unauth=”message”]

Offer Something They Want

The value in giving something away is that if it’s a truly valuable piece of content, it will naturally lead to your paid stuff. At first, this wasn’t working for me. It wasn’t until I gave away my best book (the one people actually wanted to read) that I started to see a difference.

For your give, my advice would be not to throw something together. Give us something good.

Your give is also known as a lead magnet and doesn’t have to be a book. It can be a resource, guide, free tutorial, or access to exclusive content. It can be a complimentary ticket to your online class or a virtual pass to the next event.

Deliver Your Give By Requiring Email Sign-Up

Choose a platform to use to collect email addresses. I use Mailchimp, but there are tons of others. Require people to enter their email to receive the freebie.

Set Up Automation

As soon as they sign up, they should be able to instantly download the freebie. Setting up an automatic welcome email to officially introduce yourself is an excellent start to a warm welcome.

You’re done, and you didn’t have to beg, borrow, or pull teeth to get here.

Other ways to add subscribers:

Collaborate with other Authors
Host a contest

These are the two most powerful strategies I’ve seen. I get the most sign-ups through my poetry contests or when I collaborate with other authors.

Have a sign-up sheet at every live event.

This is probably the only time it’s okay to ask people to subscribe to your email list directly. I always have it sitting at my table. Still, the amazing thing is people will walk by and put their email addresses down without me asking! So in a way, you still don’t have to ask. All you have to do is make it available.

Add a pop-up on your blog and website.

Please ensure this goes away after about 5 seconds and doesn’t take up most of the space. Pop-ups that aren’t easy to close out are annoying and distracting. This makes us feel like we are being forced to sign-up. You don’t want people leaving your site because your pop-up won’t leave them alone.

Use Your Blog

If email newsletters aren’t your thing, you can always use a blog. When people subscribe to your blog, they get an email notification whenever you post something new. You can use this with your third-party email list or by itself. Either way, it’s another way to stay connected with your tribe outside social media.

I can go on, but the moral of the story is there are tons of ways to collect email without spamming.[/mepr-show]

Oh, please be sure you provide a way out! It is illegal not to provide a way for people to unsubscribe if they no longer feel you. It is much easier to do this if your emails go through a third party. If people can’t unsubscribe, they will report you as spam, which can ultimately hurt you. I talk more about that here.

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Indie Author Basics streamlines and simplifies self-publishing so you can publish high-quality books without pulling out your hair.

Dear Self-Published Author, Don’t Overpay to Play

“Don’t Overpay to Play”

– Vivica A. Fox

I low-key don’t like this picture because that black shirt was cuter in my mirror at home, lol.

I met Vivica in 2018 when she released her book Everyday I’m Hustling, which I read and reviewed. In it, she talks about not overpaying to play. When applied to Self-Publishing, this kind of advice can save us tons of money and wasted time.

The scammers are getting clever by the day, and they gear their tactics toward Self-Published authors. One thing we can do to arm ourselves is to understand the difference between investing in ourselves and our books and paying to play.

Investments

An investment in your book is anything that will help with the publication, promotion, and marketing of your work in a way that brings value. These are usually services offered by well-known, reputable people and organizations that produce quality. It is when you vet and hire a competent editor, when you pay for a dope cover design, when you buy ads, when you pay for web design, coaching, and so forth. These are investments that can take you to new levels. It’s an investment because you get a return.

Paying to Play

Paying to play is paying an obscene amount of money for hype that offers no real value. They usually package these as opportunities to take your business to the next level. It could mean paying 10K to a vanity press to publish your book only to come out with a crappy cover and poorly edited book slapped up on Amazon or paying 2K to attend a pointless conference.

Vivica explains it this way:

“When you get a little bit of success, you start getting invited to these big dinners and awards nights that on paper look like a great place to network. These invites can cost three hundred dollars and up! After you go to a few, you realize that you really just get the cocktail hour to network, and then it’s hard to see anyone once you’re seated for the presentation.”

Anytime you are paying tons of money to “get in the room,” you are overpaying to play. It doesn’t have to be literally in the room, as in Vivica’s example, but it could be anything that promises luxury but is not worth it in the end. Here are some examples from Anne R. Allen’s Bogus Agents, Phony Communities, Fake Conferences, and Pay-to-Play Anthologies: New Scam Warnings for Writers:

Republishing your book to send to “investors” or “get you a traditional publishing contract.”
Filming a pricey book trailer
Book-to-Film “licensing” (See my post on this heartbreaking scam And here’s Alli’s warning, including business names the book-to-film scammers use.) I hear from people every day who have been snagged by this scam.
High-ticket, useless marketing services.
Buying you an interview on a podcast or radio show nobody listens to.

And I will add to that:

Paying to be featured in an article no one knows exists or reads
Paying thousands to a vanity press only to receive poor editing and crappy cover art
Paying to speak at an event in exchange for “exposure” (seasoned speakers should get paid to speak)

Let’s say someone offers to promote your book to their 20K followers. What you want to look at is their engagement, not followers. No one will see your book if they have tons of followers, but no engagement. Engagement is likes, comments, saves, and shares. If they charge you money to promote on their page and they have 20K followers but 0-3 likes on a post, this is a red flag. It means chances are they bought their followers. (Buying followers is also a form of paying to play.)

Note: There’s nothing wrong with not having much engagement for the everyday social media user who is learning. I am talking about the people charging you money to be featured on their platform and using their millions of followers as bait.

Paying to play can also look like being offered a chance to be featured in an article in Forbes for the low price of $500.

Umm. Why would I pay to be featured in an article if I’m for real dope? Shouldn’t Forbes reach out to me?

This is the stuff we have to pay attention to. Many of these features in articles and media have been bought, not earned. This is paying to play the game.

I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this book tbh, but Fox drops some great gems.

Everything is Not a Scam, But Vet People

I am not one of those “everything is a scam,” type people. Some businesses are new to what they are offering and we all know to become an expert, you must start. Everybody was a newbie at something at some point. You will know the scammer by the services offered in relation to the price tag. Why am I paying 5K to attend a conference for you to tell me to have more faith? Not when I can take that money and pay for professional therapy.

I’m passionate about sharing my experiences as a Self-Published author because there are so many scams aimed at us. They mainly target the novice Self-Publisher. I do not mean the novice writer. You can have written before and be a master of the English language and still get scammed because you know little about Self-Publishing a book. Or, you can have Self-Published and still get scammed. It can happen to any of us.

That’s why our greatest weapon against it is knowledge and experience.

“I always tell people to educate themselves with real experience.” – Vivica A. Fox

Need more Indie Author Tips?

Check out the IAB archive here.

Need More Guidance? Schedule a free discovery call or book a consult.

5 Lessons I Learned from In-Person Networking

With back-to-back events, it’s been a busy few weeks. Here are some networking lessons I learned so far:

Wear Your Brand

One of the first things I noticed at the AOD (Accountability on Demand) Live business conference was that many people wore their logo, slogan, or tagline on their shirts and clothing. At Poet Fest, one poet even had her name written down her pants leg.

It was a great marketing technique that I had missed. Here I am with a Calvin Klein shorts set on, and everyone else is wearing their own name brands. I went home vowing to get some t-shirts done.

But then, I realized this is not about t-shirts or wearing your name on your clothes.

I probably won’t do that.

Whether you wear your logo figuratively or literally, this is about intentionally showing up for yourself.

Message received.

My shorts set was still cute, though.

Email / Text Marketing Is Prime Real Estate

More than selling books and gaining more social media followers, I have increased my email list substantially over a month.

But why is this important?

Keeping in touch via email and/or text marketing helps you to stay connected to readers you might have otherwise never seen again.

During your book signings, speaking events, and other things, keep either a notebook and pen on your table or a tablet.

Write Email List Sign-Up somewhere and put name and email so they know where to write it.

If using a tablet, have the spreadsheet already open where people can type their information.

People will walk by and just write their name and email, sometimes even before talking to you or buying a book. How is this a good thing?

It gives you the chance to build a relationship with them later. And then, they might just consider supporting your work.

This is also why I encourage Indie Authors to sell books from their author website, to stay connected with readers: because you have no idea who bought your book from Amazon unless they tell you or leave a review you can see.

Social Media is Still King

In 2022, people do not ask for your business card. They ask for your IG handle.

The first draft of this said, “Business Cards Are Still Useful,” and that’s still a lesson I learned as it made it easier for me to give out my contact information and served as a great conversation starter.

And, while I wouldn’t say business cards are dead, they are used differently in the age of social media.

If you are old school, you can take all your social handles and put them on a card. And although people will probably stash these bad boys away in their office drawer like I did when I got home, not before they follow your Instagram, Facebook group, and Twitter.

Social media is not only King but essential considering the current pestilence situation we got going on with Covid and Monkey Pox.

I don’t take pictures wearing my mask because I think it’s weird, but I always have it and my mini hand sanitizer. Please believe it.

The bottom line is, people are online all day, every day more than usual.

This means not being online and using social media is tragic for anyone looking to grow a business in 2022.

How to Actually Network

First, I am introverted. Walking up to strangers and talking to them isn’t my thing. However, I learned that is only a small part of real networking. The other part is to discern how (or if) we can best serve each other.

How can what you do and what I do become a bridge? How can we build on what we build?

That’s what networking is, making connections and building relationships.

Practical example: You are a writer, and there’s someone in your social circle who edits. It would be a good idea to connect with that person.

But it doesn’t have to be someone who does something similar to what you do, either.

Michael Q. Lau helps you on your journey to health by optimizing your relationship between fitness and food.

Let’s say you have been trying to lose weight, work out and eat better. There is a nutritionist specializing in fitness in your midst. It would be best if you connected with that person and tried to see how to combine your personal goal of being fit with your business goals.

How can ya’ll turn this collaboration into something more?

Follow-Up

Communication is the cornerstone of all good relationships, so keep in touch with people.

Engage with their social media, follow their blogs, check out their services, ask them questions, subscribe to their email list, and so on.

Be present.

Stay safe folks

Don’t Let Your Self-Published Book Rust Away on Amazon

I won’t keep you today, but I want to share this short message.

Most Self-Published authors publish a book, do a happy dance, and then let it rust away on Amazon, never to be seen or heard from again.

That’s because most Indie Authors are still waiting to be Amazon Best Sellers, rack up on thousands of reviews, and wait for Amazon to send them royalties.

And there is nothing wrong with any of this.

Except, sometimes those royalties don’t be royal if you know what I mean.

And getting new reviews can be like pulling teeth.

Both are important, but I want you to know you don’t have to pull your hair out waiting. There are people who have few reviews on Amazon and still do very well and it’s because they stepped outside the box. They did something different.

And so can you.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over the years is that the book is only the beginning. It is a foundation, an open door, a ticket…

But into what??

Whatever you want.

Your Self-Published book is the beginning of a fresh course, community, even a movement for political and social change.

Writing a book sets you apart as an expert in your field. You are now equipped to speak on the topic of your book (yes, fiction writers, you too), teach the themes of your book, or advocate for the message of your book.

You can sell signed paperback copies of this book from your own website, sell them in bulk at schools, libraries, and bookstores.

You can build an entire course and online school from your book, or vend at large events, conferences, and workshops.

Strategic Self-Published authors see the book, not as the end, but the beginning of a journey into more.

And why is this important?

Because a Self-Published book lost in the sea of Amazon does not produce more fruit.

Think about it.

I hope this helps someone. Stay safe folks!

Need more Indie Author Tips?

Check out the IAB archive here.

Need more in-depth guidance? Book a consult with me.

Do You Have Permission to Mass Email?

I am squeezing this post in, in the middle of packing, so I won’t keep you long.

Ahh. The author’s email list. Some hate them. Some love them. Either way, this is for the people who use them.

Before you send that email, do you have permission?

What do I mean by permission? This is your business, and you run the show. Do you really need permission?

Yes, you do.

How excited I imagine ya’ll be to spam people without knowing you spamming people.
Photo by Tima

You must have permission to email people anything that may be considered marketing or promotional content. Further, you must provide a way for them to unsubscribe or opt-out of the email if they choose to do so.

I am not talking about emailing here and there. I am talking about those of you sending mass emails every day to promote your products and services without getting permission. I am talking about the slick way that you BCC people who have not volunteered for the information you are sending.

This is not my opinion, guys. These are part of the legal requirement for email marketing.

“CAN-SPAM is one of the longest-running email marketing regulations in the world. Its laws were released in 2003 after years of email spam and unsolicited pornography filled inboxes the world over.” (Privacy Policies)

CAN-SPAM applies to US-based businesses sending marketing emails to US residents. Here are some of its requirements:

Do not use deceptive email addresses, names, domain names or subject lines to mislead the recipient. Be truthful and honest.

If you are putting “Re:” in the subject line of your emails as if you are replying to someone when you are not, you are being deceptive and violating US privacy law.

If the message contains adult content or explicit imagery, this must be specified clearly in the subject line of the email.

Include a physical street address within the content of all marketing emails.

Provide consumers with a conspicuous and straightforward way to unsubscribe from marketing emails. Fulfill unsubscribe requests within 10 days.

Be Safe and Use a Third-Party Email Provider

If possible, do not send emails without using a third-party email marketing service.

Third-party email services like ConvertKit, Mailchimp, and Mailerlite allow you to create a form people can use to sign up, giving them permission to be emailed. It also provides an easy way to comply with privacy laws because they already set it up that way. They embedded these into the form.

The Problem with Not Telling People to Subscribe to Your List

Ask any influencer, coach, mentor, or “guru” and you’ll learn the general rule of thumb is that when growing an email list, you never say, “Sign up to my email list.” Instead, you offer an incentive (say a free book or resource) that people will sign up to receive. They enter their email and download the freebie.

But here’s the thing:

You still have to mention they will be subscribed to your list.

You cannot trick people into signing up for your email list.
You cannot keep emailing people who have not given permission to be emailed.
You cannot email people without a way for them to opt out.
You cannot be deceptive. If someone did not reply to your email, there is no reason to put “Re” in the subject line like they did.

I hope this helps someone. Stay safe folks!

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