Monthly Archives: May 2021

Living a Blessed Life You Love

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By Books Writer Denise Turney

woman focused on living a blessed life soaring mid-air while blowing huge balloon in sky
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Living a blessed life is natural. But, in this world, living a blessed life takes courage. Perhaps, this is why it’s tempting to cash life in for playing it safe and doing what it takes to gain the approval of someone you admire, even if these choices force you away from joy.

At first glance, giving in to safe choices is easier, better. It’s easier to say “yes” to an invitation when you really want to say “no”. And it’s easier to agree to do a friend, manager or colleague a favor than it is to tell them “no” and risk incurring their disappointment or anger. But there’s a price to pay for so much yielding.

Start Living a Blessed Life Now

If you’re serious about living your best life now, prepare to face resistance. After all, not everyone thinks the way you do. Furthermore, not everyone should think the same. The one commonality that allows for freedom with grace is a commitment to love. This commitment is at the core of living your best life.

This means that you commit to only love.

As you work at this, should you feel tempted to hold a grievance and get blocked, forgive. There’s power in forgiveness. Why? Forgiveness keeps the flow of love open. And it’s these that offer access to light for inner vision, guidance and the courage to forge ahead as you deepen and expand your life.

Pursue Living Learning Loving

Living your best life also requires that you get clear about what you really want. To do this, sit still for 15 minutes. Simply sit still in a quiet, peaceful place. Make it a habit. Notice if you don’t receive more inner guidance, love-based promptings.

woman sitting and smiling
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After you get clear about what you really want, map out a path to fulfill those goals. And these goals may not involve gaining material things. These goals may center around experiences like traveling to a new country, learning to speak a different language or dancing for the first time in years.

For example, in addition to sitting still and/or meditating, the path to living a blessed life might find you researching facts about your goals. Prior to traveling to a new country, you might research what you need to do to get a passport. You also might research key places to visit in the country, tour guide options, hotels and flight deals. As you live your best life now, you also might study the language in the country, learning enough lingo to be able to enjoy time that you spend in the country.

Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams

Here are other actions that could help you as you go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Create or cut out pictures of experiences you want, experiences that will open the door to joy. Other choices that could help you to go confidently in the direction of your dreams include:

  • Writing down actions you will take to achieve your goals
  • List out specific steps required to fulfill these goals
  • Identify financial, time and legal resources needed to fulfill your goals
  • Clearly outline where you will get these resources
  • Schedule events that put you in contact with the right buyers, supporters and influencers

While you go confidently in the direction of your dreams, stay on high moral ground. Remain ethical. Avoid thinking that doing the wrong thing will pay off. After all, even if cutting corners lends you short term benefits, doing the wrong thing will cost you big in the long term. Why? You have a conscience. At your core, you always want to do what’s right.

Art of Living a Blessed Life

Fortunately, you can do what’s right and do what it takes to start living a blessed life. Just be prepared to face resistance, including inner resistance. For example, there may be times when you have to learn the art of living alone and loving it. This could happen after your children reach adulthood and leave home.

Or it could happen should your spouse transition, you divorce or relocate to an area miles away from family. Business shifts, market changes, physical challenges and/or mental or emotional changes are types of resistance and setbacks that you could face. Despite the challenges, when you go after what you’re Higher Self wants, it’s always worth it.

Steer Clear of These Regrets to Keep Living a Blessed Life

Consider this should you feel tempted to quit, throw in the towel and take the easy route, striving to make others happy instead of yourself. These are five things that people often regret when they reach the end of their physical experience. Choices that you make now could keep you from experiencing these regrets.

  • Living a life that others want you to live instead of living the life that you want
  • Not resting and enjoying experiences more fully
  • Choosing to avoid communicating with friends. Opting to busy yourself with work and family over maintaining healthy friendships.
  • Keeping your authentic thoughts secret, and, instead agreeing with others just to go along
  • Putting everything ahead of your goal of living a blessed life.

To start loving your life, you’re going to have to take one to three actions each day that support the belief that “you love yourself’. Looking for ideas? Try a relaxing bubble bath, walk in nature, listening to relaxing music that you love or dancing. Yes, dancing. After all, enjoying life and living a blessed life are about loving your Real, True Self more and more.

Looking for more support? Here’s to hoping that Love Pour Over Me proves helpful to you as you go confidently in the direction of your dreams, especially if yours was a troubled beginning.

These 3 Keys Lead to Book Marketing Sales Success

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By Novelist and Books Writer Denise Turney

man standing inside library with rows of books holding and reading book
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Congratulations on your new book! Considering the work that goes into writing a good book, your achievement is worth celebrating! A meal at your favorite restaurant, a visit to your favorite jazz club, an afternoon at the beach or an evening enjoying a live stage play — wonderful ways to celebrate writing a new novel. And celebrate you should, because soon focus on book marketing sales success goes into full swing!

Book Marketing Sales Success Resources

If you’re an experienced novelist, you already know that selling books is not magic. In fact, as part of your book marketing efforts, you may have already started contacting book clubs, bookstore book buyers, librarians and book bloggers, sharing details about your new book.

Good digital marketing companies that focus on books you could use as a marketing resource include sites like Book Bub, AALBC.com, Reedsy, Goodreads and Bargain Booksy. Pinterest, Facebook and TikTok are other resources you could use to introduce your books to more readers and book buyers.

Book marketing software resources range from Storiad, Bublish, Publish Wide, Book Buzzr, Book Baby to Publish Drive. To save yourself time, use social media schedulers.

Book Marketing Schedulers

Among the social media schedulers there’s Loomly, Buffer, Hootsuite, VistaPrint Digital Marketing, SproutSocial and CoSchedule. Strengthen social media marketing by using Net Galley and other resources to get book reviews, going so far as to email family, friends and beta book readers, asking them to write a review for your new book.

Give reviewers an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of your new copyrighted manuscript. If they love your new book, they may be great first-person book marketers, sharing details about your book with their colleagues, neighbors and friends.

Admittedly, even with schedulers and other resources, consistently selling lots of books is work. This is where the three keys that can lead to book sales success are important. Simply put, even if you get book reviews, engage in direct book marketing strategies by mailing postcards, print newsletters and book catalogs to book buyers, it may not be enough.

Road To More Book Marketing Sales Success

You still might not generate enough sales for your book to hit a bestseller list. Put in 10 or more hours a week marketing your book only to yield low sales and, after six months, you could wonder if it’s worth it. You might even wonder if you should keep writing and selling books at all.

This is the time to exercise the 3 keys that lead to book sales success. It’s now that you need to call on creativity, tenacity and perseverance. You need to create new book marketing strategies. And, you need to tweak existing book marketing actions. Examples of this include analyzing Amazon book sale reports, social media posts engagement and connections between book reviews and book sale spikes.

Additionally, it means that you try different direct marketing strategies. For instance, you might start your own literary podcast. Or you might design and use a car magnet on an older vehicle. Sending book buyers holiday greetings, blogging and paying for ads on influential book blogger websites are other choices that you could take.

Examining 3 Keys That Lead to Book Marketing Sales Success

In fact, creativity goes beyond writing books. Creativity is a huge part of the book marketing process. Throughout your writing career, you’re going to have to shift, pivot and make creative changes.

Tenacity is another must in order to experience a rewarding book writing career. This applies whether you write fiction or nonfiction books. If you’re tenacious and confident, you won’t abandon creative marketing ideas too soon. You’ll know when to hang in there and when to step away.

Even more, you’ll be persistent. But you’ll be persistent with your book marketing strategies in smart ways. In other words, you won’t hammer book buyers with one book ad after another. While using social media schedulers and good digital marketing companies, you’ll take time to actually engage with book readers and book buyers, and you will consistently measure the results of your book marketing efforts.

Engaging Book Buyers

For example, to introduce your books to more readers, you might post motivational quotes, questions and polls in literary newsletters or on social media. Other actions you might take include responding to visitors’ comments and thanking followers for Likes. To generate interest in your new book, you might run giveaways. This doesn’t just work with Amazon book sale efforts.

In fact, you can run book giveaways at your author website. And you can run book giveaways as part of online radio interviews. Book conferences and book festivals are other places where you can run book giveaways, particularly as part of contests.

Another key that leads to book sales success is perseverance. If you’re aim is to write books full-time, perseverance is a must. Book writing and book marketing are not for the feeble of mind. As a book writer, you’re entering a field that calls for toughness.

There’s a lot of competition. More than 1 million books are published each year, according to BK Connection. Then, there are the more than 12 million books already in print (or in audio book or e-book form). Even with the numbers of avid book buyers, that’s a lot of books to sale.

Keep Advancing Smartly

If you don’t persevere, you could throw in the towel just before your big break arrives. You could also start to believe the way your book sales are currently going is the way they will always go. And that doesn’t have to be the case, especially if you keep monitoring your results, pivoting and making smart changes. So, believe in your creative abilities, research book marketing tools and book marketing strategies.

Also, attend free marketing webinars offered by companies like Constant Contact, Amazon Marketplace, LinkedIn and Social Butterfly. Attending these free webinars is a great way to get up to speed on online marketing for beginners. Local chamber of commerce’s also hosts free online marketing webinars.

As you persevere, you can grow your book catalog. This alone can attract new book buyers, netting you more book sales. Readers will start to become familiar with your writing style and your personal brand. Don’t be surprised if your reader base grows, especially if you continue to sharpen your craft.

Then, you may start to generate book sales from your backlist. As your catalog grows, keep marketing your backlist. There’s a market of readers who look for used books for sale and old books for sale. Marketing your backlist is also an effective way to maintain interest in you, as a writer, allowing you to create traction for each new book that you release.

7 Podcasts Marketing Tips to Help You Grow Your Podcast Audience

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By African American Books Writer Denise Turney

photo of gold colored podcast microphone
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Want to grow your literary podcast listener base? Check out these 7 podcasts marketing tips. These marketing tips can work whether your aim is to create audio only or video podcast shows. Even more, these marketing tips work if you’re promoting books, book marketing services or publishing products during podcasts interviews. Just know that you have to distinguish yourself from a growing crowd. Why?

Early Podcast Days

Gone are the days when you could attract hundreds, if not thousands, of listeners simply by firing up a microphone, switching on video and starting a podcast. Celebrities, entertainers, news stations, media outlets and radio stations are launching podcasts today, some pulling in millions of daily and weekly listeners.

To stand out, attracting attention calls for more than a good interview, humor and sharing valuable information. It’s not the way it was in 2004, when Adam Curry and Dave Winer started their podcast “iPodder”. Their background, one a VJ and the other a technologist, made for a successful launch.

If you want to build your listener audience, you’re going to have to get the word out about your podcast. With this goal in mind, start by finding a good podcast directory.

Podcast Directories are a Must for Podcasts Marketing Tips

iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn and RadioGuesList.com are podcasts directories. Other podcasts directories include iHeartRadio, Overcast, Pocket Casts and Google Play. Of course, you could start a YouTube podcast. Podcast directories are great places to distribute your show episodes. More about that later in this article.

Also, have a focus for each show. For example, if you’re interviewing an author about her nonfiction books, focus on the specific points you want to share with listeners. What do you want listeners to walk away thinking after they catch your podcast interviews?

How do you want listeners to feel and what do you want them to focus on? Not sure? Here are interview focus ideas:

  1. Kick off the interview by asking guests to share their name and the titles of their books, book marketing products or publishing services.
  2. Build rapport by asking guests where they are from and what inspired them to do what they do, including write the books they write.
  3. Tell listeners what your guest’s website URL is. This way, listeners can visit the website and learn more about your guests.
  4. Share a funny or insightful fact about yourself. Even more, you could share insight on how or why you created your podcast, one or more of your books, products or services.
  5. Repeat customer testimonials that focus on specific elements of your podcast you want listeners to pay attention to.
  6. Be natural. Remember, you’re about to share valuable information with podcast listeners.

Recording Audio Matters

Relax, and remember you can edit and polish the show after it ends. But do make sure you and your guests use a good microphone. Fortunately, a computer mic is generally sufficient.

Regarding your responsibilities as a podcast host, have back-up questions on hand should you need to fill empty space or brief instances of silence. Here are seven more podcast marketing tips that are good to remember:

  1. Use a good sound system while recording audio for podcast shows. As a tip, if you’re using a telephone, consider going with a land line phone. Why? A land line phone may come in clearer than a cell phone. And you can get a podcast recording system like a USB microphone for a computer. Take this route, and you won’t need a telephone.
  2. Before you start recording audio, do a walk-thru with guests. Let guests know how the podcast intro will go. For instance, tell guests if there are ads or music at the top of the show. Also, let guests know if there will be breaks during the show and how long breaks are. Whether or not there is live Q&A with listeners is another area to cover with guests before the show starts.
  3. Sounds simple, but this is important among the podcast marketing tips. Slip up here and you could spend hours editing each show. Conduct podcast interviews in a quiet place. Tell everyone in recording space that you’re recording audio. Let them know you can’t be disturbed while interviewing. If you’ve ever seen someone bomb a Zoom recording, you know how distracting it can be to hear an unexpected voice cross the line.
  4. Even if you use exciting background visuals, you have to make the interview interesting. Relax and be conversational. Coach guests to expand on their answers, steering them away from one-word answers. Also, interject humor into the interview. As an example, you could read a funny excerpt from a guest’s book.

More Podcasts Marketing Tips

As an extra tip, listen to popular podcasts to pick up intro, closing, background and Q&A ideas. Here are additional tips to produce better podcasts, potentially attracting more listeners:

  • For added visual appeal, if in addition to being a podcast host, you’re also a book author, sit in front of a background that highlights your books. Regardless of the recording system you use, test the camera. Make sure you come across clearly on the video from your shoulders up. (If you’re short like me, you might have to sit on a pillow.)
  • Allow sufficient light inside the space where you’re recording video podcasts.
  • Repeat the titles of guests’ books, book marketing products or publishing services at the end of the podcast, especially if guests paid to be on your show.
  • Edit shows and send a downloadable link to each guest. But don’t just share the link with guests, encourage guests to promote the show at their social media accounts. Also, share the link with your supporters via email, etc. The more traffic your podcast gets, the better. Traffic is a good way to attract advertisers and great podcast guests.

Professional Podcast Production

If you’re recording audio for podcast as a show host, familiarize yourself with video podcast hosting companies like Vimeo, Wistia, Burbrry, Simplecast and Wave before you create video podcast shows. Check out professional podcast production features like distribution channels, web player analytics, pricing, number of downloads you get each month, demographics and other listener metrics.

Also, see if you can get professional podcast production features free of charge, especially if you are only going to create video podcast once a month. Keep promoting and marketing your literary podcast shows. As with other items in this article, this applies whether you interview on podcasts or host your own podcast.

If you’re looking for another way to market your podcasts, create a website for your literary podcast show. Ways to increase the website traffic includes writing blogs that link to topics your guests cover during their interviews. Additionally, you could write and distribute press releases.