Digital Marketing Guide for Authors & Online Entrepreneurs | Denise Wakeman

How to Get Better Visibility on the Web

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9 Questions to Answer Before You Approach a New Joint Venture Partner

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Joint venture partners and affiliates are a great way to boost your visibility, attract new clients and customers, and make more money. However, there is some etiquette involved in how you approach a potential joint venture partner.

A few days ago I was asked by my colleague Kathleen Gage to contribute some tips and advice about how to deal with an overwhelming number of joint venture requests. What I sent her is the list of 9 questions you see below. Kathleen's post, Leading Experts Share Top Reasons Why They Won’t Promote for Others, also includes excellent tips by Ellen Britt, David Perdew and Susan Lassiter-Lyons. As you'll see, we all share Kathleen's frustration about the number of promotion requests we get that are from people we don't know, have no relationship with, and are for products that are not a good fit for our communities.

Whether you're new to affiliate marketing or a seasoned marketer, I urge you to read Kathleen's post. The advice and tips are excellent. I especially like how Susan rewards her top ten affiliates at the end of the year!

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What's been your experience both receiving joint venture requests and asking others to be a joint venture partner? What has worked for you in building partnerships?

Ignoring the Small Sales? Here’s How They Can Lead to Big Sales

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Are you ignoring the small sales, thinking they aren't worth pursuing?

On my recent webinar "From Blog to Kindle eBook: How to Create New Revenue Streams with Amazon's Kindle eBook Program"** I shared a screenshot from my July sales to date for my Kindle eBooks. The total was about $20. Doesn't sound like much, does it? Why would I spend my time creating ebooks if I'm only making a few bucks a month? 

Talking with a colleague who attended the webinar, he gave me some feedback about showing such a small revenue number for my sales. He had a good point, that it may have discouraged some people to think they may make only a few dollars from their Kindle ebooks. I could have found a screenshot with higher numbers.

But, here's the point I was making on the webinar…this is an additional revenue stream, not my sole income. If I wanted to make thousands of dollars a month on Kindle, which some authors do, I'd have to be doing more than compiling blog posts as ebooks. I'd also have to be marketing full time to drive traffic to my books.

This goes directly to the purpose of your ebooks. For me, they are lead generators. And, as I pointed out to my friend, I'm actually getting paid for my leads, when someone buys an ebook and then signs up for a free gift that's offered in the ebook, they have paid me to get on my list. Not bad.

Now, here's the true story that may change the way you think about the small sales…

During an intake session with a new client, she told me exactly how she found me.

She was doing a Google search for how to add images to a blog post. One of the search results was a Kindle ebook I offered on Amazon. She bought the ebook for 99 cents. Next she checked out some of the resources I recommended and opted in to a free webinar which added her on my email list. Then, about 30 days later, when I offered a group coaching program, she knew it was the right program at the right time and I was the right person for her to study with.

So, that $.99 ebook became a $500 sale.

That's why I do it. Not to get rich on Kindle ebooks, but to attract the right people to my site and my community and then make an offer that can solve a problem for them.

Does it make sense now, why I'm not worried about whether I make $10 or $100 dollars on Kindle? It's passive revenue and frankly, a dollar is a dollar and all those little sales do add up! It's all good and also helps me build my visibility, credibility and business.

That's what I want for you, too, and I know you can do it too. I appreciate that my friend brought up the issue so I could share the story with you. While I can't promise you the same results, I can promise that if you don't leverage the tools at your finger tips – like easy publishing on the biggest ecommerce site on the web – you may struggle a little more to build your business.

Do you have story about how a small sale led to a big sale? I'd love to hear about your success, and your challenges in the comments below.

 
 
** The replay for the Blog to Kindle eBook webinar + resources is currently available for a limited time at the original registration price. It will be going up soon.

How to Make Your Kindle Ebook Stand Out on Amazon

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You're about to publish your fabulous Kindle ebook…will it stand out from the hundreds of thousands of other ebooks featured on Amazon?

One of the most important elements you need to add to your ebook is a cover image. While it may not be quite as important as your content, it is the first thing people will see, before they even read a description or review of your ebook. 

You need to create a cover image and virtual book images of your cover you can use to promote your ebook.

There are a few ways to create your cover:

  1. Hire a graphic designer – if you have the budget, then I recommend going with a professial designer vs. doing it yourself
  2. Use Fiverr or elance and request bids for design services
  3. Create it yourself with royalty free images

I'm frugal so I like to do it myself for low cost products like a Kindle ebook. When I create high fee products , I hire a designer (I highly recommend Heidi Frieder of ArtHead).

Back to ebooks.

For my $.99 ebooks I usually buy a royalty free image and create a simple cover. Make sure to choose a large image that is colorful so it stands out on the page. My favorite source of royalty free images is BigStockPhoto. I buy credits in bulk and buy images for blog posts, reports, and PowerPoint presentations.

You can see I'm not much of a designer. I create a simple cover with the image I purchased, title, my name and the URL for my website. The next step is to use the two dimensional cover image to create three dimensional images to promote your ebook. Take a screenshot of the cover image you've recreated so you have a jpg you'll need to create three dimensional promo images.

Over the years I've bought several software programs to create 3D product images. They all required you to download software and then install it on your server. And, the results were not that great. Then, a few months ago I was introduced to a great online program called BoxShot King. Nothing to download, easy to use and more than 40 types of product images you can create in about 1 minute. Love it! The image above is a "package" of three product images I created with BoxShot King in five minutes.

BoxShot King also includes many extra graphics you can add to your image. In two of the images above, I added an badge that says "Free Bonus" since I offer access to free videos when people buy the ebook. Ellen Britt did a beautiful job on her ebook cover for The Littlest Angel, with an gold ribbon on the cover annoucing a bonus.

Why is this important? The image reassures your buyer that your content is a "real" book and that they can consume it on their Kindle device. They don't have to imagine it, they can see it as it will appear on their reader. The 3D product image can be used on Amazon, your blog, social media sites and sales pages if you also sell your ebook on your own site.

While writing this post, I realize I need to update my ebook pages on Amazon to include the 3D images. I think they are more compelling and interesting than flate 2D images. 

Would love to get your comments about using images to promote your ebooks. Do you create 3D images for your ebooks and digital products?

Top 10 Online Marketing Blog Posts in 2011

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Top 10 Blog Posts

Like many at this time of year, I take a look back over the past 12 months and reflect on my business accomplishments. This year I also took a look at the blog posts on this site that generated the most traffic.  A high level of social sharing usually resulted in more traffic, though not always a lot of comments. I can improve on this by asking more provocative or engaging question at the end of my blog posts. 

For your end of the year review, here are the top 10 posts on this blog for 2011 counting down from number ten:

10. Social Marketing Tips Mobile App Now Live! (this one surprised me)

9. What's Your Facebook Visibility Plan?

8. Poke the Box – What Are You Ready to Start?

7. Writing Blog Posts that Captivate and Convert (excellent interview with copywriting and SEO expert Karon Thackston)

6. Kindle Ebooks Free to Borrow for Amazon Prime Members

5. Contagious Content – Strategic Posting for Better Visibility on the Web

4. Are Your Social Networks Getting Out of Control?

3. Self-Publish Your Ebook on Amazon.com's Kindle

2. How to Optimize Your Blog for More Subscribers

and… drum roll please…

the #1 most popular post in 2011 is…

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Free Keyword Search Tips for Bloggers

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This is a guest post by Matthew Hooper of MatthewHooper.com.

Keyword research is a great way for you to discover potential content ideas for your website. Very often, blog owners either don't know the right phrases to be targeting or they target the wrong keyword. Great headlines, great content and a great message all sound, well, great but if nobody is finding your blog then you're talking to yourself. Furthermore, your efforts are all going out the window. This is where doing a bit of research can go a long way. Search traffic will keep coming long after you had published the post.

Free Keyword Search  Video

In order to demonstrate, below is a short screencast on how to search for targetable keywords. The focus of this video is to identify keyword phrases using Google's free keyword search tool and then hone down the phrases in order to end up with a phrase that is less competitive.

(Can't see the video? To watch on YouTube, click here.)

A Word of Caution

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