Posts in category Brand Strategy

A very nice tribute from a very worthy associate.

Jan24
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Mike Webb

by Mamiko Edegard PhD

MY TRIBUTE TODAY…Mike Webb of Sortis Publishing! What an amazing person to collaborate with on an amazing publishing project! You know how you come to know and trust people through how they respond when everything isn’t perfect – that is where you can, how did my mother put that, “test their nettle!”

I am excited to have finished a project for Dr. Mamiko Odegard, a well respected, dynamic and successful Scottsdale psychologist and relationship coach. Slated to be released on Valentine’s Day, Daily Affirmations of Love is a dance of devotion… where Dr. Mamiko Odegard offers 365 entries that reflect relationships as an empowering “dance” rather than a deliberate, linear path. Mamiko does not offer us the seven effective ways to be a good lover. Instead, she notes how each day is uniquely different, but each one ultimately requires that we dance past daily distractions and get back to experiencing the discipline of love, wrapping each day in a positive affirmation that helps us experience “love as a verb!”

Mike and I are working to create a hybrid process between traditional publishing and the difficulties authors can experience when they try to self-publish. Making this “blend” happen is important to aspiring authors, but making the shift happen has required open communication, patience and amazing support – characteristics that do not always meet one’s expectations in this kind of collaboration. Mike has been stellar and EXCEEDED my every expectation. If you don’t know him or the services he provides to professionals seeking to share their expert status as an author – he is a MUST to add to your list of resourceful people within the publishing industry!

Thank you, Mike, for helping make Daily Affirmations for Love happen!

A

Posted in Authority Status, Book Cover, Mike Webb, Publishing - Tagged , , , ,

Blogging in 20 minutes or less Part #5

Aug07
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Mike Webb

Step 5: Don’t forget the value 

One of the worst things you can do is come up with a great attention grabbing headline and then not give your reader any real content that they can take action with. Even with the greatest headlines in the world readers will soon figure you out and stop following you, your blog and your content if you don’t deliver something of value to them. 

You will want to make sure that you are solving problems for your readers or giving them ideas and content that are useful without a lot of fluff. So be sure you have enough cherries in your cherry pie. 

So by putting your blog in order ahead of time and putting a little effort in at the beginning and then following what I have suggested here you will be off to a great start providing consistent and relevant posts to your blog. And that is why people will follow you and become comfortable with you and then turn into clients and people that will talk about you and recommend you to others.

More great tips about building your Authority Status coming soon. Sign up for my RSS feed so you wont miss anything.

Posted in Authority Status, Blogging, Competitive Positioning, Messaging, Publishing

Part #4 Blogging in 20 minutes or less

Aug05
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Mike Webb

Step 4: Give yourself a time limit 

As I said before, you will see on my blog that there has been quite a bit of time elapse between some of my blog posts. This is because I would sometimes sit down and start writing and I would find myself taking hours to get something written. So the next time I needed to write a post I would remember how long it took the last time and I would tell myself that I didn’t have time to do it. This would go on for several days or even weeks before I felt I had the time to do it again. What a waste of a good blog and several ideas that I had failed to write down. 

And then there were times when I would start writing and not be completely satisfied with what I had come up with and so rather than the post not be “perfect” I would post nothing at all. We are all human and frankly I would rather spend my time reading from or listening to or watching a video from someone who is real and that has great information than I would trying to pick out some imperfection on their blog. Now mind you as a publisher I have a tendency to notice misspelled words so I am not suggesting that you just type something out and post it. It should be proofed and any obvious changes made but don’t kill your brain cells trying to create the perfect post.

Part #5 is the last in this series and it is coming soon. Just sign up for my RSS and you will be notified when it is posted.

Posted in Authority Status, Blogging - Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Designing the Best Book Cover

Aug03
2010 1 Comment Written by Mike Webb

Make a Good First Impression with your Book Cover

Book cover for Everlasting Wisdom

Everlasting Wisdom

Your book cover is the first impression you offer to your potential buyer and it is a large part of the image that you want to create, especially if you want the reader to potentially become a client for your services or products. You will want to make sure that the book cover as well as your book layout will match the overall brand that you are building for yourself and or your company. Not that you want your book cover to look like it is obviously a perfect match for your other branding material but that it simply matches in color tone, theme, fonts and appearance.

Unless you are highly skilled in this area you will need to find a good designer who has experience in designing book covers. Once you have located 3-4 experienced book cover designers, get samples of their work to review. You may find one whose design style seems to be in line with the vision you have of your book cover and your brand. Choose the book cover designer that has created the most eye catching covers. I say “created” because what you want is someone who is capable of creating a book cover from scratch. Stay away from designers that use templates, you want your book cover to be absolutely unique to you and your book.

Understand the Technicalities of your book cover

Your book cover is obviously more technical than the average brochure, with bleed, ISBN #’s and specific delivery requirements of printers for the finished files it can get tricky. So make sure your book cover designer is qualified so you don’t spend time and money that is not necessary. Also put them in touch with your printer whenever possible so they can get the exact technical information that they need in order to get it right the first time they send the book cover file to the printer. There is not much that is more frustrating than being ready to launch your book marketing campaign or being ready for an upcoming interview, appearance or presentation and then having a delay on your printing because of a small simple thing that could have been avoided.

ISBN #’s and other technical “stuff” for your book cover

ISBN stands for “International Standard Book Number” and it consists of a 13-digit number that uniquely identifies your book. The purpose is to identify your title from any other title and is specific to your publisher as well. It is used heavily and results in more efficient marketing and cataloging to and from >publishers, retailers and distributors.

The ISBN is a must and you will need one if you want to be taken seriously. In fact the bar code that you see on the back of book covers is derived using the ISBN# for your book and is used to communicate your book’s title and information to computer software and tracking systems. When is the last time you saw a bookstore of any size not using a barcode scanner?

The ISBN is broken down in five parts.

1) The first three digits identify that it is an ISBN;
2) Identifies a country or group of countries;
3) Identifies a particular publisher within a geographic group;
4) Identifies a particular title or edition of a title;
5) A single digit at the end acts as a “check digit” to validate the ISBN.

So, unless you are going to self publish and only offer your book to friends, family and the occasional interested party then you MUST have an ISBN# on your book cover.

Posted in Authority Status, Book Cover, Book Layout, Distribution, Publishers, Retailing Books

Part #3 Blogging in 20 minutes or less

Aug03
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Mike Webb

Step 3: Run your topics in a series 

If you have created four to six topics centered around your business, service or niche and have then come up with ten or so headlines per topic you are well on your way to filling up each day with a quality post. But watch this, if you then take each of your headlines and break down the ones that contain more than one subject into separate posts then you are really going to stretch out your blog posts and you may even fill up an entire year of things to write about. In fact I sometimes write an article and get a few days out of each one by simply chopping it up and then set them to automatically post. This gives me a few days that I don’t have to worry about things at all and it’s great when I am out of town on business or just too pay attention to it every day. If you spend an hour at one sitting but end up with 3 posts then you have still only spent twenty minutes on each post. 

This is also a good way to keep followers in suspense and coming back for the next bit of information.

Watch for part #4

Posted in Blogging

Blogging in 20 minutes or less Part # 2

Aug01
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Mike Webb

Step 2: Build a list of headlines 

Headlines should grab attention. If yours don’t then your posts won’t get read no matter what you do to get people to your blog. So build a list of at least 50 attention grabbers that are relevant to your business, service or niche and you will save a ton of valuable time. You can pick four to six key topics that you deal with and then come up with as many sub topics as you can in each of those. A catchy headline can make all the difference in whether or not your visitors stick around so be sure it’s doing the job it’s supposed to. 

Here are some ideas of areas that you can build your headline list around: 

Statistics 

For example you can grab attention with the following: 

  • 400,000 books in a single year
  • 1 billion tweets every day 

Thought Provoking Questions 

Ask your readers a question that they will find curious or want to know that answer to themselves. 

For example: 

  • Does your marketing stink?
  • How do you demand attention?
  • When is the last time you had a heart to heart with yourself? 

All of these create a curiosity in your reader’s mind that makes them want to read more. Do this and your blog posts will keep eyes on your page. 

Tell a story 

If you can tell a good story then you can capture the attention of your readers. Not a long story but just long enough to get whatever point across that you want to make. It could be the story of one of your clients and how you helped them. Or it could be just a make believe story that tells the ending that you want and that illustrates how you can help someone or provide a service that they have been in need of. But remember you will still need a compelling title for your story. 

Relevant Quotes 

Have probably seen quotes used along side chapter heading in books that are relevant to the chapter itself. This is a good method to use and a quote can be used as the headline itself. For example: 

In the book “Tactical Entrepreneur” by Brian Hazlegren (one of my authors at Sortis Publishing by the way) the second chapter is titled “Do You Have What It Takes?” he quotes himself by saying the following:

 “If a man cannot dream he will soon be asleep to all the important things that life has to offer. If a man cannot pray he will soon only listen to himself. And if he has no charity for others he will soon be the only important thing in his pathetic existence.” – Brian Hazelgren 

He then proceeds to write a great chapter all about the courage needed to start a small business. The quote really gets you thinking about what it is that Brian is about to discuss in the chapter. That is powerful and it’s a fantastic way to capture attention and help drive the point home.

Part #3 is coming soon. Sign up for my RSS feed to be notified.

Posted in Authority Status, Blogging, Book Marketing, Competitive Positioning, Messaging, Publishing, Writing, social media - Tagged , , , ,
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