FAMP: Have Some Depth

Alright, one more FAMP before blog reviews begin next week. Let's talk about depth. When I say depth I am talking about pages on your website or blog in addition to your home page.

You may have noticed that I recently added pages to this blog. Before, I simply had my blog. Now I have a page for Blog Awards, Contact Info, and Blog Critique. This is considered depth because you can now go "deeper" into my website. 

Why should we have depth?


Because there are critical pieces of information that should be easily accessible to readers. 

Those of you who are thinking that blog awards is not critical info, you are correct.  I simply moved them to their own page so that they wouldn't clutter up the home page. Critical information for an author includes:

1. Contact Information. Please give people an easy way to find you. If for any reason an agent or someone who could help your career is looking for you, don't you want them to find you easily? And what about later when you are published? Shouldn't your readers have access to you? They want to be able to connect - online media makes this possible. Do your part make it easy for them. Yes, usually they can click on your profile and get your email (if you have it listed) but that takes more work. A contact page including an email is better. Even better than that is a contact form so people can leave you messages directly from your site. (This is different than being able to comment because they can talk to you privately.)
2. About Me Page. I don't have this info on my blog yet. I don't know why - maybe I haven't figured out who I am. Again, a blogger profile button can give this info, but a page dedicated to telling all about you is preferred. It's easy to find and is searchable. Include what you write and your FULL NAME or PEN NAME in a clear location. You'd be surprised how many people's blogs I visit that have their name hidden away. It's frustrating. Don't let your readers be frustrated!
3. A Link to Your Books. This is mostly important if you're books are on sale or on the way to being on sale. Make it easy for people to buy your books. That's critical. Also important is letting people know what you write for easy identification. If someone sees your name and book title and synopsis a lot, they start to say, "Maybe I should read that..." If you are published, make sure you have your cover posted.  If you aren't published, you should have writing samples. This gives people pre-agent buzz (yes, it can happen) and gives agents and publishers easy access to your work. Many agents research your blog on a query. Make sure they can find your material. (Again, I haven't done it yet. Ooh, I'm a slacker!)
4. Anything else you want people to get to easily. I want people to get to my blog critique info. Maybe you have appearances or events you want to notify people about. Or you offer editing services. Or you have good reviews of your books. Or you have won writing awards. Or you have a really popular blog post. Maybe its contests. Or photos. You get my drift.

One more thing - please make your navigation to these pages easy to see. Top of the page is best.

Any other things you want to see in on a separate page of a blog or website? Do you have depth?

FAMP: Call for Blogs

Ok, folks. I've given you my basics on blogging from a marketing perspective. Yes, I have more to deliver and I will continue, but I think we have enough to begin the blogging critique I mentioned before. So starting now, From A Marketing Perspective is being turned on any of you willing souls who would like to offer up your beautiful blogs for critique and feedback.

Guidelines:

To submit your blog for feedback, email me at laurarbarnes@gmail.com with FAMP as the subject. Notice there is an "R" between Laura and Barnes in my email. If you don't include that R, it will go to some other Laura Barnes who is also in marketing and is really cool because she forwards some of my mail to me, but I don't think she'd help out in this instance.

Blogs that are submitted for critique will be given a scheduled day (a Monday) where I will share my thoughts (and sometimes other guest marketers) on the blog From A Marketing Perspective and then I will turn it over to the readers to remark in comments.

It doesn't sound too painful, does it? Come on, you guys submit your writing for critique all the time. This is a piece of cake.

I'm looking forward to this next phase of FAMP! How about you?

FAMP: Darkness Overwhelms

In the past we've talked about color on blogs and how it draws attention, but we haven't really talked about dark blogs. I know, some of you LOVE your dark blogs. And, actually, I'm sort of attracted to them myself. But from a marketing perspective, they don't speak to the majority.  In fact, the majority of readers are turned off by dark blogs.  Especially if the blog has white writing on a dark background.  Again, I admit, looks cool, but hard to read.

You don't have to take my word for it though. A blog poll taken by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger showed the following results:

Safest choice is light, as you can see.

BUT you do notice the 36% that says it depends, right? This is true. If you can justify your dark background, I'll buy it. If you make it more than just "I like to be cool so I have darkness around me" then I'll support you with all my marketing background even.

And it's not just my marketing opinion. Have I mentioned one of my longest marketing client relationships is with an eye doctor? I used to work in the office full time, actually, and have become quite skilled on what bugs the eyes. Black backgrounds are a no-no. They contribute to Computer Vision Syndrome (yes, it's a real thing) and automatically the majority of people feel uncomfortable staring at them for long.

So if your blog is dark, I just challenge you to think about why it's dark. If you can't think of a reason besides, "I like it" then I'd reconsider.  The same goes for really busy patterned backgrounds, btw. You want plain white or light colored background for optimal reading comfort.

What's your opinion on dark colored blogs? Is this poll accurate? Do you care about backgrounds when you blog hop?

FAMP: Link Up

A few short months ago when I began blogging I posted a comment on another person's blog and clicked to follow her.  The next day I returned to her blog and found her post was directed at me (without saying my name).  She informed her readers that she was super irritated with people who left comments but didn't have their own blog on their profile so she could follow back. I hung my head in embarrassment and quickly rectified the situation.

Through the last few weeks I have read comments that reveal I was not alone in this mistake. Others of you have made it.  This recent blogging campaign has shown me that others of you are doing it now. So this post will teach you how to make things right.


Please know that if you don't have your blog linked to your Google profile, I am not irritated or full of judgment. I simply want to help those who want to learn.

And From A Marketing Perspective, you should always have your link in your profile to make it easy for people to find you.

1. Open your blog.
2. Click on the "View My Complete Profile" under "About Me"
3. Select "Edit Profile"
4. By "Show My Blogs" hit "Select blogs to display"
5. Choose your options and save

Now when you follow someone or comment on another blog, anyone can click on your profile and see hyperlinks to your blog(s) under the heading My Blogs. (See below). Tip: Don't keep out-of-date or private blogs on this list. It's irritating to your followers to not know which blog they should follow.

I hope this was helpful and less pointed than the way I learned.

Are you linked up? How long did it take you to learn? How did you finally figure it out or were you always completely on top of it?

FAMP: Take a Break

From a marketing perspective, you should never take a day off.  But from a real-life perspective, sometimes you need a day to rest. Well, I'm going to work on my WIP.  And catch up on my new campaign friends.

How about you? What are you doing for Labor Day? Anything fun? Productive? 

FAMP: Get a Little Color, You're Looking Pale

Let me tell you a little secret:  readers like pictures. I know, we're all grown ups and our books don't have pictures anymore, but we are still drawn to reading material that has color. That's why advertisers are willing to pay more for a color listing.

That being said, it's a natural conclusion that adding color (pictures, variety in font color) to your blog will also draw people to read your posts. But here's the catch, when I say add color and pictures in your posts, I don't mean to your background.

If your background is too colorful, it will draw the attention away from the post - remember, the color should be where you want your readers to look. A background with a minimal amount of color isn't bad (like the one on this site, though this is even a little more color than ideal) but when you post a detailed picture in the background of your blog, a snapshot, for example, you really risk losing your readers.  Yes, it looks cool.  But did you bring people to your blog to look at pics or read your writing? Just sayin'.

The best tips for adding color that draws your readers:

• Stick to using color in your posts, not your background.
• Add a picture to every post...
• ...but try to only add ONE picture unless absolutely necessary (too distracting!).
• Use one or two primary colors (or dark colors) to liven up longer posts or draw the readers eye to important bullets.
• Don't just add color arbitrarily.  Make it mean something or your readers feel like they were cheated. You told them "Read this, it's important" with the color and if it isn't then you kinda lied.
• Don't add too many colorful badges and ads on the sides of your blog. It gets cluttered and the eye doesn't know what to do.

Of course, this is all From a Marketing Perspective. If you love your background busy and filled with design, keep it.  If you love your posts simple and white, go ahead and keep them that way.  Just know it's against my marketing advice.

How do you use color in your blog? Do you like to use pictures? What draws your eyes to a post?  

FAMP: Choosing a font

Designer, Joe LaRue

Today I am honored to share the marketing perspective of designer Joe LaRue. Joe has many years in the visual business and has created everything from print to websites to film to stage direction. If you are needing any type of design work including blogs, websites, book covers or book trailers, Joe is the go-to guy. I encourage you to check out his stuff, just cuz it's great! 

And here he is...

Greetings everyone! Laura has asked me to share a few thoughts about how to use fonts - so I’ll share with you a few basic principles that I apply to every project I do, whether it’s designing a blog template, a brochure, logo, or book layout. 

1. Understand the feeling a font evokes. Though it’s one of the most overused fonts, Trajan has been used on countless book covers and movie posters because the letterforms suggest instant credibility. Due to its overuse, the font is often ridiculed, but still pops up everywhere - most recently it can bee seen starring in the opening credits of ‘Cowboys and Aliens.” It’s important to choose fonts that flow with the message being conveyed. Serif fonts generally feel more formal, while sans serif are cleaner, though perhaps plainer on the page. The nice thing about messing with blog templates is that you can test different fonts and see how it affects the overall feel of the page before committing to it. It’s also very easy to change the different type categories in a blog. I will often test 5 or 6 different looks before one pops out as “the one.” 

2. Don’t use too many different fonts. Most graphic designers have it beaten into their heads that they should never use more than three fonts on a project. There are of course exceptions, but this is a pretty good rule to stick with. Generally, you will want to choose a display font (for headlines and main titles), a body text font, and a ‘highlight’ font (for sub-headers). Picking three fonts is easy, but choosing three fonts that look good together is much trickier. 

3. Have fun with the display font. The display font should be the most distinctive - in the Harry Potter books, this is the signature font used for every chapter heading. On Laura’s blog, it’s the curlicued font ‘rodeo’ used for her title at the top. But imagine if an entire Harry Potter book was set in the display font - the reader would quit after chapter 1. 

3. Choose contrasting fonts. Picking the subheader and the body text fonts and having them look good together can be challenging. Here is a really detailed guide (29 considerations!) for matching fonts, but the easiest way to go is to contrast a serif with a sans serif font. Fonts with similar weight, but from two different categories often look good together. Sometimes the easiest and safest bet is to use two versions of the same font, but in contrasting weights (bold, thin, book, ultra bold) and widths (narrow, condensed, wide).

4. Set your rules for usage, and never waver. Design consistency is important! Don’t suddenly start using your subheader font as a headline, or your body text font as a subheader - fortunately blogger and wordpress make it easy to be consistent with these rules.

5. Break the rules! These are just basic guidelines - and there are always exceptions. The key factors in designing your look should be readability and appropriateness to your message. Test many options and seek feedback on what works. 

Thank you so much, Joe, for teaching us a thing or two. All fonts look the same to me, so I am much in need of this lesson myself. 

How's your font? How much time did you put into the font you used on your blog/website/book cover? How did you decide in the end?

FAMP: A Message From Your Target Audience

I am so excited today to feature my very first guest post from Madeline Bartos of My Capricious Existence.  If you were here yesterday, you saw that I honored Madeline with the Versatile Blog award.  Madeline is brilliant, passionate, and outrageous. But today I asked her to post because she has an asset we can all benefit from: she's a teenager. So this From a Marketing Prospective blog post is advice directly from our target audience. Take it away, Madeline:

First off, I want to thank Laura for asking me to guest post. It was like someone asking me to rant. Yeah, I was all game.

Today I want to talk about what I like and dislike about author blogs. Being some of you aren't published yet you're only writers, but this will totally apply to you, too.

I suppose I'll start off with the positive first!

Madeline Bartos

Things I Like About Author Blogs

1.) They’re pretty. There. I said it. I’m being shallow, I know. But it’s so true. People judge books by their covers whether you tell them to or not. If your layout is pretty, maybe your content is just as good, too!

2.) I learn something I didn’t know before. Reading blogs is time consuming. And quite frankly, people are selfish. There has to be something in it for them. So when I learn something I didn’t know before and get something out of a blog, I don’t care that I just invested 5 minutes reading it. Besides helpful posts, I also love resource pages where writers share their favorite links.

3.) Spill your knowledge about being a writer. This is similar to learning something I didn’t know before, but only it’s learning something about the life of a writer. Whether it’s showing off your writing space, spilling about your writing routine, or sharing ways to get rid of distractions, I love reading it! The life of a writer is half the fun of being one.

4.) Link Within. This has to be my all time favorite blog widget. If a blogger has helpful posts, I can sit there and click on other posts that show up in the Link Within for ages. (No, really. I love those things. I hate you for having them and gobbling up my short attention span, but I really do love them.)

Things I Dislike About Author Blogs

1.) Posts that are hard to comment on. I love to comment on posts. It lets the blogger know that I read what they had to say, and I enjoyed it. Some posts are just so hard to comment on. I sit there starring at the screen, struggling about what to write besides “Great post!” It’s always a lifesaver when questions are asked at the end of the post, making it super easy to comment.

2.) Posts about things completely unrelated to writing. It’s a writing blog after all. Sure, a little unrelated personal post here or there is all right. It's always good to share with readers. I don’t mind reading what’s up with personal life, but when it starts to become post after post about your cat, I just don’t care anymore. I want to read about your writing life, not personal life.

3.) Long posts. Unless every single line written is pure gold, I don’t want to read an extremely long blogpost. I simply don’t have the time. Make your point, make it hard, and make it quick. That’s why I‘m such a huge fan of lists in blogposts. You don’t even have to read the little blurbs after the point, because you get it the first time around.

Once again, thanks for having me Laura! I enjoyed being able to ramble and rant.

Thank you so much for sharing, Madeline! And because of your suggestion, notice I added that Link Within widget on my own blog.  Please check it out everyone.  It's very easy to install and makes your blog look awesome.

Did any of Madeline's comments surprise you? How does your own blog measure up? Have you added the Link Within widget? What are you waiting for?

Monday FAMP and Blogfest First 200 words.

Today I'm going to write a very contradictory post. Don't say you weren't warned.

I am participating in Deana Barnhart's fourth week of her month long blogfest.  This week's assignment is to post the first 200 words of a novel.  I am posting from my WIP because, to tell you the truth, I am kind of over the book that I am currently querying agents with. 

Now here's my contradiction:  From a marketing perspective, blogfest and contest posts can often turn off your followers. I know. Insane, right? But it's true. Yes, blogfests can build followers, which is awesome. And contests can help connect you with other and help get your work critiqued, again, awesome for the aspiring writer. 

But, depending on your message (remember you gotta have a message?), a follower who comes to your blog to find advice for themselves and frequently finds you are instead posting only self-interest posts such as critique my first 200 words, well, they may get bored.  You may be the best writer, and your first 200 words may be AMAZING, but let's face it, we're all a little self-involved. And sometimes readers see you've posted your query, or first page, and say to themselves, "Um, what's in it for me?" True story.

I'm not telling you not to participate in these fests, but do so in moderation.  Be aware.  Remember your readers and try to keep in mind what they want and what they're getting.

All that being said, I am very much enjoying Deana's blogfest and am continuing with my entry below. 

Laura Barnes

sWITCH
middle grade fantasy 

First 200 words

Mina hated waiting, and even her mother’s best Patience spell was not enough to keep her from aimlessly pacing her room. In less than an hour, she would celebrate the thirteenth hour of her thirteenth birthday, and her magic would finally flow from her fingertips showing once and for all that she was not a weirdo in the world of witches.

Mina moved to the Mystic Revealer again. To any outsider this would look like an average girl staring endlessly into a mirror, but the object showed more than her reflection; it showed traces of magic. She searched the outline of her image, like she did most mornings, looking for any sign, small as it may be, of her magic leaking. This time she truly expected to see something different – a glint of what was about to come, a shimmer around her reflection – but the Mystic Revealer didn’t show anything but the same old Mina. Today, she told herself. It’ll be there.

“Mina? Time to go!” her mother’s voice sounded as if it was in the room with her thanks to the Close-Call spell, but she knew her parents were already in the garage. 

I welcome any comments. This is still a work in progress and I need the feedback.  Even if you aren't participating in the fest, your thoughts are welcomed.

  

FAMP: You Gotta Have a Message

All right, I'm not trying to dog all of you out there who like to blog about whatever you feel like. Personal blogs are great. I enjoy reading them, I know many of us enjoy writing them.

But today's From a Marketing Perspective post says: If you want consistent followers, you've got to have a consistent message.

"A consistent message" is marketing speak for make your blog be about something and then be consistent. Now there are some topics that are going to attract a wider audience than others, but really, your message can be anything you want as long as it's consistent.

Maybe you want to blog about advice for authors.  Or you may want to review books.  Or maybe you're a writer housewife in Oklahoma and you want to show people what your typical day looks like. Or you like to write and you also collect salt and pepper shakers.  Whatever it is, pick your subject and stick to it. There's a blog I read often that is about writing and knitting. It works because the author, Jodi Meadows, picked her topics and she sticks to them.

Here's what doesn't work: Saying you have a blog about your journey as an author and then including a post about your awesome day at the beach and doing nothing to tie it in to your writing.

When you are deciding on what your blog is going to be about, the best thing to do is try to imagine who it is you want to read your blog. Since my blog is for writers that want to be published or who are published, I'm going to suggest that your blog have something to do with writing or, even better, something to do with what you write about. For example, if you write historical romances and you don't want to blog about writing or reading, then maybe you blog about great romances throughout history. This will (hopefully) pull the same audience as your book. I use this example because I don't want writers to think that their blog has to be about writing and books.

Now what about all of you who want to blog as a journal rather than about anything specific?  From a marketing perspective, that's not the greatest choice, but if that's the route you want to go, at least make that clear to your blog readers. There are a few blogs that have become popular just because of the personality of the author or because the author's daily life was interesting enough for readers to want to return. Dooce's popular blog comes to mind. For the most part though, the blogs that get people to return are the ones that are:

• unique
• informative
• reliable
• updated frequently
• funny 

I'm going to admit something that will probably make me wildly unpopular: writer's blogs that tell me they are about writing and then throw in a post about the author's personal life turn me off. I unsubscribe. If I think that I am going to the blog everyday to get one thing and then something else is in its place - no matter how well written - I get annoyed. You can still be a writer and throw your personal life in your blog if you choose, but make it fit your message. I've used her blog before as an example, but again Elana Johnson does this very well. I know a lot about her personal life from her blog (she loves bacon!) but she never fails to incorporate these tidbits into stories directed at the literary world, which is what her message promises to do.

Since I am writing this blog at 4 in the morning, I am beginning to wonder if I am adhering to my consistent message...

What's your message? Do you blog just to write? Do you get turned off by mixed inconsistent blogging messages? 

From a Marketing Perspective: Stop screaming at me!

With the blogfest last week, and just because I have been searching out new blogs, I have seen many great and wonderful blogs.  I've also seen some that, from a marketing point of view, have something to be desired.  I would guess that most of those bloggers have no idea what their blog "says" about, well, about everything.  So today I am introducing a new series of posts called From a Marketing Perspective (FAMP).

Initially, this Monday series will focus on specific things I see in blogs that are positive or negative, always from a marketing perspective.  Eventually, though, I'd like to offer blog critiques, so polish up your blogs and get ready for a call for submissions.  Let me take this moment to really emphasize one thing: All of my comments are from a marketing perspective and have nothing to do with quality of writing or personal likes and interests.  I don't want hurt feelings about some of my comments, I'm just giving a marketing opinion.  More specifically, my marketing opinion.

First up for discussion: Those wonderful, dreaded exclamation points!!!!

Ok, I love exclamation points as much as the next guy, and I don't care how much you use them in your individual comments or emails or your novel (though, you shouldn't use too many there either) but the general rule for exclamation points in marketing and design is DON'T USE THEM.

I'm not kidding.

Ok, I'm kidding a little, because really I mean use them sparingly. And yes, I was a little tempted to put one on the end of DON'T USE THEM! Because look how good it looks there.  But really, it's not necessary.

So how do you express something very exciting without using that punctuation mark?  Well, that's where font, color, and choice of words come in. Here's an example:

This image tells us Huge Sale! without using any punctuation.

All right, we can't put an image like that in our titles of our blog posts, but you don't need it.  The bold typeface and the fact that the title is above the body of your post already say, "Look at me!" and that's really why you use exclamation points, right? So people will look at your message?

If you have the right marketing message, and the right presentation, you should be able to say what you want to say without them.  Particularly in your titles and slogans.  An occasional ! in the body of your writing, now that's not so bad, but really think about each and every one. Otherwise your reader feels like they are talking to a really hyper cheerleader type. No offense to really hyper cheerleader types, just tone it down when you are presenting. Because that's what blogging really is - presenting.

Another article that has some great points (pun intended) about exclamation, and is rather funny at the same time, can be found here.

Are you an exclamation point abuser? How do you feel when you come across that happy punctuation mark? What do you do to draw attention to your words?