No, not me. Dean Wesley Smith. He’s going to “write his age” this year, which means publishing 70 books this year. And you guys thought I was crazy. Dean makes my beast mode look like a kindergarten writing lesson. Read about it here: https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/publishing-70-books-in-one-year/
I did a podcast interview with Matty Dalrymple of The Indy Author Podcast. Matty focuses on the business side of publishing, something we desperately need. My show will launch early December, but you can listen to her show here: https://www.theindyauthor.com/
Also, I’m doing a special livestream tomorrow at 11AM Central Time. It’s not a power hour, but rather a stream talking about my strategy for 2021 and beyond. This has been a crazy year to say the least. How do you plan for next year when we live in an era when planning is damn near impossible? I’ll be offering some thoughts and sharing my strategy, which may be helpful to some folks who are starting to think about 2021. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GdtNQEUFuA
LESSON LEARNED TODAY:
I briefly skimmed through The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert Bly. Decent book but not 100% applicable to my situation. A small takeaway from him was to focus on sentences that are 6-16 words in length. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s what a lot of older successful copywriters have used to great success.
I also started taking Dean Wesley Smith’s course on Fiction Sales Copy and I completed the first week of lessons (six in total). This week was mostly an introduction to the art of writing fiction sales copy.
LESSON EXECUTED:
I signed up for Prestozon today. Prestozon is an Amazon Ads manager that uses the power of artificial intelligence to help you gain insights quicker into Amazon Ads. It’s not a cheap service…so I’m giving it 90 days to see if I see a benefit. I may also be doing a joint experiment with ALLi on this.
One thing that is very clear to me as I’m studying all of this marketing stuff (since I have forgotten everything, remember)…
When you are writing, you’re in “writer mode.”
When you’re marketing, you have to be a “marketing mode.”
When you’re marketing, you also have to be able to switch into “data analysis” mode. And then “salesperson mode.” Sometimes back-to-back.
How can we make that easier? I don’t know about you all, but that’s tough. It’s tougher when you don’t do it frequently.
Can technology help with this problem? In other words, can I create an easy tool that helps me with the transition into the different marketing modes? Almost like a suit you put on that makes you a marketing superhero (like Greatest American Hero).
What would that look like, and is there something quick and easy that I could create that could help?
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about today. The hardest part about learning marketing is learning in a way that is long-lasting. I find that the things I learn today are quickly forgotten in six months. Time to deal with the problem head-on, I suppose.
MARKETING PARKING LOT:
– Develop a tool to help me transition into “marketing mode”
- Clean up old lead magnet links and redirect them. ROI: Could add a few more subscribers to my list per year.
- Convert unnecessary links in my nonfiction to footnotes to improve “reader stickiness.”
- Zero in on any broken links and redirect them. ROI: Improves user experience on my website.
