Heck Saundra, I don't know if I'm prolific or just plain compulsive and obsessive.

Actually, thanks for the kind words. The fact is, we all start somewhere. My first book was a thought long before it was a book. And the first one that was published wasn't even the first one I thought would be published. That one is still waiting to be written.

Fact is, the more we do something, hopefully, the easier it becomes.

On working with POD publishers, I have heard from people who have had incredibly good experiences and I have heard of folks not having good experiences.

My recommendation is to check with folks who have used the same company to find out what their expeirence has been.

Regarding your website. Often, people think all they need to do is put a website up and books will magically sell themselves. Many an author has gotten very discouraged because they don't sell anything from a site. The fact is, selling from a site is something that should be planned out.

How will you drive people to your site? What will they find once they get there? What will motivate them to take the action of taking their money out of their pocket? How will you keep in touch with them?

One of the things that works well for those of us who do make money selling from a site is to have a way for people to leave you their contact information. In most cases, they won't just do that, you have to give them a reason. One that is important to them.

For example, on one of my sites people can sign up for my marketing ezine, a report, some ebooks, etc. Each is designed to provide incredible information and value to the reader and to allow me to build my database with interested readers.

Even in my monthly ezine, I have lots of opportunities for people to leave me their contact information. To see what I mean click the link in my sig file below.

For some reason, many authors I have talked with and corresponded via email with have a real aversion to doing that. It's as if they think marketing and sales is bad.

What I think is bad is not paying my bills. And when I sell books, I pay my bills.

Just a view from the inside of Kathleen's head.

Have a great day.

Kathleen

Kathleen, I'm sure you are going to get some new followers due to all the excellent information you are sharing. Keep up the great work. I'm betting all the women here are signing up at your site. You go girl!

Thank you for your kind words Dotsie. Actually, I appreciate the opportunity you have opened up for me to share my insights, expertise and ideas.

I welcome all the questions the women have and find this keeps me really excited to continue to share my thoughts.

So, as they say, bring it on!

Kathleen

I have a question. I have an extensive list of resource links on my site. Recently I saw something somewhere: someone was offering their recommended sites for a fee! In other words, pay $5.00 and get a list of links. Now I can understand. I spend hours scouring like-minded sites, making sure they are still "live" (many are non-profits that run out of funding) but I would not think of selling this list. What do you think about this? Sales and marketing are necessary, and I had to get used to "exposing" myself and promoting, promoting, promoting. Kathleen & Lori, how do you get your speaking engagements? Do you book them yourself? I joined Toastmasters last year and highly recommend it! PL

HI Lenora,

Thank you for your questions. I don't know anything about buying links in the way you mentioned. I don't know if I would be inclined to do that because chances are many of the links either won't be valid or working; not what you are looking for; and low ranking sites. More links on your site is not necessarily the best way to go. Links with high page rankings (and fewer of them) is better.

A great way to drive traffic to your site is to write and submit articles specific to your industry, market and topics and then distribute to various article directories. Also, post on forums specific to your market. At least those forums that have a section for articles.

Article writing can be one of the best strategies for positioning yourself as an expert and gaining high visibility. These also give you links into your site.

Be sure to include a strong resource box at the end of the article. A resource box simply tells people something about you and often makes an offer of some sort.

If you would like examples of some I have used, let me know and I will post several. This is how I have built a highly responsive database.

You can also listen to a recording I did on cost effective marketing strategies. http://www.streetsmartsmarketing.com/interview.htm

Regarding how we get speaking engagements, I will address some of that in another post. However, in the short term I would highly recommend accessing Lori's free ebook entitled, So You Want to Be a Speaker? You can go to http://www.lorigiovannoni.com/presentation_tools.htm to access it.

Toastmasters is an excellent organization. I was a member years ago and found it to be one of the best choices I made in learning how to develop my presentation style. And, in my early days as a professional speaker, Lori was one of my primary mentors.

In a couple weeks (January 17th) I am going to be interviewing Lori during a teleconference called, How To Become a Six Figure a Year Professional Speaker.

My best
Kathleen

Hi Kathleen, your answers are great. A lot of people ask me for a link to their site, and I want to provide resources for DV and SA as that is part of the outreach. However, each link takes someone away from my site and my articles, and I don't know how to keep my site up (behind) the site that the visitor goes to next. I wonder if it's a good idea to provide a site as a resource without the link? How do you determine the ranking of a site? Gosh, there's a lot to learn, and you have the information! Thanks, PL

You would need to have your IT person set it up so when a page opens it opens to a new window rather than taking people off your site.

As far as finding out the page ranking here is a site you can go to and input the URL to find out the ranking. http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

When you link sites you want to not only make sure there is a good ranking, you would benefit from finding sites that have good content that is a compliment to your genre.

Caution! Stay away from what is called a linking farm. It sounds like the offer for you to purchase is just that - a linking farm. It will do you more harm than good.

Better to put the work into putting on quality links. It will pay off in the long run.

Regarding a lot to learn, it is a never ending process. We have two choices on that (actually more, but here are two).
1. Get frustrated and stressed.
2. Learn to love the process

Kathleen

Funny, Kathleen, I am my IT person! I do everything myself, but I am trying to get with someone this year. What is a good URL rank? Above 5, 7, 9 or 10? What is a linking farm? I hope it is not a web ring like I just joined yesterday. I only put like-minded links on my site. Thanks, L

Here is a really good article that explains linking farms

http://www.theinternetpresence.com/business-article-30.html

A good ranking is 4 or 5 and above.

Kathleen

wow, that was an eye-opening article. Thanks!