Fabulous Follower Fiesta Wrap Up/Friday Roundup

Final Day!

This has been such a fun week giving out gifts to my followers in appreciation of you tagging along with me on this journey.

Here are my final winners for the week!

Winner #1 - Tricia O Brien (Talespinning)
The Forest of Hand and Teeth (HB) by Carrie Ryan and Get Known Before the Book Deal

Winner #2 - Gail (Write from the Visual Soul)
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (PB) and The Power to Write (7 keys to discover the writer within)

Congrads!!!! Please email me your address.

All prizes will be mailed out next week so be sure I have your address. If I do not have your address by next Friday, I will draw another name. My email is sjohannes@bilaninc.com

Don't fret though - I'm having a Marketing Scavenger Hunt the week of Feb 15th with tons more prizes. Two grand prizes being a Marketing Package (for agented/published authors) that includes books and marketing surprises as well a Writer Package (for unagented authors) that includes a craft books, fun books, and a read/critique of query/3 chapters from my awesome agent, Alyssa. (this rocks right?)

There will also be one surprise - I'll give you a hint - create your book pitch in 4 sentences.


Marketing Round Up

Here are my favs for the week:

Seven Types of Outreach To Cement The Publisher-Author Bond & Boost the Sales of Every Single Book - Christina Katz offers offers advice that she hopes will unite publishers, editors, agents, authors, sales people, and book sellers and remind us that we’re all on the same team when selling books.

The Real Deal About Viral Marketing and Promotion. Jen Bailey offers tips at the SCBWI NY Conference on what Paul Revere can teach us about viral marketing.

21 tips to driving traffic to your website or blog - Want more traffic? Do these simple steps.

14 mistakes many bloggers make - Study the list and then take a look at your blog. Are you making these mistakes?

How did Kate at KT Literary get the word out about her blog? The business of building a website — or any online presence, honestly — is a lot of hard work, but it can still be fun.

Getting the Most out of Twitter - Do you feel like you don't need any more Internet distractions to take you away from your writing? Have you been reluctant to sign up for Twitter because you don't want another time suck?

Nancy Ancowitz on Marketing for Introverts - Part 2 (Part 1 was listed in last week's round up.)

Facebook - Profile or Fan Page - Do you use Facebook profiles? Or fan pages? If you’re a book publicist, how much do you and how much does the author do?

Are blogs more effective than Press releases? If you had to choose one or the other, which would you choose: a blog or press releases?

Have a great weekend!

Fabulous Follower Fiesta Day 4

Here are my winners for today! You can still follow me and be in the drawing for tomorrow's prizes!

Winner #1 - Mim North
Get Known before the book deal by Christina Katz and Line by Line - edit your own writing

Winner #2 - Wendy - All in a Days' Thoughts
Guerrilla Marketing for Writers and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook

Thanks again to all my followers for getting me to 500!

Fabulous Follower Fiesta/Marvelous Marketer: Daisy Whitney

Fabulous Follower Fiesta!

So I made 500 followers over the weekend so this week is a celebration of all of you.

Every day this week, I am doing a drawing from "my posse" for two prize packages. This is just to thank my followers for wasting time and reading my blog. You don't have to do anything to win except be a follower (yes you can sign up now and be considered for the next day's drawing) and the person who wins can only win once. If you comment, I'll add your name to the hat an extra time.

Here are today's winners:

My 500th Follower - Michelle Zink gets a small special gift. Since she gets all the free books she wants and wanted to give back her gift for one of you, I got her a 10$ iTunes card because I know from reading her blog she LOVES LOVES LOVES Music. (Michelle - it was always my plan to give my 500th follower something so it was only fair. Please email me your email and I'll send you your iTunes certificate :) Thanks for taking a chance :)

My first follower - To kick off my Fiesta, I decided to reward one of my first 50 followers for believing in me. The winner of a 20$ B&N gift certificate is Casey McCormick (at Literary Rambles). For those of you who have not had the luck of stumbling on her blog, Casey does weekly Agent spotlights that tell you everything about an agent. I'm talking down to their favorite color. So check her out - you will be happy you did. A Special Thanks to Casey and all my early followers for signing up in the very beginning. (Casey, please email me your address)


Marvelous Marketer: Daisy Whitney (Social Media Guru)

Daisy Whitney is not only adorable and funny (seriously I want to be her friend) but she is a reporter, a Tenner/teen author (her book, The Mockingbirds, will be published by Little, Brown in Fall 2010), a social media guru, producer, on-air correspondent, and a serious vlogger. (Is anyone else jealous now? or feeling a tad inadequate? :)

I asked Daisy to stop by and explain to us "novice vloggers"(who are really just afraid of bad hair days, nasally voices, and the camera's added 10 lbs) why authors should use online videos. Here's her response:




I asked Daisy to give us a couple of great examples of when online videos that are done well and really work.

"Hi Shelli, there are a number of ways authors can produce and make online videos. Some like John Green do so on an ongoing basis. Jon, along with his brother Hank, has become quite popular on YouTube as Brotherhood 2.0/Vlogbrothers. In fact, his videos have done so well he's inspired a whole community of self-declared "Nerdfighters" who are working to reduce "world suck" every day. I urge all writers to check out his vlogs because they are informal, but professional, funny, intelligent and pure Jon! A good takeaway from his videos is be sure to do something that fits your own brand.

Then there's YA author Jackson Pearce. She started making YouTube videos before her first novel As You Wish was published last summer. Her second novel, the Sisters Red, comes out this summer. Her videos are fun and whimsical and she does a good job connecting them to writing without making them all about her books! That's key - you want to find a mix. While videos can help promote your books, you don't want them to feel like constant commercials. Jackson also has developed an online following in advance of release via her videos.

Those two are good examples of ongoing work done by authors who video blog. I also liked Libba Bray's ridiculously silly promotional video for Going Bovine. Rather than a traditional book trailer, she donned a cow suit and wandered around New York City singing bizarre songs, interacting with people and basically practicing absurdities -- all fitting the novel itself!"

Thanks Daisy! :)

Be sure to check out Daisy's informative blog, her upcoming book, and her NewMediaMinute series