Jeanette, Author at Jeanette Cates

Aug
6

Write A Book Series: 5 Reasons Why

by Jeanette

If you are an author or planning to be, you should plan to write a book series, right from the start. There are multiple reasons why this makes sense. Here are five of the most important reasons to consider a series instead of a single title:

1. A book series builds your fame in the long term. While a single book can make you famous, a series of books builds your reputation over a longer period of time. Instead of being a “one hit wonder” you can become an established author.

Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, when you write a book series it helps you build momentum. How many best-selling authors can you think of who only wrote one book? Very few. Because they recognize that each subsequent book is easier to write, easier to promote and more profitable.

2. A book series takes the pressure off of you to put everything into one book. Too many authors have taken too long to publish their book because they wanted to be sure they included everything ever needed in it. With a single book, you don’t have a way to follow up the information.

However, with a series of books you can add to the readers’ knowledge with subsequent books. This often makes the amount of information (or story) faster and easier to read, leaving them wanting more.

3. A book series lets you test your market and your marketing. Particularly with non-fiction, you can start with a basic level book and easily build momentum into the more complex information in later volumes.

This also lets your readers select the level that they are comfortable with. Most will start with the basics and build their skills as you write your books. Others will join mid-level. And still others will only choose the advanced levels of books.

Throughout the book series you will be testing different mechanisms for marketing, so that with each book you can refine your marketing. This allows you to spend your time and dollars in the most productive ways for your book market.

4. Your readers have more input in a series of books, particularly if you provide feedback mechanisms for them. In addition to the traditional book reviews you may offer live interaction via teleseminars, webinars and Google hangouts. Plus you can give them a comment form on your book site where they can ask questions and offer suggestions on an ongoing basis.

By involving your readers in the creation and direction of the series, you can more easily market your books – because they meet your market’s needs. Readers love feeling like they had a “say” in the next book!

5. A book series lets you cross-promote each of the books. At the end of each book offer a sample of the next book in the series, plus a list of all of the books in the series.

This is particularly easy in today’s digital publishing world. All you need to do is upload your original book with the added sample chapter. Current book owners will be notified of the updated version and subsequent buyers will automatically get the new version with the sample chapter.

Likewise, format the book series covers so that it’s clear they are part of a series. You can even number them if that fits your format. People enjoy collecting the full set.

Overall there are multiple reasons to write a series of books. In the long run it makes it easier for you, relieving the pressure of being perfect with your first book. At the same time, a series of books helps you build momentum and gives your readers time to contribute. Is it any wonder that you need to consider writing a series of books?

Dr. Jeanette Cates is the author of the Teach Online series of books. Start at the beginning with Teach Online: Design Your First Online Course

1 Categories : eBooks

Jul
29

Marketing Lessons From Buying A New Car: Emotion

by Jeanette

It’s just a car. It’s something we drive to and from destinations. It’s something that makes it faster and easier than walking or riding a bicycle.

But buying a car is so much more. And as it turns out, it is sometimes an emotional experience.

First there’s the feeling that you feel when you sit in the new car. Does it make you better happier? More alive? Excited? Like you could tackle anything? Don’t laugh – these are all typical reactions when someone is considering a new car. Even if the car isn’t new – just new to you – you will feel different emotions in different cars.

Then there is the feeling when you tell other people about it. These are your bragging rights. Do you feel proud to tell others about your choices?

Most importantly there are the feelings you have as a result of having the new car. These often carry over into other areas of your life. It’s not unheard-of for drivers to lose weight, go on a work-out regimen, undertake new challenges – all because of reflections of the feelings they get from the new car.

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So how does all of this translate into marketing lessons, particularly for your online business?

First, recognize that buying anything is an emotional experience. There is a reason people want your product. If you can tap into the emotions that people have in wanting a solution for their problem (aka your product), then you can emphasize how they will feel when they buy your product.

For example, people who are frustrated with the amount of paper on their desk, frantic about what to do next, or mad because they’ve just lost their password for the third time this week often buy my organization product.

They want the feelings of calm control and being on top of things in their life. By tapping into their frantic feelings, then showing them the calm they can feel when their business is organized, I am able to show them that Organize Your Online Business is THE soluton to their needs.

Second, people are more likely to share their experiences when they are proud of their associations and their decisions. This is particularly important in this time of social media sharing.

Rarely do you hear about the bad decisions your Facebook friends made. Instead, they share their excitement about joining the hottest program from a marketer with a great reputation. That’s who you want to be – the hot marketer with a great reputation.

It’s not just because it helps you sell more products. It’s because your customers appreciate you (emotion) and are proud (emotion) to be associated with you. So it behooves you to be THAT marketer.

Finally, emotion causes change. If you’ve ever been to a self-help program or a religious service, there is always emotion involved. Why? Because emotion causes more rapid change.

So when you are able to build in an emotional component to your program (your training, your book, your webinar), it will have a bigger impact. Whether it’s excitement, reflection, or humor, use those emotions to create rapid progress – thus enhancing your product even more.

The next time you look at buying any new product, consider the emotion involved. From groceries to cars and houses, there is always an emotional component.

2 Categories : Marketing

Jul
21

Marketing Lessons From Buying A New Car: Timing

by Jeanette

It started with tires. That was the first time I noticed that there are a LOT of tire commercials on TV and a lot of tire ads in the newspaper. But you don’t notice them – until you need tires.

It’s the same with all cars, be it a used Camry in Albany, NY
or any of the new-model cars. It seems that every other commercial on TV is about new cars. But you don’t pay attention to them until you are looking for a new car. Then suddenly EVERY commercial is one you watch. When purchasing a new car you should get a car vacuum to help with cleaning.

Of course, if you already have a car brand preference, then you tend to only “see” those commercials. You may even replay them just to be sure you got all the details on your potential car.

Then there are the car sites. Kelly Blue Book, new cars, carmax, auto-trader. If you’re truly looking at cars, you will be searching each of those.

As you narrow your search, you will only focus on the brands that interest you. But when you are looking and wanting those details depends on timing.

And when the timing is right, you will buy your next car. After that, you’ll go back to not searching the online sites or watching the commercials. You won’t need what they are offering at the present time.

So how does the concept of timing apply to marketing your online business? What you sell and when you sell it is all about timing.

You may send an email to your list, telling them about your latest product. But if they don’t need it right now, the timing is off and you won’t sell many products.

Likewise, if another product, perhaps from a bigger name in the industry or with more emotions tied to its sales, has recently been released, then you may not sell many products.

It’s all about timing. And that’s the importance of follow-up in your sales cycle.

Smart car sales professionals know that a timely phone call, a postcard, a letter, or an email can make the difference in whether or not you see that prospective car buyer again. The same applies in your business.

By setting up an automatic set of email messages spread over a period of time, you are more likely to remind the prospect of your product when the time is right. That’s one of the reasons we send 10 messages on the first 10 days after someone has asked for more information about the product. That’s when they are looking for that type of information and therefore, it’s more likely the timing is right for them to buy.

Timing also means that you should not beat yourself up if people are not buying your product on the day you announce it. It could be the timing is not right. Be patient and follow up.

Finally, because timing determines when they are interested (although you can help create that interest with good marketing), you want to be available when they are ready.

One of the strangest trends in recent years online has been the “scarcity” tactic of offering a product for a week, then taking it off the market. What are the chances everyone who could buy that product is ready for that product during that one week. Sure you can sell more because of the fear of loss, but that’s not how you build a long-term business.

Instead, have a steady site (generally your main blog) where people know they can always find you. Have a list of your products, with links to each of them. Be there for them so that when the timing is right, you ARE the solution!

If you don’t yet have your autoresponder follow-ups written and in place, then you need Autoresponder Basics. If the timing is right for you today, pick it up now!

9 Categories : Email Marketing

Jul
17

Keep Your WordPress Blog Safe

by Jeanette

If you have a WordPress blog or a website, you may be wondering how to keep it safe from hackers and from accidental changes or deletions. There are four things everyone needs to have in place to keep your WordPress blog safe.

These are a few easy steps you can take within the next few minutes to make sure your WordPress website is secure.

1. Only connect to WordPress on a secure WiFi connection.

Did you know that when you connect to a website using unsecure WiFi, such as airport WiFi, Starbuck’s WiFi, or public WiFi, that anyone can see your username and password? That means when you connect to your website via FTP or simply log into your WordPress dashboard anyone can see exactly what your username and password are and use those names for themselves!

That’s why it’s important to only connect to your WordPress site and only connect to FTP if you have an SSL connection. This can be a “real” network or you can connect with a cellular 3G network instead of WiFi (I use the one on my iphone or you can buy a mifi separate device. It’s like having your own portable network!). If you don’t know what any of those things are, then simply make it a point to only connect to your FTP website and WordPress from home instead of in public.

2. Only use plugins that you trust.

Are you aware that any WordPress plugin, if it so chooses, can have access to your entire WordPress site? All of your users, all of your content, and most of the time, to every single file on your website!

That is the reason why it’s very important that you only use WordPress plugins that you trust. Don’t go out and install 200, 300 plugins just because they all seem like they have cool features. If a plugin is brand new, if no one seems to be using it, that is not a good sign. It may be a Trojan Horse type of plugin where someone has simply put it out in the hopes that someone else will install it on their website, and now you have given the hacker complete access to your files and your content.

3. Keep WordPress up to date.

People find security holes all the time, and WordPress is quick to fix those holes, but it does you no good unless you update your blog to the current version which is safeguarded against most attacks.

Luckily the most current versions of WordPress have a single button you can click to update it, which means it downloads and installs the most recent version so you are now protected. I generally wait a week or so after a new update comes out before updating – that way if they find problems with the update, they can fix that, too!

And here’s a time-saving tip for you: I ask my webmaster to do the updates. He’s much faster at it than I am AND he can immediately fix anything that breaks in the process.

4. Back Up Your Blog Regularly!

I use a plugin I love and trust from a reputable programmer. My blogs backup every Saturday night – and store the backups where I ask them to. It all happens automatically, while I sleep.

Click here to backup your blog quickly and easily.

1 Categories : Blogs

Jul
15

Marketing Lessons From Buying A New Car: Organization

by Jeanette

Jeanette’s New Car – Cadillac ATS

Author’s Note: I recently purchased a new car, trading in my 2002 Mitsubishi with 275,000 miles on it. Since this was the first car I had purchased in 20 years, I took my time, driving more than a dozen cars at as many dealerships. Along the way, I learned a few marketing lessons.

After visiting more than a dozen car dealerships in 10 days, one of the things I noticed is that they are all working too hard! And most of that is a result of not being organized.

I was appalled at the number of times, they could not find a car. For example, I saw a good-looking Chrysler 200 online, advertised by a particular dealer. I called the number on the ad. The salesman told me he would have to go out to the lot to locate the car – to see if they still had it! When he called me back, the car was not there. It had been loaned to a customer earlier in the day and wouldn’t be back until Monday. He just lost a potential sale.

On one lot after another, the salesman (we did not have one female dealer!) had to walk around looking for keys, looking for cars, looking for a temporary license plate so we could take a test drive. For one car we had to wait for him to go put gas in the car. Even then the low gas light was on throughout the test drive, making me a little nervous.

In one case we were told that the car we were interested in had just been sold. So the salesman went looking for a similar model. As he pulled the car up, it was the model we had asked about originally. Even though the computer “said” it has been sold, it hadn’t.

Understand that I am not a car sales professional. But look at restaurants and how easily they organize their business. Several restaurants we frequent have electronic status boards, showing which tables are occupied, which are clean and waiting for someone, and which tables need to be cleaned. It’s a very efficient, easily used system.

Surely car dealerships can implement systems similar to restaurants. Systems to track which cars are available and where they are parked on the lot. Systems to have temporary license plates readily available for test drives. Systems for having test cars gassed up, cleaned up and ready to drive.

So how do you apply this lesson on organization to your online business?

Visit your site as a stranger. Is it clear what to do? Once they sign up for your list, what do they see? When they buy a product, what happens? Where do they go? What do they get via email? How welcome do they feel?

You want your site visitors and customers to feel like you have prepared for them, not that you just showed up and decided to do business online. You want them to have a sense of safety and calm when doing business with you. It’s a matter of trust. And trust comes from the feeling that you know what you are doing – a sense of calm organization.

Operating your business in chaos, similar to a car dealership?

Are you able to put your hand on what you need when you need it? Do you have set procedures for accomplishing specific tasks? Do you have a marketing calendar telling you what to promote and when?

If you answered no to any of these questions, then you need Organize Your Online Business. It will take you by the hand and lead you to a sense of organization – for your writing, your buying, your marketing – everything you do in your online business. Don’t work harder than you need to. Get organized today!

17 Categories : Marketing, Productivity

Jul
8

Profitable Content Creation – What Happened After They Told Me I Couldn’t Write

by Jeanette

Editor’s Note: I’ve known Jeff Herring for years, but had not heard this story. I can certainly identify with the pain of rejection!

My high school English teacher told me I was not a good writer – and I believed her! For years I told myself I couldn’t write. That is, until I started writing curriculum for a living! Not only did I find I could write, but I actually loved it. I had let someone else rob me of years of enjoyment.

Don’t let this happen to you! Read Jeff’s story and join us on the upcoming webinar.

Content Marketing is a great way to build your online business. The problem is that most people who teach it stop at the point of creating content. While creating profitable content is essential, there is so much more you can do with your content. That’s why I expand Content Marketing into the 5 things you need to be successful online in any niche: content creation, online visibility, traffic generation, list building and product creation.

A funny thing happened along the way

As some of you know, I never finished my Ph.D. in Marriage & Family Therapy back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Have you ever been told you could not do something? If you’re anything like me, that just makes me want to do it all the more, if for no other reason than to prove them wrong.

Except this time when some of my dissertation committee told me I couldn’t write well at all, somehow that got in, and I took them at their word.

So if you believe you can’t write, you don’t finish your dissertation and you don’t get your Ph.D.

Then in 1994 I started writing a weekly column about relationships for the local paper that filled my private practice to overflowing. I must confess that I did get a kick out of having a full practice while others with a Ph.D. were struggling.

Not too long ago someone from the dissertation committee signed up for one of my Content Creation Workshops. That’s a day we still celebrate.

As author Richard Bach says “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.” I like to say, and sometimes accidentally change Bach’s quote into “argue for your limitations and you get to keep them.” Same message that is worth taking with you.

Bottom Line: Be careful, be very careful, about the limitations others, and especially you, try to put on you… and which ones you believe.

So what’s to be learned from all this? Here are a few learning points about writing and creating content:

1) As stated above, don’t accept, ever, the limitations others put on you. In fact don’t accept the limitations you put on yourself. They are oftentimes just beliefs – a feeling of certainty about something. It can be quite fun to challenge those limitations and prove them wrong.

2) I probably still couldn’t write academically if you held a gun to my head. And, fortunately, I don’t want or need to do so. The great news is I don’t have to and neither do you. All you need to do is write conversationally. In other words, simply write like you talk.

3) Number 2 works because prospects are attracted to your voice. Not the audio sound of your voice, but the way you approach and solve problems. That is your voice, and no one else can deliver it like you.

4) If you can write a 5 item grocery list, you can create profitable content based on your own expertise. You can then turn that content into a powerful presence on the web and be found all over your niche, generate lots of traffic visiting your profitable sites, build a highly qualified and responsive list community, and create profits by creating, marketing and offering information products based on your content.

The truth is I’ve been creating content to building my businesses, both offline (a thriving therapy practice from 1986 – 2006) and online (helping entrepreneurs build their online business with Content Marketing 2006 – NOW), since 1994.

And I want to bring those 18 years experience creating profitable content to you with this “How to Create Prospect & Profit Pulling Content in 20 Minutes or Less with Jeff Herring” Hosted by Dr. Jeanette Cates on Thursday July 11th at 8 pm EDT – Join us here => http://JeffHerring.com/jeanette

2 Categories : Calendar, Content Marketing

Jul
5

Content Ideas: 3 Fixes When The Well Has Run Dry

by Jeanette

Content creation is a great way to bring in more prospects and profits. And you do want more prospects and profits, right?

The struggle for many content marketers, both new and experienced, is consistently coming up with ideas for creating content. I’ve noticed that many go through a few stages in their struggle to come up with content ideas.
Let’s take a closer look at those three stages and more importantly, what to do about each one.

Stage 1 – Ideas are not flowing – When you sit down to create content you have to repeatedly stop and think about what to write about. The flow has not stopped, it’s just not as easy as it normally is for you.

What to Do – Step back and brainstorm. Make a list of content ideas. Don’t edit – just brainstorm. This is something you need to be doing anyway, so you always have a list of content ideas from which to pull.

Stage 2 – Ideas are a struggle – Even when you look at a list of your ideas, nothing pops out for you. It feels like you are seeing the ideas on a list, but they are not making sense in your head, and not making the trip from your head to your fingers.

What to Do – Take a trip to your supermarket and check out the titles on the covers of the magazines in the checkout line. Thousands of dollars have been spent deciding how to title these articles. Find titles that you can use in your niche and get busy creating great content.

Stage 3 – You are beginning to believe in writer’s block, even though it does not exist. Ideas are not only not flowing, ideas are just plain stuck. Your frustration level is high, and you’re honestly getting a little bit frightened by your lack of ideas.

What to Do – Go to your topic in EzineArticles and look at some of the top articles in your niche. See which ones are getting lots of traffic. Choose an idea that you know will appeal to your community and simply do a better job with it.This is not plagiarism. This is research because you are simply looking for ideas. You are not copying what someone else has said, you are just going to do a better treatment of it because of your skills.

The Next Step – Your next success step is to grab your spot in our upcoming webinar “How to Create Prospect & Profit Pulling Content in 20 Minutes or Less with Jeff Herring” Hosted by Jeanette Cates on Thursday July 11th at 8 pm EDT – Join us here => Click Now To Reserve Your Seat

2 Categories : Content Marketing

Connie Ragen Green: So much excellent and actionable information here, Jeanette! Thank you for sharing.
admin: Stacy I understand. It’s always easier to write in the way you are comfortable. So I would recommend...
Stacy: I am writing book which is my autobiography. My daughter think it would be better to write on my first...
Darrell Williams: What formatting company do you use for your ebooks? I love your books and the way it’s...
Janet Wahl: Hi Jeanette, Thanks for your response. My books are “textbooks” or books that will be used...

Author Archive for Jeanette – Page 6

Write A Book Series: 5 Reasons Why

Marketing Lessons From Buying A New Car: Emotion

Marketing Lessons From Buying A New Car: Timing

Keep Your WordPress Blog Safe

Marketing Lessons From Buying A New Car: Organization

Profitable Content Creation – What Happened After They Told Me I Couldn’t Write

Content Ideas: 3 Fixes When The Well Has Run Dry

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