Mendocino Writers Blog

Marketing Your Book with a Blog: 10 Tips to Attract more Buyers

Following is a guest post by Denise Wakeman, whose presentation about online marketing will be on Sunday, August 2. Denise will also be available to discuss your book marketing questions during  a professional consultation at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference.  Sign up here.

Marketing Your Book with a Blog: 10 Tips to Attract more Buyers
©2009 Denise Wakeman, The Blog Squad

Books and blogs go together like peanut butter and jelly. It doesn't matter whether you use your blog to develop content for your book, or you create the blog for marketing the completed book.

Blooks (blog+book) work well together when you implement these important tactics.

1. Use a domain name for your blog that relates to your book title so becomes known and "findable." If your ideal domain is already taken, use a version of it such as "YourBookBlog.com," or "YourBookOnline.com." Forward or map that domain name to your blog so when people type in "YourBook.com" it goes to your blog site.

2. Continue the branding process for your book by creating a customized logo for the book and putting it in the header of your blog. The use of your customized branded header will mean your book gets instant recognition, and your blog will stand out from all the cookie-cutter look-alike blogs.

3. Participate in the blogosphere: Read and comment on other blogs in your field. This is a prime way to build readership of your blog. It is also a way of getting fresh content for both your blog and for your book. Check out other blogs in your niche: use www.technorati.com, www.alltop.com or www.blogs.com.

Molly Dwyer: Kudos for her book Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein

Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein Molly Dwyer has been nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Fiction as one of the best works by a northern California author published in 2008.

The Northern California Book Awards are co-sponsored by Northern California Book Reviewers, Poetry Flash, Center for the Art of Translation, Mechanics' Institute Library, PEN West, the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, and San Francisco Public Library. The 28th Annual Northern California Book Awards will be held Sunday, April 19, at Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin at Grove, at 1:00 p.m. Immediately following the awards, a reception with book signing will begin in the Latino/Hispanic Room at the Library. The ceremony and reception are free and open to the public.

Last week Requiem for the Author of Frankenstein was nominated for the 2008 Book of the Year Award for Historical Fiction by Forewords Magazine, a national award that’s being presented at the Book Expo America in New York City at the end of May.

Molly is an active member of the writing community  in Mendocino and has participated in the Mendocino Writers Conference.

April newsletter is online

The Mendocino Coast Writers Conference newsletter for April is available online.

The latest news about the conference is included there. The link to the newsletter is http://www.mcwc.org/newsltr/mcwc_newsltr.html

LUIS RODRIQUEZ: MEMOIR PRESENTER

Luis Rodriguez is convinced that a writer can change the world. Through education and the power of words Rodriguez saw his way out of poverty and despair in the barrio of East LA and successfully broke free from the years of violence and desperation he spent as an active gang member. Achieving success as an award-winning Chicano poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more - until his young son joined a gang himself. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in the bestseller Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., a vivid memoir that explores the motivation of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants. Always Running earned a Carl Sandburg Literary Award and was designated a New York Times Notable Book; it has also been named by the American Library Association as one of the nation's 100 most censored books.

Luis Rodriguez's many other honors include a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award, a Lannan Fellowship for Poetry, a Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature, a California Arts Council fellowship and several Illinois Arts Council fellowships. He was one of 50 leaders worldwide selected as "Unsung Heroes of Compassion," presented by the Dalai Lama. Rodriguez is currently working on a new memoir, entitled It Calls You Back, to be published by Simon & Schuster in fall 2009.

New Yorker article featuring the Dickman Twins

The current New Yorker Magazine (April 6) features an article about twin poets from Portland Oregon. Matthew and Michael Dickman are accomplished, rising young poets who have been mentored by Dorianne Laux, an advisory board member of our conference. She was a popular presenter a few years ago and attended the conference with her husband, Joseph Millar, also a poet. Both of them are quoted in this very interesting article. Dorianne says, after one of their first meetings together, "They talked about poetry the way that young people used to speak about rock and roll, or surfing or cars. The enthusiasm was not the intellectual enthusiasm of a professor or a critic. It is the enthusiasm of a practitioner." That quote alone may spur you search out this article.