The new extension will feature:

• Site themes for download
• Training classes to get you up and running quickly
• Site design advice and how to choose one that works best for you
• Tips to avoid expensive mistakes
• How-to blog posts
• Podcasts with design experts and advanced users
• And so much more!

Be sure to check back in often for announcements on the launch. Or, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for immediate notification.

You can also follow Just the FAQs on Twitter.

One of the observations that Sterling made was that folks tend to describe themselves by filling their profiles with a list of generic adjectives such as: honest, dependable, and caring.

She stated that if everyone used these words to describe themselves then those qualities would no longer be unique. Instead, she suggested that creating a brief demonstration of those qualities would have more impact. For instance, a man could include a statement such as the following: I’m the guy you would call at 2:00 a.m. to come change your flat tire.

According to Sterling, such a statement shows compassion in action. It also demonstrates that he is a dependable, caring, enduring, and tolerant person. A demonstration statement delivers a vivid picture to the reader and helps them easily connect and identify with you.

That’s exactly the kind of connection you want to make with your clients.

You can use this online dating profile tip to help you market your product or services. For instance, if you offer a how-to series or helpful tips and state that they are easy to use, who considers them easy? One of the tag lines for Just the FAQs books is that they are written for non-geeks, which helps the target audience immediately identify with the product. The profile statement connects directly to the reader and demonstrates that it meets their need.

Another aspect of profiles that Sterling sited was that they often don’t convey the very best attributes of a person. When she read profiles that her friends had posted, she knew that they were omitting endearing traits. So, she offered to write profiles for them.

You can use this trick to show off your skills too.

Think of it as writing a profile for your best friend. You would be excited to tell others about them and all the wonderful things they had to offer. Excitement is contagious. If a potential client gets excited about what they read on your site, they are likely to tell someone else about it. Word-of-mouth is the best kind of promotion and makes products go viral quickly.

The profiles that Sterling writes are intended to get responses. Think of this as a conversion rate. Give your readers a reason to read more or to buy your product or service right away. As Sterling states on her site, “In the business of sales and marketing, traits do not sell products, but rather, it is the power-packed words describing a product’s benefits that trigger an emotional response and, ultimately, a purchase.”

The reason that I would never recommend such a service to one of my clients is because these templates are based on a proprietary format. Following are three reasons why using these services may be a bad idea.

1) No matter how much you customize the template, it still belongs to the hosting company. If you want to change hosting companies in the future, you can’t simply take the design with you. This means that you’ll have to pay a designer to re-create it for you or use a different design. Keep in mind that the look of a site is part of your branding.

2) You will not be able to back up any part of your site onto your computer. The hosting company may offer backups that will reside on their site, but will not allow you to back up the data on your computer. That means that the template theme and all of the content, which is stored in a database, cannot be moved to another host.

3) You can only use the widgets, gadgets, and plugins offered by the host. Those created by third-party are not usually allowed. This means that if you find a cool plugin for your sidebar to advertise something, or one that makes your site administration easier, you may not be able to install it.

The whole point of a host providing templates and build-your-own site services is to lock in repeat business for their hosting product. Once you are heavily invested in the site, you are not likely to move it because you would have to start all over again from scratch.

Following are six of the top reasons why I recommend using a WordPress based site instead.

• WordPress is open-source code, meaning that there is nothing proprietary about it.
• You can go with almost any host provider.
• Themes, or templates, are available from multiple designers and you can change them at will without disturbing your content.
• You can back up your theme and your database (all the content info) on your computer and move it to any other host at any time.
• There are hundreds of thousands of free widgets and plugins written for WordPress and more are being created every day.
• WordPress integrates seamlessly with other products, such as an online calendar and with RSS feeds providers, email campaigns, and more.

Most of my Web design clients come to me for their second site. Almost all of them got ripped off or trapped in a bad deal on their first site. The rest created a site that looked pretty, but didn’t function well. Each one has either told me that whatever money they saved doing it themselves was not worth it in the end, or they tell me that whatever money a consultant costs is far less than having to start over from scratch or paying to have a site built twice, not to mention the time needed to restore their content.

Normally I would advise you to read the fine print before you sign up for one of these services, but there is none. The companies that offer such services are selling ease, and that’s exactly what they deliver. There is no problem as long as you stay with that host for as long as you own the site, or if you never need anything for your site beyond their restrictions.

Related posts:
How Site Owners Get Ripped Off

In 2006, Dean Radin, who is the lead researcher at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), interviewed Rollin McCraty, who is the Executive V.P. and Director of Research at the Institute of HeartMath, for a Shift in Action podcast. Among the topics discussed was the role of intuition among serial entrepreneurs, executives, and venture capitalists.

McCraty recalled a study conducted in Australia with serial entrepreneurs who have been successful with more than one business. In-depth interviews were conducted over several years. One of the notable things that was found to be consistent was that they all relied on intuition. Another common thread was that they all cared about the community in which they lived and were focused on ways to contribute directly back to it.

A few years later, McCraty conducted his own study with entrepreneurs at HeartMath, in association with Cambridge University, using a slightly different protocol for measuring the intuitive index among serial entrepreneurs. The results confirmed that entrepreneurs showed a much stronger psycho-physiological response than non-entrepreneurs or those with non-executive jobs.

In the interview, Radin also mentioned a study conducted in the 1970s by Douglas Dean at The New Jersey Institute of Technology where precognition tests were given to executives. The results were correlated against their company’s profits. The study showed that there were significant correlations between executives that displayed stronger precognition ability to higher profits. The findings were collected into a book, which is titled Executive ESP.

Because non-profit research facilities like IONS continually seek funding, Radin often comes into contact with venture capitalists. In the interview he noted that all of the highly successful ones rely heavily on intuition simply because they are constantly working in a realm of high uncertainty.

Both Radin and McCraty concede that having a high intuition index is only one component of becoming a successful business manager. They both suggest that a balance between intuitive and rational cognition is necessary. As Radin states, “If you were a pure intuitive, you might be a good psychic reader, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that you were able to balance your checkbook.”

Research shows that intuition plays a critical role in business. So does caring for your community. It’s not always just about the sale. It’s about balancing heart and mind into a profitable whole that ultimately becomes a win-win for everyone.

Target Audience
Defining your target audience affects every other aspect of your marketing plan. You will want to make all of your marketing material as appealing to that audience as is your book. Doing so will also bring a cohesive look and feel to your material. Keep your target audience in mind when creating the rest of the elements on this checklist. A great way to get ideas of what appeals to your audience is to research other Web sites in your genre.

Bio
You will need both a full bio and two short bios. Keep your full bio to less than a page, if possible. Include what credentials you to write the book from both your education and life experiences. The two short bios will be a condensed version of the long bio. Make one that is about a paragraph in length and an even shorter version that is about three sentences.

Many authors who do not already have a marketing mindset may find these very difficult to create. It’s likely that you will be more modest about your background, experience, and book content than a professional marketer would be. Since it’s hard to be objective about yourself, you may not easily be able to write your bio in a way that sells you to your target market.

It’s a good idea to seek outside help with this process. You can hire a professional author’s assistant to write it for you. Even if you write your own bio, have it edited by an author’s assistant or another marketing professional.

Headshot
You’ll want at least two nice portrait pictures of yourself. In different marketing venues you’ll find multiple uses for a “business” shot as well as a more “casual” shot. Make digital copies available in several sizes and formats, including both high resolution .tiff in CMYK format and compressed .jpg images in RGB format. Print media will require the higher resolution and special format. (If you are unfamiliar with these formats, have a professional photographer or graphics artist do the conversions for you. If you take the shots yourself, send them the original digital file from your camera.) You’ll also want to convert your photos into black and white images in at least two sizes.

Be aware that you cannot display .tiff images on a Web site. However, you can display a high resolution .png format. You can offer the .tiff version as a download or email option. Most of the graphics on a site are either the compressed .jpg version or an even lower resolution .gif.

Facts Sheet
This is a full description of your book on one page. The information is often provided by your publisher. It generally includes:

Title – the title of your book
Author – your author name
Category – the genre of your book
ISBN – include both the 10 and 13 digit ISBNs
Pub Date – the publish month and year
Price – the list price that is printed on the cover
Pages – a full page count, including all front and back material (index, appendixes, and such)
Type – if it’s a paperback, list as a “Trade Paper”
Publisher – the name of the book’s publisher
Language – the language in which the book is written
Dimensions – the length, width, and thickness of the book
Shipping Weight – list in pounds
Web site – the URL where more information can be found about the book
Media kit – the URL of your online media information or the email address to request it
Media Contact – who folks should contact about the book or the author
Color graphic of the book cover

Book Summary
Typically, this is the same information that will appear on the back cover of your book. You will also need a shortened version known as the “elevator speech”, which is a condensed summary of your book that could be stated during a typical elevator ride.

A summary of your book should be so appealing to your target audience that they would be compelled to purchase it. This could be another task for an author’s assistant who could help you “punch up” the summary in an exciting way.

Business Cards
Even if you can’t carry a copy of your book everywhere you go, you can certainly carry business cards. Be sure to include contact information and/or where folks can find more information on your book. You might also consider a design that can be expanded to the size of a bookmark or postcard, since these can include more information.

Web Site / Blog
This will be the landing page where folks come to find more information about you and your book. The very least online presence you need is a blog. Even if you have a Web site, establishing a blog is a great way to drive traffic to your book. You can either hire a profession designer, create the site yourself, or some combination of both. You’ll want a site that you can update and manage yourself, otherwise you’ll be paying someone to maintain it. This means that you will have to set aside a little bit of time to learn about Web sites.

Email Address
Creating a special email address just for book purposes will help keep you more organized. It will also help folks be aware that they are talking to an author, not their buddy across town, and it’s likely to have the same affect on you. In other words, it’s an “official” email address where you conduct your writing business communications. Once you have your book site set up, you will likely be able to create an associated email address with the same extension. For instance, if the URL of your site is www.mysite.com, you can create an address such as me@mysite.com

Just the FAQs offers full consultation services and books to dramatically reduce your learning curve, helping you create the right site, the first time, that works for both you and your product.

Download a printable copy of this checklist.

The number one mistake new authors make is not obtaining a proper education on marketing a book. After all, marketing drives sales. The harsh reality is, most new authors only sell about 300 books and at least the first 50 of those are to friends, family, and close supporters. Those are the easy sales. After that, an author could easily spend $10,000+ with marketing that may or may not result in ROI, which is Return on Investment.

Authors write books for all sorts of reasons. Some publish their memoirs or family history. Some just want to see their name in print. Some authors feel passionately about their material and believe that the world would benefit from reading it. And, finally, some authors actually want to make a living from writing.

If you fall into the last two categories, you need to learn everything you can about the ever-evolving business of publishing and make friends with as many marketing gurus as you can.

Most of all, you need a marketing plan.

Successful authors start making this plan well before the book is ever published. Many start before a word of it is even written. What do they know that new authors don’t?

The 7 ways to avoid “new author” mistakes.

1. Learn everything you can about the business of writing and future trends.
2. Investigate the wide variety of publishing options now available.
3. Investigate what it will take to create an online presence that gets results.
4. Establish yourself as an expert and/or build buzz for the book through social network marketing.
5. Learn how to create outstanding marketing material such as press releases, blog posts, and media kits.
6. Find and follow marketing gurus online who have a proven track record and explain free or low-cost ways to promote.
7. Get a pro editor. Your Aunt Edna may teach grammar, but she probably doesn’t have a marketing degree. Pro book editors do a lot more than catch typos and dangling participles. They can help you create the front and back matter of your book, as well as the back cover blurb, which isessential to your marketing.

While all of that sounds like a lot, it only takes about 30 minutes or less a day, once you find the right folks to teach you. Here are a few that can help you get started on the right foot.

Dana Lynn Smith is The Savvy Book Marketer. She has a great post titled When Should You Begin Marketing Your Book? that will link you to even more resources. And she has a full line of books in The Savvy Book Marketer series to help you get started with a marketing plan on all fronts.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is deservedly known as the Queen of Frugal Tips and her books, The Frugal Book Promoter, as well as The Frugal Editor will provide you with countless resources and knowledge.

Karen Reddick is a professional book editor and author of Grammar Done Right! that is available in both print and searchable e-book versions. She also provides fantastic Virtual Assistant services to help you start writing copy that gets noticed.

Of course, books from Just the FAQs can dramatically reduce your learning curve of creating an online presence that works. If you’re on a DIY budget, as most new authors are, managing your own site is a great way to save money by doing it right the first time with great tools.

In this podcast we’ll focus on Creating Compelling Content and Adding Sidebar Features. We’ll also talk about why blogging is such an important promotional tool and how to do it effectively.

If you haven’t done so already, listen to Part 1 of this series, which covered Planning for a Successful Blog and Setting It Up.

This podcast will also include a link to a special resource page with
freebies and goodies mentioned during the show!

If you’re an author, artist, musician, wanting to share your passion with the world, or an entrepreneur or small business owner wanting to increase your Web presence, this is the show for you!

The podcast airs Thursday, Dec. 10th. Visit Just the FAQs Podcast for more.

Want to let your friends know about this show? Click the Share button below to post it to Twitter and Facebook.

Today, blogs and social media sites like Twitter have become the primary ways to drive traffic to your site. At the heart of these mediums lies a tool called RSS feed that helps promote your posts to your audience as well as other sites. At some point, feeds may replace email newsletters altogether.

While that may sound like a strong statement, the fact is that newsletters take a lot of time to create. They also take a lot of time to read. In today’s busy world, less and less folks have that kind of time at any one sitting. Folks read their news on the go now.

Maintaining an email list can be expensive. To run a professional email marketing campaign with anti-spam measures, auto-responders and a secure opt in/out subscription, you will likely need to set up an account with services like Aweber or Constant Contact. There are free services, but you often get what you pay for.

The two other factors that may finally kill off newsletters are security and compatibility. Because of the proliferation of spam agencies paying for email lists and hackers stealing those lists, readers are becoming increasingly reluctant to subscribe to privately held lists no matter what opt-in precautions are taken.

There are lots of compatibility issues with delivering newsletters via email because there are fewer standards among email clients than with Web browsers. Creating a nice looking HTML email to be compatible with all email clients is like walking a mine field. Inevitably something will get blown up and the email will not display correctly. This is especially true of Gmail, which is, by far, the worst email client on the planet. The standards of compatibility are so low and so far behind browser compatibility that very few HTML emails display correctly. That’s why some creators still prefer to send their newsletters as plain text. It’s ugly, but it works.

One other factor to consider is that more and more people are connected to the Internet via their cell phone. Both text and HTML newsletters are generally hard to read on such a small screen.

So, what’s a good alternative to long, incompatible email newsletters? RSS feeds from blog and micro-blog posts are gaining in popularity. Feeds delivered through services like FeedBurner are automatically formatted for how the reader wishes to view them. They are typically short posts that can be read quickly. And, the reader only gives one address to a secure feed delivery service instead of to multiple privately-held lists.

Click here for more info on why you need RSS feeds.

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We’ll talk about why blogging is such an important promotional tool and how to do it effectively. We’ll also discuss choosing the right blogging platform and domain name, what to blog about, how to use blogging as a social marketing tool, how to increase your readership, and more.

This podcast will also include a link to a special resource page
with freebies and goodies mentioned during the show!

If you’re an author, artist, musician, wanting to share your passion with the world, or an entrepreneur or small business owner wanting to increase your Web presence, this is the show for you!

Visit Just the FAQs Podcast for links to the show.

Want to let your friends know about this show? Click the Share button below to post it to Twitter and Facebook.

Internet marketing first started with static sites. They were like a digital brochure. But people crave personal connections, not ads. A few years later blogs were born and they offered a way for site owners to proclaim something and then to interact with readers on a limited basis through comments. The point of the blog was to engage the reader and drive traffic back to the static site.

With the advent of WordPress, blogs have been combined with static pages as an all-in-one package. The constantly changing content of the blog is still the draw for repeat readers. Blogging has become one of the best ways to establish yourself as the go-to person and to keep interest alive on a product.

As people’s lives become even busier, and as more and more people are receiving internet communications on the go via their phones, micro-blogging has become the top disseminators of information. Sites like Twitter and Facebook quickly established millions of users around the globe.

Each layer of online promotion has its own set of tricks, rules, and etiquette. The very best set of books I’ve read for developing an online marketing strategy that builds these four layers into one beautiful cake, icing and all, are written by The Savvy Book Marketer, Dana Lynn Smith. While most of her books are geared toward authors, the information applies equally well to artists in all mediums, product and service sellers, and even organizations.

One book in particular, Get Connected, delivers the information needed for anyone to make the best use of the second most powerful marketing tool on the planet, which is the Internet. Of course, the top marketing tool is word-of-mouth advertising. Making use of the info in Dana’s books will get the buzz going for you.

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