9 Ways to Jumpstart Your Writing During the Holidays

You can almost feel the shift in the publishing world when the calendar gets close to the holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.  I'm receiving fewer emails. My phone calls and emails are not as quickly returned.  The culture is shifting into holiday mode where activities outside of publishing fill our schedule and less is happening.

While the schedule for others fills with holiday activities, your writing does not have to go on hold. In fact, from my experience, the holidays are a perfect time to jumpstart your writing life.  Here's nine action steps you can take during the holidays:

1. Increase Your Writing. Now is the time to lean into your novel or your nonfiction book and complete it.  No book manuscript is created overnight. It takes day after day effort to write your story and finish the manuscript. Make a plan for your writing then stick with it.

2. Create A New Product or Book. Do you have a new product or book idea? Take this time to lean into it and create. I encourage you to download The 24–Hour Product Creation Cheat Sheet from Jimmy D. Brown. I have several of these types of projects which have been on hold because of other work. I've started scheduling regular time into my work day to begin to move these projects forward and get them into the marketplace.

3. Write A Book Proposal. Maybe you have several book ideas and the place for you to dig in during the holidays is creating a new book proposal. If you don't know how to create a proposal, take my Write A Book Proposal membership course or use my free Book Proposal Checklist or take my free proposal teleseminar. Then take action and create your proposal.

4. Reach out to Editors and Agents. The holidays are often a great time to touch base with these publishing professionals. Send them a card or email and reconnect with them. Tell them some detail you appreciated about them and see how you can help them. Those simple statements may go a long way with that person. 

5. Read and Review books of others. I've written about this important habit but if you've never started it or forgotten about it. Now is a good time to read these books and review them. You will be practicing your craft of writing but also building good will among other writers as you read these books and write book reviews.

6. Begin a new program or tool. Do you want to learn how to make money with your blog or increase your social media presence? The key is to develope an easy system for you or to learn from someone else. I have a risk-free, detailed 31–Day Guide to Blogging for Bucks. Or listen to my free teleseminar on blogging or follow my detailed information on social media. Take committed time to work on developing a new skill or tool.

7. Get Organized. As a writer, I have piles of paper that isn't in a file folder (where I'm much more organized). I took some time this weekend to sort through the papers, put them into folders and get more organized. If I haven't used or read something,  I threw it away rather than lurking in a pile. As you get organized, you can be much more effective as a writer.

8. Pitch and Write Magazine Articles. Think about the publications you read and send ideas to the editor. If you have written for a magazine in the past, what can you write that they need? Approach the editor and see if they have a theme list online or one you can get from the editor. Then pitch appropriate ideas. 

9. Write to Look for New Opportunities.  Maybe you want to do more speaking in the new year or have a greater visibility at a particular conference. Work on expanding those possibilities during this season.

I include more than a dozen ways to jumpstart your publishing life in my book, Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. The key is to take action during the holidays and move forward with your writing.

Six Platform-Building Short Cuts

For years, platform has been a buzz word throughout the publishing community. Every agent and editor is looking for authors who have visibility or a platform in the marketplace. I've written a free ebook on the topic, Platform-Building Ideas for Every Author.

One of my key mentors in this process of building an online presence has been Internet Marketing Expert Jimmy D. Brown. Several years ago, it was through Jimmy I learned how to create a membership site like my Write A Book Proposal course. His insights and teaching has been incredible and helped me in many different areas. I continue to learn important lessons from him his information.

In the last week, Jimmy started giving away a series of six one-page documents that he calls Cheat Sheets. Each of these documents are packed with information for every author. In this article, I want to call to your attention each one of these resources and explain why author's need to study each Cheat Sheet. I've made these cheat sheets easy to download. Just click the link in each section and it will open to the resource.

List Building Insights

While there are many different ways to market your books, I believe every author should be building an email list where you are collecting names and emails of people who care about you and your work. Jimmy has created The 1-2-3 List-Building Cheat Sheet which helps you understand the steps and gives specific information about how to do it.

Product Creation

Besides selling books, as an author you can create other products to sell to your audience. I've got a series of ebooks and other products that sell all the time such as Blogging for Bucks or the Simple Membership System. I encourage every author to create such products and create their own income stream which is separate from their books and other aspects. You need to get The 24–Hour Product Creation Cheat Sheet and study this information, then take action in your writing life.

Turn Content Into Income

You may be a blogger or write magazine articles but how do you turn your content into money? The details are in The Content Into Cash Cheat Sheet. Yes the information is in brief but this resource will certainly get the idea wheels turning.

Get Others to Create for You

Most of us as writers operate alone. How do you find competent people to assist you and get more accomplished and make more income? Study The Hands-Free Outsourcing Cheat Sheet and you will begin learning these details.

Is Earning Six-Figures Possible?

Many writers are struggling financially yet The Simple Six-Figure Cheat Sheet provides the step-by-step insights for every author to achieve success. This resource gives five different models to reach the six-figure mark. Study this cheat sheet and take action then six-figures becomes do-able.

Drive Traffic to Your Content

Your website can look fantastic but if you don't learn traffic techniques to get people to see it, that beautiful website is worthless. You need The Traffic Master Cheat Sheet. Study the words on this page then apply them to your writing life.

While each of these cheat sheets contain seasoned guidance, there is no easy fix. You need to take daily action to achieve success. These pages contain rich knowledge and make it well worth saving to your hard drive, printing and study. Jimmy D. Brown's newest course is at Earn Income.com. He's a master of  marketing and every author can learn valuable insights from his teaching. I know I have learned a lot and continue to learn a lot from him.  

Let me know what you think of these cheat sheets in the comments. 

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Watch this free Rush Hour Traffic Video

If you have a website, then you need to continually learn how to generate traffic. What can you do in one 60–minute time period?

In an hour you can drive 70 miles on the Interstate (if you're obeying the traffic laws). Or you can get a manicure and haircut. Or you can watch a couple of reruns of Seinfeld.

Or you can learn some interesting things (several "contrary to popular belief" eye-openers) about generating free traffic to your website.

Your choice. :)

If you've got just under an hour (50 minutes) to watch a training video about free traffic, then I've got a link for you below.

Free Traffic expert "Jimmy D. Brown" (he's been getting free traffic to his website continually for the past TWELVE YEARS … since 2000!) has made available a very interesting video in which he answers questions about generating free traffic.

You can watch it today (at no cost) by visiting this link.

In the video Jimmy answers questions like…

1) What is THE best way to get free traffic?

2) How can I get quality "buyer" traffic and not "useless" traffic?

3) How does the "little man" get those with big lists to mail for them?

Plus seven more!

Watch the video now and here are just a few things you'll learn…

* 3 keys to using article marketing to get REAL results.

* 3 things you *MUST* do in order to get free traffic from ANY source.

* A couple of simple "tricks" for getting BUYERS instead of BROWSERS.

* The truth about viral marketing, SEO, backlinks and more.

* 3 case studies of "unknowns" (at the time) who got me to promote them - how they did it and how you can too.

Watch the video now at this link.

NOTE: I must warn you in advance that Jimmy shakes things up a bit when he talks about why he does NOT "waste time" on some of the most popular techniques being taught today. You will find some good stuff that you need to take to heart!

5 Keys For Getting Word Of Mouth Traffic

By Jimmy D. Brown of iBusiness Owner

One of the most powerful, high-converting forms of traffic that you can generate is via word-of-mouth. Think about it for a moment…

When you use traditional advertising, you’re basically tooting your own horn. People tend to be a bit on the skeptical side with regards to your products or services. They put their defensive walls up. They think, “Well of course he’d say that – he’s trying to sell me something!”

But now imagine that this same prospect receives your advertising message from a friend. Maybe the friend says, “Wow – you need to check out that new sports memorabilia store on 10th Avenue. You’ll LOVE it!”

Will this prospect check it out? You bet! And that’s because someone he knows and trusts made the recommendation.

You understand now why word of mouth marketing is so powerful – and why you’ll want to make sure you put it to work for your business, too. Here’s how:

1. Create something worth talking about. People won’t talk about your business if it’s not buzz worthy. So if it’s not naturally buzz worthy (i.e., worth talking about), then need to create something for people to talk about.

Examples:

• A publicity stunt. Kick start the viral effect by sending out press releases, using social media to spread the word and advertising it.

• A contest. A big, exciting contest with awesome prizes tends to create a buzz. But if you create a contest that includes a referral component (e.g., “get an extra chance to win by telling your friends”), then your contest becomes even more buzz worthy.

• Something controversial or even offensive. Be careful with this one, as doing it the wrong way can alienate your prospects. But do it right, and you’ll draw then closer. For examples, just look at what partisan political commentators say on their radio shows and on their blogs.

• Something extremely unique, useful or entertaining. Here you can create a useful tool, report, video or other resource that your prospects are likely to pass around.

• An amazing deal. Create coupon codes to offer a “once in a lifetime” deal – then watch your prospects share these codes with their friends!

2. Make it easy to share. In other words, don’t create hoops.

Example: If you’ve created a viral video, then put it on YouTube.com so that people can access it and share it easily.

3. Give an incentive to encourage sharing. If you create something share-worthy (like a humorous video), people will naturally share it. But if you give people an incentive to share it, you’ll get even better results.

Example: The online bank ING often runs a referral promotion. The person who gets the referral receives $25 if they open a new bank account. But the person who provides the referral also gets an incentive if his friend joins: Namely, he too gets $25 deposited into his account.

4. Provide a call to action. Whether you’re incentivizing your word of mouth campaign or not, you still need to provide a call to action. This is where you specifically tell your prospects and customers to share your marketing message.

Examples:

• “Tell your friends about our new line of products and you’ll receive 5% off your next purchase every time one of your referrals becomes a paying customer!”

• “Give your Facebook friends a laugh – click here now to share this video!”

5. Offer tools to make sharing easy. Finally, you can offer tools to make it easy for your customers and prospects to tell their friends. Examples of tools include:

• Business cards, flyers or paper coupons that people can distribute.
• Social bookmarking buttons.
• “Tell a friend” forms.
• Facebook and other social media widgets (so people can share with one click).

And there you have it: Five keys to unleashing the power of word-of-mouth marketing.

Of course this is just one way to expand your market reach. When you join the iBusiness Owner site today, you’ll discover plenty of other ways. Plus you’ll discover other ways to increase your market reach, get new customers and make more money. So visit http://www.ibusinessowner.com to see what it’s all about – do it now, because you won’t be disappointed!

Help For Audience Building

I'm involved with a couple of online group discussions. Recently several authors mentioned they had been spending a lot of effort on their marketing over the last few years yet now they had decided to cut back on that marketing activity and instead pouring the energy into their writing. I can appreciate these author's desire to improve their storytelling and writing craft. Every book will have to have good writing as the basic foundation. Yet at the same time, there are great books which never make any traction in the marketplace in terms of book sales because the author has not committed the effort and energy into building their audience. In my view this audience building doesn't have to be all consuming--but it does have to continually be a part of the process.

This process of building an audience involves a consistent effort and vision. No matter where you are in the process of publishing a book, are you writing a newsletter and adding to your list of subscribers. I've mentioned in the past the free 150-page Ebook which gives lots of advice about how to get content and build your list. Also I've mentioned that New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber has over 75,000 readers on her electronic newsletter list. She understands the power of this information to influence readers. You can follow this link to one of my older posts (then follow the links inside the post) for more information.

If you have no idea how to promote--or even if you do and need some fresh ideas, check out Joan Stewart's Publicity Hound materials. On this link, you can download four free ebooks with a wealth of ideas and information. Just click on each book cover to go to the download page. You will discover a wealth of material and ideas.

Finally I want to encourage you to sign up for a valuable FREE email course that I got from Jimmy D. Brown. Jimmy has created a number of courses online that he sells but this one is free. Just follow the link, go to the bottom of the page and add your first name and email address. Then for the next 21 days you will receive an email each day with Jimmy's insight. I set it up at this location and hope it helps you build your own audience.

Follow Time-Tested Writing Strategies

Whether you are floundering in your writing, just getting started or thriving, I'd encourage you to get this resource from Jimmy D. Brown called 30 Writing Tips for Ebook Authors.

Maybe you are saying that you don't want to write ebooks. OK, you will still find value in this FREE document. If you are stalled and wondering how to get out of stall and into gear, then you need to read this resource because you can pick up several ideas.

I've corresponded with Jimmy a few times and read this Ebook carefully. He's straightforward, targeted to the marketplace and yet this resource can stir something inside you. The price is right for it--FREE, so click the link and pick it up. Don't just print it but pull out your yellow highlighter read it--then put some of the ideas into practice in your own writing life.

Like many things in the writing world, the proof will be in the application of this material to your own life and situation.

A few of you sharp The Writing Life readers will notice that you've never seen the main domain for this free ebook. It is something that I picked up recently and I haven't fully developed it. I've recently signed up for a Hostgator account and I've been learning how to use some of the different functions of it. They have many resources for their customers and one of them is to install a WordPress blog on the domain. There are thousands of different templates to use through WordPress and I thought the colored pencils from Robbie Williams was fun and different. In the last few days, I've even moved my personal site www.terrywhalin.com to this format. You will notice my site has a completely different appearance. I had not updated the old site for some time and it was due a fresh appearance. I'll be the first to admit, I've got a lot to learn in the WordPress format but I'm starting to learn it.

My encouragement to you: get Jimmy D. Brown's ebook then see what you can apply to your own writing life. I suspect great surprises await you.

Comic Relief About Marketing

I have always loved the comic pages of the newspaper. Also each week in The New Yorker magazine, I make sure and glance at each of the cartoons.

A friend just sent me this link and it cracked me up. When it comes to marketing on the Internet, you may feel like nobody outside your online buddies understand exactly what you do all day at home. And, sometimes you feel a bit like an alien trying to tell people stories about your day-to-day life.

Well, Jimmy D. Brown hit a home run. He's created 15 comics about what it's like to be an Internet Marketer. Some will make you laugh out loud and some will make you groan, but all are worth taking a minute to peek at.

Totally free and totally funny. Check them out here.