Writer Marketing Services is Three!

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Wow – I can’t believe it. Can’t believe that I’ve been self-employed for three years, running Writer Marketing Services. I’ve loved every minute, so I thought it was fitting to have a bit of a celebration, and a toast to many more years of doing PR, marketing, blog tours, release blitzes, websites and much more for writers and small businesses.

So, here goes… a giveaway! Yes, that’s right – the chance to get something for FREE!

Just fill in the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win your choice of either a FREE release blitz or one week blog tour. And don’t forget to tell all your friends.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Another Satisfied Customer

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Jane Jackson contacted me to help her out with getting her books onto relevant Goodreads lists in order to increase her exposure on the popular book networking site. Having finished the project (for now), Jane kindly sent me a testimonial to put on the site. Here it is:

It was through posts between two authors on a writer’s loop that I learned of Lucy Felthouse’s Writer Marketing Services.  Having little technical know-how I was in desperate need of help to get my list of published books onto Goodreads lists.  I emailed Lucy and told her what I needed. She said  ‘fine’, we agreed a fee, she requested cover images which I sent, then I left her to work her magic. She completed a demanding job in a remarkably short time, and did it brilliantly.  With four more titles due out between January and May 2014 I will be calling on Lucy’s expert skills again. If you need help to market your book/s, she’s your woman. I’m delighted to recommend her.

Cyber Monday Deal!

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How about an awesome Cyber Monday deal? Yeah, I thought you’d like that. So how about this:

Book any length of blog tour, and get it HALF PRICE!

That’s right – a one week blog tour will set you back just £10, two weeks £20, and so on.

And yes, you can book and pay now, and save the tour until later.

So, what are you waiting for? Go here to see prices and options, and book your blog tour. I’ll send you an email within a couple of days with the next steps.

This offer is open until 10am GMT on the 3rd December, so be quick!

Increasing Reach on your Facebook Page

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Here’s a handy tip for increasing reach on your Facebook page. “Reach” is Facebook’s word for how many people have seen your posts in their timelines. And I’m talking “fan” pages here, not profiles.

Normally, if you’re promoting book buy links, blog posts, etc, you’d type your message and the link into the box, then hit “post.” It’ll then go out and a percentage of the people that like your page will see it. To increase that number, give this a try:

Instead of posting the link in the same box as your text, try writing your text, then saying you’ll include the link in the comments. Post it, then post your link as a comment on that particular post. See screengrab:


Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge


I’ve tried this myself, and in the statistics of my page, it’s roughly tripling the number of people that see my posts. So it may take a few seconds more, but it’s worth it for that many more users to see what you’re posting.

I’m not 100% sure why Facebook do this, but I suspect it’s a) because they don’t want people linking out of Facebook, taking traffic away and b) because they want you to pay to use that “boost post” button. Can’t blame them for wanting to make sure cash out of page users, I suppose, but it’s pretty annoying as that’s the only way users are supposed to promote things, as opposed to on their personal profiles.

Give it a try. I hope it helps!

Two New Websites and Scheduling for July and August

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I’m very pleased to announce that I recently launched two more new websites.

 

Cass Peterson is a new erotica and erotic romance writer who wanted a website to help promote her existing publications and to compliment her future ones. Her publications include Smut Alfresco and Smut by the Sea Volume 2, published by House of Erotica. See the portfolio and details here.

 

Celia J Anderson is a debut romance writer, who won her first contract from Piatkus Entice as part of the Festival of Romance. Sweet Proposal will be available from 1st August 2013, and Celia wanted her website up and running in time for that, as well as available as a platform for reviews, news, and anything else she wants to blog about. See the portfolio and details here.

 

I’m also scheduling blog tours into July and August, so if you’re interested in booking one, please let me know ASAP.

Two Years and Another New Site

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Writer Marketing had its second birthday on the 1st February – I can hardly believe it! Two years as a self-employed writer, publicist and web designer – it’s gone so fast. It’s also been fantastic, and I’m looking forward to many more years doing this.
 
The latest project (as well as several blog tours and ongoing publicity for regular authors and publishers) I completed was a website for award-winning erotic romance writer, Avril Ashton. She wanted to move her existing blog and website into WordPress, and we worked together over the course of two or three weeks to make this happen. The full details are in my portfolio, and I’m looking forward to working on more websites – I have several in the pipeline.
 
Many thanks to everyone that’s supported through the last two years – it’s very much appreciated!

Testimonial From Long and Short Reviews

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This testimonial from Long and Short Reviews put a huge smile on my face when it arrived in my inbox:

 

“Writer Marketing Services was a lifesaver.  On relatively short notice and on a tight schedule, Lucy took our vision and created a completely new website. She was readily available to answer our numerous questions and was always patient, willing and more than capable.  I’m thrilled with our decision to work with her, and should we ever need help again, she’ll be first on our list to call.”

 

I recently gave the Long and Short Reviews website a huge overhaul. All the information is in my portfolio.

K D Grace and Grace Marshall

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K D Grace has been a client of mine since I first launched Writer Marketing Services. I created and maintain her website, and deal with her PR. Now, excitingly, this popular author has also started writing under another pen name!

K D Grace writes incredibly hot erotica and erotic romance, and her alter ego, Grace Marshall, writes hot romance. The launch of this new pen name and the book deal that spawned it inevitably meant that another website and social media presence was required. Therefore, I created and launched GraceMarshallRomance.co.uk (with graphics designed by Kevin Mitnik of Blisse UK), and opened a new Twitter account and Facebook Fan Page for Grace Marshall. Grace is currently finishing her first book and it will be launched in coming months, so make sure to keep an eye on her site and social media profiles for further news.

Following the launch of the Grace Marshall website, myself and K D/Grace, decided that now would be the perfect time to revamp the KDGrace.co.uk website. So once Grace Marshall was made live, I started work on the K D Grace website. I used the same WordPress theme but with different colours and graphics (also created by Kevin Mitnik) to make it clear that K D Grace and Grace Marshall are one and the same, but write different books. Though I’m sure many readers will enjoy both sets of books!

So, please go and visit both sites and enjoy some superbly written books!

Using Twitterfeed to Promote Blog Posts

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Do you spend ages Tweeting, Facebooking in LinkedIn-ing (think I just made up a new word there) your blog posts? Perhaps you contribute to several other blogs, as well as your own, and all that social networking takes up too much time. Time you could be using to plot, write or edit your next book!

Never fear, Twitterfeed is here. In a few simple steps, you can be letting Twitterfeed do all the hard work for you.

1. Go to Twitterfeed.com and sign up for an account.

2. Add your first feed by clicking ‘create new feed.’

3. Add the feed name and the URL, then click ‘test rss feed’ to make sure it works.

4. Click ‘advanced settings.’ Check each of the settings to make sure they’re what you want. The most useful I found, particularly if you contribute to a group blog, is ‘post prefix.’ That way you can add text to show that it’s from a blog you contribute to, but not necessarily your post. For example, I prefix with ‘From BlogName.’

5. Continue to step two. You now have three available services; Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Follow the steps to add the Twitter account you’d like to feed the blog posts to. Then repeat the same steps for Facebook and LinkedIn. Pay particular attention to the Facebook settings, as you have the option to post to your regular wall, or you can post to a page, instead.

6. When you’ve selected all the services you want to post to, click ‘All Done!’ and you’ll receive confirmation that your feed is set up and ready to post automatically.

7. Click to go to your dashboard, and you’ll see the feed you just set up, ready and raring to go. Simply repeat from number 2 on this post to add more feeds.

And there you have it! Effort free blog post promotion for yourself and your fellow bloggers!

Springing Ahead!

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Well, spring is upon us, and I’m pleased to report that I’m springing ahead with projects, and have recently completed three websites, amongst lots of other PR work for both contract and ongoing clients.

Sites for Midlands Pest Control, Maxim Jakubowski and Adriana Kraft are all now live on the web, for your viewing enjoyment. Maxim and Adriana also kindly took the time to write up glowing recommendations of my work:

“Lucy Felthouse not only organised a wonderful blog tour for the publication of my latest novel, but she also then set up a website for me; this was something I should have done years ago but never got round to as it seemed too complex for my luddite technological skills. Her explanations, suggestions and ideas made it easy and then her hard work made this a reality. Thank you.” – Maxim Jakubowski

“I just finished a total website overhaul created by Lucy Felthouse of Writer Marketing Services. I heartily endorse both the product and the process. Lucy was able to take my half-formed concepts and flesh them out with her experience and her eye for what will work best on the page. At every step of the way, she was patient and taught me what I need to know to be able to maintain the site myself and make future changes. Thank you, Lucy!” – Adriana Kraft

I’m also busily running and booking blog tours, as well as preparing for several new projects, including some that were picked up as a result of my talk at the recent Eroticon conference. Myself and colleague and friend Victoria Blisse did a session on blog tours, which much to our delight (we were up against some tough competition) was really well attended and sparked lots of interest and discussion. You can’t ask for any more than that!

So, if you’re looking for a new website, a blog tour, a review submission package or something more bespoke, let me know as soon as you can, and I can get your project planned in. I look forward to hearing from you.