Nathan Jamail says that “social media is just another tool; it is not a sales plan.” Yes, social media is powerful, he says. There are many people who have used social media to achieve many things, including authors who have tapped it to push their book to bestseller lists. Social media can help an author […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I’ve never seen an answering service that didn’t have seasonal traffic fluctuations. Most experience an increase in the summer months. This is likely a result of vacations at their clients’ offices and those clients using the answering service more. Or maybe they are on summer hours or more of their […]
You may be familiar with SAD, seasonal affective disorder. I have something similar. I call it SAW or seasonal affective writing. In the spring and summer, despite having more distractions to keep me from writing, I also have more energy to write. Though there are days when distractions usurp writing, overall my writing prevails. My […]
As I ponder social media in regards to building a platform and marketing our books, two things come to mind. Although it’s important to not ignore social media, the payoff is further down the road. As authors, we need a social media presence; we need to build a platform, and we need to interact with […]
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How to Succeed at Email Marketing
Don’t Overlook or Dismiss This Proven and Stable Channel By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Email marketing is a cost-effective and straightforward way to reach out to touch prospects. But just because it’s cheap and easy doesn’t mean it’s always the best idea. When done wrong, email marketing can alienate the audience you’re trying to cultivate. […]
I’m lucky in that my wife supports my writing. If I’m working to meet a deadline when she wants to do something else, she understands. She is patient. Without complaint, she allows me time to write. She lets me write without criticizing. She even offers encouragement and celebrates the results of my work. I am […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In my column “Game On,” I discussed gamification: motivating behavior by applying gaming theory. I questioned if it was mostly hype or offered merit, sharing my experiences with gamification from a customer perspective. Now I’ll share my gamification experience from an employee perspective. My story goes back a few decades, […]
When asked about her plans for college, I once heard a high school grad say, “I’m going to study pre-med and see how far I go.” Though she was a capable student, and pre-med was a realistic choice for her, I immediately knew she would never complete her studies. A couple of semesters later she […]
I view my writing as a job I use that term loosely. Though I derive some income directly from my writing, like most authors, I also have a day job to help pay the bills. Few authors earn enough money through their writing alone to fully support themselves and their families. The vast majority have […]
A third important metric in email marketing is bounce rate. (The first two measurements are open rate and click-through rate.) The bounce rate is the percentage of email messages that bounce back, meaning that they’re not delivered. A message can bounce for a number of reasons, including it being blocked at some point along its […]