#PD14 presentation 'Keep on talking in the free world' by Khalid Muhammad www.PromoDay.info

1. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Keep on Talking in the Free Word
Khalid Muhammad
Promo Day 2014

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Welcome!

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• Have be working in the
marketing and branding
industry for 25+ years
• Have owned my own
marketing and branding
company for the last 11
years
• Recently published my
debut novel, Agency Rules –
Never an Easy Day at the
Office, a spy thriller based in
Pakistan.
My Name is Khalid Muhammad

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As authors, much like
corporate organizations, we
are always looking for the
most cost-effective, highest
reach methods/tools to build
an audience

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But we don’t always know
where to look or who to ask...

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So let’s start out with the three
objectives every author has:

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1 –
Create awareness about our
work and writing

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2 –
Build an audience that reads,
shares, and engages with us

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3 –
Sell more books!

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Many of you are saying...

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Why did he put sell more
books at #3?

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Do you think that you can
achieve #3 without doing the
first 2?

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So let’s get started...

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As indie authors, we are up
against the traditional
publishing houses when it
comes to generating interest
in our books

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The traditional publishing
houses have always been
able to throw money at
vendors to create awareness

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They have huge public
relations departments that get
the word out through
interviews, press releases and
planted reviews

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They have huge marketing
departments with great design
teams to promote their books
through print advertising,
billboards and point-of-sale
advertising

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You have...

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Yourself

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But competing with the
traditional publishers has been
made much easier by the
growth of the Internet

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15 years ago, the Internet was
new to us and honestly we
didn’t think we needed
anything more than email
accounts

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But even then... Someone
was thinking of a new way to
help small business (and that
is what we are) get into the
game!

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They created free tools for all
of us to use...

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If you can get a handle on
where to find what you need

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And that is where the problem
starts...

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What do you do?

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“I’m not tech savvy”

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“I have no idea where to start
and how”

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“I don’t have deep pockets to
be able to compete with the
traditional publishing houses.”

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All valid arguments, but they
won’t fly anymore...

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As a small business, you have
to be able to find your
audience, get them to
purchase your product and
talk about it

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Yes, as an indie author, you
are a small business 

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So how do we compete?

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In a world called digital media,
where everything (almost) is
free!

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And is something that the
traditional publishing houses
still haven’t mastered

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We have an opportunity, that
may not last much longer, to
control the media and use it
for achieving our objectives

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The digital world
is the free world!

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Print advertising, book tours
and planted reviews will never
be able to compete with what
we can do on the digital
platform!

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For any author to be
successful, they must make
themselves available to the
potential readers

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This is the thing that traditional
publishers haven’t figure out
yet.

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They can build author/book
websites

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They can oversee social
media accounts

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But if the author is detached
from the exercise, they lose!

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In the world of digital media,
those who are engaged...
win the reader!

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So how do we win readers?

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There are two things that I do,
whether it is a corporate client
or for my own book

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And each of these things were
used differently at each stage
of the publishing process

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What are the two things?

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1 – An author website
2 – A social media account

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Let’s talk about the most basic
thing –
the author website

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We live in a 24 hour
information cycle that feeds
our interests and need for
news and entertainment

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When you are marketing in
that 24 hour world, you want
to make sure that there is one
location for everything

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That’s where the author
website comes in!

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Your author website can be as
slick or standard as you want,
but it is the one place that
potential readers can come
anytime for information

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It’s the one stop shop for
everything related to you and
your writing

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Without one, people aren’t
going to go hunting for you

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Author websites have gotten
easier and easier every year

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When we first started
designing websites, they were
done in HTML format

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That would make you
beholden to the development
company, your budget and
how often you have something
to say

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Now, we have
WordPress, Blogger and
tumblr

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What’s beautiful is that you
can use all of them for free!

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Other than potentially having
to buy a theme for your author
website, you are looking at a
zero cost to “keep the lights
on at the store 24 hours a
day”

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That’s right –
WordPress, Blogger and
tumblr are all free to use

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But what do I put there?

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What do you want potential
readers to know?

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EVERYTHING that
you write should be
put on your author website!

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Remember the website is
much like the newspaper
stand in your neighborhood

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People always like to get
things for free, before they
make a decision to purchase

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So on your author website,
you have samples of your
writing, backgrounds into the
characters of the book, and
anything else that you think
will help potential readers
make a decision

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But make sure that you don’t
forget those who have read
your book

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Your author website should
have something for them as
well!

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The easiest way to figure out
what should be on the website
is to consider your favorite
author

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What would you like to know
about them?

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• Blurb for the book
• Bio for the author
• Character sketches of the key characters
• Free excerpts from the book
• All the reviews and interviews that have been done
• Links to where the book can be purchased
Author Website Musts

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Before you publish your book,
the author website works as
an information portal

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Distributing information to
anyone who is interested in
learning more about your work

77. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Once you book is published, it
becomes the repository for
everything you do to promote
your book

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Including reviews, interviews,
and guest writing

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I also becomes the source for
all the things you share on
social media

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Social media is the
hard part in this equation

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Why?

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Because there are thousands
of social media sites catering
to different groups of interests

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How do you know which one
to choose?

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Pick the main ones and stay
away from anything that
doesn’t deliver the exposure
that you are looking for

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The main ones?

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Facebook
twitter
Google+
LinkedIn
Goodreads

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But have a strategy for how
you are going to use each
one...

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What do I do?

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I use Facebook to promote
and engage with readers that
are interested in
conversations about topics
related to my book

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I use twitter to engage with
readers and create awareness
about my book

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I use Google+ to push up my
search engine position by
sharing my content there

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I use LinkedIn to connect with
other authors and publishers
via their groups

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I use Goodreads to connect
with readers and generate
reviews

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And the great part?

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All the content comes from my
author website 

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So I have one place where
you can find everything and
that links with everything from
my sales to marketing
channels

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But why I do I call it a “free
world?”

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Because each and every one
of these services are available
in a free to use model

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How often do I post/write?

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In terms of posting, the rules
are different for each platform

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On Facebook, you can get
away with posting 2-3 times
daily

102. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Make sure you are posting
interesting content,
information and graphics that
will get people talking

103. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
On twitter, you can post as
much as you want 

104. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
I post over 100 times daily on
twitter promoting my work,
fellow authors and interesting
news items related to my book

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For your author website, you
should be writing new content
every 2-3 days

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Keep it under 800 words, if
you can, so more people read
it and comment

107. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Make sure you showcase
reviews and interviews so that
readers that visit your website
know that you don’t live in a
vacuum

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Plus, it helps to bring them to
the buying decision when they
can see what others have said

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So what do I pay for?

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Advertising!
Design!

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You can have all the greatest
tools and the best books, but if
no one knows about it...

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Why would they buy?

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So I hired a graphic designer
and had them create a
template for me

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The template has everything
set for me for Facebook,
twitter and Google+

115. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
I just change the text
and the image

116. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
In terms of advertising, there
is nothing better than
Facebook ads and Google
Adwords

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Facebook ads allow you to
reach the 1 billion+ users on
Facebook for an affordable
cost

118. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
It also allows you to track the
results much better than you
ever would with a print or
billboard advertisement

119. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Google Adwords exponentially
increases your exposure to
potential readers

120. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Because Google Adwords isn’t
just on Google, but every blog,
most newspapers and some
websites

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All based on the criteria you
set when creating the ad

122. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Some things you should
remember...

123. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
While free is great, you are
hostage to someone else

124. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Facebook can change the
rules, and frequently does,
anytime they choose

125. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Make sure you have invested
in a place that is completely
under your control so that the
changes don’t negatively
affect your marketing

126. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Make sure that you engage
with your readers when they
comment, share and connect
with you

127. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
This is a digital world, where
you can’t just put something
out there and disappear

128. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Traditional brands haven’t
figured it out...

129. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
You have too!

130. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Make the tools an extension of
you!

131. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
But don’t go overboard with
the number of tools you use,
because you have to manage
all of them

132. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
There is so much that we can
do from the free marketing
world, if we know what we
should do

133. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
You want more information or
have questions?

134. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
I write about author marketing
related issues on my website
and a few other author-centric
sites

135. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
And you can find me on
Facebook or twitter, if you
have a question or just need
some help!

136. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
The links to all are provided at
the end of this presentation

137. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Thanks for spending some
time with me talking about
marketing books

138. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
You can find me at the
following sites...

139. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Author website:
http://www.agencyrules.com

140. © Agency Rules http://www.agencyrules.comForget Who You Are, Become What You Must
Social Media:
http://facebook.com/AgencyRulesPK
http://facebook.com/khalid.muhammad
http://twitter.com/AgencyRulesPK