November, 2008

Marketing / Web — 2 Comments
30
Nov 08

Free As a Brand Builder: Give It All Away for the Freemium

Everyone likes to get things for free. That’s pretty much a given. In the past, however, giving things away for free meant a large cost to the provider for the creation of the free product. With the Internet, however, we all know that giving things away for free can really be done with minimal incremental cost. Yes, there is always the cost of creation – and in many instances this can come with a very high price tag, but with most media at least, other than the cost of creation, the distribution is very close to free.

Still, there are many who argue that giving things away for free is a horrible idea. My response is this: you are living in the past and you are destined to fail.

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Writing — 2 Comments
9
Nov 08

New Project: The Grabbing Hands (NaNoWriMo)

If you were a fan of my first novel, The Trouble With Being God, you’ll be happy to hear another project is underway.  Previously I mentioned my next novel would be Three Bricks Down and To the Left (book one in my Horizon Trilogy), but I’ve decided to partake in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which means I need to crank out a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month.  Considering I didn’t decide to actually participate until yesterday, that gives me just 22 days to do it – and since Three Bricks is going to be a pretty massive undertaking, writing the whole thing in a month doesn’t make much sense.

So, what am I working on?  The Grabbing Hands (A Ghost Story).

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Web — 1 Comment
8
Nov 08

Break Down Walls: Open Your Content to the World

As social media networks continue to proliferate further and further down the Long Tail into niche markets, there are some very impressive, albeit highly targeted networks popping up. Thanks to services like Ning, as well as easy to use software platforms like Boonex Dolphin, Elgg and phpIzabi, it is now fairly simple for anyone to create a network – which means the biggest portion of success isn’t “existing” so much as having a very useful and welcoming network.

During my online exploits I’m often sent links for content that exists within social networks, quite often new blogs written by members or a conversation happening in their forums.  Much of the time this really is valuable content, but the biggest problem I’ve noticed is that sometimes it’s really difficult to even get to the content due to a misunderstanding of how important it is to open your site and content.

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Marketing / Web — 6 Comments
6
Nov 08

Advertise on Facebook Effectively: Tips On How To

For some time now, advertising on Facebook has been considered one of the most difficult channels to receive a return on your investment.  What people don’t realize though is that Facebook can be one of your most effective advertising channels, provided you understand the basics of how to advertise on facebook effectively, as well as what to expect from using Facebook as an advertising channel. (If you’re new to Facebook here are some tips on how to set up an effective Facebook page.)

I’ve used Facebook most recently for promoting the free download of my new thriller novel, The Trouble With Being God, but I’ve also used it for a variety of additional sites and products. Throughout the promotion of these different products, there have been several lessons learned that I’d like to share to help you advertise on Facebook effectively.

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