Showing posts with label Barb Drozdowich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barb Drozdowich. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

The Book Blogger Platform by Barb Drozdowich - Spotlight and Giveaway

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Barb will be awarding a $20.00 Amazon/B&N gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Book Blogging - One of the Best Hobbies in the World!

Join thousands of book bloggers in expressing their joy of reading!

Are you a book blogger or do you want to be one? Are you having trouble handling the technical details of blogging? The Book Blogger Platform can be a "user manual" for your blog! A book written by a book blogger for book bloggers and that answers all your questions!

The Book Blogger Platform covers topics such as:

1. What a book blogger blog needs to contain
2. A step by step guide to manipulating images and videos
3. A description of all the common features hosted by book bloggers
4. A description of the social media aspect to a book blogger platform
5. Being Social - the social aspect of book blogging

If you are tired of always asking other bloggers questions

Let The Book Blogger Platform guide you painlessly. Over 80 color graphics lead you step by step through some of the more difficult technical issues that bloggers face.

Pick up a copy today and approach blogging with confidence!

Enjoy an excerpt:

Just as all book bloggers are different, their approach to book blogging is also different. Some book bloggers consider themselves primarily book reviewers. Some book bloggers consider themselves primarily promoters of books. Some book bloggers will only post about a book they have read. Some book bloggers will post about any book that belongs to a genre that fits the profile of their blog.

Book bloggers who consider themselves primarily book reviewers make their reviews the main focus of their blog. They often take their self-imposed “job” of reviewing books very seriously. They put hours of work into reading a book and then creating the right combination of words to best describe their thoughts and impressions. It’s a labor of love.

Many book bloggers, such as myself, consider themselves primarily promoters of books. I began my blog posting reviews of books I’d read, and I worked hard to grow my blog’s audience. I am very proud of my blog and the work that goes into it. However, I have a full-time job and a family. I don’t have enough reading hours to review one book a day, so I fill my blog’s days with a mixture of reviews and promotions. I don’t post more than once a day, but I use the platform I have built to promote as many books and authors as I can that fit within my reading taste.

As I mentioned above, some book bloggers will only post about books they have read. They feel that posting about a book is a recommendation of that book and they don’t want to recommend a book they haven’t read.

Have I read all the books that are promoted on my blog? No. I fit into the other camp of book bloggers. I see promoting books, whether through blog tours, reviews, or other promotions, as simply sharing information. I leave it up to my readers to decide whether to read the book or not.

Another area in which people hold strong feelings centers on whether or not to post negative reviews. One camp feels that all book bloggers who review books need to post negative reviews. They feel that having an assortment of positive and negative reviews creates balance. It allows readers to read about what the blogger likes and doesn’t like and why. It is often said that reviewers who only post positive reviews risk having their honesty questioned.

I am of the camp that doesn’t bother to finish a book if I am not enjoying it. I feel no need to talk about a book I didn’t like. I have boxes and boxes of books to be read. My Nook (e-reader) is full of little gems waiting for my attention. Maybe it’s my age, but I don’t soldier on, I move on. I do, however, make it clear in my review policy that I only talk about books that I enjoyed reading.

This topic will come up again later; you do need to give some thought to your philosophy on book blogging. Are you going to only post reviews? Are you only going to promote books you have read? This isn’t necessarily something that will be decided on at the beginning and that you can never change. Many book bloggers change their views as time progresses.

Accompanying your philosophy of blogging is your view of how much of a platform you are going to have. I started my blog to express my thoughts about the books I’d read. It never really occurred to me that other people would read what I had read, let alone comment on it or share it with friends!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with creating a book blog to share your thoughts with friends—old friends as well as new. If, however, you actively seek out blog tour posts and post promotions of author’s books, you should also be actively growing your book blogger platform. If someone is paying to post on your blog via a blog tour, you should be able to share this information with as many people as possible.

Everyone starts out as a baby blogger. Everyone has a different view of what they want their blog to be. There is no right or wrong answer. Every blog should be a reflection of its owner and its owner’s tastes.

I hope to use this book to describe the Book Blogger Platform in its entirety. I hope to give you a lot to think about. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and my blogs every day. My contact links will be listed at the end of this book. I love answering questions and chatting about books!

About the Author:
Social Media and Wordpress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at Universities and Colleges, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular blog, Sugarbeat’s Books.

Bakerview Consulting (Business Site) - http://bakerviewconsulting.com
Author Site - http://barbdrozdowich.com
Sugarbeat's Books - http://sugarbeatsbooks.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/BarbDrozdowichAuthor
Twitter - http://twitter.com/sugarbeatbc
Google+ - https://plus.google.com/110824499539694941768

Buy the book exclusively at Amazon.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

The Author's Guide to Working with Book Bloggers by Barb Drozdowich - Book Review and Giveaway


(Nonfiction)



This review is done in conjunction with a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Barb will be awarding a $20.00 GC for Amazon or Barnes & Noble to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Do you feel out of your comfort zone when dealing with book bloggers? They are the New Gatekeepers to book publishing success – but how can you tap into that source of free promotions by putting your best foot forward?

The Author’s Guide to Working with Book Bloggers combines the advice of 215 blogging professionals collected in a survey covering all aspects of communication between authors and Review Blogs. Whether you are a new author, or have many titles under your belt, let us demystify the promotion of your book on a book blog.

You’ll learn about whom and where book bloggers are, and the following:

The Query,

The Review,

The Giveaway,

The Author Interview,

The Guest Post,

The Book Blurb Excerpt and Cover Reveals and more!

My review:

As a book blogger, I'm pleased there's a book available for authors like this one.  Admittedly, much of what's in here seems like common sense, but having worked first hand with authors, I know it really isn't. There seems to be an abundant lack of reading directions out there -- and that's one of the first things she mentions in the book.  Follow directions. Best. Advice. Ever. Sounds simple and obvious, but trust me and my experience with working with authors, it isn't.

The author, Ms. Drozdowich, breaks everything down into incredibly small pieces, covering even the tiniest detail. That's fantastic for the new author who's uncertain how to begin marketing her book with bloggers.  It does make for dry reading for those of us who aren't so new.

I think there's a niche for this book with authors who aren't overly familiar with promotional opportunities provided by the blogging community.  This clearly outlines what is available and how to pursue them.  It's comprehensive and well written and should be supplied to every newly published author. 

4 Flowers - This was a very good book! I'd recommend it to my friends.

Here's an excerpt:

The Guest Post

What is a guest post and how can it promote your book?

As we have discussed before, book bloggers are the new slush pile. They are inundated with review requests. Their email inboxes seem to magically fill up with emails from publishing houses, PR people, authors, and their assistants. Book blogging is a hobby, and while I personally feel that it’s the best hobby a person can have, it shouldn’t take over a person’s life.

Some bloggers read faster than others, so posting 4 or 5 reviews a week is doable. Some blogs have multiple reviewers and they can post 10 or 15 reviews a week, as they post multiple times a day. We can assume that most book bloggers post reviews because they want to share their love of books! But there are other ways to publicize your book.

In today’s publishing environment, readers want to get to know authors. Well, we want to get to know the public persona of the author. We don’t really want to know the day to day minutiae of the author’s life, but we want to know what they are like as an author, what their interests are, how they research the books they write, and how they come up with ideas (especially totally non-creative people like myself). I’m continually fascinated by the over-used question of where do your ideas/inspiration come from? We want to know what books they’ve written, and what’s coming up next. Many of us want to go to book signings or author chats. We want to be able to get a feel for their writing before we spend money on a book.

One way we can do this is by reading a guest post the author has written. Guest posts are a little window into the thoughts and ideas of an author. And to the addicted reader, they are a source of fascination and entertainment.

About the Author:
Social Media and Wordpress Consultant Barb Drozdowich has taught at University, trained technical personnel in the banking industry and, most recently, used her expertise to help dozens of authors develop the social media platform needed to succeed in today’s fast evolving publishing world. She owns Bakerview Consulting and manages the popular blog, Sugarbeat’s Books.

Bakerview Consulting (Business Site)
Barb Drozdowich (Author Site)
Sugarbeat’s Books (Book Blog)
Facebook (Author blog)
Facebook (Bakerview Consulting)
Facebook (Sugarbeat’s Books)
Twitter
Google+
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Goodreads
Shelfari
Amazon Author Page
Buy the book at Amazon. a Rafflecopter giveaway