Online Marketing for Authors and other Dummies, Part I: Introduction

In my position as Virtual Group Leader for the Florida Writers Assocation (pause for appropriate homage), one of my primary goals is to make members aware of the tools available at little or no charge for them to promote their work.

I want to step away from the typical content of this blog and spend a little time covering these tools. This post will be an introduction. Future posts will cover one available tool or part of one.

The objective is to make these tools accessible to you.

Where do I start?
Start with something you might like. If you feel the urge to add to the discourse on the state of the world, blogging might be a match. If you want to post pictures of your grandkids, start with Facebook. If you want to watch a video of someone getting whacked in the midsection after he was foolish enough to give his toddler a golf club, there's something for you on YouTube.

Blogging, which I am doing right now, is as easy as writing an e-mail message. You answer a few questions about your blog, pick one of the templates that determines its appearances, and you're good to go. I use blogger.com for my blog. You can also use WordPress, but if you're just starting, Blogger might be easier. We'll cover blogging more in an exciting future episode.

Facebook allows you to write brief posts about what you're up to, post pictures for friends to see, and do a number of other things. If you're looking for a fun way to get started, create a Facebook account for your family and upload your holiday pictures for them to ooh and ahh about. Then look up your favorite author and become a fan. In no time, you'll stop asking the nearest teenager for help and they might come to you.

As for watching that other thing, just go to youtube.com and search for it. I was always smarter than to give my toddlers a golf club.

Program Note
Next weekend, I'm going to launch a UStreamTV segment on how to get comfortable with all this stuff. I can't tell you the time or day yet because my son's baseball schedule has not been presented. Please stay tuned for more information.

The UstreamTV thing is really easy. Just click the link I'll post and let me entertain you!