How to Keep Your Sanity in the Book Publishing Process

Check out this video I created to give you a “sneak peek” at my topic for the Author U Extravaganza in Denver May 1-3.

This is the Premier Event for not only authors, but individuals and organizations involved in all aspects of the book publishing process.

I have attended the Author U Extravaganza every year since it began, and this event allows me to learn new trends in book publishing, meet companies that offer services to authors, and catch up with friends and colleagues!

Register Today!

Click here (my affiliate link) to register and save $100 off the Friday-Saturday registration.
(You need to use the coupon code AUEX100)

There is a special room rate of $119 per night (this includes WiFi) until April 9 at the Hyatt Regency in the Denver Tech Center.
Register online here and enter the rate code: G-5AUT or call 1-888-421-1442 and ask for the Author U rate.

Adding a Form to Your Website Without Having to Know Coding or Learn a New Software

In the work I conduct for clients, one of the areas that they request the most assistance with is their websites and blogs. My client’s experience with their sites ranges from “I hear the word HTML and my palms start to sweat” to “I have created my own web pages and am familiar with coding.” A specific need for websites and blogs is the addition of forms on sites. Forms are needed for a variety of items, including contact forms, feedback forms, order forms, questionnaires, etc. We want to be sure to capture our site visitor’s information and feedback – those details are gold!

Interested in adding a form(s) to your site without having to know coding or learn a new software program? Check out these two services:

1. MyContactForm

MyContactForm has an online wizard that takes you step-by-step in building a custom form for your site. Each step prompts you for the information needed to develop the form, and once the form is created, you (or your webmaster or Virtual Assistant) will copy and paste the code provided by the system onto your site.

There are two types of accounts: a Standard User (free) and Premium Member ($39.99 per year – yep, you read that right – per year!).

Both accounts offer an unlimited number of questions you may place on your forms and an unlimited number of forms you may create. The Premium Member account offers these additional features: contact management system, file attachments, hosted forms, exporting form submitted data, CAPTCHA, and the ability to have a submitted form sent simultaneously to 25 different emails.

2. Wufoo

Wufoo is an HTML form builder that allows people to build online forms such as a contact form, mailing list form, survey, workshop registration form, online order form and quizzes without having to know or write any code. The form builder walks you through each step of creating your forms.
Wufoo provides the code for you (or your webmaster or Virtual Assistant) to place the form on your site, or you may email a link to your form.

There are five account options, and you may upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time:
The Gratis (free) account allows you to create 3 forms with up to 10 fields and have 100 entries/month. The paid accounts range in price and features and start at $14.95/month.

Sign up for the free accounts, take them for a test drive and see which best fits your business needs.

With either of these services, you will be a pro at creating forms for your site in no time!

Hootsuite: Post to Your Social Media Accounts Through One Service

Hootsuite

Social media is one of the most popular marketing and communication methods available, and it allows us a great platform to share our expertise and announce our professional activities. In the desire to consistently publish updates through tweets and posts, you may feel that you are devoting a significant amount of time logging into your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to post content.

Want to save time and be able to have your updates posted to all of your social media accounts through one service? Consider signing up for an account at HootSuite.

HootSuite is a free, online service that allows you to manage multiple social media profiles such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, monitor keywords and schedule messages.
(They have a paid version as well if you need to set up more than 5 social media accounts in your Hootsuite account).

You create a “tab” in HootSuite for your social media accounts so you may track posts, publish your tweets to send to your social media profiles and re-tweet content from people you are connected to or follow.

Another valuable feature of HootSuite is the ability to schedule a tweet. To help have consistent activity in the number of tweets you publish weekly, you may choose to send tweets immediately or select the date and time for tweets to be sent later.

Kelly Johnson has a certification obtained from Hootsuite University


In addition, you may use HootSuite to:
* find new people to follow on Twitter.
* track people talking about your brands, products and services.
*easily add links to your tweets using HootSuite’s Ow.ly – a URL shortener that also tracks how
many people click on that link.
* send an @reply or direct message.
* embed an auto-updating Twitter feed search on your website or blog.
* send your blog updates to Twitter by adding your blog’s RSS feed in your HootSuite account.

Explore HootSuite and see how it may save you time and benefit your business.