A Blogging Virgin Learns by Susan Jane Smith

          Thanks to Katherine Roberts' earlier blog, I read John Locke’s book “How I Sold 1 Million ebooks in 5 Months”.

          Praise to the Master.  John has given me confidence... the confidence to try social media.  Now I am Tweeting, I’ve joined Facebook, I renewed my efforts on Ecademy and will get around to Linked In etc.  I’m not very photogenic so you probably won’t see me on YouTube! Am I buzzing on Google Buzz yet?

          Fancy me being in The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England reaching out across the world.  Now I am not saying I understand what I am doing with all this, but that book has at least made me TRY!

          I would thoroughly recommend Mr. Locke’s book as a good read even if you are not going to sell e-books...one of the things I think he says is to identify your “target audience” BEFORE you write your book.  Well I didn’t.  Now I have to figure out if readers of self-help books are my audience and then how to connect to them.

          Years ago I went to a talk by Sir John Harvey Jones (IBM and Business Guru) and came away with the concept of needing to find my niche.  That is also what John Locke is saying and having done a lot of marketing courses it makes sense to me.  I just never thought about it in connection with my books!  John Locke's book has so much to teach!

          Yes, I do have other books that will be uploaded to Kindle as soon as my designer has the time.  I am not sufficiently techy to do it myself and I have also overloaded him with ideas generated from all this marketing activity in my brain!

          My current Kindle e-book “Emotional Health For Emotional Wealth” was featured in my blog (12 August) and is the most important book that I will ever write (in my opinion). 

          The next book on to Kindle will be “Pre-Marital MOT: A Relationship Inspection” there again based on my 20 years of listening to the experiences of people.

          If you know anyone who is sad, angry, stressed, depressed or in an unhappy relationship please suggest my books to them!  Also, they can join my Facebook group “Self-help Book Readers”!  If they go to my website “Contact Me” I will get in touch by the good, now old fashioned, email!

          One more tip I learned from John Locke’s book – place reviews at the front of your Kindle e-book.  It’s a great idea as I have solid praise on my website section “Book Reviews” and wondered how to get them out into the world. 

          Here is just one example of a review:-  Steph said “I read your book “Emotional Health for Emotional Wealth” which I thoroughly enjoyed.  The advice you gave on coping with life’s stresses was very informative.  As with many other women, I cope with working and raising two very busy children which can be very stressful.  Your common sense approach to coping was a great source of support. 

          'The inclusion of your own life experiences, which you use as a very sound platform for your advice, adds credibility to the information.  By the time I finished the book I got the feeling that I really knew you.

The cover conveys serenity which is what you will get when you have emotional wealth!

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who sometimes feels that life can be just too hard and could do with some guidance.  It leaves you feeling invigorated.”

          This is exactly why I wrote my book and now I understand that Kindle requires extra effort with marketing, I think I ‘m on my way to selling books!