New Technology for Mrs. Montana International Interview Tonight!

One of the most exciting new methods of communication today is the Internet teleseminar. This is similar to a radio interview but much, much simpler. A teleseminar is an interview that is broadcast over the phone lines and the Internet at the same time. The speakers are using their the telephones. To attend, all you need to do is dial into the special conference number and put in the ID code. You'll immediately enter the conference and hear the entire interview. You can even listen on your cell phone while in the car.

Or if you'd rather, you can listen from a special web page. The interview will come over your computer speakers just the same as if you were on the phone, but this method is free to anyone in the world--no international charges. People on the web page can also ask questions and hear the presenters answer them right there from their computer speakers.

Tonight, I'm going to be interviewed via teleseminar with Rosey Dow. Please join us and see how this amazing technology works. It's as simple as making a phone call or clicking a web link. And if you can't be there for the live event, you can listen to the replay. It will be up almost immediately on the web page.

To attend, just go to:
http://tinyurl.com/mrsmontana

and enter your first name and email address. Once you do that, you'll get the phone number and also the web page information via email. The interview is tonight. I hope to meet you there.

Expectations of your readers

Tuesdays with Tiffany
By Tiffany Colter

You have a certain expectation when you read this blog, don't you? I am a writing career coach who teaches on craft, marketing and the writer's life.

If I suddenly wrote a blog that told you how to make a pumpkin pie you might find it interesting...but it wouldn't reach your expectations.

If you paid money to hear me speak and instead of teaching on ways to grow as a writer I told you about my flight, how they lost my luggage and the shuttle to the hotel-would you leave satisfied?

The same is true for your readers. When they read your book they have a certain expectation of your level of craft, the topic, genre and tone. The more books you write, the stronger that expectation. Your readers will feel betrayed if you don't meet expectations.

Likewise, don't build up expectations for a heart stopping thriller when you're going to write a literary novel.

Knowing your reader, setting expectations and delivering on those promises will help build loyal readers who will market future books for you with their recommendations.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at www.WritingCareerCoach.com
Learn more about Tiffany's Marketing techniques on her main blog.
Read Tiffany's award winning manuscript "A Face in the Shadow" on her fiction blog.

Create Buzz

Tuesdays with Tiffany
By Tiffany Colter

What do you think of when you hear "Create Buzz". I think of some movie star and their roller coaster life going out for a movie premier.

But we don't want to be movie stars. We don't want to see the insane climbs and drops of their life. So what so we want.

We want to be seen. We want to be recognized.

My degree is in political science [so yes, this year long presidential race in the US is a BLAST for me!!] and so I understand the importance of name recognition. Studies have shown that unknown voters unfamilar with a candidates views will superimpose their own beliefs on to that candidate and vote for them.

For writers this mean that name recognition may get the reader to give you a chance when they are browsing a bookstore looking for something to read. Seeing your name-and recognizing it-may be enough to simply grab the book.

Book jackets and cover art are great only but in a bookstore your name and title will be sideways on a shelf. The only chance you have is a great title or a recognizable name.

I have a few ways that I'm working to get my name more recognized.

* I have 'followed' blogs that I read often on blogger. This not only provides one convenient place on my dashboard to scan blogs that interest me, but if the blogger shows their followers people will see me among them. This could lead to someone checking my blog out.
* I leave comments on other blogs when I have something meaningful to say or a legitimate question. I used to email the blogger to ask a question but now I create more of a dialog by posting my question in the comments. I've had a few people come over to my blog because they saw my comment.
* Writing Articles. I write for online Ezines in addition to print media. Anything to get my name in front of people. And then I talk about being in those publications.
* I talk about speaking engagements. All of you should know by now that I'm speaking at the Midwest Dreams Writer's Conference and the Y-City Writer's Conference. I promote those conferences and they tell others about me.

What ways do you have to increase your name recognition? Are you doing them?

Come on over to my main blog and join the discussion or join my fiction blog and be the first to see chapter one of "A Face in the Shadow".

So now you know my name, what are you doing to help us learn yours?

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter

Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and Writing Career Coach. She offers business building classes to writers as well as mentorship and career planning. She can be reached at www.WritingCareerCoach.com

Running to the arms of God

Tuesdays with Tiffany
by Tiffany Colter

Sometimes I get scared.

Do you ever feel that way? Learning all the different parts of living the writer's life can be VERY scary. You're putting yourself out there daily to rejection and pain, with splatterings of victory.

Not trying to sound negative; it's just part of the writer's life.

A few nights ago I was in bed, sound asleep, when our 5 year old came in. She was scared. She'd had a bad dream and something bothered her in her room. She was on my husband's side of the bed and I heard her say, "Daddy, can I sleep with you?"

He made room for her, hugged her, kissed her, and brought her in to bed. For some reason I instantly thought of all of you blog readers. I saw something in that moment, that one mundane act...

When we are going through our lives there are moments when we become afraid. We feel lonely. We need reassurance. During those times God brings us beside Him and comforts us. We stay warm and close to him for a season. But we can't stay there forever. Just like happened with my 5 year old, after a bit God takes us back to where we were and let's us try again. Our daughter stayed in bed with us for an hour or two and then we carried her safely back to her bed. She needed to try doing it again, but she knew we were right down the hall if she needed us.

The same is true with God. He is there waiting for us if we need Him, but He knows it is safe for us to return...

Even when we're unsure of ourselves.

So if in your writing or marketing you feel unsure, you're scared...get close to God. Find your place of comfort...then trust Him when He carries you back to "your bed" and tells you to try again.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter

What is this blog anyway?

Tuesdays with Tiffany
by Tiffany Colter

For those of you fairly new to writer's rest you may not be sure why exactly you want to spend your Tuesday with Tiff. In fact, I couldn't even get my beautiful graphic to load to today so why should you care what I have to say?

Well, it's because this is where I market myself, My Writing Career Coaching products, my homeschooling lessons that will be released July 27th, and my upcoming books.

That's why you came, right?

Oh, it isn't?

Well, how about this. You came because you were told by someone else that I share from my heart tips to build your writing business?

Is that closer to the truth? I hope it is. Otherwise, I'm failing miserably.

My point in that opening was two fold.

First, no one wants to come to your blog to be manhandled. They don't want to be forced in to buying a product or service. They don't want to feel like they've stumbled on to an infomercial.

They also want to know WIIFM!! What's in it for me!! That's because ALL of us, myself included, won't stop at a blog-or if we do stop, we won't stay long, if the blog doesn't provide us with SOMETHING. That may be as small as a small laugh or as big as a life changing principle.

The SECOND is if people find something in your blogs or articles that give them something they will develop a RELATIONSHIP with you. They will see you as someone they can go to and they will trust you. Don't violate that trust by throwing every imaginable option at them. Treat them like a friend. Tell them what you've found that helps, and what doesn't. Then, as a friend, they will recommend you to others when your book releases.

So focus your conversations, blogs and articles on the needs of others. Seek to fill that need by developing relationships. That is how you grow as a person and as a marketer.

Check out my other blog to find out how I learned a great deal about marketing by reading a ketchup bottle and watching a horror flick.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter

What if I don't want to market

Tuesdays with Tiffany
by Tiffany Colter, Writing Career Coach

Okay, so you can see I've made a selection. I really had a hard time deciding because I liked the idea of being clear what it was I was teaching....but then again I like the whole alliteration thing. :-) So Tuesdays with Tiffany won out. It had the "feel" I was going for. This is just a chat. You and me.

Today I want to talk about "What if I don't want to market".

There is really no simple answer to this question. To be honest my biggest rant is when people in the body of Christ sit on their rump and expect God to do all the work. Even Jesus said, when calling his disciples, COME FOLLOW me and I WILL MAKE YOU fishers of men. For me there is great comfort in that verse. I'm called to follow him and as I obey he will transform me in to what I was created to be.

But there is an action...follow.

We cannot simply sit in our home and expect books to fly off the shelf. There is work that must go in to them. There is marketing that must be done.

Yes, I know each of you have a story to share with me about how a friend of a friend did nothing and their book took off. Well, I'm not willing to wait on that. God gave me a story in my spirit and he wants to minister to people through that book. If I'm at home trying to pray it off the shelf how will my hurting neighbor find it? If I don't open my mouth how will a lonely woman in another state hear?

For me it isn't always about the money [but sometimes it is. The Bible says a worker is worth his wages.] I just know how fiction has helped me overcome some real battles. I also know how marketing has helped me find help. If I hadn't seen a commercial on TV I would never have found my current church. That is a place that loved us and embraced us as no other church EVER did before. These people have held us up during some of our roughest years. But it was because I kept seeing a commercial that I decided to check it out. That was when God met me in that place and I grew as a christian.

Do you truly believe that God wants to work through you? Then you have to WORK. God can't work through an inanimate person full of free will.

We must prayerfully ask each day how God wants us to reach out. Then we must obey.

Marketing isn't about becoming famous. It is about getting stories of hope and healing to a wounded person.

Your Coach for the Journey, Tiffany Colter