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Best Practice: Partnering Your Passions

January 12, 2016 by Patricia Sands Leave a Comment

Today I’m happy to welcome a guest post from Naomi Blackburn, founder of The Author CEO.   Thanks for the lovely vote of confidence, Naomi!

Best Practice: (n) commercial or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective. (Oxford Dictionary)

I love best practices. Being a HIGHLY competitive person with a sharp eye for what does well, I know I have come across a best practice when a business practice makes me go “WOW” because it is so brilliant, creative, and effective.

Achieving this trifecta as it relates to a best practice isn’t easy. Most businesses can get one, maybe two, but three is dang near impossible. Partner that with catching not only your spirit, but your brand and you are a downright genius. Larger businesses are really unable to do this. They are unable to give attention to the wide variety of audience or products they must highlight. So, the best practices I talk about in this article are mainly seen in mom and pop stores or small businesses.

Coming across many an author website, I hadn’t really seen true bestIMG_6225 practices in place until I visited the website of author Patricia Sands. Patricia writes women’s literature novels including a series set in the South of France. Provence, to be exact. I was amazed to find stunning photos of Provence and South France on the landing page. I wanted to dive more deeply into her site just by looking at the intro page. The site touched on the emotional part of me that is a travel enthusiast and wanting to make that connection with people outside my culture.

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So to get this type of website, what does one need to do? The main thing is to get to know yourself, your passions, and your style. To do this, I developed an exercise to walk an author through the process. Let’s take a deeper look at it.

A Self Exploration Exercise:

Before doing this exercise, get a poster board with your picture in the middle of it. Bear with me, there is a method to my madness. At the top, write the genre you feel you most write in. If desired, you can put pictures of your book on there too, but it isn’t necessary.

  • Who are you? What makes you tick? Outside of reading/writing, what makes you happy? I am going to call what you come up with your keywords. List them in no particular order. For example, I write The Author CEO. I have a love of reading. I am such an avid reader that I am a Goodreads top 1% reviewer. I absolutely love the power and entrepreneurial spirit that is the rock of independent publishing. I am a strategic, highly analytical thinker. Not to mention, I am an MBA with over 15 years’ experience in business development, sales and marketing. All of that coming together formed The Author CEO.

Think about the genre you write in. What are some of the genre keywords that fit into that genre?

  • Compare the two key areas. Identify words that fit both categories. These become your website influences.
  • Map your board with pages, images, text, etc. around those influences. What this means is that before you COMMIT to a website, i.e. have it go live, what does it look like? Play with this and be creative.
  • Don’t forget to have the standard pages in there as well. Need a refresher? These are the pages that display a bio and, of course, published works. Don’t forget a contact page too. Make sure some aspect of the influence work you have done is included as part of the pages though.

This board symbolizes your personal brand. This board will help to flow into your website construction.

So, let’s go back to Patricia’s example again.

Let’s look at who Patricia is:

  • An author of books set in the south of France
  • A travel enthusiast. She hosts tours of the South of France with the Women’s Travel Network.
  • She spends her summers in the south of France every year.
  • A photographer

Now, let’s look at how she has infused her personal brand into her website.

  • There are professional photos SHE has taken and copyrighted.

    My happy place ~ Antibes ~ Let me show you around!
    My happy place ~ Antibes ~ Let me show you around!
  • A page dedicated to the tours she hosts every year, including engaging photos.
  • Her standard book page, review page, and About Me pages are present and contain photos set in France, rather than a traditional studio professional photo.
  • Links to her blog which, for the most part, are French themed. She even has a “If it’s Friday, it Must Be France!” theme.
  • Instagram/Pinterest links all go back to her photos.

Patricia has mastered the art of visual connection for her readers. She brings her books to life. She then connects readers with South France as a way to live out her books, which, in turn, makes readers want to seek out her other works. The other piece that she has accomplished is to bring those who are attracted to her photography to discover her books and develop new readers through that pipeline.

A Final Note:

One of the most important lessons I learned in grad school is that the best companies are able to adapt another company’s best practice to their situation. While Patricia’s site works the best for her, her approach may not end up being your best practice. But learning from what she has done and adapting it to your needs—once you’ve done the exercise to really pinpoint your website influences—may lead to discover your own “success trifecta.” Doing the work isn’t easy, but well worth the effort.

Thanks to Canstockphoto.
Thanks to Canstockphoto.

A website that is only designed to make sales and lacks any personal influence is cold. Readers can tell and feel it. When a reader takes the next step to visit an author’s website, it’s because they want to know more about the author. They visit the site because they have made the all-important connection with the author. Let’s face it, if they only wanted to purchase the author’s book they wouldn’t have to leave Amazon or Goodreads. Readers love to know who their favorite authors are and develop a connection with them. A personalized website allows authors to have that window to readers without blaring BUY MY BOOKS!

Give readers what they want; make your site something that they want to come back to again and again!

Interested in hearing more from The Author CEO, please follow me at:me

Website: Link

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorceo

Twitter: @nblackburn01

Google+: http://bit.ly/1FXPaDd

Goodreads: Goodreads profile page

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomieblackburn

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Filed Under: Blog, France, Writing Tagged With: author, author advice, Best Practice, Goodreads, Naomi Blackburn, Patricia Sands, photography, south of France, The Author CEO, website

Janine Marsh is in the house!

February 12, 2015 by Patricia Sands 22 Comments

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If it’s Friday, it must be France …

I’m posting a little earlier than Friday this week … and do I have a treat for you! The one and only Janine Marsh is on the blog! Yes, that’s right … Janine Marsh, the originator, creator, gatekeeper, researcher, reporter, photographer, writer, editor and muse of the exceptional website and ezine, The Good Life France. (Talk about multi-tasking!) She will be the first to assure you that she has assembled a talented support group and team of writers to keep up with the extraordinary growth of TGLF.  Those who work with her attest her leadership is key.

Humble, unassuming, and with a sharp wit,  Janine graciously shares a few personal thoughts with us here.

Janine Marsh with chickens

PS ~ Janine, so many of us have grown to know and admire you through your wonderful creation, The Good Life France. Would you mind giving us a peek into what came before the website and ezine, and how the concept of TGLF came about?

JM ~ Zut alors, I’m blushing, but, thank you. I’ve known I wanted to be a writer since I was three years old but life got in the way. My first “real” job was for a glossy in house magazine for a diamond company, I worked my way up to features writer and editor and I loved it. But as a divorced Mum with a young son I needed a more secure job that didn’t require me to work until the early hours of the morning every time an issue was being “put to bed”. So, I went into banking as a project manager and I loved that too.

When my wonderful Mum died at the young age of 60, it was a massive wake up call for me. I started to think about what I really wanted out of life. By then I was married again and back working crazy hours, away from home a lot. When my husband told me he wanted to take some time off to go to France to renovate our old shack, that we’d bought for the same price as a decent car, it seemed the ideal time to start writing again. I wrote posts about what life in France is like for my friends and family and they called me The Good Life France after a UK TV sitcom (The Good Life about a city couple who seek a more rural life). My audience just grew and grew and with it The Good Life France website.

PS ~ Were you always enamoured with all things “France”?

Yes! On the day I was born in London (I am technically a true Cockney), my Dad went to a horse race and won £50 on a French horse called Janine. When he returned home, happy with his winnings, he insisted I was called after the horse as it would make me “a lucky filly”. It imbued me with a sense of being a bit French from a very early age.

Sipping Sancerre in Sancerre

PS ~ The photography in TGLF is exceptional. Which came first for you, writing or photography?

Writing! My professional photographer friends all say that taking good photos isn’t all about technique but having “an eye”. I use a fairly standard camera but I love to take photos and I try to capture a view that best show readers what I’m really seeing more than trying to line it up so that its technically good. People share photos with me on my Facebook page, usually just “holiday snaps” but often because they are enamoured of the subject matter it really shows and makes for a great photo.

PS ~ Your love of animals is obvious and you introduce us to your delightful menagerie on this page in TGLF. Is there any one story in particular you would like to share with us here?winston the kitten

JM ~ Well, I have 6 cats, 3 dogs and about 40 chickens, ducks and geese and I love them all. All the cats and one of the dogs were strays we’ve found. I’d never had an animal of my own before France and to be honest I never wanted one. But, shortly after I came to France I found a kitten underneath our van. He was being attacked by a much bigger cat so I rescued him and took him home. His nose was hanging off, he was bleeding and so small I had to feed him with a pipette. I didn’t think he’d make it through the night. I called him Winston after Winston Churchill. Now he is the biggest cat in the village, completely neurotic and thoroughly spoiled!

PS ~ TGLF followers enjoy fascinating and unique journeys to all parts of France. There is no shortage of the best travel information and surprising ‘insider’ secrets. Readers are transported from magnificent, history-filled chateaux to obscure, picturesque villages to those simple boulangeries you discover, that have been preparing the most delicious treats through generations. Do you ever take time off and relax? If so, where do you choose to visit for holidays?

JM ~ I never take time off because every experience is something I like to share – good or bad. I haven’t had a holiday in years but its okay because I love what I do so much that I’m doing what’s important to me and what I want to do. To relax I read and I’m trying what the French call “Art Therapie”, colouring in books for grown-ups basically! I’m just trying it out but it is surprisingly enjoyable!

PS ~ Do you have a “guilty pleasure” you care to divulge?

I love to dance but I’m awful at it. I can’t help my hankering, my Italian grandmother was a trapeze artist in a circus so I’ve got movement in my blood but it just hasn’t translated to my feet. I dance in the kitchen and one day I was boogying away Flashdance-style only to look up and see Pierre the farmer from down the road and his 80 year old mother peering in the window looking completely bemused. I hadn’t heard them knock at the door; I dread to think what they all call me in this little French village behind my back…

Thanks for taking the time to join us today, Janine … and for providing Francophiles around the world with such a welcoming “belle maison”.

Do you while away hours on www.thegoodlifefrance.com? Have you signed up for the exceptional (ezine) THE GOOD LIFE FRANCE MAGAZINE, published 6 times a year. It’s hard to believe all this is FREE! There’s a link here in the column on the right.

You can also reach Janine here: 

Sales and Media enquiries: Sales@thegoodlifefrance.com

Editorial enquiries: editor@thegoodlifefrance.com

Facebook, Twitter

The Good Life France, from inner London to rural France

 

 

~~~~~

Thanks for joining me today. If you like today’s post, please use the share buttons below. It all helps!

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Filed Under: Author Promotion, Blog, France, General Travel, If it is France..., Writing Tagged With: ezine, France, Janine Marsh, Patricia Sands, photography, The Good Life France, The Good Life France Magazine, website, www.thegoodlifefrance.com

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