Amazon Launches Author Pages

When it comes to understanding the psychology of purchasing books and other products on-line, Amazon stands out as a real success story. The innovative and customer-centred approach that Amazon has employed to create and maintain its dominance in internet retailing is impressive.

One of the latest new offerings from Amazon.co.uk is the launch of dedicated author pages. These offer customers a full bibliography, recommended titles and videos, which are said to be like having a ‘bookshelf of the author’s titles’ on the website.

There are also links to other related items such as DVDs connected to a specific author or book so that customers have plenty of choice for following up their interest further.

The same principles which are being used to such great effect by Amazon can be employed by all authors to build their success in the marketplace. The scale and details may be different, but the approach is worth paying attention to.

First and foremost, the inspiration for your book needs to come from within you, from your own passion to share your insights or stories with your readers. From this foundation, and always maintaining the integrity of your original ideas, building your awareness of what your readers are interested in and taking this into account when planning your marketing actions can be a winning formula.

Providing a multitude of ways for readers to learn more about you and your book(s) is increasingly important for all authors. Building your author platform with a website, blog, and social media connections to name just a few possible activities are all part and parcel of authors connecting directly with their readers these days.

Yet how about also making sure that readers are informed of related projects? You can provide links to audio recordings of readings or interviews you have done, video trailers or recommendations for readers on how they might follow-up their interest further via related articles or stories you have written.

Providing a first-class service for your readers in terms of regular access to quality information that is relevant and interesting will encourage them to connect with you and to continue doing so on a regular basis. You may not have aspirations to build an empire such as Amazon has done, but applying some of their principles of success to your own individual situation will undoubtedly support you to realise your own vision of successful authorship.

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The 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Launching an Online T-Shirt Business

Here are my Top 10 Tips on mistakes to avoid when launching your Online T-shirt Business.

1.Understanding your target market. Often people think they can be everything to everyone however knowing every detail about YOUR specific target market is one of the keys to success. From their age, gender, interests, friendship circles, what they read, what websites and forums they look at, what clubs they attend etc. This will come in handy when you’re starting to sell your t-shirts and for target marketing.

2. Set realistic goals about what you want to achieve and the money you would like to make. T-shirt success does not usually happen overnight but rather over a few years. Be realistic with what you can achieve. For example; one goal may be print 50 t-shirts by a certain date. Another goal maybe to sell at least 25 t-shirts to stores by a certain date. Set goals by month so you keep on track and stay motivated.

3.Know when to hold and know when to fold. You have to own your mistakes. It’s important that you recognize if a t-shirt is not selling, then try to sell in a different avenue such as eBay or Etsy and move on. It’s not worth pushing something that’s not working. Every retailer has best sellers and worst sellers and when they don’t perform, they are marked down and new product is ranged.

4. Knowing how much money you should invest. In my experience, the best advice is work out an estimate of how much you think it will cost initially to start your business and then double it, as this is probably more realistic. People forget about the smaller things such as postage, shipping costs, petrol, website hosting etc. These little things add up.

5.Test your product before you start to heavily invest. This is an important one and given the current Internet opportunities that are out there, it’s easily achievable. If you can make some customized t-shirts from an online website then you can see if people are liking what you are doing. Get your product in photos, organize competitions, give samples to friends to wear and use social websites to show off your t-shirt designs. There are many things you can try, to see if your style works and people like it.

6.Take your time when making important decisions. We are human and we can be impulsive and make quick decisions that may not be the right ones for us. Business is quite tough these days, people will want to rush you and will say anything to try to get you to commit so they have an order. Take your time and weigh up the pros and cons and be informed. Do your research and then make the decision – it will end up saving you time and money!

7.Some opportunities are sometimes not worth it. When you are starting out, you will come across people who will try to challenge your pricing, product and brand. For example, an online retailer may want your product but will only order it, if it’s $10 less than your current wholesale cost. If you are making little or no margin on a job, it is OK to say no. In my experience, be willing in some cases to achieve a lower margin, if it means you will get more business from it. Sometimes it’s a marketing exercise that is well worth the cost cutting.

8.It’s OK to start small. I know myself that as soon as I get a great idea in my head you think ‘that’s it!’ I then start going crazy and spending loads of money. You may buy a machine or other equipment that is quite expensive. Take your time, test different processes and then decide which way you want to go.

It’s really important that you do some samples and see the results first before investing a lot of money into equipment and other things that may not be want you wanted after all.

9.Do your homework. If you’re thinking of investing in a printing machine, then look at all the costs associated with this process. It’s usually not that clear cut and you will find that there will be inks or paper for example, which cost a lot of money and you had not accounted for it.

10.You will be your own Boss! As much as this is super fantastic and you can’t wait to be the boss, there are also average tasks as well. You are the only person that can answer to customer complaints and any issues that come up when running the business. It would be great to become part of a network or forum for weekly support. As a single person boss, you also have to start to know everything about anything; from taxes to sales, marketing to design, from dealing with stores and selling online. You have to be able to master and wear many hats that in my opinion can be quite challenging but also exciting.

Good Luck! http://www.tshirtdesignprofits.com

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How To List Your Products In Froogle (Google Base) The Automated Way

Froogle (now submitted through Google Base) is a price comparison service launched by Google Inc. in 2002. Froogle is different from most other price comparison services in that it neither charges any fees for listings, nor accepts payment for products to show up first. Also, it makes no commission on sales. Any company can submit product information (via a “data feed”) and be included in the Froogle price comparison engine.This process is good but can become very tedious so today I would like to discuss a more streamlined way, which you can have your products automatically submitted on a frequent basis. This is the method I would like to discuss and inform you of so you can reap the benefits for your business.Having your products submitted automatically to Froogle (Google Base) is great for product companies that use a database because the automated process can simply connect to your database everyday and compile a new list of product information. The process will then take this information and format it for insertion into the Froogle system. This automated method will save your business time, money and dramatically increase sales because the automated process will handle the entire process for you.There are a few automated tools out there that claim to automate the entire process. The only fully automated system I’ve seen so far has been developed by Hudson Horizons. Their system is completely web-based, allowing you to easily signup and enter in some basic information. After that, the rest is handled by their team.Hudson Horizons provides automated product submission to Froogle for only $15 per month. Their product, HH Froogle Manager, provides automated submission of your products to Froogle three times a week. You no longer need to remember to set up the product feed, format the data and upload it to Froogle all on your own.The HH Froogle Manager offers an extremely simple way to submit your products through database integration.After you register, you can simply provide them with the information of your product database. A member of their team will then setup the automated process to connect to your database, free of charge, to gather your product information. The submission will then be tested by their team and placed into rotation to be submitted three times a week. You will also receive email notifications of the status of your product feeds every time the process runs.If at any time you need assistance uploading your products, they are there to help. They offer FREE customer support and once the feeds are setup their job is not done. The will constantly monitor your feeds and make sure the information is successfully being inserted into Froogle three times a week.So if you have a website that is constantly being updated and utilizes a database then this service can definitely save your business time, money and increase company sales. If that’s what you’re looking for, then don’t let another potential sale pass you by and signup today to have Hudson Horizons automatically submit your products to Froogle (Google Base) three times a week.

How to Find the Compelling Sales Pitch For Your Product Or Service

“Hi! I am Jack Higgins, I sell chocolate cookies, likes of which you have never tasted before. I have been in this business for the past six years, buy from me.”Some would consider this to be a good sales pitch to attract people to buy cookies. However, if you want to attract intelligent and shrewd consumers to buy your cookies then you may have to work harder at your sales gimmick.Most of the business and service providers don’t have a clue about how to sell their product to the masses. Selling a product or a service is all about how you package and present it to the people. A good sales pitch should have substance, be attractive and believable and most importantly it should “compel” the user to buy the product or the service. This is not such a difficult task, all it requires is a bit of ingenuity and research. All this sleuthing would enable you to pinpoint on the compelling sales pitch to attract the people.This sales pitch could emerge from anywhere. You may find it in someone’s reaction to the product or in the processes involved in making the product. You could also find it in the very reason because of which you started this business.Looking at the example of the chocolate cookies, perhaps after much investigation and research, you would come to know that these chocolate cookies had a special recipe. This was the recipe of a chocolate connoisseur, who used a very special kind of chocolate with healing powers in it. As a result, besides giving flavor these biscuits also heal the soul. The chocolate uses ancient healing herbs and original cocoa as ingredients,Armed with this knowledge, you can make your sales pitch sound like, “Delicious, yummy chocolate cookies made with the original, pure cocoa. Cookies so yummy, that they are sure to make your mouth water. Cookies made with special healing herbs. Cookies that come with unique money back guarantee. If you don’t like them we will give your money back.”As you can see and observe for yourself, there is a vast difference in how the same product has appeared here and in the opening paragraph of this article. Customers also start looking at the product differently. This has been possible because of the effort that has gone into finding the right sales pitch that will be attractive to the customer. This theory will work for most sales promotion campaigns.For selling any product or service, you need to do a research into its background to find the right pitch. Let us, take another example of selling a new kind of aerobic exercise video. As you know, the market is flooded with these kind of exercise videos and you will have to make an extra effort to make your video more appealing than the rest.For finding the right sales idea, you can start looking into that various factors that go into making the video, the exercises and their effect. Next, look at the number of people that it has affected giving positive results. Also, investigate into its side effects if any. With all this knowledge, you are bound to come up with the right sales pitch.Maybe after much research you would come up with the information that these aerobic exercises have a far-reaching and fast effect on the abs. Moreover, maybe these aerobic exercises have been inspired from a particular dancing style like the jazz.You can now use all this information to plan your sales gimmick and make it very attractive to the customers and prospects. Otherwise, you would have given a simple idea, which would not have had such a great effect. Fewer people would have been attracted to your video and still lesser number would have gone on to buy it.Now, your sales promo may look something like this, “Enjoy the benefits of aerobic workout along with exciting jazz dancing for great looking abs in quick-time!” The impact of the right sales pitch makes it worthy of a fortune. To find the right pitch depends on you and the product or the service that you want to launch. All you need to do is to introduce the right sales pitch in your ads and promotion messages that people come running to you, armed with cash.