Reddit mentions: The best marketing books

Hey bud, it can be hard starting fresh on any new project (it's also my favorite thing in the world). I'll try my best to help you get the ball rolling!

Who is your target demographic?

This is the best place to start. Try to visualize your perfect customer. Seriously! Write out their exact age, gender, hair color, etc. Even give them a name (John, Jane?). Now, no matter what you do, that is the person you want to attract with your marketing strategies.

When you're planning a campaign, ask you yourself, "Would John/Jane go for this?"

It sounds dumb but trust me, it works.

What does John/Jane like to do?

It's important you know your target demo's likes/dislikes (for obvious reasons).

Let's say your target demo is Jane Doe, a 56 year old woman who has just started planning her retirement (a little late for that, I know). Let's pretend she's a secretary at a school and spend a lot of time on Facebook. Well, did you know the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is 55+ females? You could create a Facebook page for your financial institution and advertise it to only women above 55 years old that have listed interests such as "retirement planning" or "retirement". As for Facebook content, maybe you post finance tips a few times a day and soft-sell your services every one and a while.

Start planning!

Even though I don't know much about the business, I'll give you some of my ideas.

It's a finance institution so I'm guessing you're targeting 45+ to people about to retire. Mostly men, right?

For social, focus on Facebook and Twitter. Create a Facebook page, post 80% useful content (like the "tips" I talked about before) and 20% soft-sell your business. Start doing the same thing with Twitter (don't post the same stuff though). Use Twitter as a listening tool. There is an awesome "Advanced Search" tool that allows you to search for keywords and narrow it down by location. This is amazing for local businesses. You can type in "finance help" or "money help", narrow it down to users within whatever city, and instantly find people who are asking for your service.

Also, look into Facebook advertising like I mentioned before. Great way to hyper-target your demo.

Once you have a bit of an audience, start to think about Webinar's. They're a great way to provide tons of content to your audience, answer their questions, and provide a call to action at the end.

Start a blog. Focus on local keywords (i.e. "miami financial institution" instead of "financial institution"). If you don't know anything about SEO, here is a good starting point. Then watch this video.

RESOURCES

• SmartPassiveIncome.com
  
• Moz.com
  
• SocialMediaExaminer.com
  
• Likeable Social Media
  
• Anything by Seth Godin
  
• YouTube videos on how to use Google Analytics
  
  I threw a bunch of information at you so if you have any questions or need any more help, let me know! Feel free to DM me.

It seems like you're interested in UX design but not entirely sure what it entails. The role of a UX designer varies between companies and has changed over time. You can think of UX designer as someone who is skilled in interaction design, creating wireframes & protypes, user research, information architecture, etc. A bunch of skills smashed into one job title. Some skills of a UI designer includes visual design, color, layout, typography, etc.

From what I've seen, what companies are looking for these days when they say what a UX designer is that they want someone who can do both UX & UI to define, maintain, and grow a product with Product Managers. Product Managers are driven by business goals, you are driven by user goals. A Product Designer is becoming a popular term for this type of job. It's hard to find a UX job where all you do is wireframes, user research, and information architecture (as least with the big companies).

First, you need to think like a designer. Time to start reading some material. I took a class on Design Thinking at my university, and it has really helped me put into words what designers do. Link to the course materials.

You can find a bunch of lists of UX design books out there on the web. I started out by reading The Design of Everyday Things, a classic. Other books on my shelf are Design is Storytelling and Value Proposition Design. Not related to design, but during one of my internships I was given Everybody Writes and I recommend it because, well, everybody writes.

After you have a better understanding of what UX design is, start thinking about what it means for you and what you want to focus in. If you ask a bunch of designers why they do UX, you will get different answers.

From there, you need to start practicing. You can look up examples of side projects you can do as a UX designer. The most important thing here is to get critique from other people, learn from it, and iterate on it.

One common side-project is to redesign an app like Yelp. One thing I personally don't like about these projects is that they are typically "blue-sky" redesigns, or designs without constraints. This is fine to do when you're starting out, but to think like a Product Designer, you need to think about the business goals, make assumptions on why it's the way it is, and create constraints for your re-design. What's the user problem? What are the business goals? What are some ways I can solve these problems? What assumptions am I making for these designs?

Lastly, I think all UX/Product designers need to have some visual fundamentals down. Typography, layout, color, etc.--visuals are a huge part of the experience (along with copy, but thankfully I've had the chance to work with great copywriters). To get you started, Thinking with Type is a great book. I'm constantly looking at designs on Dribbble and Medium - Muzli for design inspiration. See something you like? Steal it and make it work for you.

Look at design blogs from big companies like Facebook, Google, and Airbnb. Stay up to date on what's happening like Mailchimp's redesign. Look at works from famous agencies like Collins. Watch YouTube videos from channel like The Futur.

Notice that I never mentioned any tools in this post. You won't become a UX design by learning html or js, those are for front-end devs. It may be nice for you to know, but not critical. You won't become a UX designer because you learned how to use Sketch or Adobe XD. Tools are constantly changing and are easy to learn. It's everything I mentioned above that's hard.

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591396190
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh et al. Link: http://amzn.com/160941280X
  
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Link: http://amzn.com/0804137382
  
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston Link: http://amzn.com/1590597141
  
• How Google Works by Eric Schmidt et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1455582344
  
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk Link: http://amzn.com/006227306X
  
• Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson Link: http://amzn.com/0307720748
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1400064287
  
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Link: http://amzn.com/0345472322
  
• Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0385346654
  
• Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1476714207
  
• Rework by Jason Fried et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0307463745
  
• Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin Link: http://amzn.com/1591842948
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss Link: http://amzn.com/0307465357
  
• The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth by James Altucher Link: http://amzn.com/150100994X
  
• The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson Link: http://amzn.com/0060008768
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Link: http://amzn.com/0062273205
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen Link: http://amzn.com/0062060244
  
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Link: http://amzn.com/0307887898
  
• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco Link: http://amzn.com/B004BDOUAI
  
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday Link: http://amzn.com/1591846358
  
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1885167776
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0984999302
  
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Link: http://amzn.com/0316346624
  
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591848369
  
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out by Marc Ecko Link: http://amzn.com/1451685319
  
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0804139296

In theory any company can create a compelling and active Facebook page but honestly, there are just some things that are more interesting than others.

I happen to have an easy target market for FB: Women ages 25-50 in upper incomes who love fashion, family, and parenting.

If you had an an insurance company it would be a lot more difficult to find compelling shareable content that relates to insurance. So what you have to do is the "Jab, Jab, Right Hook" where you appeal to other things your target market is interested in and then for every 5 jabs (shareable content) you right hook them with a call to action in regards to your specific product.

For example, your non-profit could start to tug on heart strings by showing the people who are getting help by the grants. Tell stories about how your non-profit benefits others. Share other non-profit stories in your same genre. Post articles about the different areas your non-profit focuses on.

Facebook is like a great big cocktail party and you want to be the the most interesting and compelling person at the soiree.

Hey, I think I'm in a sort of similar situation, I recently finished my bachelor in Communications and after taking an analytics course, realized that I wanted to go into marketing research/analytics.

Here's my point of view from several months of exploring different avenues to get to the career that I want:

• I can go back to school for a one year post-graduate certificate, where I will be taught theory and most likely will have to do a 4 months work placement of some sort where I'm not guaranty to actually learn or gain experience + there is the cost of the education (I don't know what your situation is, but in my case it's even more expensive because I am considered an international student).
  
• I find an internship on my own, in a company in which I share the same values with and know would be the perfect learning environment for me, plus there is an opportunity to grow. After that, once you get the internship, work your hardest to show that you want it and you're good at it. Now while doing that, never stop learning about marketing and reading marketing and business intelligence blogs or articles, as well as practice your excel skills if you can. I really feel like the hardest part here is to get your foot through the door. You do have a business background tho, so it should be easier to find an entry-level position or internship in marketing.
  
  I feel like everything you would be learning from degree or certificate where you physically have to go to class would be the same as taking a Coursera or a certification from DMA.
  
  I just found this book too, it's really useful if you want to refresh your memory about excel and see how you can use it for marketing.

Quick tips:

1 - Read some marketing/growth hacking books

https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Growth-Fastest-Growing-Companies-Breakout/dp/045149721X

https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389

2 - Make your site more clear that you're selling earbuds. on the first impression, it looks like I can sponsor a Panda or similar.

3 - Work on your SEO more and create a favicon.

Great favicon generator for multiple platforms - https://realfavicongenerator.net/

4 - Since you're helping a charity contact local news, online blogs, charity outlets etc to get an article or a link...

5 - Create more site content. Really sell the reason why you're helping the Pandas and also why your earbuds are worth buying. Create a video to explain all this perhaps

///////////

1. How do you recommend marketing a new product and company?
   
   There are tons of blog posts, books on this. No one here will give you a better answer in a comment then reading a well thought out blog post or book.
   
   ​
   
   
2. What is the best way to do targeted ads?
   
   I am learning this myself better. So no comment
   
   ​
   
   
3. How much money should I expect to spend on ads before I start seeing any sales?
   
   Same as above
   
   ​
   
   At the end of the day, it's just to keep pushing and stay positive, 1% progress a day and you should be happy.
   
   ​
   
   Best of luck with your business and for the future.

Everything starts w/ making a good product

Marketing

• Find a niche, go to where they go and target them with thoughtful cool posts like /u/koleraa and /u/ccrama said. Be real, responsive, and follow up
  
• This works better for apps than games b/c you can engage ppl in problem solving your app, but I'm sure there are gamer communities
  
• For a game you might need more of a "stunt", read Growth Hacker Marketing for ideas here
  
  Don't have a "leaky bucket"
  In normal words: make sure ppl who install your game have a good experience right away and come back. Set up analytics so you can track this. If you are failing, work on the game and don't market yet. You should watch all of these free Y Combinator online startup classes, but #6 is most relevant here.
  Design the game to be viral
  This is where you've got it easier than normal apps, games can be designed to share and engage other users. I recommend reading Hooked for ideas on how to build a habit forming app that ppl will want to share. NOTE: annoying tricks don't work and no one wants that.
  
  Crossing the Chasm is less relevant to a game but an insightful classic on the old "how do I develop a market for a technology product".
  
  All of these strategy require focused and consistent effort to have a chance. I'm in the same boat you are so hopefully we can make something happen :)
  
  BTW I'd be happy to share my notes on all these books if ppl are interested.

No problem whatsoever :) I appreciate your help!

>You claim that your side hustle isn't making money yet, so why would you even take the chance of losing your job (again) to keep it alive?

It's not that I want to risk my job for a side hustle that isn't making money. I just want to build it into a profitable business and I think there's a delicate balance. If I abandon it, it won't become profitable. If I promote it too much, it could get back to my 9 to 5 and they might be upset.

It just takes time to build a successful online business.

>you mentioned that you started this project nearly a year ago -- what held you back from reaching success during that time that doesn't hold you back any longer?

Nothing has held us back. It has been our plan from the beginning to wait 12 months before monetizing. After our first 12 months, we want to implement some affiliate marketing strategies. After 18-24 months, we want to sell original information products.

We believe you have to have a certain amount of credibility before people will buy anything from you—just like your Pat Flynn analogy. People buy from Pat because he has immense credibility.

We're implementing Gary Vaynerchuk's Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook strategy.

My business partner landed a full time job with Gary through LC :) Even though we haven't monetized yet, we're seeing some really cool results!

>I'll use Pat Flynn as an example, because his business is very similar to yours. People love Pat, but why? Is it because he is good looking? Funny? Smart? No, it's because he has had a LOT of success in this field and he gives his users advice on how to do the same. People listen to him because he is very credible.

Yes, but Pat had to start somewhere. He started with Green Exam Academy. SPI was more of a bi-product in the beginning. That's what we're trying to do with LC. We do NOT want to be "gurus" and we don't claim to know any secrets. But if it's coming across that way, I definitely want to know :)

I don't know if it's the link or the website, but I get a redirection...not the best for thrusting a website.

Wordpress (.org) is great just find a better theme and browse the plugins.
for example Louis vuitton is running on wordpress. There is a lot of multinationals using wordpress.
And do the updates !!! you're using wordpress 4.5.4, the last version is 4.7
You need a theme with a e-commerce integrated in it and a SSL certificate
in order to sell; I didn't get what you want to sell btw.

Also I hope you have a backup of your website!

Online Business query on youtube - Freemium is the trend you can find a lot of free tutorial to learn the basics of business on youtube.

Next I recommend some readings (not affiliate):
-The personnal MBA - Josh Kaufman
-Growth Hacker Marketing - Ryan Holiday

• This blog on growth hacking: https://www.hackisition.com/

And I have these in my list on amazon. Would love to get some opinions on them:

 

How to Win Friends and Influence People

by Dale Carnegie

 

Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Make $100,000 a Year or More

by Robert Bly

 

Words that Sell

by Richard Bayan

 

Tested Advertising Methods

by Caples and Hahn

 

Writing That Works

by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson

 

Confessions of an Advertising Man

by David Ogilvy

 

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

by Al Ries and Jack Trout

 

The Robert Collier Letter Book

by Robert Collier

 

Nicely Said: Writing for the Web with Style and Purpose

by Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer Lee

 

Letting Go of the Words

by Janice (Ginny) Redish

 

Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers

by Harold Evans

 

Can I Change Your Mind?: The Craft and Art of Persuasive Writing

by Lindsay Camp

 

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

by Roy Peter Clark

 

Read Me: 10 Lessons for Writing Great Copy

by Roger Horberry and Gyles Lingwood

 

Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads

by Luke Sullivan

 

WRITE IN STEPS: The super simple book writing method

by Ian Stables

 

On Writing Well

by William Zinsser

 

The Wealthy Freelancer

by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage and Ed Gandia

 

Write Everything Right!

by Denny Hatch

 

The Secret of Selling Anything

by Harry Browne

 

The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time

by Chris Murray

 

On Writing

by Stephen King

 

Writing for the Web

by Lynda Felder

 

Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

by Ann Handley

 

This book will teach you how to write better

by Neville Medhora

Just some food for thought. Disclaimer: I'm just an average joe, and not a marketing pro. When I think of your app, I think of it as a "family feud" style game where the point is to try to guess the most popular answer to each question. -- what does this have to do about judging others and being a safe place to do that? That would be a better description for tinder or some kind of "hot or not" app, but not for what you have created. In crafting your value prop, I'd recommend you turn to this book and follow some of their writing principles: http://www.amazon.com/This-book-teach-write-better/dp/0989895300/ . For example, if you follow their principle that "people don't care about you. they only care about themselves", you could rewrite something that may be more engaging to the average joe visiting your site. My thoughts are something like: "Do you know people as well as you think you do? Let's play." Where I wrote "people" in the previous sentence, you could replace that noun with "left handed people", "men", "women", or any noun if you want to target specific categories of interest. I hope this helps!

Serial Entrepreneur here. Some critiques since you asked for it.

1. Product/Market Fit: Please stop what you are doing and go read The Entrepreneurs Guide to Custom Development, while you're at it fill out a Business Model Canvas for your startup. Make sure you can answer these questions with hard data: 1) What is the pain point you are trying to fix with your startup "pill"? 2) Who has this pain and how do they want it resolved (go actually ask them if you don't know!) 3) Will they pay you to have this pain resolved? How much?
   
   
2. Identity: Throw out the whole identity and start over. Name, logo, site design, everything. I don't know if you designed and coded this yourself or had someone help you, but need to slap down $2000 - $5000 to have this done professionally. Your terrible design and identity is preventing people from even wanting to use your product.
   
   
3. Landing Page: I don't have time to watch a video. Your landing page should convert me to a signup in less than 10 seconds. Once again, scrap it and start over. Here are some great examples of well designed landing pages that convert:15 Great Landing Page Designs
   
   
4. Don't be dismayed by the critiques in these posts. We've all been there, so understand that we just want to help you be as successful as possible. Good luck!
   
   

I am still learning the promotion end myself. For starters I am trying to build a collection of listeners who become advocates. That means getting them involved. Asking their opinions. Shouting them out. Thanking them for listening. I try to use social media to create content for people - not just to ask them to listen. I primarily use Facebook, my show has it's own page, and Twitter.

Facebook is more intimate. I ask people their thoughts on the different shows and films that are out there. I engage them, etc. I use Twitter to try to build relationships with fellow podcasters and potential fans. I like to comment on and promote other peoples' shows -- stuff like that. You really have to give a lot, and you have to be genuine. People know if you're a snake trying to just promote yourself.

There is a book called, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook amazon link it was totally worth the time to read. It explains a lot of the mistakes that people make with social media.

As for the tech-side of things --- Adobe Audition. It sucks because it isn't cheap, but it is incredible and super intuitive. I actually pay monthly for it, but will just buy it straight out soon.

When I was on a Mac I used Garage Band, and then on PC I used Audacity. Audacity isn't bad at all - but I decided to just make the move early to Audition.

THANKS for the compliment BTW. Hope you enjoyed the show.

If you are really interested in learning to code, go checkout onemonth.com or codeschool.org.

That said, the key to becoming a successful entrepreneur in any new market is finding a problem/or pain point that customers are willing to pay you for. Focus on trying to solve a really big pain point!

Once you find a compelling pain point and have customers who are willing to pre-order, sign a letter of intent, or a purchase order. Take your company vision and start selling that vision and your early traction to people who can build your product.

So much of being successful in this game is being able to 1. solve a real problem, 2. inspire others (sell) to join you.

With regards to your major etc. I'd suggest going to work for a startup for a little while. Even for free as an intern. Find a company that you think has great leadership that you can learn from.

Go work there and hustle your face off. Create as much value as you can. This experience will help you learn what you really want to do and you'll find out what skills you need to build your own company and what skills you need in others.

It will also help you find other oportunities outside of the tech field. There are TONS of opportunities outside of "tech".

My favorite example of this is a company in Santa Barbara that came out of UCSB's life science lab called Apeel Sciences. It is science-based and technical but it's not a software company or app and it is going to literally change world.

There are some pretty big problems out there that need to be solved. Find an area you are passionate about, and go solve something really hard.

Books for you to checkout:

Traction By Justin Mares Great book on marketing

The Entrepreneurs Guide To Customer Development This will give you the low down on market validation, how to search for a problem to solve.


Hope this helps:)

Hello hackpro,

Couple things I would initially suggest. Read these 2 books:

1.) The Blue Ocean Strategy: A "red ocean" is a market where a product or service is already manifested, aka saturated or even oversaturated. A "blue ocean" is walking into that market and changing the game. This book has a TON of great tips and mindset pointers when trying to do what you do. Here is the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Expanded-Uncontested/dp/1625274491/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459345146&sr=8-1&keywords=blue+ocean+strategy

2.) Growth Hacker Marketing: This book is just plain awesome. I have read it 3 times. It goes through quite a few tactics to get your product/service visable and has some great case studies (dropbox, evernote etc.) showing how they made it with little to no marketing, but rather pushing their products via exclusivity and making smart calculated moves. Here is the amazon link for that:

http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459345183&sr=8-1&keywords=Growth+hacker+marketing

Post the above 2 books - I would really try to niche market your product. If you do not have a budget for paid search or media, I would focus on finding small to medium communities, join those communities and talk about your product, get sugggestions from community members, offer free beta tests (not sure what your product is, but you mentioned dropbox so I am assuming its software related) etc. Then, move up to larger communities/bloggers etc.

Content is king. Make TONS of content about your product (articles, video, etc.) and get it in cycle in your focus niche. I would focus on a message that sets you apart. You mentioned that the competition is mediocre, so in a creative "non bashing way" just highlight your strong points.

Just my initial $0.2 cents. If you have any deeper questions feel free to let me know.

-Rob

Follow @mojcamars on twitter and check out her blog on www.superspicymedia.com. She started out the same as you and she details how she got started finding clients.

Basically, she started by searching on Twitter for people who needed help with their social media accounts. She would give away completely free advice to people and the premium stuff she would charge for. She said when giving free advice she doesn't mention her website or anything like that upfront... she only does so if the conversation calls for it. Most people will find out about your website/services anyway when they visit your Twitter profile.

Check out her site. I highly recommend it.

Also look into Gary Vaynerchuk on YouTube. He goes into detail about this many times. You should be putting out free content daily, just like Mojca does. By doing so, you establish yourself as an authority in your space while at the same time gaining a following which leads to sales/clients. Read "Jab, jab, right hook" and "#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness".

Good luck!

For copy:

"Learn More" is a terrible call to action. It makes it seem like the customer has to do something else. "Record Now" or "Tell Your Story" -- something that gets them excited to record a podcast would be better here.


Your second header

> We'll walk you through our process

Again, puts the customer as someone that has to learn something from you. Not you doing something for your customer. Then you mention clearing up bottlenecks in their process? If they have a process, why do they also need your process?

The first bit of copy after the hero image needs a line break:

> Whether you’re just starting out or already or have a full-fledged show developed, we have services that will fit your need. (line break) We’ll clear up any bottlenecks in your process and help you get back to podcasting about what you love most!

right now, There's a few words just hanging off on another line by itself, and it looks odd, IMO.

Couple of design things I would personally change.

At the top of the page, you have your business typed out. Then again at the top of the footer, but then a small logo in the bottom of the footer? I'd pick one of the two and try to stay consistent in the places people would typically see your branding. I like the logo, and would probably (sizing allowing) use that.

Your second parallax background image is a girl on a weight bench. Not sure how that relates to podcasting, might consider changing that!

"Ready to get started?" Is a terrible thing to put above your contact form. It gives the reader way too easy of an out. People will naturally make excuses not to start something new, especially if they've never done it before. They don't need you asking them to think about reasons not to start. Maybe something like:

> The World Needs to Hear You!

For all of your call to action buttons, they're black with white text. So is the rest of your website. They don't stand out, and they should. In your section with two buttons (one says "Click here to Learn More" and one says "Get In Touch Now") one of these should be a pop of color (Get in Touch), and the other should be a more muted version of it. I'd probably change the text to be more indicative of what it's doing "Learn More about the Process". You could probably even make this just a text link, and then have a single bright call to action button.

These are all IMO. Have you ever read "Building a Story Brand"? This website could use a little bit more focus on making your customer the hero of the story. Especially given the medium is all about them, anyway.

Sure, the new iWork suite has removed quite a few features that was otherwise available in the old version. But it might only be temporarily.

The new version is rewritten to revisit and enhance the suite of tools going forward, but it has made it necessary for Apple to not include all features at first launch. That's why the old version was not overwritten when the new version first launched and presented as an update in the App Store.

Much wanted features like Apple Script support was only recently reintroduced, and details like the one you mention here might also come in a later update.

Until then, consider using the old Keynote(it still works on Mavericks) if you can't do without this feature. Personally I do not fancy these "bullet reveals" during presentations and would encourage you to try out some new styles of presentation to keep an interest in the lecture. The best lectures are usually built on a solid written and rehearsed and slides that are build to enhance it even further.

Some book recommendations to that end:

• Lend Me Your Ears by Max Atkinson
  
• Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds
  
• Resonate by Nancy Duarte

Hello My Name is Awesome is a great and relatively cheap book to start with firm naming. Too much to summarize, but the author does a pretty good job with some free materials at her website below.

http://eatmywords.com/tips/

Alexandria is great and helped me with my own rebranding. Not cheap to get her on the phone, but definitely check out her stuff!

LEARN, LEARN, LEARN, and keep learning. Afunnyfunnyman is right about the books. This is also a solid read The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982743602/). OnStartups.com is a great resource. I have mixed feelings on SCORE as my local area didn't offer the potential.

BY far the best means to finding excellent resources is Meetup groups. Search your local area and go to as many as you can(Unfortunately, many have alcohol and meet at bars because we, in startups, love us a cold beer). Search for startups, entrepreneurs, etc.

Most importantly go into your startup with this in mind... You know NOTHING about what you are about to take on. Listen and ask questions. Find a startup to go intern with to learn about business. I am 12+ years since I graduated high school and I am still learning about startups everyday. My ego and assumed knowledge use to be my biggest crutch. After I got my ass kicked in the real world and swallowed my pride, did I start to become successful.

What are are you in? If I know some people/organizations in your area, I will get you in touch with them. Also, feel free to ask me any specific questions you may have.

I think you just broke my brain.

I suggested you modify your marketing strategy so that you weren't so dependent on search ranking... you basically told me you do a heap of other things but they don't help with your search ranking.

I'm not sure you got what I meant, so let me say it this way:

When you're getting 10,000 visits a day from Facebook, it doesn't matter where you show up in Google

Okay, now let's do a tear-down and see if we can help you a bit.

1) Your SEO strategy sucks

If your entire SEO strategy is based around people finding you when they Google "La La Land", then you've got problems.

First of all, this rarely works as a growth strategy. If people are google'ing you, they already know who you are. Unless you're getting traffic simply because people google "La La Land" randomly and end up finding your store. That's not a viable long-term strategy.

Secondly, you need to utilise your blog. The more content you write, the more information there is for Google to decide what your site is about, so that it can show it to people that aren't just searching for "La La Land". Write about gift ideas for people from Glascow, write about unique gifts for dog people, etc. There are billions of SEO resources out there, go read some.

2) Your social strategy sucks

Why are you posting the exact same posts to Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter? Stop using IFTT, it's not just lazy, it's ineffective.

Like, take a look at your twitter posts - the text doesn't even fit on the damn post. Your tumblr posts just link to your Instagram feed, which means to get to your website people need to click twice. You need to create content that's crafted for each platform that you're marketing on. Go read Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook for a basic overview of this idea.

General comments:

Instagram

• Your Instagram feed should have videos on it
  
• Why are you not using Instagram stories? This would be a great place to showcase some of the behind-the-scenes of creating your products.
  
• Are you just dumping photos, or are you sticking around to engage users on Instagram? How much time are you spending each day browsing Instagram and engaging with other accounts?
  
  Twitter
  
  
• 1-2 hashtags per post (currently: 0). Once you stop auto-posting you can fix this.
  
• Similarly, spend 10 minutes a day tweeting stuff that isn't photos of your products. Engage with other accounts.
  
  Facebook
  
  
• Consider re-sharing a few bits of social media content that are relevant to your consumers (ie, stuff that's gone viral that you've seen in your feed). (I don't mean download + reupload, I mean 'share')
  
• Consider creating content similar to the above. What sort of stuff do you see popping up in your personal feed that you think you can replicate within context of your store? Maybe you can do a time-lapse video of you creating some of the art you make
  
• Try not to have just an entire feed of product photos. Look at your content mix, think about other types of posts you could make that are relevant to your audience.
  
  3) You don't have an on-site content strategy
  
  There's nothing on your website that you can use to lure people to it.
  
  Go on your blog right now, and write a 500 word post ranting about <some subject relevant to your customerbase>, with a headline that is interesting enough that might get them to click the link if you post it to Twitter. Have a think about the different type of content you could produce that would appeal to your buyers. Is it an infographic, is it instructions on how to choose Christmas gifts for spoiled millenials, this sort of stuff.
  
  You want to create the sort of content that when you post it, people will click "share".
  
  
  

@tiagopinto: i'm not from Seedcamp, but as a technical guy, I found this book as a great intro to customer development: http://www.amazon.com/The-Entrepreneurs-Guide-Customer-Development/dp/0982743602
That highlights great ways of thinking on your business like the ones advocated by Steve Blank. I'm sure Seedcamp will also have other great suggestions

I wouldn't call these methods growth hacking. True growth hacking starts with the actual product/service and builds the marketing into it. This is sometimes referred to as a "viral loop". The classic example is Dropbox's referral program, which rewards a user with more file space, if they refer a friend. Dropbox gets the initial user to market their product, a new user, plus the initial user now has more space, so they're potentially using the product more than they were prior to the referral. The key here is that the focus of the viral loop is totally on the product (free advertising, increased user count, increased product engagement).

It's a brilliant tactic when done right.

If you're interested in a basic guide, I'd recommend this book by Ryan Holiday.

Here are a few of my favorites (btw these are not affiliate links, I just thought it would be useful to share the direct links):

On content writing: 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118905555/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

On data driven marketing: 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470504544/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (a little dry but SUPER useful info)

and 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119257239/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good luck!

ON IOP VS. OTHER CONSULTING ROLES

Have a look at ONETs job descriptions for Management Analysts and Market Research Analysts. Now compare it to the one for IO psychologists. You will get a clue of the large overlap and small differences in job descriptions.

Important differences include:

• projected job openings (800 for I/O psychologists of which nearly half are in academia, 151,400 for market research analysts and 208,500 for management analysts)
  
• typical qualification levels of incumbents (mostly bachelors for market analysts, mostly masters for management analysts and mostly PhDs for IOPs; and
  
• median salaries ($62K p/a for market research analysts, $77K for IOPs and $81K for management analysts)
  
  It is interesting to note that you can earn more with a masters as a management analyst than with a PhD as a IOP and not be far off what IOPs with PhDs earn as a marketing analyst with a bachelors.
  
  
  ON LANDING A JOB AS A CONSULTANT
  
  Now, you're an IO psychologists. I shouldn't need to tell you that to find work the most important things are to be smart, honest and well connected. For management analyst positions, masters degrees are plenty proof that you're smart enough. The big deal maker is going to be in the number of people who can hook you up with a job that trust you enough to hook you up.
  
  So number 1 tip would be to start making connections in hiring positions asap. Find out who you need to know and then ask the people you already know to introduce you to those people, or at least to people closer to them. Imagine highly connected nodes in graphs, 6 degrees of separation and all that cool discrete math stuff about social networks.
  
  
  In terms of technical skills you should develop, I highly recommend Wayne Winston's books on Business Analytics and Marketing Analytics. You'll see that you already know most of that stuff.
  
  If you look at the tools and tech section you'll notice that everyone except maybe Business Informatics graduates has a shit ton of IT stuff to learn after school to be effective in the work place. A couple of certificates in relevant ITs will likely give you a leg up in the competition for entry level jobs.
  
  I'm planning to add Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert: SQL 2016: Data Management and Analytics and SAS Certified Statistical Business Analyst to my CV before the end of the year.

Make sure your site and message is clear and easy for people. Great book to read is here: https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers-ebook/dp/B06XFJ2JGR

Not only with site copy, but will help with sales.

Learn about lead gen and using sequenced email to reach many clients on multiple touches. Good book to learn the basics here:

https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com-ebook/dp/B005ERYEGU

Learning sales takes time and you will get better. Timing isn’t always right for your customers and it’s one of the hardest things to understand. Put yourself in their shoes. If you aren’t in the market for something you probably won’t buy.

People don’t like being sold on the first email. Start with trying to get them on the phone with you to chat about their site. Ask them questions about what they feel is missing. See what they need and find out if it’s even worth it pursuing them.

Also, I would focus on a specific group. Maybe contractors? Scrape emails and send outbound emails to get that discovery call.

EDIT
Become a Godaddy Reseller if you’re serious. This way you sell a bunch more than just web dev. You can sell SSL, hosting, etc. this will give you more value to your clients and get you more $$

You got this!

I agree with what everyone is saying about calling yourself an expert. I've had this conversation many times. Client testimonials, something everyone should get, will speak much louder than any title you can give yourself.

I'm a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk He has some great videos and key note presentations on his website.

Books
The Thankyou Economy, Marketing Lessons Grateful Dead Business

You do not need to be a Grateful Dead fan to enjoy this book.

Twitter @JoltSocialMedia, @socialmouths

Blogs
Hubspot
Seth Godin
Situation Interactive
Ajax Union

I highly recommend Google Hangouts and LinkedIn Groups as a way to get more information. I run a Social Media hangout every Tuesday

On LinkedIn groups you can get information and also share your own knowledge.

There is a ton of information out there about social media and new articles from across the web come out every day. It can be overwhelming at times. My recommendation is to find a few sources you like and go with those. Take the information you think is practical and useful and try to implement it.

Get on every big social media platform out there and learn the inner workings of them. Tear them apart and learn every feature. Click on everything. Whenever possible be an early adapter. The sooner you can get on a new social network the better. There are many smaller ones that are under the radar. It can't hurt to be familiar with them.

Lastly, don't be afraid to experiment.

• Max Weinstein
  http://www.maxweinstein.net
  My weekly Google Hangout
  
  
  
  
  

If you're tempted to give it a go, then go for it. I'd advise you to think ahead, though. If you just write one book, you can expect it to swim and then drift downwards. I did originally think standalone before I started. My research quickly put that notiob to rest. I had to start with a series. I wrote my first three before even marketing which worked really well. (If you see my OP you can look at my stuff)

I highly recommend you read two books right now.
One is this (essential): https://www.amazon.com/Publish-Repeat-No-Luck-Required-Self-Publishing-Success-ebook/dp/B00H26IFJS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484083927&sr=8-1&keywords=write+publish+repeat

And here's the other one - it's technically for screenwriting, but the tips in there apply to books (essential for helping you write and think about your stories): https://www.amazon.com/Story-Substance-Structure-Principles-Screenwriting/dp/0060391685/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484083965&sr=8-1&keywords=mckee+story

Hope this helps! Am happy to help you along the way, hit me up on FaceBook if you like.

Had this list together from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but these are my favorite books and I'd recommend everybody read them all. There are other great books out there, but this is a pretty well rounded list that touches everything a company needs.

The Lean Startup https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

Business Model Generation https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788

Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-customers-ebook/dp/B00NSUEUL4

Predictable Revenue https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

To Sell is Human https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905

Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

Delivering Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

Epic content marketing might help you look at content from your blog to provide you with alternate methods of presenting it (infographics, videos, slide share presentations).

I liked the ideas found in Blue Ocean Strategy towards the beginning, but for whatever reason was never able to go past chapter 5.

Books and the blog of Seth Godin or alternatively Basecamp (formerly known as 37 signals) are usually fun, quick reads.

Blogs by KISSMetrics, Zendesk, Hubspot, and following Growth Hackers threads are all good options too.

What does your SaaS do?

Lastly, something that can provide guidance is taking an hour or two to draw your message map. Essentially, it's a list on one side of your target audience at each stage of purchase, what you want them to takeaway from your message and what are the main barriers to them understanding that message.

Best of luck!

Edits: Was on phone; added links for the lazy.

The Boron Letters is one of my favourites - you can find it online for free (google) as the Boron family put it online to share their father's teachings.
If you're just starting out, This Book Will Teach You To Write Better it's a great start and a summary to look back to from time to time.

Also if you're interested, I have a free productivity email course in which I share how I went from 9 to 34 books a year.

I don't want to self promote, so if this sounds interesting send me a DM and I'll share the link!

Not letting me look at the page :/ However, if there is a piece of advice I can give, I would consider changing the name. When branding names that are spelled wrong, "like using a K instead of a c, and missing an e" is an seo an SERP nightmare. You said this is just an example, but just giving you a heads up if you did decide to go with that name. Imagine customers trying to find you with such odd spelling? Not to mention, you are doing that because "creative marketing solutions" is already taken. That's not a good way to stand out. For anyone interested Hello My Name is Awesome is a great guide book that is light and really helps out a lot. I know this may have nothing to do with your situation, and your URL may be a placeholder, but this will hopefully be a word to the wise for anyone who comes across it. When you fix your website let me know and I will look it over for you.

• Jack

Commenting again to add: This guy spent a TON of time building up his audience before he even started his shop:

> Before actually launching his store, Melvin spent a good deal of time building an audience on Instagram. “Hands down, Instagram has been the greatest in terms of ROI on every dollar spent,” notes Melvin. In 3 months, he’s managed to build over 130k followers on Instagram and find ‘loopholes’ to utilize Instagram as a go-to channel for building an eCommerce business.

Having a "Field of Dreams" mindset of if you build it, they will come will doom the company (says the lady who's a marketer lol). The fact that you've been using ads is a step in the right direction, but try selling value rather than product at first, and find a way to grab their email addresses. Then, create emails that give them more value and reason to open the email. (Something in addition to discounts--that's asking for money). Then, you get them to commit to a sale. That's a long-term sales funnel, but it gives you something to work on: Ad > Landing page > Sign up > Email campaign > Purchase > Retention.

Also check out Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook--good book on how to give value before asking for a sale on social media.

Many jobs as Digital Marketer for small/medium companies will require you to know how to use social media and a good knowledge of adobe software. Here where I live (UK too) we have a startup accelerator and many tech hubs with many marketing jobs available around. It could be a good idea to look for those people and ask...

Also, there's a great book on social media/graphic skills you might find interesting. Should you get a job as 'social media guy' in any company, this would help you a lot: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X

good luck!

Oooh! I'd recommend Likable Social Media as well. It's a great way to re-think ways of engaging with your audience online.

The Martin Atkins books are great. And Martin is a friggin' hilarious individual.

• VagueTicket
  
• Generic Ticket Place
  
• Tickets for Humans Not Animals
  
• TickTockHorray
  
• TicketMeOff
  
• Tick O’Rouney
  
• Tickets R US
  
• GetYoTicket
  
• TicketBucket
  
• TicketMaster
  
• TicketSlave
  
• TicketEmployee
  
• Panera
  
  EDIT: In all seriousness, here's a great book (thin and to the point) which provides a method of developing great names that are effective: Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick
  
  
• Here's a video interview of the author
  
• Here's a Sample Chapter PDF of the book
  
• Here someone made a helpful summary of the book that lists the method or principles
  
  I've used it (found it at the library) and it helped me name 2 brands.

There's as good a chance that a traditionally published collection would get lost in the noise (or worse: the publisher's slush pile). Lots of luck and hard work is required either way.

For a short story collection, one benefit of self-publishing via KDP, Smashwords, etc. is that you can choose to publish each story individually for a super low price (or offer one for free as a promotion, if you like), and also publish the collection as a "volume discount" deal (cheaper than buying all stories separately). That way there's very little risk for the reader to try out one of your stories, and if they like it, they'll be more inclined to buy the collection.

I got a lot of great ideas from Write, Publish, Repeat. These guys have distilled a lot of good info about the self-publishing world into a solid book. I suspect it will answer a lot of questions you currently have.

After taking a very quick breeze through your landing page overall I'd say simple and to the point which is great. I would say however I feel your landing page needs more of a kick. I feel you need something that grabs the users attention and says, "you need me now, and without me your f*c**d"

I'd recommend this book called building a story brand.

https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers/dp/0718033329

Good luck! Feel free to message me if you want to talk shop.

I recommend you a book for choosing a name: http://www.amazon.com/Hello-My-Name-Is-Awesome/dp/1626561869
it is fun to read an gives you a general framework about the process that you need to follow to find a good name. Hope it helps :)

Yep.

This is how HM Ward (sold over 4 million books in 2013) does it: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,152565.0.html

The problem with that, though, is that she's already built her mailing list and social media. If you're just getting started "Write, Publish, Repeat" is a really good guide. http://www.amazon.com/Publish-Repeat-No-Luck-Required-Self-Publishing-Success-ebook/dp/B00H26IFJS

Colleen Hoover did a great job with advocate-marketing--basically, her loyal and extroverted sisters sold their friends on it, pushed it to book groups, did lots of social media connecting on her behalf. When an author says, "Buy my book," it's not nearly as effective as when a reader (even if it's her sister!), says "buy this great book, I loved it and you will, too." Unfortunately, it can be hard to find the people willing to do that for you.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch (http://kriswrites.com/) has an extensive series going on right now about marketing & discoverability. Worth reading.

This site has some good ads to swipe, with explanations for some of them:
http://swiped.co/

To start off, these books should help to get the basics down pat:

1. https://www.amazon.com/This-book-teach-write-better/dp/0989895300/
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Sales-Letter-Attract-Customers/dp/1440511411
   
3. https://www.amazon.com/Adweek-Copywriting-Handbook-Advertising-Copywriters/dp/0470051248/
   
4. https://www.amazon.com/Write-Copy-Sells-Step-Step/dp/161448502X/
   5.https://www.amazon.com/Online-Copywriters-Handbook-Everything-Electronic/dp/0658020994
   
5. https://www.amazon.com/CA-HVERTISING-Ad-Agency-Psychology-Anything/dp/1601630328/
   
   If you want to go deeper, and become an expert copywriter follow what the late great Gary Halbert says here --> https://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com/newsletters/zfkj_hands_on_experience.htm
   
   All the best on the journey.

I love this book for a naming process: https://www.amazon.com/Hello-My-Name-Awesome-Create/dp/1626561869

For Zeda Labs, it took me forever. I've cycled through a dozen names over the years, never feeling like one was truely, 'me.' For clients, I could come up with something in 30-40 hours usually, but for my own thing it took FOREVER. I kept at it though.

How the name came about is one of my friends posted this on instagram and the meaning aligned with our values, was easy to spell and pronounce, so thus Zeda Labs was born.

Definitely check out growth hacking. Here's a great book on it that explains what it is and gives examples how popular companies implemented it:

Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591847389/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_puSMwbTR1CNBB

To echo everyone else, marketing. You can either pay a firm to handle it for you or do it yourself. For the latter I leave you with these resources.


Marketing Indie Games on a 0$ Budget, Konsoll 2013 talk by Emmy Jonassen. Link


Emmy's website, filled with great resources. Link


"The Marketing Guide for Game Developers", outline article on Pixel Prospector. Link


The Big List Of Indie Game Marketing, a resource list for all things marketing, also on Pixel Prospector. Link


"Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World", by Gary Vaynerchuk. An excellent book on how to utilized the various social media platforms for marketing. Amazon Site Link


And lastly, the weekly "Marketing Monday" threads here for feedback and creative inspiration.


Edit.

Fixed linking. Returning to Reddit after a year and some change worth of hiatus. Have to relearn old tricks.

Not sure if the intent is for your client to drop your product slides into a larger presentation, or if you’re intending to build the complete presentation for your client...either way, you may find it useful to incorporate storytelling techniques to amp up viewer engagement. I’ve found the following books very good:

Resonate, by Nancy Duarte

Storynomics, by Robert McKee and Tom Gerace

Good luck!

i certainly will
This reminds of a very famous book about, how people that give free information usually win more business than people trying hard to win business

For social media you should check out different company blogs. Those are really helpful. I like the Buffer and Hootsuite blogs a lot.

But books are way better than online websites

For marketing you should read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg

Ryan Holiday's Growth Hacker Marketing and Trust Me, I'm Lying are insanely informative and fun to read.

The best practice is absolutely to do it. Industry association conferences can be a good way to get some practice.

To answer the question, I really like Resonate by Nancy Duarte for speaking engagements and How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes for one-on-one communications.

If you're looking for a book, I really like Epic Content Marketing.

For general guides to Digital Marketing, I highly recommend Neil Patel's Quicksprout. Just read everything he has there, especially his Guides in the right sidebar. Extremely thorough, very well-researched, and lots of references to other sources.

Good luck!

Be sure to check out the this forum: https://www.kboards.com/index.php/board,60.0.html

I haven't published yet but I've done lots of research on self publishing and it seems like the most common advice is start working on your next book. Most successful self-published authors only got there after having multiple books released.

You might also check out the book Write. Publish. Repeat.

And this series of books on self publishing by Chris Fox

Read this book https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers/dp/0718033329/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1540049636&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=story+brand&dpPl=1&dpID=41gwu0NcCrL&ref=plSrch

It goes into creating a story around a brand. If your website is just like every other site then there's no reason to buy from you. Focus on what makes you unique and your customer experience.

If you're selling on your website get your tracking system in place. Callrail.com for call tracking, Analytic goals and Google ads. It's much harder to setup that you would think and I think finding a good developer that is familiar with all the setup is important.

Have all your accounts setup under your name and add the developer as a manager (not admin). There is absolutely nothing worse that a developer relationship going sour and they're holding all the cards.

Check upworks.com for a designer. Look overseas to find good deals, ask for references and portfolios. Be specific on what you want so there's no feature creep on your website that ends up costing you more.

Don't pay your developer upfront except for a deposit. Final payment should be given when everything is completed.

I encourage you to read Write, Publish, Repeat

It's not the holy grail of self publishing, but it has a lot of useful stuff about self publishing and some good tips.

Like anything, you get out of it what you put into it. I only started doing scifi adventure to earn a little side income and I already earn a few hundred a month extra for putting my hobby out there for people to read.

> I used to write horror erotica just to stretch my imagination, so eh, I will think about it.

Swing by /r/eroticauthors and start talking to the people there.

I don't see any books here, so let me two of my favorites:

• Traction - Explains a process for finding the best marketing channels for your startup through experimentation.
  
  
• The Purple Cow - Explains the importance of remarkability

Yes! You got the idea. And also social media is about giving and then only asking. Provide your followers with great content and then ask to buy your products. I advise everyone to read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X by Gary Vaynerchuk

Everyone says Gary Vee but truthfully you need to find multiple sources.

Personally I stopped looking at social media as an answer and more like a targeted bullhorn for my content.

I'd recommend you start with here.

I'd say it heavily depends on your industry. If your industry is cool with content marketing, I recommend these two books:

UnMarketing

Everybody Writes

Best,

Matt

Here's a book David Seaman wrote in 2008... Chapter 2 "Rules of Effective Publicity Whoring" is probably relevant. That's not a joke, it's literally the title of the second chapter in his book. Here's another excerpt:
>My technique works for any hot news item. If the media is talking about it, you can learn how to become part of the discussion. Getting publicity boils down to just a set of skills and nothing more. Attracting media coverage becomes easy, even routine, with practice.

You can find that inside the free preview on amazon.

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. My uncle does lectures for PR/Marketing firms and things like that. :)

I'd recommend reading Write.Publish.Repeat. and checking out /u/sapoia's posts.

Like /u/TildenJack said, write more books. Most of the time, you're better off writing than using social media or figuring out promos. Having that third book under your belt (kudos on the third!) seems to be the tipping point for many authors, and the more books you have out, the more likely it is your sales will grow.

Yep. In fact, I feel like I should quit recommending that book to people, in case they turn out to be competitors!

Seriously though, it's a great book, and the Customer Development Methodology stuff is gold. Until I read that book I had NO idea how to work that aspect of a startup. To have a concrete plan for achieving product/market fit was totally eye-opening (and mind-blowing) for me.

Hmmm... This also reminds me that I've been wanting to get a copy of The Entrepreneurs Guide to Customer Development.

Have you read One Simple Idea by Stephen Key?

I don't have personal experience with licensing, but that book ^ is pretty well known as a reliable source. The author's primary source of income is from Licensing.

The future direction of news and how it can be improved
Links in this section are RSS feeds

Jay Rosen is my favorite author on the subject:

• His Posterous
  
  
• His blog... PressThink
  
  
• Twitter
  
  Jeff Jarvis is nothing to shake a stick at either:
  
• Blog - BuzzMachine
  
  
• Twitter
  
  And finally, we can't forget Clay Shirky:
  
  
• Blog
  
  
• Twitter
  
  Presentation design and using visuals to increase group effectiveness.
  Links in this section are to books
  
  
• Nancy Duarte's Slideology and Resonate
  
  
• Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen and The Naked Presenter
  
  
• Dan Roam's Back of the Napkin
  
  
• David Sibbet's Visual Meetings
  
  
• Jeff Conklin's Dialogue Mapping
  
  EDIT: formatting

good job changing the link after i pointed it out, it was clearly going to ?tag=vl-something... here is the other one.

http://www.amazon.com/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X?tag=vglnkc2770-20

there is nothing wrong with putting affiliate links anyways.

Social media is absolutely NOT dead in the least! It's not over saturated. The problem is most people use it wrong. Big brands tend to have teams of people to work on their social media, therefore they're often better at it. Check out Jab Jab Jab Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk!

Also a great podcast is Marketing Smarts on Itunes.

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488034199&sr=1-2&refinements=p_27%3ADavid+Seaman


Pretty confident a large portion of the posts about him on here are just him

Here's a few I recommend:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-22-Immutable-Laws-Marketing/dp/1861976100

The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strategy-Tactics-Pricing-Thomas-Nagle/dp/0136106811

[This one isn't technically a marketing book I guess, but it's a very (very!) good way to think about packaging and pricing. And I think marketing is one large component of that process and think it is a must-read.]

Purple Cow: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Purple-Cow-Transform-Business-Remarkable/dp/014101640X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y

[This one is a lighter read but still a goodie]

Nah. You're going to need a good title to pitch in any case. Clarity about genre and tone should be near immediate, and it should avoid various traps ("The Rural Juror").

There's methodologies for this, and they're different from most writing processes. For one thing, competitive analysis and relative positioning are a big deal.

This book has an evaluation framework that helps guide decisions using rules other than "this feels good".
https://smile.amazon.com/Hello-My-Name-Awesome-Create/dp/1626561869

Take a look at the book "Content Inc." if you have not already. It is also on Audible. Definitely worth a read (or listen), and covers your exact question. Short answer is yes, you should focus on building your content and audience first, then monetize it when that time comes. Build the audience, get emails, and eventually start making money.

http://www.amazon.com/Content-Inc-Entrepreneurs-Successful-Businesses/dp/125958965X

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Content-Inc-Audiobook/B015GF23EY

I'd say start by going through what you've already written and recruit a few beta readers to see if anything is publishable. Edit as necessary and then learn how to format.

I've found Let's Get Digital and Write. Publish. Repeat. to be very helpful. Also Million Dollar Outlines.

You'll want to start going through the posts here to learn about covers and do's and don't's for the various publishing platforms. Learning how to self-publish and the conventions of the erotica genre might seem a bit overwhelming but hopefully there's a few ideas here you can start with.

Oh god, he still has believers?

At least this time the account is really gone. He had a habit of deleting his accounts for attention before later restoring them in the hope he'd get more Patreon subscribers. He even deleted his own YouTube videos on Feb 26th last year so this is a nice anniversary.

He's a shill for himself.

http://gawker.com/270281/how-to-be-a-publicity-whore-author-underqualified

https://jezebel.com/270369/self-promotion-guru-david-seaman-totally-got-our-memo-shat-all-over-it

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379

I've heard http://www.amazon.com/Publish-Repeat-No-Luck-Required-Self-Publishing-Success-ebook/dp/B00H26IFJS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396188306&sr=8-1&keywords=write+rinse+repeat
is a pretty good book. They also have a podcast that I listen to.

Predictable Revenue, by Aaron Ross is a good, quick read. He's originally from Salesforce.com and outlines several effective, new strategies, such as "Cold Calling 2.0."

Other than the advice in my post, if you want a good intro into where marketing is headed, check out Growth Hacker Marketing.

Ryan Holiday came from a traditional marketing career (Director of Marketing at American Apparel) when he realized he had a lot to learn. A book ensued.

Funny you say that, because he wasn't pushing people to buy actual, physical gold (which would have been smart), he wanted them to invest in gold through a company called Gold Money. So, digital gold, I guess. He was an affiliate and got paid for referrals, just one of his little get rich schemes. He did bring help give a voice for and raise awareness for Pizzagate, so he hasn't been completely useless, but he is a self promoter who wrote a book back in 2008 detailing exactly how he's been operating since.

Edit: Here it in his own words here.

I don't know what's with patents or how they work, but in case you can buy(?) one for an app, then get your self a "Patent pending" so they can't steal your idea. It costs like 120 $. You can't get something patented because it costs thousands of dollars, so you get a "Patent pending", you show your product, nobody can steal it from you, and if a company is interested they will patent it for you(so other companies won't steal it from them).

From the book One Simple Idea.

Given that I am trying to bring the audience to speed quickly on something they would unfamiliar with, I would apply the principles outlined by something like Story Brand.

In the ad I would want to:

Identify how this product addresses a felt need, enables the person to achieve an aspirational perspective of themselves, concluding how your company could guide them and how your product accomplishes that goal. I think of the way apple interacted with the budding portable music player market.

This is a pretty fantastic source that helped me with a similar paper I wrote in a history of rock and roll class

Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470900520/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XSvUAb4PAVSKY

Everybody Writes by Ann Handley. Because writing is essential to any marketing strategy. Best book I've read in a while.

>I was wondering if there’s a way to start a business with just knowledge of how a business is run itself with me being my own boss and being present on job sites and whatnot.

Absolutely there is.

I would start with Content Inc. by Joe Pulizzi. You could start something online that monetizes an expertise+passion of yours, and your startup costs would be far far below the amount you have saved.

The idea is to focus on helping a narrow niche with free content, collect emails, find out their exact problems, then sell them the solution to their problems.

Not specifically for advice on media start ups, but Gary Vaynerchuk's books deal with social media marketing, and I think are critical for any up-and-coming business, but especially if you're in the digital media industry and want to engage with folks directly in this way.

[The Thank You Economy] (https://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Economy-Gary-Vaynerchuk/dp/0061914185/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510421556&sr=8-1&keywords=the+thank+you+economy&dpID=41L836nMSGL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch)

[Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook] (https://www.amazon.com/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social/dp/006227306X)

A few marketing books:

extremely practical how to do stuff book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strategic-Database-Marketing-Masterplan-Customer-Based/dp/0071773487/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411566902&sr=1-11

inspirational:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Purple-Cow-Transform-Business-Remarkable/dp/014101640X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411566950&sr=1-1&keywords=purple+cow

truthiness:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Brands-Grow-What-Marketers/dp/0195573560/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411566974&sr=1-1&keywords=how+brands+grow

Here at the links to the books I have recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Selling-Zig-Ziglar-2012-06-03/dp/B01F81PFOG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1488290235&sr=8-2&keywords=zig+ziglar+art+of+selling

https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Selling-Increase-Thought-Possible/dp/0785288066/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1488290247&sr=8-5&keywords=brian+tracy

https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488290267&sr=8-1&keywords=predictive+revenue

This is highly recommended for anyone in Saas sales.

especially in a BDR or management role.

https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/0070511136/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488290305&sr=8-1&keywords=spin+selling

Read Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross: https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213
This will be your bible, all successful b2b tech sales organizations use many components of this book.

Networking is a long game. It sounds like you're doing a lot of things right.

You may want to look at Gary Vaynerchuk's books for some ideas. I'd start with Jab Jab Jab Right Hook.

You may want to do some niche development, not just in your town but in the surrounding areas as well.

Edit: spelling

Seaman wrote a book on taking advantage of native advertising and guerilla marketing.

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523303361&sr=1-4&refinements=p_27%3ADavid+Seaman&dpID=51A-epwvg3L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

He also was promoting goldmoney which is part owned by Soros.

You NEED to read Predictive Revenue!

I had to build an entire sales process from start to finish for my startup. A friend introduced me to this book and it changed the way we looked at our sales team. It's fucking incredible.

http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

Your one and only answer to read Ialwaysbluff!!! Do not pay attention to any other comment that doesn't imply licensing, cause your product is unproven and may not be viable to create a business startup for it at all.

Stephen Key's "One Simple Idea!"

Also, go to InventRight.com.

It's a pretty simple yet tricky thing to do. I found Predictable Revenue (a book) to be a solid summary of how to go about this problem:

http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

Joe Pulizzi came out with a pretty decent book that goes over content work flows and whatnot.

http://www.amazon.com/Content-Inc-Entrepreneurs-Successful-Businesses/dp/125958965X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1434657347&sr=8-3&keywords=joe+pulizzi#

Edit: and to answer your prior question, I have prior experience as a journalist. The work flow aspect is very similar between content marketing and journalism.

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is one I've seen referenced a lot from social media experts. I found it to be very good for foundational knowledge and general approach.

It's not just gaming journalism, it's all modern journalism.

Ryan Holiday - Read his books.

https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389 - this book is a quick and easy summary of some of the practices/tactics

• Good one and any others from the author https://www.amazon.com/Marketers-Are-Mars-Consumers-Jersey/dp/1508977119
  
• Book https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389, also he has some courses in marketing field

Have you read Everybody Writes by Ann Handley? That might be a good book to read before you make any further decisions.

NOT affiliate link (LOL)

https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Writes-Go-Creating-Ridiculously/dp/1118905555

I liked Jab Jab Right Hook.

These are the books I've read recently and liked a lot:

• CA$HVERTISING: How to Use More Than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make BIG MONEY Selling Anything to Anyone
  
• Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success)
  
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
  
• The Education of Millionaires: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late
  
  These are not affiliate links.

The book "building a storybrand" really helped me when I was thinking of my brand and where I wanted to take my stream. I highly recommend this book. https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers/dp/0718033329

Podcasts:

• Online Marketing Made Easy
  
• Growth Marketing Toolbox
  
• Social Media Marketing
  
• Build Your Tribe
  
• Everyone Hates Marketers
  
• Pat Flynn Smart Passive Income
  
• Masters of Scale
  
• How I Built This
  
• Tim Ferriss
  
• Startup School with Seth Godin or Akimbo
  
• GaryVee Audio Experience
  
  Books:
  
  
• Anything by Seth Godin
  
• 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
  
• Blue Ocean Strategy
  
• Small Giants
  
• Crush It
  
• The Tipping Point
  

This is EXCELLENT advice. You have to provide "content" to your users, and not just the promotion of your stuff. Content marketing may be the term, not sure, but check out this book: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

I got the book Everybody Writes.

In that book it says the About You Page isn't really about you but should instead focus on relaying who you are in relation to the visitor.

>All good content puts the reader first, and that's no different on your About Us page. In other words, About Us gives you a chance to talk about yourself, but always in the context of what you do for your customers. What burdens you help them shoulder, what problems you solve for them.

1. Try local facebook groups or paid facebook ads.
   
2. Read Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross or just read it summary (page 8 is about compensation)
   
3. I would check your competitors or similar companies how they attract sales people and where do they have the job offers.
   

They are all wannabes riding on the coattails of pizzagate helping each other out.

Becki wants to be famous.
Seaman wrote the book Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz: How to Attract Massive Attention for Your Business, Your Product, or Yourself and is now implementing it.

That fucker could have done something useful without playing a victim and people wouldn't have minded as much.

Could you please confirm with us if this is the book you’re talking about: https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers-ebook/dp/B06XFJ2JGR

Nancy Duarte's book also has an insightful breakdown of Jobs' original iPhone pitch.

This one is solid: Marketing Analytics: Data-Driven Techniques with Microsoft Excel

I am not even in social media, yet I am the one who knows what this means...

...

https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520

Sure

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/emarketing/64890.html

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224614580&sr=8-1

Check out Alexandra Watkin's stuff: http://www.amazon.com/Hello-My-Name-Is-Awesome/dp/1626561869

Also, I'm selling justlearn.co

Not a class, but could be used in a marketing class:

https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520

He even named his book after it.

https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers/dp/0718033329

Read 'Jab Jab Jab Right Hook'. That book basically is what enabled me to start my own advertising agency.

This should give you some direction. http://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389

IT IS WRITTEN

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
http://www.amazon.com/Jab-Right-Hook-Story-Social-ebook/dp/B00BATNNZY

I’ve read a lot of B2B marketing books and this is a new one that stands out: Building a StoryBrand

There's actually a couple books about their approach:

https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Lessons-Grateful-Dead-Business/dp/0470900520

different guy?

Read his reviews

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/006227306X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_hLEDwbAXJCGZ4

Can't recommend it enough.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a social media master. When I first was hired as a Content Strategist for an agency my boss gave me the book below. It’s a couple years dated, but the overall premise still holds. He examines each platform and pulls real-life examples to demonstrate. I still refer back to it!

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World

It's called "Building a Storybrand", my fault

https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers/dp/0718033329

> I hold out vague dreams of being a writer, and have completed one novel with another on the way, but that's not capitalistically viable. If I churned out some kinky monster-fetish schlock or wrote harlequin romances, maybe I'd be a slightly more productive cog in the machine.

Shut the fuck up. Being writer is hard without people like you writing some niche shit and expecting to be prised by general public. It won't happen. Ever. You know how many writers are in your position? Most. You either are writer who will publish something closer to market's demand and make every nth book more artsy OR you'll find a tiny but loyal audience.

Now you're just complaining.

Writing is neither "drinking latte and taking notes in my Moleskine" nor is it "a poet with a life broken tells how it is". Writing is mostly you typing, day in, day out, without much chances for success, for your audience.

Your woe is me story is nothing special, and had you spent the time you've spent arguing on reddit, writing short stories, you could at least self-publish something for 99 cents.

You can start here.

https://www.amazon.com/Publish-Repeat-No-Luck-Required-Self-Publishing-Success-ebook/dp/B00H26IFJS

Uhg. People. David Seaman is not a journalist. I found his stuff on Business Insider and included it in an article I wrote for a small, local online news publication. He threatened to sue me and the newspaper for calling him a phony or something like that. He wrote a book about how to use social media and the internet to make money by creating "buzz." He first did this with a "joke" free Paris Hilton campaign and it got him fired from Jezebel according to a blog post (on Jezebel). Then he said Business Insider fired him when they actually just told him he needed his content edited before being published. Creating "buzz" via fear, explosive accusations (he said Obama's renewal of the NDAA in 2012 would cause dissidents to be imprisoned as terrorists, he said the government was secretly preparing to film all Americans 24/7, the list goes on and on). I tried to challenge him but all he did was threaten to sue me, block me from his twitter after I tweeted at him 6 times over 2 or 3 weeks, then he posted pictures of me on his google plus page and asked anon to go after me on twitter. I vowed to avoid him, but I heard his name on the radio and I think if you want to watch anything David Seaman makes, read his book "Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz" and then decide if you can trust ANYTHING he says: https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Little-Secrets-Buzz-Attention/dp/1402213379