How Small Businesses Can Succeed in a Down Economy With Blogging and Social Media

In this tough economy, many small business owners struggle to cost-effectively attract new customers. Online marketing offers hope, but many don’t have the time to navigate the ins and outs of blogging, search engine optimization and social media. The Business Blogging Telesummit features stories, tips and “how-to’s” from nine successful small business owners who have succeeded through the use of online marketing.

The second half of the telesummit features nine top marketing experts including Chris Garrett, Pamela Slim, Denise Wakeman, Marcus Sheridan and Jack Humphrey. These experts go deep into specific topics such as content marketing, online visibility, business blogging, connecting with audiences via social media, content curation, information products and guest blogging. These experts go into detail about specific strategies to follow and mistakes to avoid while they share their most valuable techniques. Read more at socialmediatoolsandsites.com

How Small Businesses Can Succeed in a Down Economy With Blogging and Social Media Read more at socialmediatoolsandsites.com

What if you could ask the author of a book a question while you were reading the book? That’s the kind of world Amazon wants to offer with its new @author feature, which the online bookstore launched on Wednesday with a group of writers including Susan Orlean and self-help guru Tim Ferriss. Readers can ask questions directly from their Kindles while they are reading a book, and the question gets sent to the author’s Twitter account as well as to their home page at Amazon. In addition to creating what the company hopes will be a kind of reader community around Kindle titles — something it has been pushing in other ways as well — this new feature looks like another step in Amazon’s quest to cut publishers out of the equation and build relationships directly with authors.

The rise of the self-publishing superstar

Among those who have taken advantage of this phenomenon are Amanda Hocking, who started writing Kindle books for young adults a little over a year ago and managed to bring in more than $2 million in revenue without the help of a traditional publisher or agent. That performance convinced the publishing world to take another look, and Hocking signed a $2-million multi-book deal with St, Martin’s Press earlier this year. Other self-publishers such as Konrath have continued to promote the benefits of self-publishing (my colleague Cyndy Aleo has a series of posts based on interviews with young adult authors about self-publishing). Read more at gigaom.com