Category: Guest Posts/Interviews-2012

Today I am taking part in Partners In Crimes blog tour and I am honored to have Joel M. Andre stop by to guest post for me today. Thanks so much Joel for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this for me and my readers.

Most people who do a Google search on me will find an endless supply of
information. Over the years I have done a number of interviews and guest
posts promoting my books. However, around the time that my third Lauren
Bruni book, The Black Chronicles: Cry of the Fallen, I began to build a
website that focused on a variety of horror themed topics.

It was here that I would promote items like Brutal, Kill 4 Me and other
titles I have released and built a world of horror topics that interest
people. This created an online presence that left people interested in
learning more about me after they researched another topic. This has helped
me to reach a new audience. It has also helped me to avoid plenty of the
pitfalls other writers encountered.

Many writers who self-publish sit back after the book is published and
wait for people to find and buy it. They may get a fair number of sales
once people start finding it but there is no telling how long that could
take. It could be weeks or even months before the first sale.

Why not help people find your book faster so it starts selling faster?
Using SEO strategies is the answer. It isn’t that difficult and the first
step is done at the time you publish at Kindle Desktop Publishing or just
about any of the other places you can self-publish. Most places have a
field to enter carefully chosen keywords that will help bring your book up
in searches made by people looking for something related to your book’s
topic or storyline. To choose the best keywords, you can use such tools as
Google Keyword Tool. This will help you find the keywords relative to your
book that are actually used by people looking for something in the search
engines.

Now, this is just the first step and while important, does not go far
enough to help your book be found sooner. The next step in SEO is
backlinking. This means having other sites link to the page offering your
book. It is important that these links come from sites that are relevant to
the type of book you have or the topic of the book.

Another effective SEO strategy that is newer is social networking. This
involve such sites as Facebook, Twitter, Redgage and Google +. Millions of
people are on these sites regularly so if you are not using them to promote
your book, you are leaving sales and cash on the table. Create fan pages,
circles and whatever is the mode for a particular social site just for your
books and then start getting people to ‘Like’, ‘Follow’ and ‘Plus 1’ you.
It can go viral and help to boost sales and more talk about your book.

Of course, guest blogging and blog comments are another means of helping
people find and buy your book. This can be a more personal way as you can
tell a little about yourself and how you came to write the book, which is
often a great way to promote a book.

These can be a bit time consuming to do all on your own but there is a
company with the expertise to help you get it done right without costing an
arm and a leg. That company is Need An Article, where I am one of the staff
of writers who can help you get your book noticed sooner. You can check
them out at www.needanarticle.com or visit me online at www.joelmandre.info.

Joel’s newest book is:

About the book:
On a warm summer afternoon, in Northern Arizona, a double homicide stains the ground with blood. Detectives are called out to handle the investigation, each plagued with their own internal demons, and aren’t prepared for what they are about to find. Detective Lauren Bruni, faces a world of darkness and evil, as a demonic force begins to leash an attack on a small town. As the stakes begin to rise, so does the stunning truth, that not even Lauren can imagine. In a world where her life had started to fall apart, she must pick up the pieces and push forward in an effort to save those that she loves the most. Joel M. Andre takes the Horror genre and pushes the boundaries in a tale full of suspense, dark comedy and genuine horror.

To buy the paperback version of this book click here or to buy it on kindle click here.

About the Author
Joel M. Andre was born January 13, 1981. At a young age he was fascinated with the written word. It was at fourteen that Poe blew his mind, and Andre began to dabble with darker poetry. Between the years of 1999 and 2007, Joel was featured in various poetry anthologies and publications. In 2008 he released his first collection, “Pray the Rain Never Ends”. Knowing there was something deeper and darker inside of his soul, Joel decided to take a stab at commercialism. Releasing the dark, tongue in cheek, “A Death at the North Pole”, created a dark world that resulted from the death of Kris Kringle. Ultimately, it proved to be a tale of redemption. October of 2008 saw Joel release his second book, “Kill 4 Me.” This was a tale that found Casey Dwyer being haunted by a spirit through text messages, and instant messaging. It was far more brutal than anything he had released before. Taking some time off and doing a lot of soul searching, Joel took things in a new direction and dabbled in the Fantasy Genre with, “The Pentacle of Light”. This tale dealt with five major races battling for control of Earth, and the acceptance of their God. As times continue to change, so does the tales he has to tell. This October he will bring back Lauren Bruni in a prequel, and come 2011 there will be the next book in his Fantasy series “The Pentacle of Light”. Currently, he resides in Arizona.

Thanks again Joel for stopping by and doing this for us.