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Promotion, Content, Neutrality: Increase Website Traffic

Darcy Pattison — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:29:36 +0000

Meet Cynthia Leitich Smith

Cynthia Leitich Smith is the New York Times and Publishers Weekly best-selling author of ETERNAL and TANTALIZE (both Candlewick).
Her award-winning books for younger children include JINGLE DANCER, INDIAN SHOES and RAIN IS NOT MY INDIAN NAME (all HarperCollins).
Cynthia’s upcoming releases include HOLLER LOUDLY (Dutton, Nov. 2010), BLESSED (Candlewick, Feb. 2011) and TANTALIZE: KIEREN’S STORY (Candlewick, Feb. 2011).

She is a member of faculty at the Vermont College M.F.A. program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.
Her website at www.cynthialeitichsmith.com was named one of the top 10 Writer Sites on the Internet by Writer’s Digest and an ALA Great Website for Kids. Her Cynsations blog at cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/ was listed as among the top two read by the children’s/YA publishing community in the SCBWI “To Market” column.

Promotion, Content, Neutrality: Increase Website Traffic

For PR Notes today, Cynthia will talk about increasing traffic on her website.

Cynthia Leitich Smith

Q: Cynthia, your site is one of the most popular children’s literature sites on the internet today. Let’s talk about how to get traffic to your site. It’s not enough to simply put up a website, you have to make it something that people want to come to. Do you track your traffic? How? What kind of traffic do you get? Per month? per year?

CLS: Thank you! The main site received 2.8 million unique visitors in 2009, and my blog, Cynsations, is the largest feeder after Google. Traffic typically dips between mid-July and mid-August; however, it doesn’t suffer (and sometimes even profits) from major holidays.
Q: List 3 things that have helped increase the traffic to your site. Have any of the social media sites been responsible for a large lift in traffic? What sort of posts get the best traffic?
CLS: Promotion, Content and Neutrality.
- Promotion. The blog is cross-posted to Blogger, LiveJournal, and MySpace. It’s also syndicated to facebook and JacketFlap. In addition, I tweet the URLs to my posts. These strategies have all been successful, as has the fact that I typically include PowerPoint slides of the blog (at its various locations) toward the end of my real-space presentations.
  
  I’m honored to say that my readers tend to respond most enthusiastically to news of my own children’s-YA books and my own personal essays, though perhaps these shine more because they are fairly rare.
- Content. Beyond that, it’s very much a case of content is king. The more substantive the interview or article, the better! Most popular are thoughtful discussions of the craft of writing itself.
  Many readers also have mentioned my Cynsational News & Giveaways posts, which are essentially round-ups of great links from throughout the kidlitosphere. I’m quite selective, highlighting Web resources that have what I call “significant takeaway” when it comes to information, insights, and/or inspiration.
- Neutrality. I make a particular effort to highlight positive posts, sidestepping flame wars, rants, or doomsday predictions. (I’ve been around long enough to see most of them cycle through a couple of times before anyway). A lot of my readers have expressed thanks for that. They like that Cynsations lifts them up.
Q: So much of your site is devoted to reporting on the children’s literature world, and doesn’t directly discuss your work. How do you fit your work into the mix of posts that you do? Do you devote special posts to your work? Do you weave it into announcements about other people’s work?
CLS: If I have big news-such as a book sale or new release or an illustrator being signed to one of my books, I’ll do a special dedicated post to that topic. Ditto if I have a major event report.

But usually, my professional news is found under the header “More Personally” in the weekly round-up. I may share, say, a peek into my writing life/process or a link to an interview with me or offer a short report from a special event on the road.

Q:You offer a service to the children’s literature community by interviewing authors & editors, announcing book releases and awards, etc. It takes time! What is the best part about doing this? What is the worst part about doing this?

CLS: What I love is participating in the conversation of books. I learn so much and often find myself inspired by those I feature. The challenge, as you say, is time. As a working writer, I have to be careful that my creative energy goes first to my manuscripts.
Q: In terms of publicity for your own work: do you think your site has raised your profile among librarians, teachers and teens who might read your work? In other words, beyond the success of the site itself, is your site successful in helping promote your work?
CLS: It’s definitely raised my name recognition, but as for how much that’s helped me connect my own books to readers, that’s hard to say. Honestly, I don’t worry about it. I just think of maintaining a web presence as something I do to give back to the community, and, to whatever extent it cycles back my way, I’m grateful.
Q: Any tips for other writers on how to get traffic to their sites?
CLS: My top recommendation is to keep one’s site updated. I’m forever going to author sites, looking to link to information about new releases, and that content is nowhere to be found.

Beyond that, think about who’s visiting—your specific audience—and what will keep them coming back again and again. Maybe it’s a writing tip; maybe it’s a recipe or coloring page. The answer is likely to be as individual as you are. So, look inward and then project out.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Who is Reading Your Work?

Darcy Pattison — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:07:22 +0000

Online Tools I Use Daily

As a writer and blogger, I use several tools daily to check on my published work and my online work.

To Monitor Sales of my Published Books

Salesrankexpress.com
This site will quickly return the Amazon Sales Rank of books. (Of course, you may have many other sales on other websites or offline; this is ONLY Amazon rankings.) You can search by author, title, or even publisher; it’s great to check the best sellers for a small publisher. I check it obsessively, I know, but it’s fun to see the numbers bounce lower when there are several sales in an hour.

Blogging Audience

Feedburner. Now a Google subsidiary, Feedburner (feedburner.google.com) tells me how many people are following my blog, Fiction Notes, by RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or by the Email option for subscribing to my posts. (See the bottom of this post to sign up to get Fiction Notes daily in your email!)

Statcounter.com This site provides you with a java script code to put on your website and counts visitors to each page tagged. In Word Press, the blogging platform I use, it’s simple to add this code to template pages, which means I do it once and don’t worry about it again. Except to check how many countries have read my blog posts! (About 200+)

Google Analytics. Another Google offering (log into your google account for more info), the analytics program offers even more in-depth stats about website traffic. I want to know if you’re reading! Neither Analytics or Statcounter collect personal information, they just monitor the number of times certain pages are pulled up. Talk about vanity: you can get lost in things like, 35 people from India read my blog this month; or, my readership is up 3.74325234% for readers from Australia. Vanity, it may be, but I still look at it about once a week. Woman, thy name is vanity. (Don’t you love the picture of the vanity pedicure?)

To follow other blogs

Google Reader. Yes, another Google widget; again, log onto your google account for more info. This one keeps track of the blogs I want to read and has the new posts available on one page whenever I’ve got time to browse. I’m following ALL your blogs, I’m sure! To find out if I am, you could look at your own Feedburner stats – I’m there. And loving everything you post, even if I don’t always leave comments.

That only skims the surface: I also use dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, bartleby.com (Bartlett’s quotations), and many other online tools. What are your favorites?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Book publicity

Darcy Pattison — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:14:42 +0000

What Book Publicity Tools Work Best for You?

Today is a question about book publicity: What works? In your experience, what has helped the most?

Virtual Book Tours. Margot Finke is asking: Do Virtual Book Tours work? Do they help you sell books? If you’ve done a VBT, go over and add a comment – we need a collective opinion on this!

Book Trailers. Likewise, do book trailers work? Publicists have different opinions. I’d like to hear yours.

Wikipedia. Are you listed in Wikipedia, as one publisher suggested I try to do, even though Wikipedia’s policy says you can’t list yourself. Have you traded listings with a friend?

Websites. Of course. Or a blog. But what works best on a website or a blog?

What else have you tried that worked get publicity for your novel, or sell your picture book?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win