[Link] Your Book Landing Page—Can’t-Miss Headline Writing Secrets (and Mistakes to Avoid)

by Casey Demchak

When I was a kid there were word games where you could read a simple letter—and if you circled every fifth word you would get a secret message of some kind.

It was neat. So neat in fact that I developed a similar strategy that works wonders on website landing pages that are designed to sell books.

The strategy is built around the fact that before anyone reads your website sales page, they will almost always skim your headlines first. If all a visitor does is skim your sales page headlines and subheads, they should receive a concise selling message and a confident call to action.

This “secret” message will often entice them to go back and read all the copy between your headlines to learn more details about your book.

Here is an example of how this headline sequence technique can look on a web sales page promoting a business book.

Continue reading: http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2014/12/your-book-landing-page-cant-miss-headline-writing-secrets-and-mistakes-to-avoid/

[Link] How to Sell More at Comic Cons

Me at Alabama Phoenix Festival last year.

by Phil Hampton

Last week I read a tweet from someone who was berating the fact that he’d taken 100 copies of his comic to sell on his table and only managed to sell one copy.  It’s unfortunately a very common occurrence, but these 5 strategies will help you ensure that you leave the hall smiling and with a much lighter load!

1. Grab attention

This sounds obvious but it’s amazing how many comic creators try to leave their table do the talking, and that table only displays one or two items.  If you’re sitting in Artists Alley, surrounded by competition, it’s easy to be ignored by the hoards of passers-by.

There are a number of ways to grab people’s attention – either through your actions, or your props.

Continue reading: http://thecomicacademy.com/marketing-2/sell-comic-cons/