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Using Tech for Book Marketing

Kate Gingold from Sprocket WebsitesKate has been building websites with her husband Don since 1996 for all sorts of clients, including authors.

Kate regularly writes about online marketing for Sprocket Websites and provides tips and techniques for entrepreneurs and small-business owners. Since being an author today is not really different from being an entrepreneur with a small business, most of those tips are just as useful to authors.

Kate is an author herself. She writes books on local history, including the award-winning "Ruth by Lake and Prairie," a fictionalized account of the true story of Great Lake pioneering to the shores of Chicago and beyond to found Naperville, Illinois. 

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Ruth By Lake and Prairie

Author Tips and Tales

Women Business Owners in Holland’s Directory

Kate Gingold Host 0 515 Article rating: 4.0

In honor of Women’s History Month, let’s take a look at the woman-owned businesses that were listed in the 1886 Holland’s Directory. At least seven are identified with a “Mrs.” proprietor and two shared an ad page, Mary Lindemann and Eva Blake. 

Holland’s says Lindemann’s general “store may be found on the south-side of Jefferson avenue west of Main street,” which would put it approximately where Everdine’s Grilled Cheese now operates. “Dry goods, groceries, confectionery and a fine assortment of cigars and tobacco are the chief articles in which she deals, and in each, standard goods are the rule,” the directory continues, and notes that she has been in business since 1872. 

According to Illinois marriage records, a Mary Auguste Dehnike wed John F. Lindemann on November 23, 1974. If this is the same Mary Lindemann, she was already working the counter years before her marriage. Unfortunately, no other information has been found about her, neither census, burial, nor birth records.


More details are available for Eva Blake. She married Anthony (“Andrew” in some records) in 1866. Anthony had been wounded twice during the Civil War and became ill with “chronic diarrhea.” Regardless, the young couple became the parents of daughters Annie, Mary, Emma, Marie, Maria, Matilda, Christina, and Marguerite.  

Unfortunately, Anthony Blake died in 1882, leaving Eva with their eight children to support. How she started her millinery business is unknown, but Holland’s notes that “being left a widow several years ago with only eight daughters [Their italics!] dependent on her efforts for support, she went to work with a will and constancy that has been admirable and commendable.”

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Full disclosure:  Writing for Sprocket Websites is my day job, so if you have questions about digital marketing, I'm happy to help!

 

Marketing Author Interview

Following a presentation for In Print Professional Writers Group, Kate's husband (and publisher!) Don was interviewed by author Louise Brass for WBOM Radio. During the conversation, Don shared many of the marketing tips from his presentation. You can listen to it online here.

The Sprocket Report

The Sprocket Report is published every other week with Internet marketing tips, tools and techniques. The archive features articles from 2011 up to the present. You are welcome to read how business owners are using technology to market themselves and apply those tips to your author business.


 

 

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Kate will be happy to send you her brief Book Signing Checklist. Treat your book promotion like a business - because it is!

AND, since much of your efforts will be online, she'll also enroll you in her Sprocket Report, an email newsletter sent every other Tuesday, that includes 2 Internet Marketing tips and a post from a guest blogger on related business.

No worries! She won't use your email address for anything else, and you can unsubscribe from the newsletter anytime, but the checklist is yours to keep.

Any questions of Kate? Leave them in the message field and she'll get back to you ASAP.

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