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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

Kate Gingold Host
/ Categories: Brief History

Businesses that Reach across the Decades


 While we in Naperville enjoy our reputation as active members of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor, we also love our history. So it’s no surprise that our business community reflects the same innovation and traditional ties.


Historically, woodworkers who normally crafted furniture and cabinetry also made coffins when the need arose. Serving as the community’s undertaker became a logical second profession.






In the early twentieth century, undertakers could be counted on to have a vehicle long enough to transport a body on a stretcher, so their hearses often pulled double duty as the city’s ambulance service as well.


Oliver and Arthur Beidelman were brothers who worked for their uncle Fred Long and Long’s partner Peter Kroehler at their furniture and under-taking business on Washington and Jackson.




At one point a chapel was added to the building specifically for funeral services. The Fitness Experts are currently in the chapel’s ground floor.

Oliver’s  son took over the funeral parlor operations with partner John Kunsch and his granddaughter continues to run the family furniture business.


Charles Friedrich was another such furniture maker and undertaker who had a shop on Jefferson Street. In the 1930’s he moved his business to Henry Durrand’s expansive home on Mill Street. Friedrich’s son Ben continued operating the funeral home after his father died and eventually hired an assistant in 1967 named Ray Jones.


After Ben Friedrich’s passed, Jones purchased the business, adding his name to Friedrich’s and keeping the beautiful Mill Street house. Son Dave and daughter Stephanie are now part of the Friedrich-Jones team. Ray Jones was honored by the Naperville Chamber with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009 .

The funeral director profession certainly has changed over the years, but service to our community obviously has not!
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Authors Need Websites!

Do you need to get a domain name for your book or name?

Want a website to promote your books?

Get started now without blowing the budget at the SprocketStore.

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.


 

 

Get a Book Siging Checklist and our Sprocket Report

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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