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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

Naperville 1920 Flashback: The Kroehler Co. Baseball Team

In May of 1920, Kroehler Manufacturing put together a baseball team for the Fox Valley Industrial League. The team reads like a “Who’s Who” of Naperville history including:

F.J. Wehrli – lived in the Pre-Emption house and raised 13 children there
Robert Shimp – his family had a local farm and some served in the fire department
Clarence and Albert Stenger – of the brewery family
Louis Germann – his family started with a harness business in the 1890s
Fred Yanke – Naperville firefighter
Henry Stoner – family started blacksmith shop in 1870s
James and Clarence Kroehler – nephews of Peter
Joe Haas – his brother Bert became a pro ball player
Ernest and William Voss – brother Julian ran for Police Magistrate
Elmer Otterpohl – the family had a butcher shop and sausage business
Leo Koppa – served in the fire department
Clarence and Frank Barley – Clarence was involved in building the YMCA
Fred Shupp, Ray Ballman and Jeff Burke are also listed. They were all Kroehler employees, but kept lower profiles, apparently, since there wasn't much to be found about them. Many of these men also served in World War I.

Peter Kroehler was wildly successful, but the company also weathered quite a few storms. Some storms were literal – like the 1913 tornado that destroyed the first 5th Avenue factory – and some were more figurative such as the Great Depression. Kroehler himself spent two months in the early 1900s quarantined with smallpox. But he continued developing new ways to run his business and build employee morale which resulted in enviable success and loyalty.

100 years later, our own businesses in these opening months of 2020 are facing both figurative storms and quarantine. Now it’s our turn to develop new ways to run our businesses and build employee morale so we can also be wildly successful.

By the way, the newly-formed Kroehler team faced the previous year's pennant winners for their very first game. You'll be happy to know that the Kroehler team won!
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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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