The Savvy Book Marketer

Welcome Authors & Publishers

The Savvy Book Marketer book marketing blog (formerly Book Marketing Maven) is your source for free book marketing tips and resources.

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• Discover how to create a book marketing plan, learn about author blogs, and more.

 I wish you much success with your books!

Promote Your Book by Becoming a Keynote Speaker

In today's guest post, author Ellen Brazer shares her success in landing speaking engagements and offers tips for authors seeking to promote themselves and their books through speaking.

Congratulations! You’ve written a book. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back for your great accomplishment. As you probably have realized, finishing your book means you are only half way up Mt. Everest. To arrive at the summit you have to find a way to get people reading what you wrote. There are many ways to make this happen, as you know from following the invaluable advice on the Savvy Book Marketer blog.  Here is another idea for you: become a keynote speaker at events where you can sign and sell books.

I have done this with astounding success in Florida, where I live. In the past few months I have spoken to over 1,600 people. My book, Clouds Across the Sun, is a historical novel with a Jewish theme. I have been the keynote speaker at The Jewish Museum, Temple Sisterhoods, Brandeis Alumni, bookstores, libraries, women’s clubs, and author luncheons for Hadassah, National Council of Jewish Women, and several Jewish Heritage Clubs. I also spoke at the Jewish Book Council in New York and have been invited to Denver, Colorado and Westchester, New York. Twelve major events are already booked into 2011.

Here is the formula that worked for me:

1. Identify your niche market - who will want to read your book. It’s not rocket science, I promise. But it can be daunting. My book has a Jewish theme and so I wrote to every Jewish club, organization, synagogue, woman’s group I could find. I focused on Florida, to minimize travel expenses. Whatever your book is about, fiction or non-fiction, it has a specific market and it is your job to identify that market.

7 Reasons You Need a Facebook Fan Page

Facebook Pages (also known as Fan Pages) look similar to personal Profiles, but they are designed for business use and they are a terrific way to promote yourself and your business. You can create a Page for your business, book, or even a character in a book. People join your Page by clicking the "like" button at the top of the page. (That button used to say "become a fan.")

Facebook Pages have several advantages over personal Profiles:

1.  You're limited to 5,000 friends on your Profile, but there's no limit on the number of people who can "like" your Page.

2.  Pages are designed for business use, so it's more acceptable to be promotional on a Page than on a Profile.

3.  You can create multiple Pages to promote different products or businesses.

4.  You can send a message to everyone who has joined your page. Your message will show up in the Update section of each fan's Inbox.

5.  You can create customized "tabs" or screens on your Page. For example, you can create a tab to promote your book and include your cover image, book video trailer and other content on that tab.

Relevance and Credibility - Key Selling Points in Promoting Your Book

In today's guest post I'm delighted to have author and book marketing expert Irene Watson share her strategies for using relevance and credibility as selling points in promoting a book.

Relevance and credibility are two key points in any form of advertising or promotion which includes social networking. I have yet to see book marketing experts address these topics when they tell us social networking, building our list, creating groups on Facebook, or a whole gamut of other marketing ways is of utmost importance if we want to sell our book. In reality, doing all these things isn't go to get us anywhere if we don't have relevance and credibility to what we say or do.

Relevance:  You must prove to your potential reader how pertinent, connected, or applicable your book is to them , current times/ social issues, or currently popular.

Credibility:  You must prove to your potential reader you are trustworthy and an expert on the subject. This also includes your personal code of ethics, integrity and reasonable grounds to be believed.

Relevance without credibility is just hype and without substance. Credibility without relevance is boring. But combining the two together you get power.  You get the potential reader's attention, you get respect, and you create interest in your book.

Are you frowning right now and wondering how you can do both?  It's easy:

New RSS Feed Options at FeedBurner

Recently I wrote a post about why it's so important to offer RSS feeds on your author blog. Feeds enable your author blog posts to be automatically delivered to your readers' email inbox or feed reader, so you don't have to rely on people remembering to visit your blog periodically.

The best way to set up a feed is through FeedBurner. You may be tempted to use one of the feed widgets offered by your blog service provider, but they do not allow you to see statistics on your feed subscribers or customize your feed settings. It's best to go directly to FeedBurner to set up your feed.

I recently logged onto FeedBurner to set up a feed for a new website I'm developing (more details on that coming soon!) and I noticed that there were quite a few changes on the FeedBurner site since the last time I was there. It seems that since Google purchased FeedBurner several years ago, they have continued to tweak the service by adding and deleting options that help you promote your blog posts, podcasts, and vcasts (video blogs).

I was happy to learn that MaAnna Stephenson has just updated her ebook, Just The FAQs: RSS Feeds, to reflect the recent changes at FeedBurner. If you offer your feed via email, you’ll want to check out all of the new customizing options for email format and delivery. There is also a new Password Protector option that helps keep your feed safe from hackers, but could negatively impact the delivery of your email feed. The new Socialize tool has customizing options for pushing your feed to Twitter, but the jury is still out on whether this tool works well for everyone.

Be sure to read the Publicize section to learn about an often overlooked link on FeedBurner that offers even more free ways to publicize your blog and help you rank higher with Google. Podcasters should pay attention to MaAnna's explanation of the conflict between FeedBurner's SmartFeed and SmartCast features.

If you aren't yet offering feeds on your blog, get started today! If you're already got a feed, it's a good idea to log onto FeedBurner and check out the new features. From your home page, click on the name of your feed, then go through all of the tabs and check out the various features and settings.

To learn more about how to set up your feed on FeedBurner and take full advantage of all of its features, I highly recommend Just The FAQs: RSS Feeds. This ebook offers step-by-step instructions in plain English, and comes in several versions, designed for installing and configuring feeds on WordPress.com or WordPress.org.

If you use TypePad (like I do), read this article to learn how to find your TypePad RSS feed and connect it to FeedBurner, then order the WordPress.com version of the Just The FAQs: RSS Feeds ebook to learn how to configure your feed.

And be sure to subscribe to my blog so you don't miss any posts on The Savvy Book Marketer! In the right column of this page, under "Get Blog Updates," just enter your email address in the box to receive blog posts by email or click the "subscribe in a reader" link to have the feed delivered to your favorite feed reader or to the "RSS Feeds" folder in Outlook.

Book Marketing Resources for Children's Book Authors

Most of the book marketing advice that you'll find on The Savvy Book Marketer is applicable to all types of books, but sometimes it's helpful to zero in on specific tactics for certain kinds of books. Below are some tips and resources especially for the authors and publishers of children's and young adult books.

Although young adults often choose their own reading material, books for younger children are usually purchased by parents, grandparents and other friends and family. Teachers, home schoolers, librarians, youth program leaders and others who work with children also recommend or purchase books.

When seeking reviews for children's books, look for publications and websites geared toward parenting and childhood education, in addition to book review sites.

Virtual reader communities are a specialized type of social networking site where readers and authors network, and readers recommend books to others. Check out these two communities designed especially for children's books:

JacketFlap focuses on children's and young adult books

Big Universe is devoted to children's picture books.

Here are some other helpful book marketing resources for children's books:

12 Secrets to Selling More Books at Events

In today's guest post, book marketing expert Penny Sansevieri shows authors how to how maximize their book sales at signings and other events.

So you got a book event, great! Now you want to maximize it, right? You've heard your writing buddies talk (or perhaps read online) about the lack of attendance at signings, so figuring out how to maximize the event, regardless of the numbers might be tricky. While I spend a lot of time addressing online marketing, the offline component is one you shouldn't overlook. If book events are where you want to focus, then bringing in some ideas to help you sell more books is something you should consider.

Some years back when I was promoting The Cliffhanger I ended up at a book signing in the driving rain, I mean it was pouring and the store was all but empty. It was amazing I sold even one book, let alone seven. While not a big number, the copies were all sold to people who were seeking refuge in the store from the rain and not there for my event. This signing taught me a lot about events and connecting with consumers in stores. If you have an event coming up, consider these ideas before you head out:

Use the Calendar to Promote Yourself and Your Book

In today's guest post, publishing coach Robin Hoffman shows authors how to capitalize on seasonal events and holidays to gain valuable book and author publicity.

As Valentine’s Day approached, I encouraged my client, America’s love expert Debra Berndt to send out a press release to the local TV news stations. That weekend, she appeared on two local news shows, and Denver’s ABC affiliate loved her so much, they had her on monthly as a regular expert guest. This breakthrough helped Debra send her platform into a hyper-growth pattern that later led her to get a book deal with Wiley.

You might be thinking, “Well, that won’t apply to me, because my topic has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day or any other holiday!”

Think again. In any given calendar month, literally dozens of notable, yet mostly little-known, dates are lined up just waiting to lend a hook where you can hang your story.

For example, did you know that May is, among other things, “date your mate” month, national bike month, and older American’s month? And aside from Cinco de Mayo, May 5th is also Oyster Day, and May 6th is my favorite, No Diet Day!

Promote Your Book with a Twitter World Tour

In today's guest post, novelist Graham Storrs shares the details of his amazing 24-hour around the world Twitter tour to launch his new book, and offers some practical tips for authors who want to plan their own Twitter world tour. If you don't have Twitter followers across the globe (or don't think you can stay awake for 24 hours) you could modify your tour to cover a more limited area.

Between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. your time, on February 15, 2010, I visited your time zone and tweeted. I did it as part of the TimeSplash Non-Stop 24-hour Round-the-World Twitter Tour, which I did to help launch my début novel, TimeSplash. It went like this:

I began in New York at 7 p.m. on the 15th. That time zone includes much of the Eastern Seaboard, eastern Canada, and a chunk of South America. I tweeted a hello to everybody in the whole time zone, told them about my book, chatted to anybody who was around, and, at 8 p.m. exactly, moved west by one time zone. That meant it was 7 p.m. again, but now I was in the central U.S. states, central Canada, and Mexico. I did it all again, said hello, mentioned my book, and chatted to anyone who replied.

Every hour, I moved west again by one time zone, jumping back each time to 7 p.m. Appropriate for a book about time traveling. In just a few hours, I had crossed the Americas. Leaving Alaska behind, I crossed the dateline, and entered Russia.

Tweeting for 24 hours solid was pretty tiring, but it didn't kill me (and, considering how I felt when I reached Europe and still had nine hours to go, surviving felt like a small miracle at the time.) In fact, I had a lot of fun. Most places I went, there were people to talk to and, to my surprise, there was a crowd of people who (while they were awake!) were following me and cheering me on.

I had feared that my regular followers would get bored with my constant tweeting but people seemed to enjoy it. I picked up dozens of followers during the tour and several people tweeted to say they'd bought the book and were enjoying it. One guy bought it, read the whole thing, and blogged a very nice review before the tour was even over!

This is how I prepared myself:

Top 10 Ways Authors Can Use Twitter

Twitter is a great tool for building an author platform and promoting books. Here are some of the top ways authors can benefit from Twittering:

1. Help others by sharing information, while you gain a reputation as an expert. Nonfiction authors can post links to helpful articles, recommend resources, and teach mini-lessons. Novelists can talk about their genre. Children's authors can promote literacy, share information about the benefits of reading for children and young adults, and offer tips on how to select age-appropriate reading material.

2. Meet potential customers and stay in touch with existing customers. Promote your Twitter URL everywhere you're listed online, and include keywords in your tweets to attract followers who are interested in your topic or genre.

3. Stay on top of news and trends in your field or genre and get ideas for your articles and blog by reading the tweets of the people you follow.

4. Promote live and virtual events such as book signings, podcasts, virtual book tours, book fairs, teleseminars, and book launches.

5. Gain visibility and new followers by hosting a Twitter contest where you give away a prize to a randomly chosen winner, or give a free gift to everyone who follows you and re-tweets your contest message.

6. Ask for help and get instant responses. When you request product recommendations, referrals to experts, or help with a technical issue, it's amazing how helpful folks are.

7. Spread good will by helping your peers. Introduce other people in your field or genre, or recommend other related books or products.  Re-tweet interesting posts from people that you follow.

8. Promote your book and other products and services. The key is to be subtle and make promotional tweets a small percentage of your overall communications, so people feel like they gain value from following you, not just a stream of sales pitches.

9. Meet other authors, experts, publishers, marketers, and vendors. Twitter is ideal for networking and it's a great place to meet potential joint venture partners.

10. Keep in touch when you're on the road. There are a number of applications that facilitate twittering from mobile devices.

Have fun! It's fascinating to meet people from all over the world, gain a glimpse into their lives, and develop a cyber-relationship.

Learn More About Using Twitter for Book Promotion

To learn more about how authors can use Twitter to promote themselves and their books, check out the Twitter Guide for Authors ebook and the Boost Your Book Sales With Twitter audio program.

Drafting Your Back Cover Sales Copy

For today's guest post, I'm delighted to have Dan Poynter, a leading authority on independent publishing, share his expertise on how to create book covers that sell. Keep in mind that when selling books online, the front cover and sales copy are just as important as they are in a retail setting.

The Outside of Your Book Should Sell the Inside.

Everyone Judges a Book by its Cover—And What You Can Do About It.

People do not read the book before making a buying decision. Consumers do not read it in the store. Sales reps only carry book covers and jackets to show store buyers while wholesalers and distributors say “just send us the cover copy.” All buying decisions are made on the illustration/design and the sales copy on the outside of the book. Yes, packaging is everything.

Each year, U.S. industry spends more than $50 billion on package design. Now, that is not $50 billion for the packages, not for the contents. That money is for the design of the packages. Packages prompt buyers to reach for the product whether it is pantyhose, corn flakes or hair spray.

Stores have tens of thousands of books being displayed spine-out. With all this congestion, it is hard to get attention. Initially, all a potential buyer sees is the book’s spine. If the browser takes it down, he or she will gaze at the cover about four seconds and the flip it over to read the back cover. On average, he or she will spend just seven seconds here, so the trick is to keep them reading longer. Your copy has to be punchy and benefit-laden; it has to speak to the potential buyer.

How to Sell Books Beyond the Bookstore Market

Retail bookstores are notorious for buying books and then returning unsold copies, and it can be difficult for self-published authors to get into bookstores at all. Online bookstores are easier to work with, but there are dozens of other places to sell books, including:

• corporations, associations, and nonprofits
• gift shops, airport shops and specialty retailers
• schools and libraries
• book clubs and catalogs
• government agencies and the military
• museums, zoos and parks
• discount stores and warehouse clubs
• cable television shopping networks
• supermarkets and drug stores

These "special markets" for books can especially lucrative because sales are sometimes made in large quantities and are usually on a non-returnable basis.

Resources for Special Sales

The most comprehensive resource for selling to nonbookstore markets is How To Make Real Money Selling Books (Without Worrying About Returns): A Complete Guide to the Book Publishers' World of Special Sales by Brian Jud.

This 376-page book is absolutely packed with sales strategies, resources, insider tips, contact information, case studies, and information about working with distribution partners. Click on the Look Inside button on the book page above and take a look at the book's Table of Contents to get an idea of what you'll find in this comprehensive reference.

I recently attended a webinar where Brian Jud and his associate, Guy Achtzehn, shared their expertise in selling to U.S. military market, and I was stuck by the sheer size and complexity of this market. How To Make Real Money Selling Books contains a detailed chapter on selling to the U.S. military, explaining strategies for selling to domestic military bases and posts; overseas U.S. military installations and ships; military libraries; military exchange services (retail stores); military associations and more. This chapter contains literally dozens of links to websites where you can find specific selling details and contact information, and even has information on promoting to the military media.

For a taste of what you'll find in the corporate sales section of How To Make Real Money Selling Books, read Brian Jud's article about selling books to corporations.

Here are some other resources for selling books beyond traditional retail bookstores:

For detailed information on selling to the library market, read The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Selling Your Book to Libraries. The book includes contact information for the top 100 public and top 100 academic libraries in the United States. The Texas Book Marketing Handbook has lists of the top 100 public and top 100 academic libraries in Texas.

See this article for tips on how to sell books to gift shops and specialty retailers.

To learn how to maximize your sales and profits through online bookstores, read Aiming at Amazon and POD for Profit, both by Aaron Shepard.

When you create your book marketing plan, be sure to think outside the box and explore ways to sell your book beyond the traditional bookstore market.

Increase Your Twitter Followers With a Contest

Twitter is a terrific way to meet and communicate with potential book customers as well as influencers who can spread the word about your book. In today's guest post Tony Eldridge, author of Conducting Effective Twitter Contests, shares some tips for using contests to increase your Twitter followers.

Contests are a very popular way of gaining subscribers. In Twitter, followers are the equivalent of subscribers. In this post, I want to discuss how to perform a successful Twitter contest. This is something that I did which primed my Twitter follower base with targeted followers. Once you gain a threshold of followers, your list can continue to grow on its own, as long as you put out good, relevant, and useful tweets.

Here are some things to keep in mind when you decide to start a Twitter contest:

1.  Know your purpose for the contest – Are you trying to sell a product, service or book? Are you trying to add subscribers to a list other than Twitter? Are you trying to build your subscriber followers? In my opinion, you will achieve the most success with your Twitter contest if you focus on building your Twitter followers. If you can find the right followers, your contest will have lasting success.

2.  Give some thought as to the give-aways – What will be your prize? That is, what will be the carrot you use to get people to enter your contest? By picking the prizes that appeal specifically to your target audience, you will have a carrot that will produce great results.

3.  Don't go at it alone – Here is a mistake that many people make when running Twitter contests designed to increase their follower base: They try to do everything themselves. If you craft your contest to give others a stake in it, you will motivate others to promote the contest for you and give you exposure to their followers.

4.  Have a plan in place to track your entries – One of the worst things you can do it to launch a great contest only to find a few days in that you forgot to set up a way to track those who are entering. With a little preparation, you can make sure you are ready to record every valid entry.

5.  Start early and stay organized – I bet there are more steps in conducting a successful Twitter contest than you think. Sure, you can wing it, but just like with anything of value, you will probably miss some opportunities by not planning like you should. If you give yourself time, you will be able to conduct a powerful contest without rushing through things.

Tony Eldridge is the author of the action-adventure novel, The Samson Effect, and author of the innovative video ebook, Conducting Effective Twitter Contests. On his Marketing Tips For Authors blog you can find practical advice on low cost and no-cost methods for marketing your book. Sign up for his free newsletter to get video tips to help you with some of the more technical aspects of marketing your book online.

Learn More About Using Twitter for Book Promotion

To learn more about how authors can use Twitter to promote themselves and their books, check out the Conducting Effective Twitter Contests ebook, Twitter Guide for Authors ebook and the Boost Your Book Sales With Twitter audio program.

Meet the Book Marketing Expert: Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Today I'm delighted to have as my guest book marketing expert Carolyn Howard-Johnson, who is the author of The Frugal Book Promoter and The Frugal Editor and is also a novelist and poet. What you may not know about Carolyn is that she also has nearly three decades of experience in retailing, as a gift shop owner and manager.

Carolyn has just published a new book, Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers: Tweaking Your Tweets and Other Tips for Integrating Your Social Media. I have asked her to share with authors and publishers some of the wisdom she has gained from being both an author/publisher and a retailer.

Welcome Carolyn. First, let's talk about what retailers and publishers have in common.

You’ve always had a way of getting to the crux of an issue, Dana. (-:  In terms of marketing—online and about every other way—they have just about everything in common. Marketing is marketing is marketing. Great tweeting for marketing in one arena is about the same as great tweeting in another. The differences are only in the details.

What can authors and indie publishers learn from studying how retailers operate?

Right up front I have to tell you that my retailing experience informed my ability to further my career as a writer. What we writers sometimes forget is that we are selling a product. We might not like calling it that, but that’s what our book is. And it makes no difference whether we are self publishing or publishing traditionally, we’re still selling our books. A good knowledge of marketing—meaning marketing and all its sisters like promotion, publicity, and advertising—is a career builder for sure, in just about any endeavor.

By the way, authors and retailers—brick and mortar retailers as well as online retailers—can both benefit from partnering in promotions.

Perk Up Your Bio

In today's guest post, marketing expert and mentor Marcia Yudkin shares some great tips for making your biographical information more compelling.

On your "About" page, in conference materials, in media kits or elsewhere, a business bio should not be a cold, dry list of qualifications, with every fact in its appropriate slot.

Nor should it be a chronology of your career.

Instead, in your bio, provide an overview of your achievements and distinctive work approach. Through what you say or how you say it, also impart a sense of you as a person.

To warm up your bio with sparks of life, include one or more of these:

• A quote from you or your personal motto

• A phrase clients or an authority figure use about you (clients call him "the uncoach" because his advice is so laid back and subtle)

• Fanciful or unexpected language (paints the scenes that beckon to her)

• Concrete details (trained his first dog, a Schnauzer, at age 10)

• Vivid extremes or contrasts (has taught everyone from CEOs to imprisoned drug dealers)

• Tantalizing numbers (the third most quoted Canadian chartered accountant)

• A fact that humbles you (Alan Weiss once appeared on Jeopardy, where he lost to a dancing waiter)

Reprinted with permission from Marcia Yudkin's free weekly Marketing Minute newsletter, published every Wednesday since 1997.  Subscribe at http://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm.

Prices of Ebook Readers Continue to Fall

When Amazon's Kindle ebook reader was first introduced in late 2007, it was priced at $399. By 2009, the price was down to $259, and in June of 2010, the price of the Kindle ebook reader dropped to $189.

Now Amazon has announced that the new third-generation Kindle will be available in late August, along with a the new Kindle Wi-Fi version that has no 3G (cell phone network) access and sells for just $139.

On the Borders website, there's an interesting chart comparing the features of several ebook readers.

See this article to learn more about ebook reading devices and how to create ebooks for them.