Book Marketing Maven

Welcome Book Marketers!

On this site you will find a wealth of free book marketing tips, ideas, and resources. To receive updates by email or RSS feed, use the subscribe links in the left column.

To get my free Top Book Marketing Tips ebook and The Savvy Book Marketer ezine, use the sign up form on the left. Click here to learn more about promoting books and authors through social media.

I wish you much success with your books!

Promote Your Book on Radio Talk Shows

Nonfiction authors often appear as subject experts on radio talk shows, and fiction writers may be interviewed as well. Authors are sometimes interviewed on drive-time music radio shows too.

A good way to approach broadcast media is to pitch a show or segment idea, briefly outlining what you would talk about and why their listeners or viewers would find it valuable or entertaining. Contact the station's program director or the show's producer.

As with print media, it's generally better to start small and local and work your way up to the big time. Below are three sources for national radio talk show databases. All three of these databases are produced by authors who have been successful promoting their own books on the radio.

•    Gordon's Radio List includes 1,100 locally produced and nationally syndicated radio shows that interview guests.

•    Jo Sabah offers a how-to book, an audio program and a database. His book, How to Get on Radio Talk Shows All Across America Without Leaving Home, is also available on Amazon.com.

•    Alex Carroll offers a radio station database and training materials.

Finding Promotional Hooks for Novels

In many ways, fiction is more challenging to market than nonfiction. Novelists must think creatively to apply the marketing tactics commonly used for nonfiction books.

Fiction authors need to find promotional "hooks" within their books. It might be the profession or hobby of the main character in a novel, or the town or historical era where the story is set, or some aspect of  the book that relates to current news or events.

The key is to market to "like-minded people" or people who have an interest in some specific aspect of the story.

If one of the main characters is a horse trainer, then horse lovers are a natural target market. A story involving corporate scandal could be tied to today's headlines. Southerners identify with novels set in the South. If the story line involves a particular health condition or ethnic group, that could be a hook. A book that's set during the civil rights movement will appeal to people who are interested in that topic or era.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller has done an excellent job of marketing her Vietnam-era novel, Mrs. Lieutenant, to military audiences. Can you think of other examples of promotional hooks for fiction?

How Blogging and Feeds Benefit Authors

Today's guest interview from MaAnna Stephenson is part of her virtual tour. Two decades of technical writing, web design and marketing for private clients and community groups led MaAnna to produce the Just the FAQ series of ebooks and classes to help authors learn to use online tools to market their books.

Welcome MaAnna. Can you tell us why it is so important for authors to have a blog? 

A blog can be easily updated by the author and it allows them to showcase current events and news. That’s very important because it presents the book and the author in a lively, dynamic atmosphere that generates excitement and translates into more sales. Because readers can leave comments, a blog also gives an author a way to develop a two-way communication with their audience. This endears the author to their readers and creates a loyal fan base.

Nonfiction authors can use posts to share their expertise and build their reputation as an expert. Consistently posting to the blog also helps the author rank higher in search engines simply because they have more entries indexed with the search engine. It gives the author a bigger footprint online.

What if an author already has a static website – is there any way to incorporate a blog into that site so they don’t have to have two different sites?

Yes, it’s actually very easy to do. Many authors have already spent a lot of money on a static site design that acts as an online brochure for their book. What makes the site static is that it only presents information and does not offer a way for the viewer to interact by leaving comments. It’s also likely that the author does not know how to change the programming code to make updates to the site, showing new activity.

Instead of paying to completely redesign the entire site, an author can establish a free blog account with Blogger and then the blog’s RSS feed can simply be incorporated into the front page of the static site with just a few changes to the layout. It’s a very cost-effective solution.

Any other advice about blogging?

If you have a blog, you need to offer an RSS feed for it and advertise that it’s available for subscription. More and more online viewers are opting to view blog posts in a reader, which gives them the ability to build an online newspaper of sorts. It will deliver exactly the content they want to read without them having to actually go visit multiple blogs to see if there has been an update.

One of the reasons the trend toward RSS feed subscription is growing is due to the fact that online viewers have always surfed in their virtual house shoes, meaning that they’re usually relaxed at home or on break from their job while they are perusing the Internet. The fewer clicks they have to make to get to the information they want to read, the better. Also, more folks are viewing the Internet on their mobile devices. RSS feeds can be setup to optimize the blog entries to display much better on these devices than the actual blog would appear.

MaAnna's new Blog and RSS Feeds class takes you step-by-step through the process of creating, customizing, optimizing, and using a blog on Blogger with RSS feeds from FeedBurner, and includes advanced tips and tricks not found in the books.

Leave a comment below to be entered in a random drawing for two free Just the FAQs classes. Not only that, but every commenter is a winner and will receive a copy of MaAnna's Quick Step Guide. If you haven't already read her books, you can pick up the series here.

7 Ways to Promote Your Book With Video

Video is one of the hottest online promotional tools these days, and with good reason. People watch hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube, and folks who enjoy videos often forward the link to someone else, creating viral marketing opportunities.

Google includes videos in search results, and people also search Google and video sites for videos on a particular topic. So, how can authors take advantage of the power of video to promote themselves and their books? Here are some ideas:

Why Freemium is an Excellent Opportunity for Authors

Today’s guest post is from Joanna Penn, author and blogger at The Creative Penn: Writing, self-publishing, print-on-demand, internet sales and promotion . . .for your book.

You can get anything on the internet for free these days, so how are people meant to make any money? The concept of “freemium” is to have free information available to people that gives them excellent value, then offer premium products and services on top of that. This model is being used by many internet businesses, and authors are perfectly positioned to adopt the practice in order to make more sales online.
 
You need to give away information for free because:

• It is the way the internet works now. If you don’t have something for free, people will go and get it elsewhere as it is expected.


• It gives people an opportunity to experience your work so they can decide whether they want more of you. It gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise or writing ability to them.


• If people feel they get great value from your free information, they will be more interested in your paid content. If they feel like they are building a relationship with you, they are more likely to buy from you.

• You can build your online platform this way by building an email list of subscribers to your free information.

Build Buzz With a Twitter Contest

Twitter contests and giveaways are a fun way to build buzz, increase your followers, and promote your book at the same time. 

With a prize drawing, a winner is drawn from the contest entrants. You can give away a free copy of your book or put together a prize package that includes several related books or products. One advantage to inviting others to contribute to the prize package is that they can help promote the contest. You may want to create a web page or blog post that describes the contest, so you can link to it.

Typically, people enter a Twitter contest by following you and then re-tweeting a specific message such as this: "Just entered to win an autographed book: The Garden of the Soul. Just follow @LynnSerafinn & Retweet. See http://bit.ly/beq28 #GOTS"

You get the promotional ball rolling by tweeting about your contest, then others pass the message on for you by re-tweeting.

Secrets to Networking Success

The recorded version of my June 18 Secrets to Networking Success webinar with Brian Jud is now available. You'll learn how to build your book sales through networking, both online and in person. I reveal the secrets to developing profitable relationships online and show you how to get the most benefit from networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Brian will offer tips for building and nurturing relationships through more personal means. This free webinar is part of a series of educational programs sponsored by BookSurge.

Should Your Book Be In Libraries?

Some authors and publishers worry that having their books offered for free check out in libraries will hurt consumer sales. This is probably more of an issue with fiction than with nonfiction. But many people who check out fiction in libraries are voracious readers who get most of their reading material from libraries and don't purchase many books.

Library usage can actually boost sales of nonfiction books. Library patrons often purchase a nonfiction book they have checked out from the library, because they want their own copy for future reference or to make notes in.

Having your book in libraries is also good publicity. Anyone who sees or reads your book can potentially recommend it to others.

Nearly $1.8 billion worth of books were purchased by libraries in 2005, according to the Book Industry Study Group. Don't miss out on this potentially lucrative market.

Excerpted from The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Selling Your Book to Libraries.

Easy Ways to Promote Your Book With Articles

An ongoing article marketing campaign is a terrific way to promote your book and yourself. In the June issue of The Savvy Book Marketer ezine, you'll learn about easy ways to promote with articles, using content that you've already written.

For Book Publicity Success, Start Small

Sure, most authors dream of being on Oprah and selling mega books. There's nothing wrong with shooting for the stars, but the authors you see on major talk shows probably didn't start out there. Chances are, it took them quite a while to build their author platform and their publicity skills.

Here are some tips for climbing the publicity ladder:

1. Create a media page for your website, containing information about you and your book, along with downloadable images of you and the book cover.

2. Start small by getting publicity in your local media, then work your way up from there. The "local resident publishes a book" angle is often considered newsworthy, especially in smaller towns. Other possibilities include local radio or television talk shows, regional magazines, your college alumni publication, and newsletters and journals of your professional associations. As you gather print and broadcast media clips, post them in your online media room.

Attract More Followers With Your Tweets

There are some people who will follow anyone on Twitter. Hey, the governor of California follows me, along with 42,000 of his other closest friends.

But most of the people who follow you probably do so because they find your tweets of interest. So, be interesting! Share useful tips and links, recommend resources, introduce your colleagues, and comment on current events related to your topic or genre. Make some personal and humorous tweets too—just don't tweet about what you had for lunch!

One of the most important things you can do is try to write tweets that other people will love to re-tweet. Every time someone re-tweets your message, you are visible to their followers. You even get exposure when someone re-tweets a message that you had re-tweeted from someone else. So re-tweet interesting tweets that you think your followers would enjoy.

For more ideas on what to tweet about, see my article 21 Things to Tweet About on Twitter, excerpted from The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing.

Build Your Author Platform With Online Forums

Forums are online communities where people who are interested in a particular subject can ask questions, offer solutions, and share experiences. They are also called discussion groups, list serves, bulletin boards, and newsgroups. Some are web based and others function as email lists.
 
Typically, members post questions and others offer answers. Some posts are informational, passing along a resource that would be of interest to the group. Many forums are moderated, which means that each message must be approved before it is posted to the group.

Forums are free and they are a great way to network with people who share your interests, build your reputation as an expert, learn from others, and subtly promote your book.

Anatomy of an Information Product Launch

As Phyllis Zimbler Miller prepares for the July 1 launch of her new Miller Mosaic Internet Marketing Program, she is blogging daily about the steps she's taking to prepare for the launch. These posts provide an interesting opportunity for a behind-the-scenes look at a product launch and promotional campaign as it develops. Read the first blog post here and subscribe to the feed to keep up with Phyllis's progress.

Market Your Expertise Through Teleseminars

Today's guest post is from Kathleen Gage, a leading expert on making money with teleseminars.

If you have certain expertise and want to market it, there is nothing better than teaching others. It has been said that teleseminars are one of the best ways to demonstrate your expertise to potential clients and market your business. In fact, leading teleseminars is an excellent marketing technique that virtually any expert would benefit from incorporating into their business and marketing model.

There are several different types of teleseminars you can organize. You can host a one-time teleseminar or arrange a series. You have the option of charging participants for each teleseminar or offer it for no charge at all so that you can sell your products or services at the end of the teleseminar.

You can get contracted as an expert that a company or association hires for a specific number of sessions. Another option is for you to coordinate the mechanics of a teleseminar without being a visible expert. You are hired more for your technical, marketing and project management skills with this type of arrangement.

Interview on Selling Books to Libraries

Author and former librarian Amber Polo recently interviewed me to discuss selling books to libraries. Check out the story on her blog.

Be sure to return to Amber's blog on June 8, as Deborah Schneider, Romance Writers Association 2009 Librarian of the Year, shares her tips for  approaching your local library to pitch a program.