Book Marketing Maven

Should You Disclose Affiliate Relationships?

In my last post, I talked about reviewing products and earning money through affiliate programs, and I noted that some marketing gurus recommend disclosing the fact that you’re an affiliate.

Disclosure of affiliate links is a hot topic right now. The Federal Trade Commission recently announced a plan to crack down on bloggers who review or promote products without disclosing that they are earning freebies or payments—as well as the companies that compensate them. UPDATE: On October 5, the FTC released new disclosure guidelines.

I certainly can’t give legal advice, but I will tell you that I have recently started adding disclosures in several different places on my websites. For one example, see the Affiliate Disclosure section in the left sidebar of this blog. For other examples, see the websites of Chris Brogan and Jonathan Fields (the disclosures are toward the bottom of these pages).

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.

Get Inspired by These Author Websites

Check out these great author websites and look for ideas that you can use on your own site.

Jonathan Salem Baskin has a clever site that gets people involved. Notice his use of videos and photos, and check out the quiz on the right side of the page.

Tricia Goyer's site is a great example of showcasing multiple books, and the media page is excellent.

Mathew Boggs and Jason Miller have a great promotional site for their Project Everlasting book. 

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur website has a clever design and great features; take a look at the media room.

Kris Steinnes' website for Women of Wisdom is visually appealing and gives you a wonderful sense of the book.

Should You Publish Your Book Free Online?

Author and book marketing expert Tony Eldridge has taken the bold step of releasing his entire novel, The Samson Effect, online at no charge. The book will be posted on his website, one chapter each week for 29 weeks.

Nonfiction authors often publish much of the content of their book on their blog, one bite at a time, in the form of how-to articles. But it's fairly unusual for a novelist to give away their whole book online.

In addition to publicizing the book, Tony wants to create an interactive experience between the reader and author. Readers can post questions and reviews and comment on each week's post. Tony will take an active role in the discussion of the unfolding story, its marketing, and the writing process.

Attract Readers to Your Author Blog with Lists

Looking for ideas for your author blog posts? Bulleted and numbered lists are always popular with readers. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• 7 Ways to . . .
• Do You Make These 3 Mistakes in . . .
• Top 10 Reasons to . . .
• 9 Secrets to . . .
• 12 Tips for Effective . . .
• 5 Steps to . . .

At the end of your list article, invite readers to share their own ideas by commenting. Once you've created your list article, you can write a series of blog posts expanding on each of the items in your list.

Do you have any other suggestions for list-based blog posts? Please share using the Comment link below.

The Power of Keyword-Rich Domain Names

Many authors choose a website domain name that closely matches the title of their book. That's great for book promotion purposes. But if your domain name doesn't include important keywords, you could be missing out on search engine traffic.

The feature story in the March issue of The Savvy Book Marketer newsletter explores the advantages of using keyword-rich domain names and offers tips on using multiple domains, and finding and registering domains.

Promote Your Author Blog with RSS Feeds

Blogs are a terrific way to build your online presence and promote your book, but how do you get people to keep coming back to read your latest post? RSS feeds allow your posts to be automatically delivered to your readers' email or feed reader, and to other sites that are hungry for content.

For example, if you look about halfway down the left column of this blog, you'll see a space to subscribe to my blog posts via email. Just enter your email address and new posts will be delivered to your in box. The "subscribe in a reader" button from Feedburner allows you to receive blog posts in popular feed readers such as My Yahoo and Google, or to have feeds delivered to the "RSS Feeds" folder in Outlook 2007.

Some blog platforms, including Typepad, provide widgets to easily add these RSS buttons to your blog. But, I recommend going directly to Feedburner and setting up an account there. This will give you more features, including reports showing how many subscribers you have.

Just the FAQs: RSS Feeds, a new ebook by MaAnna Stephenson, walks you through the process of using FeedBurner to set up, optimize and manage feeds. You'll learn how to best format your feeds for delivery to mobile devices, how to republish feeds on another website, how to offer updates by email, and more. This ebook's step-by-step instructions and non-techie language make it a snap for anyone to master RSS feeds.

If you aren't yet offering feeds on your blog, get started right away and watch your readership soar!

Creating an Effective Author Website to Sell Books

This is the first in a series of interviews with authors and marketing experts. Today, I'm delighted to have author and book marketer Phyllis Zimbler Miller share her thoughts on building an effective author website.

Welcome Phyllis, and thanks for sharing with us. What do you think are the main elements of an effective author website?

• Prominent "buy this book" button or link on every page
• Clear statement of the genre of the book and what it’s about at the top of the home page (even more important than the book title and author name)
• Memorable domain name (not necessarily the book title or author name)
• Sample chapter or sample pages
• Discussion group questions for fiction, or activities for a children’s book
• Easy-to-read content (black letters on white background, short paragraphs, large type)
• Photo and bio information
• Contact info

Top 10 Tips for Effective Blogging for Authors

Here are some great blogging tips from my Australian friend, Joanna Penn:

You can write a blog enthusiastically for a few weeks and then you start to wonder why you are spending the time and effort on it. Effective blogging means having traffic, comments, and people responding to your writing. It may mean more book sales if that is your target.

Whatever your blogging goals, here are some tips to make your blogging effective:

1. Write good content. Blogging is not a constant sales pitch. If you have good content, people will click to learn more about you and that is where you can include your book.

2. Link freely to others and share traffic. Blogging is all about surfing between sites and offering useful information. Credit other blogs and sites with links and comments. This may also provide more traffic for you.  Use trackbacks so they know you have linked to them.

Book Websites That Sell

Looking for inspiration for your book website?  Explore these websites and think about how you could incorporate some of these ideas into your own site:

First 30 Days by Ariane de Bonvoisin   

Ariane's site is packed with great features, and I love the open book graphic on the home page.

Personality Not Included by Rohit Bhargava

The clean design and bold graphics make it easy to explore this site. Check out the Media Kit and 10 Reasons to Buy.

Hungry Girl by Lisa Lillien

This site is very simple, but it has fun graphics and does a terrific job of giving readers a sneak peak at the mouthwatering recipes.

Where to Find Photos and Illustrations for Your Book Covers and Website

iStockphoto.com is a terrific source of good quality, reasonably priced, royalty-free images to use on book covers, websites, blogs, and other marketing materials.

With more than three million images available, the biggest challenge is sorting through the sheer number of images you'll find. To keep the number of images you view manageable, start with a very narrow search term, then expand to broader terms if you don’t find what you need.

As you enter your search terms in the search box, you'll be able to select the type of image you are looking for: photo, illustration, flash, or video.

Write Blog Post Titles That Draw Readers In

Do you have trouble thinking of compelling titles for your blog posts? A post title functions like the headline in a news story or ad – it must catch the attention of readers quickly and draw them in to read the post. The more engaged your blog visitors are and the more posts they read, the more likely they are to return later and to sign up for your blog feed.

Hendry Lee has written several great articles on this subject at his Blog Building U site, including 8 Ways to Hook Blog Readers with Your Post Title.

Don't forget to use keywords in your post titles, to enhance your search engine optimization.

Promote Your Book with Flickr

Photo sharing site Flickr.com is a great place to post your book cover, author photo and other promotional images. If you upgrade from a free account to a "pro' account, you can also upload video. This site, ranked #32 by Alexa, can provide quality links back to your own site.

If you have a number of images, you can use your Flickr page as a photo album to link to. Remember, you're not limited to photographs – you can include illustrations or charts from your book, so long as they are saved as JPEGs, non-animated GIFs, PNGs, or TIFFs.

Because it's designed for photo sharing, Flickr allows you to add friends to your account, participate in groups, comment on photos, order prints, and more, although those features may be more suited to personal use.

Here’s how to get started with Flickr:

Fabulous Children's Book Website

Take a look at this clever website for Iggy the Iguana, by Melissa Williams. Although this site is designed for children, authors of all genre could learn a thing or two here.

Created by the author and graphic designer Matthew Landry, the website is designed to engage children with its charming graphics, sound effects, sample chapter, and bios of the characters in the book.

Melissa offers an Iggy eZine and a special page for teachers, and extends her brand (and revenue) by selling cute Iggy t-shirts and an Iggy doll. Her marketing plan also includes sponsoring contests for kids, doing book tour appearances in schools, and selling at craft shows.

How to Write Blog Posts When You Are Blogging to Market a Novel

Below are some great tips from Phyllis Zimbler Miller about blogging for fiction authors.

Dana

How to Write Blog Posts When You Are Blogging to Market a Novel
By Phyllis Zimbler Miller

Publishing a non-fiction book will usually make it easy for you to write a blog dedicated to your book. The non-fiction subject of your book and related topics can provide ample blogging material.

For example, if you wrote a book on cooking low-fat diets, you could post one low-fat recipe a day along with insider tips to ensure the recipe turns out well. Or if you wrote a book on new social media platforms, you could write each post about one new social media platform and probably never run out of new posts.

The problem of writing ongoing book blog posts really presents itself to fiction writers. If you've written a romance novel or a mystery novel, what are you going to write about in your blog posts?

With a little imagination (and you are a fiction writer, aren't you?) you can come up with interesting posts for your book's blog. Let's look at some examples: