Book Marketing Maven

Book Marketing Experts Share Their Top Tips

We are fortunate to have a number of book marketing experts share their valuable tips through guest posts on Book Marketing Maven. Here are some recent posts, in case you missed them:

Book Trailers: 11 Steps to Make Your Own by Joanna Penn

BlogTalkRadio Offers Books Authors the Opportunity to Host Their Own Shows by Phyllis Zimbler Miller     

Promoting Your Book on LinkedIn: Dos and Donts by Patrice-Anne Rutledge

How to Market Children's Books in Schools by Melissa Williams

Best Ways to Approach Radio and TV Talk Shows by Karen Melamed

Thank you Joanna, Phyllis, Patrice, Melissa and Karen for sharing your expertise!

Promote Your Book to Multiple Audiences

Who should you be marketing your book to? Most books have a primary audience -- the ideal reader that the book was written for -- as well as several secondary audiences. In the October issue of The Savvy Book Marketer newsletter, you'll learn about several different types of target audiences, including readers, purchasers, retailers and influencers.

To get each monthly issue of The Savvy Book Marketer delivered to your inbox, use the subscription form in the upper left corner of this page.

Book Promotion Tips for Authors

I see lots of terrific book promotion articles as I surf the Internet. Here are some good ones to check out:

5 Ways To Prepare For a Powerful Audio Interview by Lynne Klippel

A Simple Way To Funnel New Traffic & Sales From Buried Blog Archives by Lynn Terry

Creating An Elevator Pitch For Your Author Platform by Tony Eldridge

9 Ways to Make Sure Your Blog Post is Read by Someone Other Than Your Mother by Darren Rowse aka Problogger

Creating Book Titles: From Working Title to Final Title -- article and checklist by Susan Kendrick 

A Book Marketing Plan is Your Blueprint for Success

Do you have a written book marketing plan? There are many different ways to promote a book, and we all have limited time and budgets, so it's important to put together a written plan and prioritize your book promotion tasks.

A comprehensive book marketing plan is more than a list of ways to promote your book. It includes an analysis of your target audiences and competition, your distribution and pricing strategies, and helps you focus on the most effective book promotion strategies.  Review this book marketing plan outline for inspiration in creating your own plan. 

The Best Book Marketing Strategies

In a recent book marketing strategy podcast, Joanna Penn asked me what I thought were the top three book marketing strategies right now.

The short answer is: it depends. The best book marketing strategy for any particular book depends on a number of factors, including the type of book, the audience, your skills and interests, and whether you are selling through bookstores.

For example, for nonfiction authors focused on direct sales, here are my top three book marketing strategies:

1.    Develop relationships with your peers, bloggers and other influencers, and look for ways to help each other out and collaborate. Social networking is one of the best ways to develop those relationships.

2.    Engage in content marketing, which includes activities like submitting articles to other blogs and article directories, posting on expert sites like Squidoo, and giving away free reports. As a nonfiction author, you already have a wealth of content, so find ways to repurpose it as part of your book marketing strategy.

Mistakes of First-Time Authors

Today's guest post is from literary publicist Stephanie Barko, who shares her thoughts on planning for book marketing success from the very beginning of your book project.

Prior to being published, new authors frequently make mistakes that damage or even preclude their book’s marketability.  Commonly, these errors include

• Poorly designed or stock cover art
• Unedited, under edited or unprofessionally edited text
• Under funding of or lack of a book marketing budget
• Invisible or inadequately visible online presence for author and title
• Absence of platform and clear audience for the material

Book Covers make or break your ability to obtain reviews and readers. You can judge a book by its cover. As James Cox, Editor of Midwest Book Review puts it, "Stack #3 are those titles that are immediately rejected--not for their subject matter; not for being written by a first time author; and not for their self-published, POD-published, or small press published status, but because they are poorly designed or defectively produced in terms of presenting substandard, inadequate, or otherwise unattractive covers."

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?

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.

What Novelists Can Learn About Marketing from Nonfiction Authors

In today's guest post, novelist and marketing expert Angela Wilson shares her expertise in marketing fiction.

It's easier for nonfiction authors to establish a successful marketing campaign than their fiction counterparts.

Fiction authors drown in over-saturated genres, while nonfiction authors have very targeted niches they serve. Speaking engagements are easier to come by for nonfiction authors, who are established "experts" because of publication. If you want to stand out from others competing for attention in your genre, then consider borrowing a few tricks from your counterparts:

Create a definitive niche for yourself by targeting a smaller market share. Here is an example: Instead of targeting every reader in the paranormal romance genre, search for those who enjoy the types of paranormal you write (vampires, werewolves, witches, etc.). Build on this smaller audience until it is solid, then branch out to other readers in the genre.


Free Book Marketing Tips Ebook

As a special thank you to my readers and subscribers, I've compiled a free ebook, Top Book Marketing Tips of 2008. Just click the link below to download your copy, featuring a collection of popular articles from the Book Marketing Maven blog and The Savvy Book Marketer newsletter. You are welcome to pass this ebook on to other authors and publishers.

Download Top Book Marketing Tips of 2008 by Dana Lynn Smith

Who Should You Be Marketing Your Book To?

Your book marketing plan should include strategies for reaching several different target audiences:

• Readers -- people who buy the book to read. This is the most obvious category and it includes your primary audience (the "ideal customer" that the book was specifically written for) as well as secondary audiences who have an interest in your topic.

• Purchasers -- people who buy the book for someone else. For example, people buy books as gifts, parents purchase books for children, and women buy men's health books. Who would be likely to purchase your book for someone else, and how can you reach those folks?

• Influencers -- people who communicate with your target customers and can let them know about your book. In online book marketing, the influencers may be the most important category of all. Think about how much you can multiply your book marketing efforts when other people spread the word to their own readers and customers.

Other authors, coaches, and bloggers who cater to your target customers can mention you, your website, and/or your book in several ways, including blog posts, links, Twittering, ezine articles, and media sharing tools like Digg. For more information on working with influencers, see my posts on developing relationships and online networking.

Traditional and online media are also important influencers. You can reach them through traditional publicity efforts as well as online press releases and article distribution.

How can you expand your book marketing reach by promoting to all of these target audiences? As always, I invite you to share your ideas and experience by using the Comment link below.