The Savvy Book Marketer

Book Marketing Roundup

by Dana Lynn Smith

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing tips and resources.

Email marketing is one of the best ways to promote books, but many authors struggle with how to do it effectively. Here is a terrific how-article, Writing Email Updates (Your Fans Will Actually Read), from Toni Tesori at Duolit.

 Have you joined the Amazon Associates affiliate program? After you sign up you can place an affiliate link on your website. When someone clicks that link to go to Amazon and buy your book, you will get paid a commission of 4% (or more) on the sale, on top of whatever you normally get paid for a book sale on Amazon. And you’ll get a commission on everything that’s in the customer’s shopping cart when they check out, not just your book. Learn more here: Boost Your Profit Margin with Amazon Associates

I'm excited about my three new genre-specific newsletters, designed to better meet the needs of novelists, children's book authors and nonfiction authors. Sign up here for these free monthly ezines:

Novel Marketing Newsletter

Children's Book Marketing Newsletter

Nonfiction Marketing Newsletter

And if you missed my recent series of webinars on how to develop marketing strategies for novels, nonfiction and children's books, these programs are now available on video, and each comes with a comprehensive resource guide. You can get details here:

How to Sell More Novels

How to Sell More Children's Books

How to Sell More Nonfiction Books

You'll often hear book marketing experts talk about the importance of building your platform, but what does that mean? This article at Book Cover Café explains platform building in simple terms and includes a wonderful infographic.

What book marketing topics do you want to learn about? Just click here to let me know.

That's all the news for now. Here's to your publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

by Dana Lynn Smith

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing and publishing resources and tips.

Novelists, the entry window for the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is January 14-27 and it’s best to get your entry in as early as possible. This year the Grand Prize winner will receive an Amazon publishing contract with an advance of $50,000, and four First Prize winners will each receive a publishing contract with an advance of $15,000.

Nonfiction and children's authors, there’s still time to register for my How to Sell More Nonfiction Books author training program on January 8 and How to Sell More Children’s Books on January 10.

I always enjoy Jan Bear’s creative and instructive articles on her Market Your Book blog. Check out her latest post, 5 Book Marketing Tips from The Hobbit.

Amazon's editors have selected the best books of 2012, in 45 categories. Take a few minutes to study the covers and titles of these books - what can you learn from them?

I am thrilled to announce that the Savvy Book Marketer blog was selected as a winner in The Future of Ink's Top Ten Self-Publishing Blogs of 2012! Thank you to everyone who nominated me for this award and to the distinguished judges, including Mark Coker (founder of Smashwords), Guy Kawasaki (NY Times bestselling author and founder of AllTop.com), and Jim Edwards (internet marketing veteran). And be sure to check out the other blogs on this top 10 list.

Mark Coker has been instrumental in the self-publishing revolution. See his Smashwords Year in Review 2012 – The Power in Publishing is Shifting to Authors to learn more about what's happening in the ebook publishing business. And I just saw an article announcing that the Douglas County public library system in Colorado has acquired 10,000 Smashword titles for their ebook lending program.

What book marketing topics do you want to learn about this year? Just click here to let me know.

That's all the news for now. Here's to your publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

by Dana Lynn Smith

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing tips, news and resources for authors and indie publishers. 

Book covers are an important marketing tool, even for ebooks. Joel Friedlander does a terrific review of ebook cover designs on his Book Designer website. The names of the cover designers are included with each entry, so you can contact designers who appeal to you.

I was honored to participate as a guest again this year at Nina Amir's Write Nonfiction in November event. I contributed an article, How to Promote Your Book with a Virtual Book Tour.

Authors sometimes ask me if there's any way to autograph ebooks. I ran across a Kindle book on this topic that looks interesting. I haven't read it, but you might want to check out What Do Ebook Authors Sign? by Sherry Snider if you're interested in ebook autographs.

Congratulations to April Hamilton on the publication of the Publetariat Omnibus ebook,  featuring a collection of 67 articles from the Publetariat website. This compendium of advice, lessons learned and how-tos comes from 20 leading authors, publishing industry pros, consultants and subject area experts. Several of my articles are included.

If you'd like to create t-shirts, mugs, tote bags or other items to give away or sell on your website, look into sites like Café Press and Zazzle. 

I was recently quoted in an excellent article on "How to Promote with Pinterest" at the WOW! Women on Writing site, and the author recommended my Pinterest Guide for Authors. Be sure to check out all the great writing resources on the WOW site.

That's all the news for now. Here's to your publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing tips and resources for authors and indie publishers. 

Plan Now for Holiday Book Promotions

Books make terrific gifts, and November and December are prime season for book sales. Now is the time to plan your holiday book promotions. See this article for ideas. 

Select Book Awards Programs to Enter

If you published a book this year (or last year), this is a good time to be thinking about which book awards competitions you want to enter. Some award programs offer reduced entry fees for submitting early and some will accept entries published in the previous year. The entry deadline for the Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year is November 15. See this article for a list of some other popular award programs (the dates listed are from last year, but you can get current information by clicking on the links in the article.) 

Free Ebooks for Kindle and Other Ebook Readers

If you're looking for free reads for your Kindle, Nook, or other ebook reading device, or for places to promote your free ebooks, here are a few suggestions:

Free Ebooks for Kindle, Nook, and More - my Facebook group

Free Kindle Ebooks

The Best Free Kindle Ebooks

Before participating, be sure to read the "about" section to learn the rules for submitting or posting free ebooks. If you know of other sites that list free ebooks, please leave a note in the comments area below.

That's all the news for now. Here's to your publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing tips and resources for authors and indie publishers. 

European Distribution for Self-Publishers

Amazon's print-on-demand publishing arm, CreateSpace, is now making books available in Europe. If you are already publishing through CreateSpace, be sure to activate European distribution your account. From your dashboard, click on a book title, then click the "channels" button and select European distribution.

IACCW Presentation - How to Develop a Book Marketing Plan

On Thursday, June 7, I'll be speaking to the members of the International Association of Conscious & Creative Writers on the topic of "How to Develop a Book Marketing Plan."

If you're not familiar with IACCW, the organization teach writers to combine soul and craft with a holistic approach to writing for publication that includes conscious creativity, developing intuition, conscious writing and contemporary publishing options. Member benefits include monthly educational events like the presentation that I'm doing on June 7.

Learn more about IACCW here and save 10% on an IACCW membership (through June 15) when you enter this code in the coupon field on the checkout screen: IACCWDANA

What Makes Self-Publishers Successful?

In February of 2012 Steven Lewis and Dave Cornford conducted an extensive survey of 1,007 self-publishing authors. Their analysis of the responses to the 61-question survey reveal interesting insights about self-publishers - their demographics, how many books they have self-published, what type of outside help they hired, how much they are earning, and other data.

For example, 10% of the authors who participated in the survey accounted for 75% of the earnings reported, and 34% of respondents rate blogging as their most effective form of marketing.

A summary of the survey results is available in this series of free videos, or you can get the complete report, Not a Gold Rush, in Kindle format.

That's all the news for now. Here's to your publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing tips and resources for authors and indie publishers. 

Ebooks in Libraries

When marketing guru and bestselling author Seth Godin was asked about big publishers' reluctance to sell ebooks to libraries in a recent online interview, here's what he had to say:

"Libraries are like the radio for books. Not a money-maker for all, but a great way to spread an idea. I don’t think you can find a single author who suffered any damage at all because too many people took his book out of the library. Ebooks for libraries need to be tweaked, not killed."

Big Changes Coming to Facebook

The new "timeline" design for Facebook profiles will become mandatory on March 21 and the new fan page design goes into effect on March 30. You can upload a "cover" image for the top of the profile and page. It can be a photo or a graphic you create. It's best to make the image 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels high; otherwise Facebook will try to enlarge or crop it. Learn about timeline here and about pages here. Below is a screenshot of my new Facebook profile. Facebook will automatically insert your profile photo in the lower left corner.

Publishing News

Here are some articles of interest to authors:

BISG Report: Book Purchases Up, But Not from Bookstores 

Why I Joined Google+ Over My Dead Body by Sandra Beckwith, Build Book Buzz 

How Ebooks Made Reading Sexy Again, The Telegraph

Barnes & Noble Misses Estimates, Though In-Store Sales Rise Slightly

That's all the news for now. Here's to your publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing tips and resources for authors and indie publishers. 

I have some exciting news to share today. On March 14, I'll be announcing my newest author training program, and I promise you won't want to miss this one!  It will be a hands-on workshop like nothing you've ever seen.

If you aren't already on my newsletter list, be sure to sign up today so you will get first notice of the new training program and be eligible for special early bird pricing. Here are a few other quick news items:

The latest report from the Book Industry Study Group says that book purchases are up, but not from bookstores.  

March 4-10 has been designated as Read an Ebook Week and two of my ebooks are available at a 25% discount on Smashwords this week. Enter the code REW25 at checkout
to get your discount on these books:

How to Get Your Book Reviewed 

Facebook Guide for Authors 

Children's authors, don't forget that Children's Book Week is coming up May 7-13. What kind of publicity and promotions have you planned to take advantage of this special week? 

Pinterest has become a significant referrer of website traffic to the websites of major women's magazines.  

That's all the news for now. Have a great week!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing tips and resources for authors and indie publishers. 

I'm excited about hosting Joanna Penn's How to Promote Your Novel webinar on February 9! There isn't much training that's specifically geared to helping authors sell fiction, and I know we will all learn a lot from Joanna's tremendous success in selling her own novels. 

If you're a Nook owner or publish your ebooks in Nook format, check out the new Nook Lovers site, featuring free or inexpensive ebooks for the Nook ebook reader. See this page to learn how to get your ebook listed on this site, which was created by authors Stephanie Dray and Eliza Knight. Other places to learn about free and bargain Nook books include the free Nook book page on the B&N website and the Nook Facebook page.

If you are an iPad owner, check out Macworld's review of the new "iBooks Author" ebook publishing platform from Apple. 

Have you set up a customized vanity URL for your Amazon Author Central Page yet? Check out this article to learn how.  

Here's an interesting article from the Huffington Post about the factors that tend to limit the success of indie authors. And check out this article from Carolyn McCray on Digital Book World about how to increase your Kindle sales on Amazon.

That's all the news for now. For more book marketing advice and resources, be sure to subscribe to this blog so you don't miss any posts, and sign up for my book marketing newsletter.

Book Marketing Roundup

Authors and publishers, I hope your new year is off to a great start! If you haven't already done so, I encourage you to develop or update your book marketing plan and schedule promotional activities for this year. To learn more about how to create your book marketing plan, download my free report: Create a Book Marketing Plan That Sells Books.

Also check out my new training programs for authors:

How to Promote Your Novel, featuring Joanna Penn, will be presented as a webinar on February 9.

Make Money with Teleseminars and Webinars is now available as a video training program.

If you are a Kindle author and you're considering signing up for the new KDP Select program, read this article first to learn more.

Here are some more book marketing tools and resources for you:

• 89 Book Marketing Ideas That Will Change Your Life – article on the Author Media blog.

• If you have a WordPress blog, be sure to download this free report from MaAnna Stephenson at Blog Aid: How to Back Up Your WordPress Site.

• Paul Krupin at Direct Contact PR is offering a free book publicity planning calendar for 2012.

• Learn more about making money with affiliate programs in this article by Pat Flynn: Top 30 Tips for Successful Affiliate Marketing

That's all the news for now. For more book marketing advice and resources, be sure to subscribe to this blog so you don't miss any posts and sign up for my book marketing newsletter.

Book Marketing Roundup

First, I want to wish everyone a joyous holiday season! I'm looking forward to taking a break and spending time with my extended family.

I'm excited about all of the new content and programs that I'm creating for authors and publishers in the new year. In the meantime, be sure to let me know how I can help you learn to sell more books. Take this quick survey and enter to win some free book marketing guides.

Yesterday I hosted Kathleen Gage for her information-packed webinar, Who Else Wants to be a Kindle #1 Bestseller. After the presentation, Kathleen stayed on the line for more than an hour answering questions! A video replay of the session is available here through December 23.

A big thank you goes to all of the book marketing experts who have shared their expertise through guest posts on The Savvy Book Marketer blog this year. Upcoming guest posts include:

• Are You Using Your Amazon Author Central Page? by Laura Pepper Wu

• Top 10 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page, by John Kremer

• Use the Power of Local Promotion, by Patricia Fry

If you haven't already subscribed to this blog, sign up now so you won't miss any posts.

That's all for now - I'm off to bake a bunch of cookies!

Book Marketing Roundup

Authors, what is your biggest challenge in promoting your book? How can The Savvy Book Marketer help? Take this quick survey and enter to win some free book marketing guides!

The virtual book tour for my newest book, Virtual Book Tour Magic, continues this week. Remember, if you order the book by December 12 you'll get an invitation to an exclusive book tour Q&A session with me on December 15.

Here are some resources for authors:

• Nonfiction authors should enjoy this article from Arielle Ford in the Huffington Post: How Authors Make Real Money (Hint: It's Not From Books).

• Here's a interesting post for novelists: Why Fiction Magazines Are An Untapped Goldmine For New Authors by Doug Lance.

• If you're a children's book author, I recommend this article: How Will We Read Children's Books in the Future?

• Last week I launched my newly re-designed newsletter. If you're not already a subscriber, click here for a sneak peek at the newsletter, and when you subscribe you'll get three free ebooks packed with book marketing tips.

• Coming up on December 19, I'm thrilled to be hosting one of my favorite marketing experts, Kathleen Gage, for a complimentary webinar: Who Else Wants to be a Kindle #1 Bestseller. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from a highly successful author and online marketer. (If you already registered for this event, please note the change of date from December 13 to December 19.)

• And on December 15, Kathleen Gage is presenting another complimentary webinar that will be of special interest to nonfiction authors: How to Build a Six Figure Business from The Ground Up.

That's all the news for now. Here's to your book publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my roundup of book marketing news, tips and resources.

Have you noticed how some of the hottest selling fiction around, from authors like Stephenie Meyer and Amanda Hocking, is actually written for young adults? This story in the Boston Globe explores the phenomenon.

If you use WordPress.org for your blog, don't miss this new free report from my favorite WordPress guru, MaAnna Stephenson: How to Backup Your WordPress Site.

Understanding your market is one of the most important fundamentals of marketing. In this article, Jan Bear at Market Your Book shares some great tips for analyzing your target audience.

I was sorry to hear that the BookTour.com, the website where authors listed their book tour appearances, has folded. “Fewer author tours and changes in book marketing budgets have made our company financially unviable,” said CEO Kevin Smokler. “In our absence, we recommend tools from Amazon Author Central, Google Calendar, Upcoming.org and Eventful.com as worthy replacements,” he added.

Authors may be doing fewer live appearances, but virtual book tours are becoming ever more popular.That's one reason I'm so excited about the release of my newest book, Virtual Book Tour Magic. The virtual book tour for the book begins on December 1, and I've got two other special events planned for December. Stay tuned for more details! 

To make sure you don't miss any posts or announcements, subscribe to this blog and to my newsletter.

That's all the news for this week. Here's to your book publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my roundup of book publishing news, tips and resources.

I'm excited that my newest book, Virtual Book Tour Magic: The Secrets to Planning a Successful Book Promotion Tour, will be available in a few days. Watch for details soon!

 Virtual reader communities like GoodReads, LibraryThing and Shelfari are a good place to network with avid readers. Learn more about how to use GoodReads in guest post by John Corwin on the Novel Publicity blog.

If you're looking for a free and easy way to create screenshot images and quick screencast videos, check out Jing. If you need more features, you can upgrade to the paid version, which is called SnagIt. I use SnagIt nearly every day and it's great.

Online marketing is a powerful tool for reaching a worldwide audience, but don't overlook your local market. Here are a couple of articles with tips:

Building Local Recognition for Your Book, by Corinne Liccketto
10 Ways to Promote Your Book in Your Own Backyard, my guest post at BookBuzzr

Thank you to Nina Amir at Write Nonfiction Now for writing such a great introduction and book review for my guest post, How to Get Bloggers to Review Your Nonfiction Book.

Books-A-Million is taking over the former sites of 41 Barnes & Noble bookstores, but they are also closing 21 existing BAM stores. These moves will leave the second-largest bookstore chain the U.S. with more than 250 stores. See the list of cities with new stores here.

In his article, 5 Tips For Marketing Your Novel The Second Time Around, author Dan McGirt shares some powerful tips for re-launching a previously published book. 

That's all the news for this week. Here's to your book publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my weekly roundup of book publishing news, tips and resources.

As I mentioned in a recent post, it's important to feature your book cover prominently on your author website or blog. It's great to hyperlink your book cover so that when people click on it they will go directly to your book's sales page or Amazon page. Learn exactly how to do that in this tutorial from Tony Eldridge.

Thank you to Penny Sansevieri and Paula Krapf at Author Marketing Experts for hosting me on The Publishing Insiders radio show this week. You can listen to our interview about book reviews here, and there's also a discussion of ebooks at the beginning of the show.

More changes from Facebook: they are removing the Discussions tab from Facebook Pages on October 31 to "encourage conversation and feedback is through posts and comments on the Wall."

Last night, Shelley Hitz and I presented a free webinar, Ebook Publishing Basics for Authors, where we talked about why authors should be publishing ebooks now and what their options are for preparing and publishing ebooks. You can watch the free replay here.

To cut your learning curve and help you master the ebook publishing process quickly, Shelley and I have also developed an in-depth training program, eBook Publishing Success: How to Prepare, Publish and Profit from eBooks.

I really enjoyed this article from Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound, on how to make sure your website address gets mentioned in media stories.

If you're a children's book author or publisher, or a book marketing expert, please share your top children's book marketing tip on this page by October 10 and you'll be registered to win a complimentary copy of the Savvy Book Marketing Guide of your choice.

This week I published the third in the series of guest posts from Smashwords CEO Mark Coker: Ebook Publishing Trends.

That's all the news for this week. Here's to your book publishing success!

Book Marketing Roundup

Welcome to my weekly roundup of book publishing news, tips and resources.

Sell More Books with Freemiums

Giving away freebies is a great promotional tactic, and one of the best ways to get people interested in your book is to give away a free sample.

Recently I ran across an especially effective free sample promotion for Carrie Wilkerson's new book, The Barefoot Executive. This page does a great job of building interest for the book through a free chapter offer, while also capturing names and emails for her mailing list. Sign up for the free chapter and study the next web page that comes up.

For more ideas on how to profit from giving things away for free, see these terrific articles:

How to Use Free to Drive Your Marketing Strategy, by Michael Hyatt who is chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the seventh largest trade book publishing company in the U.S.

Why Freemiums are an Excellent Opportunity for Authors, by Joanna Penn, novelist and book publishing and marketing expert.

Promoting Children's Books

Although the basic marketing principles are the same for all types of books, there are some differences in the techniques used to promote fiction, nonfiction and children's books.

If you're a children's book author or publisher, or a book marketing expert, please share your top children's book marketing tip on this page.

I'll draw a name from all of the submissions received by October 10 to win a complimentary copy of the Savvy Book Marketing Guide of your choice.

To your book publishing success!