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Posts Tagged ‘book marketing’

When it comes to marketing the choices are clear: market to your reader. But the “where” to find your reader has changed as more and more of our lives migrate online. A recent article on how offline media is succumbing to the ’Net talked about a flurry of newspapers diving into online content, online ad placement, and online forums to push more of their feature pieces, reviews and editorials into a virtual medium.

Even industry standards like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are moving more and more of their content to the website. So what does this mean for you? Well, it means that the lines between on and offline are becoming even more blurred. It used to be that if you had a few select publications that you were pitching you could contact their on and offline departments and possibly be considered for interviews or feature pieces in both of them; that’s not the case anymore. Sometime an online feature means that you can kiss your offline exposure goodbye, so it’s good to ask before you start pitching. Much of the online content is now pulled from the offline source, so while this could work in your favor, better to be certain if you have your eye on print coverage. That said, you might be better off being on their website, where you’ll get lasting exposure.

But media promotion isn’t the only factor in marketing, in fact, there’s a lot you can do without even heading into the media realm. Consider these ideas:

* Craig’s List: have you been on this site recently? If you haven’t, take a few minutes and run through the listings for your city. It’s a great place to promote yourself but be careful, the Craig’s list people don’t like a “salesy” type of pitch but prefer something more folksy and casual. If you surf the site for a while you’ll see what I mean. You can use Craig’s list to promote your event, your product, even your service, but they key is, don’t look like you’re promoting. Also, keep in mind that often regional media will surf this site looking for events they can cover, so get yours listed there now!

* Virtual networking: it’s not just for trading business cards anymore. If you’re trying to gain platform or gain media exposure, heading on over to sites like Linkedin.com can be a good way to start your network and gain additional exposure. Also, sites like MySpace have gotten a bad rap as predator sites, but only a marginal portion of people on this site are there for nefarious reasons. While the MySpace age does tend to skew younger, there’s virtually a place for everyone and every message on this site. Not a MySpace person? Try eons.com instead, this site targets the over 50 crowd and offers another great place to market your book and message.

* YouTube: this site isn’t just for singing pancakes; in fact, more and more authors are moving snippets of signings, speaking gigs or other visual promotion tools to this hot new resource. It’s a great link back to your site.

* Social bookmarking: have you been doing your social duty lately? Posting to sites like del.i.cious.com could really help to spread your message like wildfire. Sometimes a few sites is all it takes to start the buzz going in your market.

* Consider the overlooked media: As the bigger papers are moving their content online and vying to keep readership interested, the smaller overlooked papers like The Bastrop Daily Enterprise in Louisiana and Arkadelphia Daily Siftings Herald in Arkansas are booming. Their readership is loyal and their papers always hungry for content. Have you poked around in the smaller regional newspapers yet? If you haven’t, you might want to. You might find that while it’s great to have an online presence, the further we get into Web 2.0, the more these publications are overlooked by pr people.

The ’Net has opened up a bunch of opportunities both online and off, take your focus off the norm and start exploring some new territory, you might be surprised what it can do for your campaign!

So you’re published! Congratulations! Now if you’re like most authors you may be asking yourself, now what? There are so many ways to market yourself, so many in fact it’s sometimes tough to know which one you should chose. Now without getting into all your choices, let’s look at some basic things you can do to surround yourself with enough education and experts so you never have to wonder: I’m published, now what?

1) Find some good books to bury yourself in.

2) There are a lot of marketing choices and if you’re not sure which one to chose here’s a tip: if it seems to good to be true it probably is. Stay away from hype because hype rarely pays off. Ask for references, talk to other authors.

3) You can find a lot of information online if you’re willing to do some research. Whether you’re looking for promotional ideas or people to help you promote your book you should definitely Google them first and see what you can find.

4) Find someone you trust to talk you through the process. Whether you hire someone or met someone in your writing group, find someone you can bounce ideas off of who knows the industry and understands current book marketing trends.

5) Don’t live in a vacuum. Get out and meet other published authors. Go to writers conferences, check out your local PMA listings (Publisher’s Marketing Association) and consider joining them on a national level. Also SPAN (Small Press Association of North America) is another fantastic organization to join. Both of these places offer a monthly newsletter with tips, articles, and advice columns.

6) Do some online networking via publishing and book marketing forums, here are a few for you to get started with:

Pub-forum &ndash .pub-forum.net

Publish-L &ndash .publish-l.com

Smallpub-civil finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/smallpub-civil

Ind-E-Pubs &ndash covers ebooks .ind-e-pubs.com

POD publishers finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/pod_publishers

7) Subscribe to some great publishing newsletters, there’s a lot of information out there and a lot of it is packed in some of the best newsletters you’ll ever read:

Dan Poynter’s Parapublishing Tips: .parapublishing.com

Readers and Writers .writersreaders.com/

John Kremer: .bookmarket.com

Brian Jud: .bookmarketing.com

Book Marketing Expert: .amarketingexpert.com

Get your book reviewed: maybe this sounds like a no-brainer but you’d be amazed how many authors forget this step but it’s important and here’s why: people like what other people like. What someone else says about your book is a thousand times more effective than anything you could say. Do reviews sell books? Well, yes I believe they do and here’s why: if your book is up on Amazon or some other online portal and no one’s talking about it a potential new reader might not be motivated to buy. Readers rarely buy “naked” books.

9) Outline a few goals and hit the promotional “road”: keep it simple and keep it realistic. Long, complicated, and involved marketing plans are not only tough to stick to, they’re probably gonna cost you a bundle.

So you’re published! Congratulations! Now if you’re like most authors you may be asking yourself, now what? There are so many ways to market yourself, so many in fact it’s sometimes tough to know which one you should chose. Now without getting into all your choices, let’s look at some basic things you can do to surround yourself with enough education and experts so you never have to wonder: I’m published, now what?

1) Find some good books to bury yourself in.

2) There are a lot of marketing choices and if you’re not sure which one to chose here’s a tip: if it seems to good to be true it probably is. Stay away from hype because hype rarely pays off. Ask for references, talk to other authors.

3) You can find a lot of information online if you’re willing to do some research. Whether you’re looking for promotional ideas or people to help you promote your book you should definitely Google them first and see what you can find.

4) Find someone you trust to talk you through the process. Whether you hire someone or met someone in your writing group, find someone you can bounce ideas off of who knows the industry and understands current book marketing trends.

5) Don’t live in a vacuum. Get out and meet other published authors. Go to writers conferences, check out your local PMA listings (Publisher’s Marketing Association) and consider joining them on a national level. Also SPAN (Small Press Association of North America) is another fantastic organization to join. Both of these places offer a monthly newsletter with tips, articles, and advice columns.

6) Do some online networking via publishing and book marketing forums, here are a few for you to get started with:

Pub-forum &ndash .pub-forum.net

Publish-L &ndash .publish-l.com

Smallpub-civil finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/smallpub-civil

Ind-E-Pubs &ndash covers ebooks .ind-e-pubs.com

POD publishers finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/pod_publishers

7) Subscribe to some great publishing newsletters, there’s a lot of information out there and a lot of it is packed in some of the best newsletters you’ll ever read:

Dan Poynter’s Parapublishing Tips: .parapublishing.com

Readers and Writers .writersreaders.com/

John Kremer: .bookmarket.com

Brian Jud: .bookmarketing.com

Book Marketing Expert: .amarketingexpert.com

Get your book reviewed: maybe this sounds like a no-brainer but you’d be amazed how many authors forget this step but it’s important and here’s why: people like what other people like. What someone else says about your book is a thousand times more effective than anything you could say. Do reviews sell books? Well, yes I believe they do and here’s why: if your book is up on Amazon or some other online portal and no one’s talking about it a potential new reader might not be motivated to buy. Readers rarely buy “naked” books.

9) Outline a few goals and hit the promotional “road”: keep it simple and keep it realistic. Long, complicated, and involved marketing plans are not only tough to stick to, they’re probably gonna cost you a bundle.