10 Tips for Marketing Your Book Online
1) ALWAYS have a link to where your book can be purchased in your signature line. Never send an email without it. You can link to a website, your blog, newsletter, etc. as well. Keep the number of lines between two and four–it’s considered good ‘netiquette’ especially when posting to regulated groups or forums.
2) Request to do a chat in every available online spot you can. Offer to send a freebie as a ‘door prize’ but DON’T offer your current release. This could slow sales as prospective chatters might wait to find out if they win one for free. Book thongs, markers (very cheap to mail,) older releases, and other related promotional items work well . You can also offer a critique if the chat is writer-related. Get creative.
3) Target websites and blogs that are in the genre you write and offer to do a Q&A or an interview on the site or blog. (See above for possible prizes you might offer.)
4) Get your own website. This is important because no matter how much advertising or promotion you do, it’ll be hard to generate internet interest without a web presence. Even if it’s a smaller, free site, it’s better than not having one at all. Check into some of the more prominent websites that cater to authors and look into their specially discounted hosting/design packages.
5) Create a newsletter. Try to make it fun and interactive for both writers and readers. In my newsletter I include chocolate recipes and a family-friendly joke section. Depending on the genre you write in, you can even gear it toward your target audience. If you write YA, you can make it more teen-friendly.
6) Start blogging. Write as often as you can on your blog, even if it’s just a few paragraphs every other day or so. When you blog, try to include links to other places (even if it’s just to your own website) so that you’ll generate more ‘hits’ from searches to your blog, and hence to your title(s). Don’t forget that you can comment on other people’s blogs as well, leaving again, a link back to you.
7) Join groups and use them wisely. If you’re on MySpace, send bulletins out when you blog (which can be cross-posted between your MySpace blog and your personal blog.) Visit your ‘friends’–try to aim for at least five a week, for just a moment, to drop them a note. Keep it casual and friendly. Join other groups on the net that are for readers (like book club groups) and post occasionally–where your signature line will be seen by everyone. Aim for groups with large memberships.
Once you have your website, do “link” or “banner” exchanges with friendly authors or others that you know. Cross-promotion is fabulous for getting your links in front of new internet users.
9) Enter your title into internet contests, usually for free, but you may consider a nominal fee. Whether it’s a cover-art contest, or just a contest decided by voters and even if you don’t win, your title will be listed on the internet in yet another place.
10) Write press releases, articles, and reviews and post them in the appropriate places. If you set up a “virtual tour”, if you have a new release, if you win a contest, you can write a press release. Write articles and submit them to free-to-use article places where content seekers can grab your article (with the source box including your links) and use it on their site or in their newsletter. Every time you finish reading a book, write a review for it and submit it everywhere you can–like online booksellers such as Amazon.com. (If you alter it a bit, you can even send it out as an article.) Of course, with a link back to you.
Make friends everywhere you go. Be helpful to others. Volunteer your time. Offer congrats and commiserations when someone else needs a friend. Most of all, be sincere. This is more valuable than any of the above because it not only makes your internet existence bearable, but you’ll get help, inspire others to promote you, and have a host of opportunities already in place when your next release comes out.
About The Author
J.R. Turner is the author of the award-winning novel, “My Biker Bodyguard” and the Knight Inc. action adventure series. Visit http://www.jennifer-turner.com for more details.
Rare Books At Auction
Rare and antique book collecting is a hobby that any person can easily learn, it is fascinating and can turn your hard earned pounds or dollars into hundreds (sometimes thousands) literally overnight. The skeptics out there will be thinking surely this is not the case. In a Pygmalion fashion let me tell you a true story:
I was with a work colleague who started talking about hobbies, he informed me of his passion for rare and antique books. During the discussion he told me how easy it was to spot first editions and that if you were fairly savvy you could actually make decent money from buying old books at charity shops, car boot sales, garage sales and jumble sales. Admittedly being an avid reader and wishing to earn extra money, putting the two together seemed like an ideal pastime. I was fascinated and wanted to know more, he took me to a local second hand bookstore, then on a web tour of the major book sites just to show the money being asked for some of the rarer first editions. I was taken aback by the difference in price from the second hand bookstores to the cheapest available on the web; I realized (as all collectors know) that a profit can be made relatively easily and quickly, given the right selling medium. So it would seem a protégé was in the making. Over the next few weeks I spent my time scouring the web and visiting charity shops in the local area. To my surprise and his, one of the first finds was a true first edition first impression by Mario Puzo for which I paid the princely sum of one pound (Yes £1.00) for. I listed the book on a niche auction site for rare and antique books and ten days later the book sold making a whopping seven hundred and fifty three pounds (Yes £753.00) profit. Needless to say I am now a convert to being a rare book auctioneer in my spare time.
Try it yourself, read the various articles out there on how to identify first edition books, go to your local charity shops and car boot sales and see what you can find. You never know what you will come across, or, how much you could sell it for.
About The Author
John Harvey has been an avid collector of rare and antique books for several years. In 2005 he started up his own antique and rare book auction site http://www.bid4abook.co.uk. The site is free for buyers and sellers of books.
Why Anyone Can Write A Book
Ask anyone that you meet if they’ve ever had an idea to write a book and I bet that 99% of the time their eyes light up and they say ‘Yes.’
Everyone has numerous wonderful book ideas. My experience and conversations with thousands of people tell me that this is true. The difference between those that actually write a book and those that don’t is simple. Those that don’t write a book don’t believe that they can.
That’s simply not true. Anyone can write a book.
If you can talk, you can write.
Take a look at 5 of your favorite books, fiction or Non-fiction it doesn’t matter. In fact, grab a few of each. Now, open each book and read a few paragraphs. What do you see? What you’ll likely notice is that there is a common theme running in all of them.
They’re written conversationally. They’re written like you talk. Conversational style is the best style because it is easy to read, easy to understand and easy to write.
Take a look at some of the most prolific authors, both fiction and Non-fiction. Stephen King comes to mind as a very prolific fiction writer. Non-fiction writers might include the Chicken Soup series and co writers Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. All of those books are written conversationally. They’re accessible to readers of all ages, income levels, and IQ’s.
Conversational style eliminates jargon. It eliminates large words that people have to rely on a dictionary to understand. Conversational style also uses the word ‘you’ often. It’s written as if you were writing a letter or telling a story to a friend.
Basically, if you can write a letter to a friend, then you can write a book—I promise. Of course you need to be able to plan a book too but all that requires is a plan or an outline. Once your outline is established, writing the book can take as little as a month to complete.
About The Author
Bob Burnham
Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of ‘101 Reasons Why You Must Write A Book’
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My fantastic daughter!
I have a wonderful daughter, and I really want to write a book about her but I just don’t know where to start???
How do you find the words to describe someone so fantastic?
I’m certainly lost for words, but I’m sure I’ll think of something one day….
By Susan Denny