4 Must Read Books To Help You Market Your Own

There are an enormous amount of books available on the book marketing for authors. Just like most products and brands, some are great and some are not so great. The one thing that holds true for all of them is that you can always glean at least a useful tidbit or two from each of them. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with choices these selections will make a great starting point for your collection. 

Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors, Book Publicity Through Social Networking, by  Steve Weber.

Because marketing in general has shifted from traditional to technical it’s imperative to understand how to navigate the static online and focus your promotional efforts accordingly. Weber unveils a bundle of excellent tips and strategies that make it easy to learn about syndication, pay per click, social networking and much more. There’s a reason why this book has received stellar reviews, but you’ll have to buy a copy if you want to find out why for yourself. 

1001 Ways To Market Your Books: For Authors And Publishers, by John Kremer.

Kremer is the owner of Open Horizons and editor-at-large of Book Marketing Update newsletter. Using his success as a consultant and publisher of more than 1,000 titles, as well a list of clients who have achieved multi-million dollar book sales, Kremer pulls together a collection of ideas and suggestions to help you market your book. What makes this book unique is that real-life author examples have been used to demonstrate how to successfully apply Kremer’s practices. 

Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual, by Dan Poynter.

Often referred to as the bible on self-publishing, this book is essential to have for any author who is interested in producing a commercially-successful book. In essence, Poynter has compiled a book publishing course that walks the reader through writing, publishing, marketing, promoting and distributing their book. An overview of the industry and publishing techniques are revealed for an in-depth look at what to do and what to avoid. 

Also, The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard Johnson has some great ideas too.

Who are your favorites? Any dog-eared marketing manuals that you can’t live without?

Turn Your Book Into A Money Making Machine

The vast majority of authors aren’t creating content and experiencing levels of success that transform them into overnight phenomenons with multi-million dollar book deals. For this reason it’s a good idea to consider other avenues that you can use to expand the reach and profitability of your book. Making your book available in other formats and through other outlets can make a positive contribution to your bottom line. Here are some additional ways to transform your book into a bag-o-cash.

Electronic formatting is the way to go if you’re an author. Print is great, but don’t forget to create digital versions and audio version of your book too. People want access to instant information and ebooks and podcasts are the perfect way to fulfill that need. With products like the iPad, Kindle and Nook, you have an opportunity to instantaneously reach thousands of readers and receive a generous royalty rate in the process.

Another way to generate revenue is through merchandise. This might not be a mainstream approach, but that in itself is advantageous to an author. By selling book branded t-shirts to your fans you’ll be pulling in some extra greenbacks and you’ll also turn your readers into your own army of walking marketers. Every time someone wears your shirt out in public they’re becoming a human outdoor board that promotes you and your publication.

One of the most simple way to build your income is through speaking and seminars. If you’re a published author you have something that non-published authors don’t have – experience. Sharing your challenges, successes and tips is a fantastic way to give others a leg up on in the book world. People appreciate honesty and how to from credible resources and by showcasing that you’re a blend of both is a win for you as an author.

A bonus to speaking and coaching is that you can show-off and sell your existing product. Bring copies of your books to sell and autograph. People who know who you are and enjoy your previous work will have no problem shelling out for copy of your latest. They also won’t mind paying for your services to gain insight into learning more about tackling the industry from author’s perspective.

5 Reasons Why Authors Need Blogs

Blogging is more popular than ever and despite the fact that the majority of bloggers launch with a bang, many discover that there’s a considerable amount of work and commitment involved to prevent their blogs from fizzling out. If you’re an author, having a blog can be a powerful way to promote yourself and your published work. Here are a few reasons why authors need to jump on the blog bandwagon.

1.  Build a cyber sales channel.

Blogs are actually quite flexible in terms of content and functionality. For example, you can integrate e-commerce so that blog readers can purchase books directly from your site. You can tie-in your blog sales outreach to services like Clickbank and even Amazon.

2.  Connect with your audience.

You audience is much broader than just readers and fans. Through a blog you can meet publishers, literary agents and other authors to exchange information and build a social network to support your book.

3.  Boost book sales.

As an author you have the advantage of never running out of great ideas for blog posts. You can use our book to generate hundreds of topics for posts. Try using an excerpt from you book and expanding upon it, touch on something unique about one of your characters, discuss plot or print out a teaser page to encourage sales. Endless opportunities exist for blogging authors.

4.  Become search engine friendly.

The primary search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Bing, continually crawl the web looking for new content that is regularly updated. Every time you submit a post a search engine bot will come along and index it on the internet. That makes you more searchable and increases your exposure. People will have an easier time finding you and connecting with the material that you’re producing.

5.  Develop conversations with readers.

Blogs aren’t a one-way street. Commenting systems enable readers to share feedback and thoughts and regardless of whether they’re positive or negative, participating in a dialogue is an excellent way to learn how to improve and expand on things that are disliked or favored.

If you don’t have a blog, there’s no time like the present to start one today. Give your fingers a run for the money and start typing.

eBook Marketing Tips

As important as it to plan a marketing strategy for the paper and ink version of your book, it’s equally vital to develop one for your ebook version. A well-crafted ebook marketing plan can determine the success or failure regarding the quantity of copies downloaded and sold. Before you embark on an ebook promotion, consider incorporating some of the following techniques to supplement your strategy.

Build a Website

If hearing this reminds you of a broken record then that’s a good thing. Times have changed and it’s crucial that you have build an online home to for your ebook to reside in. Once you’ve got your site up and running, make sure that there’s either a dedicated page or subdomain exclusively for your ebook. Give readers plenty of details, features, benefits and testimonials that highlight your ebook’s contents.

Advertising

The internet makes advertising affordable and customizable for any budget. You don’t need a Superbowl-sized pocketbook to get the word out. Sign-up for a Google AdWords account and explore some of the price models and options available. The nice thing about a pay per click campaign is that you only pay for the visitors who actually click through your ad link and visit your site. Compared to traditional advertising (i.e. newspaper ads, TV spots, etc.), this is a more cost-effective way to drive traffic and create awareness about your ebook.

Connect with ClickBank

Click bank is a fantastic resource that makes it very easy for authors and writers to sell and promote their ebooks. They are connected to more than 10,000 publishers and have 100,000 active affiliates that are ready to co-promote what you’ve written. There is a small fee involved to establish an account, but it quickly pays for itself with the rapid sales of your ebook. Visit ClickBank for specific details on how to get started.

Article Marketing

Create articles that are closely related to what your ebook is about and upload and publish them to  article directories like Ezinearticles, Buzzle and Suite101. For each article that you write and publish you have an opportunity to create a short byline that can be used to promote yourself as an expert and you can include a link within the article’s contents to bring traffic to your ebook’s sale page on your website.

There are so many ways to promote your ebook. Use traditional marketing strategies and customize them to fit your needs and work in an online capacity.

Difference Between Book Marketing Strategy & Book Marketing Plan

The terms marketing strategy and marketing plan may sound similar, but the truth is that they’ve quite different. Many people often mistake the two for one another and that can sometimes lead to ineffective marketing, especially when it comes to your book. A marketing strategy is shaped by your goals and is more of a summary that illustrates your position compared to the competition. In contrast, a marketing plan is the actual application of what your strategy is. The marketing plan is your roadmap that takes you from point a to point b.

The first step in developing a marketing strategy is to decide what you want your promotional efforts to accomplish. Do you want to sell more books in Texas? Are you interested in increasing your audience base to include auto-biography fans? Create a detailed list of what your short-term and long-term objectives are and they will become the foundation that your marketing plan is built upon.

Your marketing plan will include in-depth details such as budget, sales forecasting, strengths and weaknesses and market data such as, market growth rate, consumer trends and competitive information. The combination of all marketing plan components will provide you with a working document that can be used to focus your efforts and measure their outcomes. This is important because it illustrates success and failures and allows for fine tuning your plan if needed.

You can’t have a marketing plan without a strategy and a strategy without a plan is worthless. They both are needed in order for your marketing efforts to work effectively. Think of these two pieces like a pair of legs – they’re both required if you want your marketing to stand on its own.

The nice thing about a marketing strategy and plan is that they aren’t set in stone. If you’re headed down a path that doesn’t seem to be producing the outcomes that you had hoped to achieve all you have to do is sit down and re-focus. Because these are working documents, they’ll grow as you grow.

10 Hot Book Marketing Ideas

There’s an endless supply of marketing ideas and suggestions for promoting your book. Some of them work and others, not so much. No matter what marketing strategy you choose to implement, the success of your endeavor boils down to execution. Without proper execution, many wonderful ideas end up dead in the water. Keep this in mind before your jump head first into the marketing ideas below. Careful planning can transform these tips into amazing marketing techniques that have the potential to catapult your book sales.

1. Make a Video

Selling your book means you need to connect to your audience. When people see you and hear you they can make an instant connection. As it stands, video searches are growing by leaps and bounds and word on the street is that Google is developing voice recognition and auto-captioning, which means that videos will soon be searchable by text.

2. Short Story Teasers

Create a story about your story. Many authors are finding that these separate mini-versions work like trailers for a movie. They’re hooking the audience and leaving them wanting more. Offer the story for free, keep it short and simple and watch the interest grow.

3. Contests

Life is one big carnival and people love it when they win a prize. Create a contest and give-away an autographed copy of your book.

4. Gather Reviews

There’s no escaping the power of a good review. Even though readers don’t hang out on book review sites, getting the websites where they do hang-out to read and post a review offers instant appeal and credibility.

5. Build a Website

Don’t build a website about yourself. Make it about your book. Turn the book into an online character and put it in the limelight. Integrate a strong advertising and promotion campaign on each page within the site. Include links to the media attention and book reviews that you’re receiving.

6. Virtual Reader Communities

There are a ton of these sites out there and they’re a goldmine full of book marketing opportunities.  Visit Goodreads.com, LibraryThing.com, AuthorsDen.com and RedRoom.com for tips and inspiration.

7. Book Competitions

Check your ego at the door for this one. Entering author competitions is a super hot way to network, promote your book and, quite possibly, win the whole kit and kaboodle. Join a local or national author society to learn more about scheduled competitions.

8. Be Like Vaynerchuk

Read up on Gary V. and use him as a case study to market your book. Visit his site at: www.garyvaynerchuk.com

9. Compilations

Be a team player and submit your writings into a compilation book. Not only do you promote yourself, but others promote you too. It also lets you step outside your genre and broaden your audience reach.

10. Blog

Write about your book each and every chance that you get.