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?

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.

Websites For Authors: Landing Page Dos and & Donts

Let’s start by explaining what a landing page is. Basically, it’s the default page that visitors land on when they do a search for you or your book on the Internet. Well designed landing pages can entice visitors to take action, either purchase your book, enter contact information for upcoming book signings or venture further into your website. When an action is performed on a landing page it’s known as a conversion. The ultimate goal is to secure as many conversions as possible. So, what can you do to create a great landing page? Here are  few simple guidelines to help you with your landing page.

Design It Well

As an author, you recognize the importance of having an eye-catching book cover. Well, the same things goes for your landing page. Make it visually engaging for your visitors. Don’t burden the page down with heavy, lengthy content. Instead, incorporate elements from your book’s cover into the layout. Tie-in the book with the landing page and visitors will have a clear understanding about who you are, what your book is about and how to purchase a copy.

Get A Reaction

The landing page for your book’s website is like your own personal salesperson. For that reason, you want the page to share a compelling message that makes the page unique and that will increase conversion. This can be accomplished by writing a headline like, “Only 10,000 Copies Available,” or “Read the Bestseller That Critics Are Raving About.” Additionally, you want to be direct with your visitors and state a clear call-to-action such as “buy now” or “subscribe here.” Keep them short and sweet.

State the Value

Remember that whitespace is a friend to any good landing page. More is not better. Keep your content succinct and to the point. Save the flowery language for your book and use your landing page to give short, bullet points about why your book is a must-read and must-buy. Explain what sets it apart from other books within the genre and even one or two about yourself as an author. Visitors that know value are more likely to purchase.

When you create a landing page for your book try to think about what motivates you as a buyer. Use what you know and you’ll have a fantastic landing page constructed in no time.

Planning and Designing Your Book Cover: 5 Tips

Because so many authors are self-publishing these days, many of them don’t have the luxury or access to a publisher’s in-house graphic design team. Plus, technology has moved books into an online world and graphics need to be flexible enough to upload and post on the web, as well as appear in print. So if you’re getting ready to tackle the design of your book cover consider some of these tips below to make the process simpler.

1.  Research

Your book cover should appeal to your audience’s interests, reading levels and background. Knowing what they want or what grabs them can help you determine how to present your layout and deliver the message on your cover.

2. Images

Make absolutely certain that you’re using high-quality and high-resolution images in your design. You want your artwork to look clear and crisp regardless of it’s size. If you take shortcuts with your images you can potentially end up with pixelated and fuzzy graphics.

3.  Themes

If you’re an author, chances are that you’ve written more than one book or that you’ll be writing more than one book. For this reason, think about creating a theme in the designs that you build and look at ways to tie the aesthetics of your publications together. Even though your books may be about completely different subjects, your theme can bring a cohesive feel to them that lets readers identify with you as an author of the work.

4.  Typography

The choice of font that you incorporate into your cover can play a major role in giving the reader a tease about its contents. Use a script font to show off a feminine theme or an angled serif to create an Asian feel. The rule here is don’t flood the cover with too many different fonts and keep it legible. You don’t want people de-cyphering what your cover says.

5.  Feedback

Instead of coming up with just one great design, try to develop a group of three or four. Once you’ve got them laid out you can share them with others to get honest opinions about what they prefer and why. Although friends and family might seem like an obvious choice try hitting up strangers and conducting your own poll. It’s a great way to learn about what works and what doesn’t.

Book Marketing Mistakes For You To Avoid

When it comes to book marketing, it’s definitely more of an art rather than a science. Standard marketing tactics are pretty straightforward and without much variance. It’s the level of creativity and personalization applied to the marketing tactics that can make or break them. Like all techniques there are a few mistakes that you’ll want to avoid making.

1.  Not having groundwork for your platform. If you don’t conduct research and start building a network for your book before it’s published, you won’t have relationships or connections in place to help you push and promote what you’ve created. Like the old saying goes, “It takes a village.”

2.  Narrowing the scope of your audience. You may have a sci-fi novel that would move Asimov to tears, but focusing solely on fellow robot enthusiasts is selling yourself short. Broaden your audience base by exposing your book as much as possible. Take care of ISBN title registration and ensure availability of your book through major wholesalers.

3.   Failing to embrace technology. It’s been said many times throughout this blog, but just in case, here’s a repeat. Your book must have a website. It’s an absolutely critical marketing component that has a direct impact on sales and recognition of you as an author. Times have changed and online is where you have to be, including your book.

4.  Poorly edited manuscripts. Your book is a reflection of who you are as an author. Make absolutely certain that you take the time to have your book professionally edited and reviewed for any text errors. Having clean and cohesive content is an essential part of any good book. Don’t cut corners with editing.

5.  Poorly designed cover art. Hate to say it, but as human beings we’re attracted to aesthetically pleasing things. Spending the time to work with an experience graphic artist or designer can make a huge difference in how appealing or enticing your book jacket will look. Unattractive or substandard isn’t going to sell. This is one rare instance where you can judge a book by it’s cover. If it’s not appealing, it’s probably going to gather dust.

Take the time research and outline your book marketing strategy. There are a lot of moving parts so consider each one carefully before embarking on your book promotion journey. A little effort will go a long way.

Book Marketing Through Social Media

If you want to know how you can make use of Social Media to sell more books, get book publicity and drive traffic to your site I have published a free eBook “65 Ways To Use Social Media To Sell Your Book.” Just sign up to the right on this page