Book Marketing Buzz » Guest Bloggers

Guest Article: Start Marketing Your Book Even Before It Is Done by Lisa Shulz

admin — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:02:36 +0000

Start Marketing Your Book Even Before It Is Done

By Lisa Shulz

Ideally, one should plan and implement a marketing campaign many months before the actual launch of your book. Lay the foundation for success early and then be consistent with ongoing marketing well after your book has been released.

Here are seven tips to do while you book is being edited or in process of production and you have a bit of extra time on your hands since the book is being worked on by others.

Tip #1: Review all your social media profiles and update them. Put information in the profile indicating that your book is soon to be published, and add a date if you know one, and a brief overview of what the book is about.

Tip #2: Begin to do searches on all social media platforms of your target audience and join groups, “like” pages, and subscribe. For example, you were writing a book about a dog, your target readership might be dog lovers. Spend time finding out where dog lovers hang out both physically and on the internet. Perhaps visit the actual locations in your community where dog lovers go and build relationships with owners of stores and leaders of organizations related to dogs.

On the internet, begin interacting with members of groups related to dogs and just enjoy the conversation. In forums and groups, it is best to spend several months in friendly interaction before ever suggesting a call to action such as buying your book. If the membership enjoys your comments in the groups, they will be much more willing to actually buy a book from you at a later date.

Tip #3: Build your lists. Accelerate your efforts at adding followers to your lists. Those lists might be friends and fans on Facebook, your email distribution list, and blog subscribers. Wherever you have lists, build them to greater numbers. Allot a certain amount of time each day to list building activities to increase your connections.

Tip #4: Begin to inquire about joint venturing with others who have large lists. Leverage the lists of synergistic people in your niche by suggesting a mutually beneficial partnership of cross promotion. Perhaps they will promote the launch of your book to their lists if you feature them on your blog or they have the opportunity to give a bonus to your list when someone buys your book.

Tip #5: Draft press releases and email and social media announcements so you are prepared for the big launch day when it arrives. You may edit these drafts as the day approaches, but you will have these important promotional pieces in a ready state.

Tip #6: Create interview questions that you would love to answer on radio shows or blog interviews. Those who might interview you appreciate you making their job easier, and you have a chance to practice your answers so they sound smooth and natural.

Tip #7: Place information about your book release in the signature line of your emails such as “Author of the soon to be published book entitled (your book’s title)”.

Remember that marketing needs to be a part of your routine every week consistently before and after your book comes out. Keep a constant stream of exposure to your target market for your book’s success. Whether you traditionally publish or self-publish, you will be in charge of marketing your book, so start early and be persistent!

And if you would like to know more about self-publishing process, visit http://www.selfpublishingexperts.com Get free instant access to tips, a free book visualization and more. You’ll find that the writing process can be simplified and even easy with guidelines and sequential steps to follow. Lisa Shultz is a self-publishing specialist and loves to help others bring their books to life.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Shultz

Writing and Selling an eBook With Kindle Direct Publishing

admin — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:02:29 +0000

Writing and Selling an eBook with Kindle Direct Publishing

By Michael S. Mitchell

The traditional route to getting published was to create your book, and then find an agent to work with you, who will finally get a publisher interested enough to publish it. The problem with all this is that your chances of landing an agent these days are remote, and even if you do, they may not be able to get a publisher for you. Both agents and publishers are inundated with unsolicited proposals and manuscripts, and they therefore reject nearly everything. If you haven’t put much effort into your book, then this is fair treatment, for example if it’s full of spelling errors. But we’ll assume that you have worked hard, and in your opinion, and maybe that of your friends, it’s ready to publish.

EBooks have changed the publishing world, and now offer you new options to publish. Of course, you can still go the traditional route to get a book published as a hardback or paperback, as well as in electronic form. However, if you just want to get to market as fast as possible, you can publish electronically yourself, at no cost, and without an agent or publisher in sight.

There are several eBook readers, but Kindle is the reader we’re focusing on here. It’s the best selling product on Amazon, and it looks set to dominate the market. But the principles are the same for other readers.

Putting it all together for publication

Writing your book for electronic publication is no different than for paper form. For example, a novel needs an effective plot and characters that the reader can recognise. A non-fiction ‘How-to’ book needs to be laid out in a way that readers can easily follow, with images as appropriate.

The first 10% of your eBook will be viewable on the Amazon site, as a sample, so make sure this is especially good, and tempts the reader to want to read more. In a novel, it’s good to have some mystery in here, which the reader will want to unravel. In non-fiction, make sure you have a good topic early on, and in the TOC indicate some other tempting topics later in the book.

If you have it, use Microsoft Word, as this is the easiest to convert later to Kindle’s format. But you can certainly write with other software. If you don’t have a good word processor already, you can download a superb free one from OpenOffice.org (and get a free spreadsheet and other software with it).

You’ll need to design a cover page at some point. If you were going the traditional route, the publisher would do this, but now it is you who are the publisher! There are free images that you can use for this at publicdomainpictures.net or you can take your own photos. Use Paint or similar programs to create an overall image about 600 wide by 900 high, pasting in any pictures you have, and finally putting your title and author name on there.

You’ll also need what Amazon calls the ‘product description’. Amazon say: “Write a compelling description of the book. The description of your book gives customers an opportunity to learn about your book before they make a purchase, so this is an opportunity to convince readers to buy your book.” This is yet another task usually done by the publisher, and is what goes on the back cover. The ideal length is about 100 to 140 words. Not too short, as the reader won’t feel they know enough to make a purchase. And not too long to be boring!

Amazon also recommends that you include a Table of Contents at the front of the book, after the Title page and copyright wording. For non-fiction this is usually straightforward, but novels often only have chapter numbers without titles. So consider splitting your novel into 4 to 8 major parts or sections, with titles, to make the TOC look good. NOTE: use the built-in TOC facility in the word processor – don’t type your own, as it won’t work in Kindle.

If you have kept things straightforward in your Word document, than that can be uploaded directly as your manuscript, and Amazon will automatically convert it to Kindle format. However, if it is at all complicated, or you want to monitor the whole process, you can convert it yourself, step by step as follows:

In Word 2003 or later save the document as Web Page Filtered. (If you have Word 2000, you can download free the ‘Office 2000 HTML Filter 2.0′ from Microsoft’s site, and install it. Then in Word you can use File-ExportTo-CompactHtml
Next you need to download free software called MobiPocket Creator from MobiPocket.com, and use this to convert the HTML file to the upload format ‘PRC’.
Yet another free download (from Amazon) is the Kindle Previewer. This lets you view the PRC file exactly as a Kindle would.

So now you are ready to publish.

Becoming a Publisher on ‘Kindle Direct Publishing’

You should have your cover image ready to upload, as well as your ‘product description’ ready to copy and paste, and your manuscript either in Word or PRC format.

Your first step in publishing is to get an account at Amazon.com, if you don’t already have one. Then you need to register as a ‘publisher’ with Kindle Direct Publishing at kdp.amazon.com. You can use your own name as the publisher, unless you’ve set up a company for this purpose. You can choose to publish to the Amazon.com site of course, but also to Amazon.co.uk (the UK) and Amazon.de (Germany). You’ll need to set up how you want to be paid your royalty, either by bank transfer or by check.

Now you are a publisher!

Publishing your eBook

Now it’s time to actually publish your first book. So in your home page in KDP, you click the button ‘add a new title’.

After that, you follow the guide to upload your manuscript, cover page and to past in the product description.

There are some other things they’ll ask you, as follows:

What commission do you want? 35% or 70%? This sounds like a no-brainer, but if you go for 70%, your minimum selling price has to be $2.99. As a new author, you might want to sell at 99c, in which case you have to settle for 35% Of course, if suddenly you become very popular, you can raise the price later. But it has to be said that most of the best-selling ‘Indie’ books (from independent authors) are priced at 99c
So choose your price. You can set prices too for the UK and German sites if you wish to sell there.
Confirm that you own the copyright.
Digital Rights Management. Yes or no? Basically do you want to restrict people from copying your eBook or not. It’s your choice.

Finally, you ‘Save and Publish’, and that’s it. In about 24 hours, your book will be on sale on the Amazon site. And if you’re lucky, it might get featured on their special section Amazon.com/kindleindiebooks.

Otherwise, any publicity is up to you. Tell friends, use Facebook or whatever you can.

And the best of luck as an author and publisher!

Copyright Michael S Mitchell

I published my first novel “Pit of Corruption” this way, on Amazon.com. It’s got crime, corruption, murder, romance, and more… so you may even want to buy it! If you do, I’d welcome your comments on the Amazon ‘reviews’.

You’ll find my author webpage at MikeMitchell.me with some useful tools and notes for aspiring authors.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_S_Mitchell

Book Spotlight: White Sleeper by David Fett & Stephen Langford

admin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:26:27 +0000

WHITE SLEEPER, by David Fett & Stephen Langford, Synergy Books, 272 pp., $12.89 ($8.99 Kindle).

Osama bin Laden may be gone, but threats of terrorist attacks on the United States still remain a frightening possibility. Among the scariest scenarios is an attack using toxic biological agents, which could cause untold number of deaths throughout this country.

That’s the unsettling premise that drives the new bioterrorist thriller White Sleeper by David R. Fett and Stephen Langford, which has been published to critical acclaim by Synergy Books. Fett, a Los Angeles-based ophthalmologist and bioterrorism expert, and Langford, a screenwriter and producer, are longtime friends who teamed up to write a story that combines the threat of a homegrown terrorist linking up with foreign terrorists who wreak biological havoc on the United States, each with their own reasons.

When Arkansas experiences a wave of rare, fatal diseases, the CDC calls in Dave Richards, a doctor with a shady past, to investigate. Richards sees this as an opportunity to clear his reputation and save his career. He joins with FBI agent Paula Mushari to investigate the seeming plague. When they think they’ve found the person responsible for the bioterrorism, the find themselves drawn deeper into a sinister pact between a white supremacist and a vengeful terrorist sect, each bent on causing mass destruction on the American populace. Richards and Mushari must race against the clock – and their own personal issues – to prevent a catastrophic plague from breaking out.

White Sleeper is Fett’s first published book, although he has published many articles in his field. “I’ve always had an interest in toxicology,” says Fett, who holds a graduate degree in toxicology from MIT. “I thought for some time about writing a non-fiction book on bioterrorism. I told Steve about my idea and he suggested collaborating with him on a novel.”

Fett did extensive research on biological agents and bioterrorism, and he and Langford began to meet weekly to work out the narrative and characters for White Sleeper. The title, Fett notes, springs from the concept of a Caucasian homegrown terrorist joining with a foreign terrorist sleeper cell, “like a cross between Timothy McVeigh and Al Qaeda.”

Fett’s main reasons for writing White Sleeper were “entertainment and education,” he says. ‘The thriller part is to make people wake up. People need to be vigilant, act together, and open themselves up to the world at large. We need to protect the whole world from homegrown and foreign terrorists.”

Both Fett and Langford are fans of the biological terror novels of Michael Crichton (“The Andromeda Strain”) and Robin Cook (“Coma”), so it was natural for them to conceive a novel in a similar vein, Fett says. In one respect, then, White Sleeper is a tribute to those writers.

The authors have also written a screenplay based on White Sleeper, but, Langford says, “right now, we’re just trying to get the book out to the public.

DAVID FETT is a Board Certified Ophthalmologist and Fellowship trained Ophthalmic Plastic Surgeon specializing in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery around the eye. He has a busy private practice in Los Angeles and is an Assistant Clinical Professor at the UCLA School of Medicine.

Dr. Fett earned his MD from Dartmouth Medical School. He completed his Ophthalmology Residency training at UCLA and The Jules Stein Eye Institute and Fellowship training in Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery from The University of Illinois in Chicago.

He received both a Bachelor of Science in Applied Biology and a Master of Science in Toxicology from MIT. While in medical school, under the auspices of MIT and the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Fett used his toxicology training and Spanish fluency to help uncover the epidemiologic source and subsequently find a solution for a Colombian indigenous community plagued by stomach cancer.

Dr. Fett resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife, Randi. They have four children, two dogs and two cats.

STEPHEN LANGFORD is the veteran writer producer of over one hundred and fifty hours of primetime television writing. His credits include Family Matters and Malcolm and Eddie. He later became a screenwriter writing the motion picture Lovewrecked. His latest produced film is “The Nanny Express” which is running on the Hallmark Channel.

Langford grew up in the Boston area and later attended Emerson College where he received a Bachelor of Science in Film. After college, Langford began working in the motion picture field working for such film directors as Sidney Lumet and Joel Schumacher. Currently Langford lives in Tarzana with his wife Sandy and their two children Allyson and Erica. He is also the proud owner of a Jack Russell terrier named Betty and Chihuahua named Tovah.

More information on White Sleeper can be found on the book’s website at http://www.whitesleeper.com.

Book Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Wayne Zurl

admin — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:03:08 +0000

Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books is a continuing series to help authors learn how to promote their books. If you would like to be a guest blogger for our book promotion and publicity series, click here.

Today’s guest blogger is Wayne Zurl, author of A New Prospect (Black Rose Writing).

Following A NEW PROSPECT’s release in January I’ve learned more about post-publication marketing, social networking, and Internet promotion than I ever wanted to know. I joined Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and post things to them faithfully—at least four times a week. I signed up for another dozen internet sites to get my name and book title(s) out there to readers and other writers, bloggers, interviewers, and reviewers. When the book won the 2011 Indie Award for best mystery, I retraced my steps and made sure all the sites with author pages were updated and any site capable of taking new information received an appropriate blurb.

With the help of a brilliant local computer guru, I now have a website where he posts the summaries for my full-length novel in print and all the novelettes I’ve written now being offered in audio and eBook formats. The home page also shows what new titles are under contract and scheduled for release. For fans who like to read stories in the proper order of occurrence, I provided a chronology section. Photographs of the area where the stories take place receive compliments from readers. I also make periodic updates to my events/appearances calendar, show links to the author’s sites I belong to, reviews, endorsements, interviews, and other writer’s personal sites. I maintain a diary to accommodate personal thoughts, short stories, and outtakes from my published books. Be sure to update your site often. Lookers lose interest if they don’t see frequent changes and additions.

Immediately after publication I arranged for personal appearances at local libraries, storefront book shops, and any venue willing to host a book signing. Festivals, civic organization and book discussion group meetings and even markets and coffee houses make good places to meet potential readers.

Recently, I booked a two month virtual book tour. I’ve got great hopes for that. The publicist is a real go-getter. She’s got me jumping through hoops completing interview questionnaires, writing up guest blog posts, and arranging for my publisher to send books to reviewers. I may be a dinosaur when it comes to modern methods and technology, but I know where to find someone who can act as my pathfinder.

Wayne Zurl grew up on Long Island and retired after twenty years with the Suffolk County Police Department, one of the largest municipal law enforcement agencies in New York and the nation. For thirteen of those years he served as a section commander supervising investigators. He is a graduate of SUNY, Empire State College and now lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee with his wife, Barbara.

Prior to his police career, Zurl served on active duty in the US Army during the Vietnam War and later in the reserves.

Eight (8) of his Sam Jenkins mysteries have been produced as audio books and simultaneously published as eBooks.

For more information about Wayne Zurl or his writing, visit www.waynezurlbooks.net. Follow his book signing tour at www.booktour.com/authors/show/31206: and his virtual tour at: http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2011/05/19/a-new-prospect-virtual-book-tour-june-july-2011/.

Find link buttons to Wayne’s Facebook and Twitter pages on the home page of his website. Or use these:

http://twitter.com/#!/waynezurl

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001483038544

View the video trailer for A NEW PROSPECT on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/WayneZurl?blend=3&ob=5#p/u/0/OI63_29n9KQ

Tips to Create a Book Marketing Buzz by Hollywood Book Publicist Charlie Barrett

admin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 06:20:19 +0000

Today’s guest blogger is Hollywood book publicist Charlie Barrett, owner of the PR firm The Barrett Company. Charlie is on a virtual publicist tour with Pump Up Your Book. Be sure you check out how you can win a FREE Kindle following his guest post!

Tips To Create A Book Marketing Buzz

by Charlie Barrett, Hollywood-based Book Publicist

Here is a basic, general plan I recommend to create “buzz” about a new book that authors should adhere to as they seek and develop a strategy to launch a media outreach-publicity plan for their published work. No worthwhile, effective and basic PR plan can be successful without these book marketing tips:

Creation of a customized, media-friendly & dedicated two-page press release on the book.
A global virtual author tour on the Net targeting social bloggers, forums and affiliate programs.
Selection of professionally done photo(s) of the author for media and web site use.
Distribution of the press release to all relevant print, radio/TV and online medias from Publishers Weekly to The NY Times to USA Today to the Today show and Oprah to Google News and many others. Using a good online news release distribution service too is crucial in getting max exposure for the press release.
Book signings in book stores and other select and appropriate venues.
Speaker events from panel discussion groups at book festivals to local groups that can give support for marketing a book.
Radio interviews… both local, satellite (Sirius Radio) and nationally syndicated.
TV show bookings from local stations to national shows (for example, from The View to C-Span).
Authors may write articles or papers on any given subject relative to his or her book that can be brokered to the print and digital media (newspapers, magazines).
Authors should place their book’s web site address within their e-mail signature as another way to publicize their published works.
Media training should be conducted with most authors publicizing a book. This can be done with mock interviews for TV, radio, print and digital medias.
“Rave” book reviews should be placed on an author’s web site and used to update the original press release on a regular basis to keep it fresh and appealing.
Radio and TV interview clips can also be placed on an author’s web site as another content marketing tool.
Every author needs his own dedicated web site, whether it is a start-up web page or an intricate, sophisticated site. The website should feature his or her biography, photos for media downloading, an outline of their book titles as well as radio clips, print reviews and video of TV guestings, events that can be listened to and viewed.

# # #

Professional national book publicist Charlie Barrett formed The Barrett Company in 1992 as a full service media relations and media marketing / communications agency. The Los Angeles headquartered firm offers 21^st century integrated media outreach and media marketing expertise with an emphasis on the publishing and entertainment industries serving authors/publishers, Hollywood celebrities, motion pictures and television.

Since the firm’s creation TBC has served authors with such companies as Simon & Schuster, Globe Pequot Press, Norton and studios and TV outlets from Warner Brothers and Paramount, to cable TV network American Movie Classics (Mad Men) to ABC, CBS, Fox Television, as well as self-published author publishers such as Xlibris, Author House, i-Universe and numerous celebrities from Johnny Carson to Ed McMahon to Kevin Costner to Oprah Winfrey (Oprah’s Big Give television series on ABC).

The Barrett Company serves major publisher, small press and self-published authors with Harper Collins, Little Brown, Penguin Press, Oxford University Press, CreateSpace, Viking Press, Random House, Holm Press, Ben Bella Books, SMU Press and NYU Press – – creating and performing a range of publicity services and media outreach for both fiction and non-fiction book releases areas, generating media attention/coverage in print, broadcast and the growing on line digital medias. TBC is developing new book marketing strategies for e-books and author activity with Kindle, Nook You Tube, Twitter and Facebook

You can visit Charlie’s website at www.thebarrettco.com.

We’re having a Facebook party!!!!

Pump Up Your Book will be hosting Hollywood book publicist Charlie Barrett Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 9 – 11 p.m. (eastern time – adust to your time zone) at Pump Up Your Book’s Facebook page. Tell your book friends that not only will this give them an opportunity to chat with Charlie about book publicity BUT…

WE’RE GIVING AWAY A KINDLE ($189 VALUE)!!!!

CLICK HERE TO JOIN US!

5 Tips for Coordinating Your Virtual Book Tour by Cheryl C. Malandrinos

admin — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 01:18:25 +0000

We have a special guest today! Cheryl Malandrinos, author of the Christian children’s picture book, Little Shepherd (Guardian Angel Publishing) and one of the masterminds behind Pump Up Your Book, is here with us today to give authors tips on how to coordinate their own virtual book tours. Welcome, Cheryl!

5 Tips for Coordinating Your Virtual Book
by Cheryl C. Malandrinos

Coordinating a virtual book tour can be a scary thing for an author, especially if it’s your first book. Even though I am a debut author, promoting Little Shepherd, didn’t seem as intimidating to me because I had been promoting books online for nearly 3 years when it released in August.

Here are 5 Tips to help you get the most out of your virtual book tour:

Be Organized

Having managed nearly 100 authors spanning more than 125 books, I’ve learned the only way to stay sane is to be well organized. This is one of the few times I feel using a paper calendar or a notebook helps. When emails come in from willing blog hosts, I jot the blog’s title down in my notebook. Then I set a specific time of day or day of the week to respond to all those emails.

It is easy to forgot how a blogger would like to host you, so be sure to write interview, guest post, or review next to the blog’s title in your notebook. Also be sure to indicate if you are sending a reviewer a paper or an electronic copy.

Send a Note with Your Book

I glanced over at the table in the corner of my office that holds the almighty TBR pile. There are probably close to 80 books sitting there right now and that doesn’t include eBooks I will review on my Kindle.

Do yourself and the reviewer a favor by including a note, a sell sheet, or a business card when mailing a book out. This will avoid confusion for the blogger as to where this book comes from and if the review is time sensitive.

When I mailed out copies of Little Shepherd I included a note thanking the blogger for hosting me during my virtual book tour and made mention of the date he/she had agreed to host me. I also asked the blogger to email me if he/she couldn’t keep the date we agreed upon and provided a link to more information about the book and tour.

Complete to-do Items Promptly

As a blogger and virtual book tour coordinator, one thing I find frustrating is tracking down outstanding to-do items. Don’t make a blogger wait until the last minute for your interview or guest post. Plan your schedule out so you can complete and return to-do items by any deadline that has been given or a minimum of two weeks prior to your blog stop. This will give the blogger time to review your submission to be sure its complete and to ask for clarification when necessary.

Leave Comments at Your Blog Stops

We all lead busy lives, so this can be a tough one to manage; but if you want to show your blog hosts how much you appreciate what they do, take a few moments to leave a comment on the day your interview, guest post or review appears at their blogs.

Comments don’t buy books. Readers do. So I tell my clients not to stress too much when there aren’t many comments by readers. My own blogging experience has shown that you can have hundreds of visitors during a week but only a tiny handful of comments.

But this is your chance to show your appreciation to bloggers for taking time to promote your book. In addition, it’s an excellent chance to converse with a potential reader if she leaves a comment.

Promote Your VBT

Maybe this sounds like a statement that should be followed by, “Duh!”

Why go through all the effort to coordinate a virtual book tour if you’re not going to promote it?

Even those authors who pay a company to coordinate a VBT should have a hand in promoting their blog stops. Why? Because people need to know you’re on a virtual book tour if you want them to stop by and check out your book.

Think about it this way. I coordinate a tour for Author X. I have accounts at Facebook and Twitter with people friending or following me. Author X has accounts at Facebook and Twitter with people friending or following him. There might be some overlaps, but more likely we’re both reaching a unique audience.

You do the math. When Author X and I work together to promote his tour stops, more potential readers learn about his book.

Virtual book tours are fun, but they are a lot of work. Using these tips will make coordinating your VBT easier.

Cheryl Malandrinos is a freelance writer and editor. A regular contributor for Writer2Writer, her articles focus on increasing productivity through time management and organization. A founding member of Musing Our Children, Ms. Malandrinos is also Editor in Chief of the group’s quarterly newsletter, Pages & Pens.

Cheryl is a Tour Coordinator for Pump Up Your Book, a book reviewer, and blogger. Little Shepherd is her first children’s book. Ms. Malandrinos lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband and two young daughters. She also has a son who is married.

You can visit Cheryl online at http://ccmalandrinos.com or the Little Shepherd blog at http://littleshepherdchildrensbook.blogspot.com/.

Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Joel M. Andre

admin — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 05:40:10 +0000

Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books

Today’s guest blogger is Joel M. Andre, author of The Black Chronicles: Cry of the Fallen.

Since June of 2008, I’ve attempted to promote my books a number of ways.

While some efforts have really paid off, others have been a complete waste of money. It is with this knowledge that I hope some of you can learn from my mistakes and potentially save some time and money.

Because most of us use digital advertising, I think I should begin here. This will be your basic run of the mill advertising. Often, it is hit or miss….but most often you can expect to miss. One of the main reasons is that everyone is promoting with this method.

For those who have a very limited budget, the book forums will become your best friend. But not everyone is going to be pleased to see what you have to say. For example, I would hop around forums to and start discussions about my books at the time. While some people would be kind and discuss the topic, not too many people thought the topics were of value to the forums, even when I kept them to the actual genre. In fact, most of the time, these forum postings didn’t do anything for sales.

This includes the Amazon.com forums. You will find thousands of postings about different authors. Some of them have great books, but many Kindle readers don’t like the self promotion aspect, so it quickly becomes a double edged sword.

As I began to realize there wasn’t much buzz from the forum postings, I moved on to advertising. In fact, every dollar I made for a few months went to online advertising. I placed ads on Facebook, MySpace, Bloody-Disgusting.com and other areas. There was a good spike in sales from these sources and while the campaigns were going, I did well. It did quickly get very expensive. Even worse, there were a couple of places that never posted my paid advertisement, such as Horrorbid.com.

Another aspect came into play with Pump up Your Book Promotions. They allowed me to do a “virtual tour” and took my book to a number of websites I couldn’t reach and helped me to hit Google News. For a minimum cost, I found this to be a very effective marketing tool that did result in a spike in sales.

The final online advertising technique I attempted to use was Press Releases. But I’ll be honest. These press releases will do nothing for your sales. For many people, they come across as a vain method the author uses to promote their books….and they get people of low character to bleed money out of you with special “services”.

My offline approach was slightly different. Outside of friends and family, I needed to find a new way to promote my books.

So, I spent more money on merchandise and began giving it out to people. The hope was the people would see my name and begin to Google it and try to find out more about me. Instead, it didn’t really get my name out there at all it turned out, people found it very vain.

I was discouraged and needed to figure out my next move. So as I was working with my editor at the time, we discussed a possible solution. If you offer your book at .99 on the Kindle, it does draw buzz and more people will read it.

We gave it a shot and got mixed reaction to it. Many people were happy, while some were pretty upset about it. The fact on this is, the rough draft for A Death at the North Pole ended up on the Kindle, and backfired.

We did finally figure that one out and if you delete the copy from your Kindle and download it again, it does update to the correct version. This doesn’t cost more to download a book you already own.

However, don’t get the paperback edition with the snow background, you will find a similar issue. Instead, check out the edition with the black cover.

Ultimately, pricing is going to be the one thing that helps you to get the ball rolling with sales. A good tale will help to keep the momentum flowing.

# # #

Joel M. Andre was born January 13, 1981. At a young age he was fascinated with the written word. It was at fourteen that Poe blew his mind, and Andre began to dabble with darker poetry.

Between the years of 1999 and 2007 Joel was featured in various poetry anthologies and publications. In 2008 he released his first collection, Pray the Rain Never Ends.

Knowing there was something deeper and darker inside of his soul, Joel decided to take a stab at commercialism. Releasing the dark tongue in cheek, A Death at the North Pole, created a dark world among the death of Kris Kringle. Ultimately providing a tale of redemption.

October of 2008 saw Joel release his second book, Kill 4 Me. A tale in which a woman is haunted by a vengeful spirit through text messages and instant messaging.

Taking some time off and doing a lot of soul searching, Joel took things in a new direction and dabbled in the Fantasy Genre with, The Pentacle of Light. The tale dealing with five major races battling for control of Earth, and the acceptance of their God.

Finally, after missing his detective Lauren Bruni, he released the book The Return in October 2009, this time moving the action from the North Pole and placing it in the small Arizona community he was raised in.

Andre’s latest book is The Black Chronicles: Cry of the Fallen about a dead man who seeks revenge on the woman that tormented him in peaceful Northern Arizona.

Currently, he resides in Chandler, AZ.

You can visit his website at www.joelmandre.com.

Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Daisy Jordan

admin — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 04:29:34 +0000

Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books

Today’s guest blogger is Daisy Jordan, author of Love Means Zero (Llumina Press).

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I’m pretty sure my first book sale was to my mom. Still, it felt pretty good! It was so amazing to see my work in the form of a paperback. Shortly after my mom bought the first copy, I held a book signing at a local bookstore owned by one of my friends. That was really cool, because my town’s newspaper did a story on me and the book, and a lot of people came out to the signing. The experience was incredibly encouraging and boosted my hopes for greater success.

However, branching out and spreading the word outside the local market of people I already knew proved to be quite difficult. The first move I made was to create a MySpace page dedicated solely to my books. I would then look at other authors’ pages – authors who wrote books geared toward a similar audience – and friend-request their friends.

This was pretty successful; I gained a few hundred friends this way, and at least some of those people actually looked at my page and ended up buying my books. I know because a few of them contacted me to tell me how much they liked the books. That always makes my day, and those experiences talking to readers are some of the highlights of my writing career.

Despite some success with MySpace, I felt I needed a publicist if I really wanted to get the word out there. But for a long time, I didn’t have enough money to hire one, so I kept putting it off. Finally, at some point last spring, something really snapped into place in my mind about how much I truly want to “make it” as an author.

That was when I got really serious about publicity. Through a random internet search for publicists, I stumbled upon Pump Up Your Book. I had considered going with a publicist who could arrange either a regional or national tour for me, but when I read about Pump Up Your Book’s online blog tours, that seemed like a much better idea.

If I were to do an in-person tour during which I appeared in several cities, my major question was how many people were actually going to show up? It seems to me people are way more likely to read a blog than they are to make it out to a signing for an author they’ve never read before.

Around the time my online tour started at the beginning of September, I also created a Twitter account and started updating my Daisy Jordan Facebook page way more frequently. So far I am thrilled with the results of my tour. I have new followers on Facebook and Twitter, I have a ton of reviewers reading my latest book, and, best of all, the word is spreading! More people in more areas of the US and the rest of the world know about my books, and that’s the most important thing.

I have also attended a couple book fairs and done signings there. The first one was Book Expo America in New York in 2007, and just a week and a half ago, I attended the West Hollywood Book Fair in California. These were both opportunities offered to me by my publishing company. While I had to pay up front for travel, registration at the events, and copies of my books, I think these events are really worth it, and I will continue to go to them.

California was a new geographical area for me in terms of circulating my books, and at the West Hollywood fair, I feel I met some people who are going to become true fans and keep following my books. I have already seen sales on Amazon that are a direct result of that fair.

Overall, I think each author has to find the marketing style that works for him or her. It is possible to make blog connections on your own and promote your book by yourself in other ways as well. I did that for a while, and I was pleased with the results I got. However, for me personally, it was way too time-consuming to do regularly. It is much easier to have that publicist or point person who arranges the blog guest posts for me and takes the time to make all those contacts. That way I still have time to write!

But even with someone helping me, promoting my books is still very time-consuming. That’s why I didn’t do much of it for a long time. I have learned that in order to truly be successful at it and see large-scale results, I have to seriously want it and be willing to put in the time. And now that I am, I’m really excited to see what happens from here.

Daisy Jordan is an obsessive tennis fan and wrote this book so she could live out her dream-job fantasy through Hilton. Before deciding to write a book about the tennis tour, she wrote six other books, including Everything Happens for a Reason…, the Spin the Bottle series, and All That Sparkles Isn’t Real Sapphire. Even before that, she grew up in Indiana watching tennis all summer every summer on TV, and even attended a few pro tournaments. She now lives in Denver and religiously fills out brackets for every Grand Slam with her brother Josh.

You can visit her website at DaisyJordan.com.

5 Tips for Coordinating a Successful Virtual Book Tour by Cheryl Malandrinos

admin — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:17:28 +0000

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5 Tips for Coordinating a Successful Virtual Book Tour
by Cheryl Malandrinos

Years ago, book promotion was different. Book signings, library readings, radio and newspaper interviews, and book reviews from well-known publications could help get your book noticed. For new authors, however, it was tough to get their books into the hands of readers outside of their local areas.

Then things changed.

The Internet arrived and blogs soon followed. People from all walks of life were using these online journals to write about all sorts of things, including the books they liked or didn’t like. This paved the road for a new way to promote books—the virtual book tour (VBT).

A virtual book tour is when an author visits a certain number of blogs during a specific period of time. The author’s book gets reviewed, he might be interviewed, and in many cases, he can be a guest blogger, where he writes an article that appears on someone else’s blog.

Virtual book tours are a great way to create an online presence for your book. Unlike in-store book signings, potential readers can access your blog stop (when you appear at a blog during a VBT) many months after you’ve been there. As long as the blog remains online, readers can find out about you and your work.

There are a few tricks to help you coordinate a successful virtual book tour. I’ll share some of them below.

Tip # 1 – Decide on the right time to tour your book.

It takes approximately 4 to 6 weeks to coordinate a VBT. One of the main reasons is that there must be enough time to ship books to those who are reviewing them. This time can be shortened if you’re touring an e-Book.

Another thing you must consider is your schedule. If you’re already struggling to balance your workload, it might not be the right time to coordinate a virtual book tour. I tell my clients to expect to spend half an hour to an hour a day working on VBT items—interviews, guest posts, and mailing out books. And don’t forget, once the virtual book tour starts, you need to allot time to promote it.

You might also want to consider what time of year is best to promote your book. When creating a marketing plan for my first children’s book, Little Shepherd, I decide to coordinate a VBT for the last three months of the year because it ties into Christmas.

Tip #2 – Provide bloggers with the information they need to decide if they want to host you.

In addition to being a virtual book tour coordinator, I am a blogger and book reviewer. I can’t tell you how many times I receive an email that reads this way:

“Dear blogger,
I am an author looking for a good blog to review my book, (title). Please let me know if you’re interested.
Sincerely,
Susie Author”

How can I decide if I want to read a book without knowing anything about it?

All correspondence to bloggers should be professionally written and include the following:

Your name
The book title
A book blurb
The genre
Link to your website or where the book can be purchased
If you are looking for the book to be reviewed within a certain time frame (important if you’re coordinating a virtual book tour)

Use the blogger’s name instead of addressing your email to, “Dear Blogger”. If you’re unsure of the name, you could open your email with, “Dear Editor of (blog title)”.
Remember to spell check your email before hitting send.

Tip #3 – Include a Thank You note and a business card with your review copy.

While some might feel that a free book is thanks enough, the blogger is still agreeing to spend some of his/her time reading your book and putting together a review. Whenever possible, send along a note of thanks with your review copy.

It’s also smart to include a business card if you have one. I add all names and addresses for books I review into my Outlook contacts. That way I can email the author a direct link when I complete the review. I stash all those business cards in a desk drawer, which means I can look up an author’s website at a future time to see if he/she has a new release coming out.

Tip #4 – Be creative with your interviews and guest posts.

This is your chance to shine; to tell potential readers why they should be plunking down their hard earned cash on your book. Boring interviews filled with one or two sentence answers won’t provide enough information for a reader to make a decision. You want the reader to feel like you and the blogger are sitting down having an actual conversation.

When writing up a guest post, take a few minutes to browse the blogger’s site. Draft an article that will engage the reader. Try not to use the same guest post more than twice during your virtual book tour. People who are following along will soon get bored reading the same information over and again.

Tip # 5 – Tell people you’re going on a virtual book tour.

Virtual book tours are a wonderful way to reach potential readers all over the world, but if you don’t tell anyone you’re on a virtual book tour, who will know?

Post your VBT schedule on your website or blog. Email your contacts and let them know when your virtual book tour will start and give them a link to where you’ve posted your schedule so they can follow your tour.

Don’t have a website or blog?

Start one before your virtual book tour begins. Experienced bloggers will look online for more information about you and your book to supplement their blog posts. In addition, you want to give potential readers a place to learn more about the book you’re promoting.

Use social networks like Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog stops on a daily basis.

Coordinating a successful virtual book tour is time-consuming, but it’s also a lot of fun. Making sure you have the time to dedicate to a VBT, providing bloggers with all the information they need, saying thanks, being creative, and letting people know you’re on a virtual book tour, will make your experience a lot easier too.

Cheryl C. Malandrinos is a virtual book tour coordinator for Pump Up Your Book (formerly Pump Up Your Book Promotion). A book reviewer and blogger, Ms. Malandrinos is also a founding member of Musing Our Children, and editor in chief of the group’s quarterly newsletter, Pages and Pens. Her first children’s book, Little Shepherd, was released by Guardian Angel Publishing in August 2010.
Visit Cheryl online at http://ccmalandrinos.tripod.com/ For more information about Pump Up Your Book’s virtual book tours, please visit www.pumpupyourbook.com or contact Cheryl directly at cg20pm00@gmail.com.

Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Kerri Nelson

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:27:32 +0000

Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books

Today’s guest blogger is Kerri Nelson, author of Cross Check My Heart.

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The Promo Guru

by Kerri Nelson

What is a guru exactly? We hear the word used but what is it really?

According to Dictionary.com, it is defined as “a leader in a particular field”. So, I consider myself a promo guru after the past two years I’ve spend learning how to promote my books.

How did all this come about?

Well, almost 2 years ago I sold my first book (a romantic suspense novella) to a small e-book publisher. They don’t do much promotion on behalf of the author and it is totally left up to us to take the ball and run with it.

Up to that point, I knew about all the big “promo for hire” websites that existed because I’d often frequented them as an avid reader. But, seriously, who can afford that when you’re just starting out?

I needed other promotional opportunities that I could afford and manage on my own.

The absolute best decision (and investment) I ever made was to take a Marketing class through an online workshop. It taught me all about creating a website, the importance of social networking, how to cross promote with other authors in my genre, and introduced me to the world of book trailers.

Since that time, I’ve taken a couple other promo classes and have picked up even more ideas but I highly recommend that you take the time to get educated in the world of marketing before you make your choices about what is best for you and your book.

Now, two years later, I own my own promotional blog that I operate for both my own needs and the needs of dozens of other authors. At the Book Boost Blog (www.thebookboost.blogspot.com), you can run low cost cover ads, make guest appearances, and we’ll even design your custom book video (trailer). We are a one stop shop. I even offer free guest blog appearances to author on available days—so there are free promo opportunities as well.

Why did I create this site?

Really, I just saw the incredible need for low cost (highly affordable) advertising for authors. There are many options out there but they add up in cost very quickly. I wanted to do something that I could use as an author and that would also benefit my author network of friends as well.

I also fell in love with designing custom book videos (trailers) and through my design company (Book Boost Designs) have completely around 25 of them for other authors including bestselling author Ann Aguirre and Monica Burns.

I believe that this qualifies me for the title of Promo Guru. But in the highly competitive book sales market, we can always use more gurus. So, what’s stopping you?

Kerri Nelson has always been passionate about reading books but when she wrote her first poem in the second grade, she discovered her love of writing. At the age of sixteen, she became a columnist for her local newspaper as the high school correspondent for the weekly “Panther Tales” column. She won the Outstanding Young Journalist of the Year Award for her efforts.

After an education and career in the legal field, Kerri began to pen romantic suspense novels with a legal or law enforcement theme. She is a true southern belle and comes complete with her dashing southern gentleman husband and three adorable children. When she’s not reading or writing, you’ll find her baking homemade goodies for her family, feeding her addiction to blogging online or designing custom made book trailers. Kerri is an active member of Romance Writers of America as well as numerous Chapters including Hearts through History, Futuristic Fantasy & Paranormal, and Celtic Hearts Romance Writers.

Kerri is a multi-published author of romance in every genre from romantic suspense and paranormal to young adult and inspirational novels.

In 2009, Kerri wrote and sold twelve books to multiple publishers using her Book Factory method. Her latest paranormal romantic suspense “Courting Demons” will release from Dorchester Publishing in 2011.

Read more about Kerri’s books at her website: www.kerrinelson.com

Come out and chat with Kerri at her blog: www.kerribookwriter.blogspot.com

Want to play, learn and compete with other authors in the biz? Visit here: www.thebookboost.blogspot.com

For the latest news and updates from Kerri, follow her on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/kerribookwriter