Enter social media. Here’s not only a way to reach a lot of people, but a way to have someone else help you do it! How cool is that?
First step: Open accounts with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, and MySpace. If you already have one, think about opening a second one that is tied in specifically to the book you’re marketing. The more focused your interactions in social media, the better.
Social media has emerged as one of the biggest buzzwords in the short history of the Internet. Never mind what tool or platform you use, social media is really about connecting people, engaging them, and treating them the way they want to be treated. Social media is having a huge impact on business, not just from a marketing perspective, but also in areas such as customer service, market research, and product development.
Social networks can allow you to reach and influence thousands of people, which can generate more traffic to your book’s website and sell more copies of your book. When optimizing your site for social networks, it is important to keep some general tips in mind:
1. create a well-written summary of your post in the first paragraph
2. place social networking bookmarks and buttons on your site
3. comment and submit stories
4. establish yourself to potential customers as an expert in your field.
MySpace
You don’t have to be sixteen and silly to leverage MySpace, and if your book is even remotely aimed at young people, it’s time to start your MySpace marketing. Start slowly: obtain an account, not with your own name, but with that of your book instead; instead of the requisite headshot, put in a shot of the book cover. Once you have that in place, look at the space as a mini-website ad put something together, being careful to keep the same look and feel (as much as possible) from your own website. Make sure that you have links back to your regular website, and use the social networking equivalent of alt tags on any pictures.
Facebook
Facebook allows you to create a “group,” but it doesn’t have to be about people. Think outside the box: the group can be an event, such as a sale, or it can be your book itself; once you’ve created it, invite all of your email subscribers to come and view it.
LinkedIn
Less social and more professional networking, LinkedIn nonetheless can be exploited for the holidays. One of the great resources of this networking site is the practice of users asking questions that can then be answered by other users. Many of the questions will be irrelevant to your book, but some will be; answering them well, completely, and helpfully will establish you as an expert in the field, an authority to which people can turn, and generate buzz about your book. Including a link to your website will garner great SEO mileage as well!
Make Sure You’re Prepared
One caveat that’s true for all social networking sites: if you’re building up a book profile, you have to consider what “friends” you want to be associated with for branding purposes. And you need to be willing to engage with the audience: blogging, sending messages, and being an actual member of the community. It takes planning and strategy, but social networking can really help with your book marketing strategy. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
SEO (search engine optimization) is the art and science of bringing people to your website who are likely to purchase your book. Why use it?
There are five components that contribute to high rankings in organic listings:
Along with these components, which are by and large onsite optimizations, a second component of your SEO campaign is a conservatively aggressive linking strategy.
It’s an essential part of search engine optimization, because the spiders “believe” that if you have links from other authority sites and important directories, then your site must be worth something in the eyes of the internet community, and they accordingly give you credit for that.
What is a link? A link is a reference on a web page that sends the user to some other place, either on the same site or out on the internet. Generally, a site with more quality inbound links will be positioned higher than a similar site with fewer links.
Some of these steps are things you can do for yourself. Others involve an in-depth knowledge of the search field and require the services of an expert. Feel free to contact Customline Wordware if you’d like some help with your SEO efforts!
Be aware in the meantime that SEO is currently undergoing a sea change. Google’s new personalized search (see this article by SEO guru Danny Sullivan to see where search is going) is going to be making a lot of changes in the landscape in the very near future. Stay on top of the trends, and then you’ll be .. beyond the elements of style!
]]>But wait, you say—libraries don’t sell books!
Of course they don’t … technically. But I’ve given many talks at libraries and asked in return only the ability to sell the book I’m promoting … and have made direct sales as well as creating a lot of buzz. That’s good marketing!
What’s even better is that once a library books you as a speaker, that library will market you as part of its regular programming. Not only do you not have to do the promotion (although anything extra you can add is a very good thing), you can learn about promotion from seeing what the library does.
Libraries sometimes will videotape your talk or presentation so that others can see it. But there’s a lot more you can do with the video! Check with your local cable TV and see if they’d be willing to run it; they’re often looking for content and this is great content. Put the video on your website along with your book trailer; put it up on YouTube; blog about it; connect it to your profiles on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn (um, you do have accounts at Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, don’t you?).
It’s not difficult to come up with an interesting presentation. If your book is nonfiction, your subject matter is obvious. If it’s fiction, find an interesting angle: the milieu in which the novel takes place, its historical context, professions practiced by the characters, etc. We’ll talk more about this sort of thing in the future.
And, of course, once you’ve given a successful presentation at one library, it will be easier to book the next one. Libraries are often searching for new and unusual content. Give it to them and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>Why? Think about it: as more and more companies take their marketing budgets online, people’s mailboxes have emptied out. While this month may be the exception (catalog companies are still alive and well and very evident during the holidays), in general you’re probably finding less and less direct mail in your physical mailbox. And what that means is that what is there is likely to merit more attention than in the old days when advertising postcards were plentiful.
I asked Tina MacNicholl of the direct marketing firm The Catamount Group if it’s a good time to do some direct marketing. Here’s what she had to say:
Think about it. What’s in your mailbox these days? Not very much, if it’s anything like mine. Not only has much marketing gone online, but so have bills, newsletters, donation requests … all the things that used to clutter up our physical mailboxes.
Yesterday when I looked in mine I found one lonely bill. And I have to say that if a flyer had been there, I would have looked at it!
One of our clients told us that response to their most recent direct mailing is the best that it has been in years, and that’s in the middle of a recession. Think about that: they got that response because no one else was there.
So maybe it’s time to come back into direct mailing while the competition is elsewhere. It’s not a complete marketing plan, but it’s an important component of one.
So have those postcards and bookmarks made up, and put together a mailing list for a direct mailing early in the new year. It’s one more part of your book marketing strategy that’s sure to bring success in 2010. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>I hope that you’re doing it somewhere, because integration of different media is the cutting edge of any kind of marketing these days. And it’s become easier and easier to do your own book trailer (think of what you see on movie trailers and translate it into a book) than ever before. You don’t even need a video camera.
There are a lot of different ways to create your book trailer (both Macs and Windows machines have software that does it more than adequately), so I’ll leave that explanation to the experts: just Google “create book trailer” or something of the sort and read about it. And—this may be the most important step—watch as may book trailers as you can stand. It’s essential to see what’s out there, what people are responding to, etc.
YouTube is making the distribution process easier and easier. Check out these two YouTube features:
So take time to learn about the process and play around with creating your own book trailer—again, even before the book is published. Creating buzz takes a strategy and video should play a prominent part in your online marketing plan. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>Any book proposal, fiction or nonfiction, must include a marketing plan, and the more specific it is, the better. Publishers don’t want to hear that you’ll go along with their ideas, they want to know that you’ll be constantly coming up with ideas of your own, and following through on them. A website. An email list to which you belong. Flyers. Lectures. Giveaways. SEO. Social media. Direct mail. Local cable broadcasts. The list is limited only by your imagination.
And to help that imagination, enter a new blog by PR expert Rebecca Kellogg, Creative Marketing Campaigns. It’s still in its infancy, so don’t expect a plethora of ideas; but I’ve listened to Rebecca’s ideas for some time and I’m excited about the potential for this blog. Try it and see what you think!
An older post (but still relevant) that I think is particularly useful about creative book marketing is called, oddly enough, Creative Book Marketing, and is well worth the read.
If you want a little humor with your research on book marketing, check out the idea of book trailers here.
In any case, remember that it’s no longer up to you to simply write the best book you can. You have to market, market, market. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>Google Alerts––still, surprisingly, in beta––sends you notices any time the keywords you’ve chosen get mentioned on the web. You can input your name as a Google Alert, your book title, or your general topic. I have a Google Alert for the word “stepmother,” for example, since I am one and hope someday to write something about it; it’s a great way to do research and accumulate resources.
If you have something specific you’re looking for, no problem. You can put the title of an article, for example, in quotation marks, and that brings in more results.
And it’s a marvelous marketing tool. When you’re sending out articles or press releases, Google Alerts will tell you where they’re being picked up. You can set up alerts for your name, for clients’ names, for various topics, etc., and it helps you see how successful you marketing efforts are. One other way to use Google Alerts in terms of marketing is to respond to reporters who are writing on topics similar to your own. Often if they just did a story on a topic, they might be willing to do a follow-up. It doesn’t always work, but it’s been fairly effective for me.
There are no limits on the number of Google Alerts you can set up, and they’re fairly easy to terminate at the end of a project or when your interest in a given topic wanes.
To try out Google Alerts for yourself, go here and fill in the form. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>Book Tour is a free online clearinghouse for information about authors who are touring. It was started by Chris Anderson, the author of NYT bestseller The Long Tail, who knows a thing or two about marketing.
If you’re a reader, you can sign up to be alerted when authors visit your local booksellers. If you’re an author, you can list all of your appearances, show a picture of your latest book cover, and other nice perks.
From the Book Tour website:
As the world’s largest, 100% free directory of author events, BookTour.com makes book tours better.In just a few minutes any author can create a page showcasing their biography, books, and upcoming engagements. Listing new events is as easy as answering a few questions. Publishers, booksellers, and events managers can upload tour dates en masse using a simple Excel spreadsheet.
Most importantly, readers can peruse our database of author events for the best of what’s nearby, or they can track their favorite authors on tour.
Readers can invite faraway authors to their town, or get in touch with authors already scheduled to appear locally to address additional groups, from company speaker series to book group meetings.
For authors, BookTour.com serves as a one-stop tool for book promotion, allowing authors at all levels of their careers to locate receptive live audiences.
For readers and audiences, BookTour.com makes finding when a favorite author is coming to your town as easy as checking the weather.
BookTour is based in San Francisco, the city that buys more books (and wine) per capita than any in America.
Check out Book Tour, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
]]>And reviews help. One of my publishers, in fact, absolutely swears by reviews, believing that they, more than anything else, are what sell the book. Whether reality is that extreme or whether success is a mix of many factors, book reviews still count.
Getting a reviewer to look at your book, however, may be a lot easier said than done.
There are certain good places to start. Your local newspaper or regional magazine is best: be sure to obtain the name of the correct person to send a review copy to, and add a very big note that says, “LOCAL AUTHOR.” Short of already being on the bestseller list, this is your best bet for reviews.
Don’t overlook Amazon. Amazon has a list of top-hundred reviewers, whose reviews carry more weight than those of your Aunt Edna who was “happy, dear, to write something nice about your little book.” With a little sleuthing, you can obtain their email addresses and politely request a review (and, of course, offer to send a review copy!).
The Big Boys of book reviews are tougher to get to, and I’m going to leave it to your ingenuity to figure out how; but I’ll start you off with a gift — the venues themselves:
So there it is. Write a fabulous book, get it critiqued via an online or real-time group, get it professionally edited, interest a publisher, sign a contract –– and start getting those reviews! And then you’ll be … beyonf the elements of style!
]]>But as I get older I’m less binary in my thinking, and I don’t believe that the Amazon/local bookseller necessarily has to be an either/or proposition.
Look at it this way. The goal for any published author is to sell thousands and thousands of copies of her books in a very short time, and she needs to be willing to do whatever is necessary to work with her publisher to make that happen.
And there’s no denying that Amazon is an excellent tool. The company actually does the industry a lot of good.
I love independent booksellers, but for economic reasons they are not always able to do what Amazon can and does (giving publishers workable terms and not ship returns, for example); and the reality is that for authors as well as for publishers and independent booksellers, selling books is a business.
The other thing I’m noticing about Amazon is that it is a tremendous marketing tool. Many people search Amazon for books and then buy them from their local independent bookseller. You can’t call a local bookseller or and ask the sales people to read you the blurb, the first chapter, or the reviews; and if you don’t happen to live close to said bookseller, this can be a problem — but you can get that information from Amazon.
Yes, Amazon is an impersonal megalithic corporation, and I don’t believe for a second that corporations are our friends. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot use them to our advantage, because they’re not going away anytime soon. Buy your books whenever possible at your local independent bookseller — I stand by my signature phrase — but don’t dismiss Amazon as a great venue for selling your books, as well.
And less binary thinking would be healthy for everyone … beyond the elements of style!
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