Before you write it

1. Have a unique approach to a relevant topic. There are a lot of books published every year. Make sure yours stands out from the crowd for the right reasons.

2. Decide why you are writing a book. To make money? To establish expertise? To see yourself in print? All are valid reasons that may impact how you publish as well as market the book.

3. Make sure you have an audience for the book. And make sure you know how to reach them. If you plan to market strictly online and your audience is made up of non–Internet savvy readers, you may have a problem.

4. Build a following via social media sites. It’s never too early to start making connections with potential readers and relevant professionals via social media. There are many sites out there, but Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most common. You may also want to check out sites such as book marketing expert John Kremer’s Book Marketing Network.

Before you launch it

5. Create a website that features your (forthcoming) book. This one is a no-brainer.

6. Start building your email list. Publish an ezine and offer a free report, free chapter, or some other bonus for people to opt-in with. When you attend events, collect business cards and email addresses. Send them an email or a copy of your ezine, and invite them to opt-in. 

7. Start blogging. This is the best way to keep your website content fresh. It’s also a great way to stay in touch with potential readers and professionals within your industry. You can also use it to establish your credibility well before your book is published.

8.  Use your blog to ask for feedback on your book’s content. Then promise to acknowledge everyone who comments in your book. These people will feel an “ownership” in your book and will help spread the word after it launches.

9. Create a list of important bloggers in your field. Start interacting with them by commenting on their blogs.

10. Get testimonials and endorsements from pertinent people in your field. These are great promotional tools that can then go on the book cover and/or inside the book. Post them on your website and use them in news releases.

11. Approach associations relevant to your book’s content. Suggest ways you can work together. Perhaps you can put on a workshop or seminar, speak at an event, or write an article for their newsletter or blog.

12. Set up Google alerts. Stay abreast of industry news by setting up an alert in your name, your competitors’ names, and other key terms. This will enable you to jump into the online conversation in a timely manner.

13. Have your manuscript edited by a professional. Ensuring that your content is top-notch will go a long way in making your reputation is top-notch.

14. Have your book cover designed by a professional. Don’t skimp on this very important sales tool. A professional book cover designer will ensure your book stands proudly next to any other book on the shelf.

15. Create your own competition. Create a competition on your website or on Twitter (Tony Eldridge has written an excellent book on Twitter contests) with copies of the book as prizes. Follow up with those who entered but didn’t win and offer them a discount to purchase your book.

16. Offer the book as a prize on other websites and blogs. You should have already put together a list of blogs and websites where your book could potentially be promoted. Offer the blogger or website owner free copies of your book to be used as competition prizes.

17. Send out free copies of the book. Don’t skimp on this important aspect of promotions. It’s a great way to garner reviews and endorsements. Send out copies to influential bloggers and journalists. 

18. Pull out excerpts of the book to use as articles. Post them on free article sites that are available all over the Internet.

19. Create and post videos. Keep videos short and sweet (under 10 minutes) and publish on YouTube and your own website, as well as other sites. 

20. Schedule a launch day. Pick one specific day and make sure plenty of activity is planned around this day. Notify your email list, post some videos to YouTube, hold a webinar, plan some guest blog posts. All that activity should go a long way in creating momentum.

After you publish it

21. Offer a chapter as a downloadable PDF. Post one of your book’s chapters on your website as a free, downloadable file. Encourage readers to share it with others. Include a summary of the rest of book to encourage people to buy it.

22. Publish the book’s table of contents on your website. Include a brief overview about each chapter. Optimize the page for search engines.

23. Organize an online virtual book tour. Touring the country to physically visit bookstores is cost prohibitive for most authors—and not all that effective unless you are a celebrity.  Arrange a tour online with virtual stops at websites and blogs. You’ll gain maximum exposure for minimum costs.

24. Encourage people to write a review of your book on Amazon.com. Ask everyone who gets a copy of your book to publish a five-star review of your book on Amazon.

25. Publish reviews and testimonials of the book on your website. Include reviews from Amazon.com and other sites where your book has been reviewed, as well as any testimonials you’ve received.

26. Arrange interviews with bloggers in your genre and radio hosts interested in your subject matter. This is a win-win since it provides them with valuable content and you with valuable publicity. Include these as part of your virtual author book tour initially, but you can continue to schedule interviews even after your initial publication. As long as your book is for sale, the promotion push should be ongoing.

27. Makes sure you always have copies of your book with you. I’ve had clients sell 20 or more copies out of their trunk or waiting in line at the post office. One author I know gave away a copy of his book to an executive, who ended up ordering dozens of copies for his company.

And don’t stop with this list. There are dozens more things you can do to promote your book. Get creative, be persistent, and watch your book sales go up.

1. Stick to book topics that will appeal directly to your blog readers.

2. Ask for a review copy of the author’s book and read it ahead of time.

3. Decide whether you’d like the author to do a guest post, answer interview questions, or post a book excerpt. Let the author know if you have a word limit.

4. If you go with interview questions, develop a list of questions that will allow the author to discuss their book but which will also provide valuable content for your blog readers. Make sure you get these questions to the author so he or she has plenty of time to provide compelling responses.

5. Ask the author to provide a head shot, photo of their book cover, and a brief bio.

6. Add the author’s blog to your blog roll.

7. Decide when you’ll post the author’s “appearance,” and make sure he or she will be available that day to answer questions or respond to comments your readers post.

8. Find out whether the author has a web page listing all the stops on their virtual author book tour, along with the topics they’ll be discussing. If he or she does, post the link to this page.

9. Include a link to the book’s Amazon.com page; or if you are an Amazon affiliate, add a buy link for the book.

10. Remind the author to be sure to blog about the visit on his or her own blog—with a link back to your blog, of course.

11. Publicize the blog post once it’s up via social media groups you belong to, including any forums, discussion groups, and ListServs. If you’ve got an ezine, include a link there as well.

12. It’s recommended that you put the post up early in the morning—shoot for prior to 8 am Eastern time.

13. Check the post regularly so you can respond to comments and answer questions. (Your author should be doing that as well!)

A few final notes: Remember to thank your author for including your blog on his or her virtual tour. It’s also nice if you post a review of the book on sites such as Amazon and GoodReads.

Please let me know if you would like to be featured!

Your name:  Lillian Brummet

Your website/blog: www.brummet.ca; http://consciousdiscussions.blogspot.com

Your bibliography: Lillian Brummet is the co-author of the books Trash Talk and Purple Snowflake Marketing. She is the author of Towards Understanding, host of the Conscious Discussions Talk Radio Show, and manager of the award-winning Brummet’s Conscious Blog. She offers a bi-weekly newsletter as well. A quick Internet search will reveal just a few of the hundreds of articles she has written for publications around the globe, and thousands of interviews with Lillian. She has volunteered with many organizations over the years, is a member of Seeds of Diversity Canada and has a passion for rescuing animals and motivating people to be more proactive in leading a conscious and green lifestyle.

1. What is your background? I grew up in a broken home, was on my own at the age of 13, and yet was able to put myself through school, stay out of the system and pay my own way. I began writing very early in life, but used it as a healing tool during my early years to deal with the past. It was in ’99 that we (my husband Dave and I) decided to use this talent for writing as a way to pursue our passions in life and create positive change… leaving a lasting legacy.

2. What led you to self-publishing? I started out as a free-lance writer, later working for several different publications on assignment or as a staff member for a few years, and then branched off to write books… which is our main focus now. We have worked with a few different traditional publishers (in print, with royalties) and soon learned that there were very few benefits in dealing with publishers, as opposed to being on our own. Sure they find distributors, set up the ISBN and so forth, but everything else is left up to us, the writers. So now we are focusing on taking all our work into e-book format. Already 3 of our books have been updated, totally revised and released as e-books and we have numerous others coming out soon.

3. What have you found to be the biggest challenge in self-publishing? You absolutely must have self-discipline. You are the only person who will be communicating with anyone connected with your book so you must be prepared for that. The initial set-up for this can be daunting at first due to the draft email/letter creations and media kits and record keeping… Once all this is set up, the process becomes much more smooth. Keeping up to date with my records is a challenge due to communicating with a large number of media contacts every single day… Who was followed-up on? Who received the files they were looking for? When is the event happening and have I created the promotions for that event? Balancing all of this with the actual task of writing (she laughs) can be a challenge.

4. What has been the biggest surprise about self-publishing? The biggest surprise is how receptive people in the industry are for this genre. It used to be laden with a stigma but that is now fading. People are becoming more educated about the various formats and genres in the industry and the green benefits of alternative publishing options are catching on too. Even e-books and audio books, the newest entries in the world of writing, are getting great reception out there in the marketing sphere.

5. Describe your writing process. The writing itself starts with an idea and the consideration of who I am speaking to. Once I have those two items the rest just falls into place. If I know my audience, I am already aware what they are looking for, what will appeal to them. I then create a brief outline for larger non-fiction projects, and this outline is very flexible so that I can keep the creative level high as I work through the process. Research is a biggie for me I love to research the topics, issues, people involved in an issue contact them and then use this information in the writing process. I don’t worry about editing just yet and sometimes create a few pages just for notes that I can refer to. Once the writing piece has been created, then I become concerned with flow that one idea leads to the next, one paragraph leads to the next. Sentence structure and other editing like grammar is something I do relatively last. My husband is an exceptional editor and proofreader, so he will often work on the project at this point. After taking some time away from it, we will return and read it at least one more time before submitting.

6. How do you stay disciplined? The motivation behind staying on top of things is that I am not having to work for the man… that dreaded day job of drudgery. So that keeps me aware of my position, that by working for myself I do not have to answer to anyone but myself, yet I do find the hardest person to please IS myself! (She laughs). Keeping good records is key to my success in being on top of things. Who I’ve submitted to, where that communication is at and whether they need to hear from me again – these can all be seen at a glance just by using color codes. Green for contacts that are completed, blue to follow up on, pink is a confirmed event, but not yet made public purple lets me know that I’ve already dealt with that contact and it was a positive outcome. Excel is a great program that my husband taught me to use years ago. Every 6-8 months I go through the year’s contacts in that file and do any follow-ups necessary before moving on to new ones.

7. How are you financing your publishing project? With e-book publishing there is no cost, as long as one doesn’t have to outsource things like PDF or EPub (Electronic Publication) formats, image creation, website design, publicity and so on. One can learn how to do each of these tasks, however it can take a huge amount of time and if you cannot find the resources, than you are facing costs for educational courses. Luckily Dave and I work as a team he is really talented with graphics, art, writing copy (sales language), website design, and technical problems. So with my research, content creation and marketing skills we make a great team. He does well with public appearances, I prefer working online and enjoy working with the media, while Dave is comfortable setting up affiliate opportunities and putting our book cover images together. As such our costs are minimal only the advertising we choose to pay for, such as bookmarks and ad spots in a publication, are expenses for us; but most exposure can be had for free if one had the time and initiative. This doesn’t mean that writer’s services are not a necessary commodity, but for the financially constrained author one doesn’t HAVE to outsource, unless they want to.

8. What is your favorite self-marketing idea? Alley-cat marketing… which is really the basis of our e-book Purple Snowflake Marketing How to Make Your Book Stand Out In a Crowd. Simply put it is the difference between giving someone a pen with your information on it or cold-selling someone through an ad; which is what people are tired of… their eyes will just glaze over. It is a different approach, you are giving something away first, rather than asking them to buy. This could be a tangible or intangible gift, but something that benefits the recipient and creates a warm-fuzzy-feeling that motivates them to find out more about you or support you in some way.

9. What advice do you have for burgeoning self-publishers? If you are just starting out in the world of writing and do not already have a following of some kind than you will need to start from the very beginning and that means defining your niche (your writing style, the meaning behind your writing…) and whatever defines you as a person or as a writer. Starting with this you can then begin to develop you marketing platform and design a plan to gain name recognition. Name recognition can be developed in many different ways, which can be confusing and daunting if looked at in a certain light however if looked at in a positive light, these variables give you the opportunity to develop a plan that suits your unique situation and help you stand out in a crowd like a purple snowflake.

10. When you’re not writing what do you do for fun? I am really into gardening, I call it playing in the dirt – it is me time and a form of meditation for me. Dave is a great cook and we often work together, me being the prep-cook/cleaner-upper most of the time. Dave and I spend a lot of time together out of the office as well. We enjoy hiking, bicycle activities and camping. Our love of nature keeps us busy we can often be found cleaning up a beach site, or a river access site or trail… or pulling out invasive weeds. Our dogs help us keep fit as they certainly need their hour-long walk every day and other training or attention that they must have. They bring a lot of joy into our lives and keep us laughing.

11. What project are you currently working on? We are currently building our new e-book empire. Dave has been working for months behind the scenes getting things ready for a new website, and a new e-store offering a whole range of e-books and products. We are selling our books in e-format from now on, as well as many new things to come such as the long-awaited garden book, a series of how-to books, and sequels to Dave’s drum lesson projects. My blog (http://consciousdiscussions.blogspot.com) and our radio show (http://blogtalkradio.com/consciousdiscussions) keeps us busy as well. I start every day with a quick glance at what is happening for these two projects, who is appearing as a guest, what topic I’ll be covering that day… and so on. I love doing interviews and blog appearances, and am regularly appearing in the media whenever possible. There is not a day that goes by that I have not done some form of marketing except one of the three days that I do take off each month. I don’t even open the office door for three whole days in a row every single month and this allows me to refresh my mind and my relationships as well.

Guest blogger: Dana Lynn Smith

This post, the third of a three-part series on building an author platform, highlights the importance of connections. Part one of this author platform series covers branding, while part two discusses reputation.

When selling your book, it’s not just what you know, it’s who you know!

To sell books in today’s marketplace, you need to be connected. Here are some examples of the type of connections that are valuable to authors in promoting their books and themselves:

 Contact Database – Clients, prospects, colleagues, friends, and family.

Opt-in Mailing List – People who have given you permission to contact them.

Influencers – Celebrities, well-known people in your field, book reviewers, media, and bloggers.

Online Networks – Connections on Facebook, Twitter and other online networks, groups and forums.

Blog Readers – People who read your blog or subscribe to the blog’s feed.

Professional Associations – Fellow association members and leaders. Serving in a leadership position enhances your visibility within the organization.

Other Groups – Alumni associations, civic and service organizations, hobby clubs, etc.

What can you do to increase your connections and leverage the connections that you have? How can you partner with others to extend your reach?

Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of several book marketing guides, including The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing. For more tips, follow @BookMarketer on Twitter, visit Dana’s blog at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com, and get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you sign up for her free newsletter at www.BookMarketingNewsletter.com.

But the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I got. His condescending and disparaging view of “self-publishers” started to tick me off. First and foremost, the “self-publishers” to which he is referring are really authors who are going the vanity press route. And those pay-to-publish authors have been mostly scorned from the very beginning. Clearly, Keillor does not understand the traditional self-publishing model, wherein authors start up their own imprint and spend quite a bit of time and money to make sure the book they produce is top notch. These authors often hire companies that provide author services (note that this is quite different from pay-to-publish) to ensure their manuscripts are well edited and their books well designed. (Shameless plug opp: Yes, services such as Self-Publishing Resources.)

Second, he is clearly assuming that all self-published authors go that route because they were not “good enough” for the trads. Nope. There are many good reasons to self-publish, including maintaining creative control, making more money (yup, making more money), and producing the book more quickly, to name a few. And heck—you’re going to have to market and promote your own book anyway (the trads won’t do it for you!)…you might as well be in charge of the whole process and pocket all of the profits from your efforts.

Is a manuscript better just because you “mailed it to a New York publisher in a big manila envelope with actual postage stamps on it”? Because you typed it on a typewriter? Because you enjoy an “aura of martyrdom”?  All that sounds kind of romantic, but the past is the past.

I do agree that there is a lot of crap out there right now, but most of it falls within the subsidy press category. Once people begin to understand the difference between vanity publishing and independent publishing, I think (I hope!) that will begin to change and we will see more thoughtfully produced books. As more and more book review sites begin to cater to self-published authors (whether they are pay to publish or truly self-published), even if they are not the New York Times, I believe honest reviews will start to separate the wheat from the chaff. One thing I do know: Self-publishing is not going anywhere. Neither is the Internet. Or the cell phone. Or the microwave.

And does anyone else find it pretty ironic and kind of hilarious that Keillor’s article is surrounded by ads about self-publishing??!!

So what is a virtual author book tour? Basically it involves visiting—virtually, of course—a group of websites for a period of time. The visits can take several different forms: interviews, guest posts, book reviews, book excerpts, and so on. (You can read more here in an interview I did with Penny Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., and author of Red Hot Internet Publicity.) The sites usually range from blogs, websites, online radio stations, and social networking sites. The purpose is to increase an author’s online exposure, drive additional traffic to his or her website, increase search engine rankings, and hopefully sell more books.

It’s not difficult to set up a virtual tour, but it will take some research, planning, and followup. You can do it yourself–or you can hire a company to do it for you. We’ve been setting up tours for authors for the past year or so, and we’ve learned a lot as far as what is needed to make a book tour successful.

I consider the first two items on the list to be essential; we have found it is much more difficult to set up a successful tour with authors who are not active online and who do not wish to blog regularly. I believe it is far less beneficial to the hosts as well, to host these types of authors, and they are less apt to agree to an appearance. And frankly, I don’t blame them!) 

• Be an active blogger who not only blogs regularly but who comments on others’ blogs. Make yourself known in the “blogosphere.”
• Be active in social media sites (we recommend Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter). You don’t necessarily have to have 10,000 Twitter followers, but you should be networking on these sites, providing valuable content where appropriate, and building your following. 
• Have a capture system on your website (and I’m assuming you have one that highlights your book or that has a page about your book) so you can collect email addresses and build your list. Provide those who sign up with something of value—such as a free report or subscription to your newsletter.
• Have a call to action on your website instructing visitors to purchase your book, such as “Buy your copy today!”
• Develop a list of potential hosts based on sites your target market hangs out on. If you’re an active blogger in your genre already, chances are you’ve got a list of sites you check regularly. Find others. Concentrate on those who get a fair amount of traffic.
• Be familiar with the sites you plan to approach so you can avoid those that would not be appropriate. Send a personal inquiry, letting them know you’ve been following their site and emphasizing why your appearance there would benefit their readers/listeners. Include a link to your website where they can read more details about your book, your author bio, and other pertinent links. Indicate the date ranges of your tour; plan ahead as some sites are booked well in advance. You probably won’t want to book more than one or two appearances per day.
• Respond immediately to replies, sending a review copy of the book promptly when it is requested. Confirm the details—date, type of appearance, and topic desired.
• Keep track of where you will be appearing and when. (We use an Excel spreadsheet.) Follow up with your host a couple weeks before your appearance. Make sure they have everything they need from you, including a photo of you and your book as well as your bio.
• Once you start getting appearances scheduled for your virtual tour, start letting your friends and fans on Twitter and Facebook know about it. Be sure to include details—including links—on your website, blog, and newsletter.
• The day of your appearance, make sure to visit the website or blog regularly, answering questions and responding to comments. If your appearance involves a live podcast, be ready for questions.
• Follow up with all your hosts afterward and be sure to thank them.

We love virtual author book tours. It’s a great way for authors to increase exposure, gain new fans, and sell more books. Hosts too benefit by gathering additional visitors to their sites. And there is no chance for jetlag!

1. Provide a local angle. Set your story in a real place. People who live in the area love to read about restaurants, amusement parks, streets, landmarks, etc. they know. And if you set your story in your own area, it simplifies promotion greatly. You can easily spin the local PR, then let it ripple outward regionally, then nationally.

2. Carefully evaluate your main characters. Does the protagonist have an interesting profession or hobby you can use as a sales hook? One novelist I know sold her book in spelunking shops because caving was the avocational pursuit of her main character. Another merchandised her mystery in Volvo dealerships. Why? Because that make of car played an important role in the story.

3. Revolve your story around an important “issue.” Add an aspect to the plot that addresses something newsworthy. If there is a dominant thread that deals with a timely topic, you may be called upon when a fast-breaking news story hits. Topics you might consider, for instance, are Internet privacy, battered men, terrorism, fetal tissue, obesity, or Medicare woes. You get the idea. By the time you’ve written at length on the subject, you will become an “expert” on that topic. Monitor the news each morning for references to your theme, then immediately piggyback on it with emails and faxes to the media.

 As a fiction writer, you can greatly impact the marketing potential of your book. Use the guidelines above to write a savvy book. Planting interesting angles during the creation process opens doors to lucrative results when your finished book comes out.

1. Well in advance of your publication date (at least two or three months), gather your list of potential reviewers in print, broadcast, and electronic outlets. Double-check that contact information is correct and be sure to address your request to a person—by name.
2. Write a great letter or email, emphasizing the benefits to your reviewers’ readers, and be sure to include a picture of your book cover. We’re finding that there are very few sources who don’t want to accept emails these days, so that’s usually the route we take. However, there are a group of book trade reviewers who have very specific requirements for review requests. Be sure to follow the instructions on their websites.
3. Follow up on all requests the week after you’ve sent them out. Continue to follow up until you have either gotten a “yay” or “nay” from everyone, or until you’ve made at least three attempts to touch base. We use an Excel Spreaksheet to keep track.
4. When the responses start coming in, send review copies within a day or two of receiving the request. Include with the review copy of the book your press kit, which should minimally include a press release, an author bio, a mock review (This is a favorable review written for your book.), and a galley information sheet.
5. After two to three weeks, send an inquiry to the potential reviewer, ensuring your book has arrived and asking when they might make a decision as to whether or not a review will appear in their publication.
6. If you don’t hear back from them, follow up a couple more times, emphasizing how your book provides a benefit for their readers.
7. If you do hear back, be sure to follow up, based on the response you receive. Always express your appreciation for their consideration.
8. Continue to follow up each week until you’ve exhausted your list.
9. Keep track of the favorable responses you receive and make sure you get a copy of every review—or article, story, or interview. You can use these pieces to obtain even more publicity.
10. Post the links to the reviews/stories in your media room on your website and mention them in your blog or newsletter, and on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Overview

Web 2.0 and social media—the new, live Web—are here to stay. It’s no longer adequate to write your book, put up your website, and expect people to find you. You need to maximize your Web site’s value through interactivity, sharing, and building relationships. Although some people are intimidated by the newness of “viral marketing,” they needn’t be. Leveraging social media marketing to make yourself stand out from the crowd is not that difficult.

So what exactly is “social media”? It is often described as the online practice wherein people use technology to talk, participate, network, and bookmark. Social media sites blogs, microblogs, podcasts, videocasts, forums, wikis, or some kind of content community are included under this umbrella. It’s a contact sport. Unlike traditional media, which more or less is a one-way form of communication, social media promotes discussion, feedback, voting, and otherwise sharing of information. It also enables participants to stay connected with other people and resources.

Incidentally, “Web 2.0” doesn’t really mean there is a different Internet than there was before. The Internet superhighway is the same, but there are more vehicles traveling on it now, including communities that interact together (that is, social media). So the terms are closely related and often lumped together; we’ll simply refer to social media from here on in.

People are jumping on the bandwagon at incredibly high rates: Nearly half of all adult Internet users have created content online. And some studies show that 67 percent of businesses say their best source of advice for products and services are their consumers (who communicate with them via social media). Can you afford not to ride this technological wave of the future?

Are there pitfalls to this new technology? Absolutely! Losing track of time is the biggest. You start chatting on Twitter about your new book, and the next thing you know an hour or more has slipped by and you are clicking on links that have nothing to do with promoting yourself. (Some experts recommend spending twenty minutes or so in the morning and another twenty minutes in the late afternoon to respond to the day’s activities.) Another problem is not defining your purpose for using social media and making a plan before you get started.

Don’t think you have to do anything and everything in terms of social media. New social media channels are cropping up on a seemingly daily basis; don’t be like the proverbial child trying to power through an entire bag of Halloween candy in one day. Pick two or three things that seem most applicable for you, and work at them consistently.

(Excerpted from The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing, 5th Edition, by Marilyn Ross and Sue Collier. Due from Writer’s Digest Books, summer of 2010. Email Sue at sue@SelfPublishingResources.com for more information.)