Plug Your Book!

A few months ago, I was sent a real nifty little book on book promotion to review which was called Plug Your Book by Steve Weber. It sat on top of my desk to grab when I had a few minutes to spare, but I never could grab those few spare minutes with the book tours and promoting The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost, a paranormal that Heide Kaminski, Pam Lawniczak and I wrote which just came out in paperback this month. It was always busy, busy, busy, which left absolutely no time for reading.

Well, today, at work, I found the time. It was extraordinarily slow, so I pulled up a chair, propped my feet up on computer equipment in the back and dived in. Big mistake. I was worthless.

Waiting for my relief to walk in so that I could go home and finish the book, I pulled out my yellow highlighter and started highlighting. It was a treasure trove of information that I wanted to refer to when I sent him my review.

One passage he had in the book that really made me sit up was:

"Many booksellers, publishers, and agents pay close attention to Amazon ranks. So if you manage to pump up (gotta love his buzz words!) the sales rank of your book, it can prompt brick-and-mortar stores to order more copies. Publishers looking for a complementary title might ask you to write the book for them."

What I found interesting about that passage was that it made me wonder, for those published with small press and who lack distribution in major book stores like Barnes & Noble, would sales rankings make a difference as to whether they would stock you?

The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost has held a ranking of 740 or so in B&N online for days. If I mention the ranking to the store manager, would that make a difference? Anyone know?

I'm heading out to the B&N in Salisbury, Maryland, tomorrow just to test the waters. I'm not even sure how I'm going to approach this and I'm sure, by what I've heard, it just isn't going to happen come hell or high water, but what if...I'm a local author? Would that even make a difference in this highly competitive market?

I'll let you know what happens. BTW, as of this writing, the sales rankings at B&N just dipped to 1,030 and my luck, it'll be higher than that when I go in there, but we shall see.

Another thing I liked about Mr. Weber's book is the chapter on how to approach Amazon top reviewers, even down to the sample email you can email them with. Quite a neat little book. I'm only half-way through but I'll be giving it a full review soon.

BTW, his rankings at Amazon isn't anything to sneeze at. For a self-published book, it's standing at 5,351 (it's been out since February 2007).

I'll give you my full evaluation in another day or so of why I believe he's doing so well. Meanwhile, if you want to check out Mr. Weber's blog, go to http://www.weberbooks.com/publish.htm. That's nothing to sneeze at, either. WTG, Mr. Weber. ;o)

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, author publicity, book promotion, book promotion tips, Plug Your Book!, Steve Weber, self-published

Prayers for the Families of the Student/Faculty Body of VA Tech

My sympathies goes to the family and student/faculty body of VA Tech and hope that they can heal after the horrid massacre that happened yesterday at VA Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. Peace, prayers and white light goes to them.

Follow this link to learn more.






Tags: VA Tech

Book Promotion 101: Using Ticker Countdown Clocks to Announce Your Release

In my blog travels this morning, I happened to land on one of my favorite PUMPED UP blogs, Kathy Holmes' Women's Fiction with Attitude, and I found something that really made me sit up and take notice. Everyone's heard about those cute little ticker countdown clocks that you can put on your blog to announce anything you want to announce really, but I really liked the way Kathy used the ticker she found at CarribbeanMag.com. If you go to that link, you can see all kinds of tickers that you can put on your blog (even attach to your emails!) to announce upcoming trips and vacations. But, what Kathy did was look beyond this and came up with an idea to use this as a great promotional vehicle to announce her new book, Real Women Wear Red, that will be released on March 27th. And what really makes this so unique is that her main character will be going on this cruise which sets off the beginning of the book! How appropriate!

Tickers are not new, but I was really impressed with the way Kathy did it being as her book is all about a cruise that her characters embark on and the friendships and bonds they form with one another. Makes me start thinking of ways to use this to announce my upcoming books!

TAGS: online book promotion, online marketing, Kathy Holmes, book publicity, Women's Fiction With Attitude, ticker countdown clock, Real Women Wear Red", CarribbeanMag.com

How Do You Lure Customers to Your Blog?

As you all may or may not know, I blog a lot. If I'm not making blog posts, I'm reading blog posts. That's about when it dawned on me just exactly why it is I revisit some, and others I don't return.

When I open up a new blog to read, it's for content. If it's too philosophical, or too multi-dimensional to the point I don't know which land I'm in, I tend to keep on trucking.

But, that's just me. I'm sure there are a lot of bloggers that go for that and that's fine.

When you are setting up your blog to promote your ebook, you know the basic rule is to keep that audience. If the wrong audience lands on your blog, no matter what you do, no matter how many search words or feeds or tags you have, it's not going to make a bit of difference to them because they are there for content. You might have lured them in with your search words or your feeds or your tags, but if it's not the place they want to be, they're going to be history.

But, there will be those who land on your blog and stay there and the reason for it is that you have provided the content they were searching for.

Content, people, content.

If you are an author and you are solely trying to promote yourself, it's quite okay to talk about your life as an author who actually has a life outside of writing. Maybe I want to know what you did last Saturday night after you closed up your laptop. Maybe I want to know about that fantastic trip you took to Naples to celebrate that NY contract. Maybe I find it cool to find out how you struggle with motherhood and writing, too.

Content, people, content.

But, when I happen to land on an author's blog and find that they're talking about political stuff, for example, that is in no way related to their ebooks, I wonder what in the heck they are doing. They are confusing me. I land on their blog to find out about their lives, or their books, and they're going off about things that aren't even closely related. But, then again, that's just me.

But, what you need to think about is, I am your customer. I have landed on your blog for one reason or another and if you do not have the product or the content I'm looking for, I'll find it somewhere else. There are far too many blogs in the blogosphere that I don't have to stop there.
Focus.

Make each blog post count.

Draw in that audience.

I picked up a magazine today that was about a conference for a particular restaurant chain, and inside I found out that the speakers they had scheduled were talking about the very same thing I teach in here. The power of online marketing.

I would like to quote an excerpt out of this magazine which really hit home. The title of this article was "Marketing is Everything and Everything is Marketing."

And here's the first paragraph as that is all that is needed to prove this point:

"Do you know what your business needs to be successful? It isn't location, it isn't hard work, it isn't a great team, and it isn't just an awesome product. The only thing absolutely required to be successful is customers."

Think about it. You can have the most fantastic product (book) in all the land, but if there are no customers (audience), you have a product that is going nowhere.

Audience.

If you want to be successful, you need your customers more than anything.

What I would like to do now is ask you, how do you bring in your customers to your blog? Give us those tried and true secrets as to how YOU lure customers to your blog, and on Monday, I'll highlight some of your answers on my book promotion blog at PUMP UP YOUR ONLINE BOOK PROMOTION at www.pumpupyouronlinebookpromotion.blogspot.com. Please leave your comments on the book promotion blog to be eligible.

Have a nice week-end everyone and PUMP UP THAT BOOK PROMOTION!

Tags: How to Pump UP Your Blog to Sell More Books, online book promotion, online marketing

PUMP UP Your Blog to Sell Your Books Workshop

Just to let you guys know I haven't disappeared from oblivion, I'm conducting a free book promotion workshop at my new PUMP UP YOUR ONLINE BOOK PROMOTION BLOG at www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.blogspot.com. See you there!

HOOK US WITH YOUR FIRST PAGE

I have a ton of promotional ideas for published authors, but what about those who are in varying stages of publication? How can you get that pre-buzz started?

One of the things you can do is post your first page of the manuscript you are working on (this is not for published authors) at The Writer's Life Blog.

The Writer's Life Blog is an extension of the award-winning writer's ezine, The Writer's Life. Lots of great ways to promote your books at the blog including posting your first chapters and interviews, but that leaves out a lot of people who just haven't signed that contract yet.

If you have a book that is not published yet, and want a few unbiased opinions (Aunt Bessie doesn't count!), go here to find out how you can do it!

Tags: Hook Us With Your First Page, pre-buzz, published authors, The Writer's Life, promote your books

John Kremer's FREE BOOKS FOR ALL

I found this a couple nights ago. John Kremer is putting nonfiction ebooks up on his site and is inviting anyone with a free nonfiction ebook to send it to him and he'll put it up for you. I emailed him last night, and today, both my free ebooks, A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook (A Sampler) and 101 Facts You Never Knew About Soul Mates are both up. Pretty darn fast to me.

The site is called Free Books for All, a website devoted to giving away free nonfiction books, including business books, cookbooks, memoirs, how-to books, travel books, gardening books, mind/body/spirit books, social issues books, and more.

John is being so gracious to do this because he believes (as do I) that word of mouth is the best promotion. According to his website at www.freebooksforall.com, he states, "The toughest challenge for a newbie or an unknown author is to get readers to sample your book. The best way to get people to sample your book is by giving it away as a free PDF download. Most people won't read an entire novel on their computer, but they will sample it. And, if they like it, they will go to Amazon.com or their favorite local bookseller and buy it. Then they will read your book. And, if your book is any good, they'll begin to tell other people about your book."

Hey, hey, John's the man!

If you have a free nonfiction ebook, click here to find out how you can end up on John Kremer's Free Books For All!

Tags: Free Books For All, John Kremer, nonfiction books, A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook, free nonfiction books, business books