How to find local book events

Visiting the local library can be a great way to find opportunities to market your book.  As I came out of the library today I noticed a poster for an upcoming book event and they needed authors to do signings.  I would make it a habit to visit your local library and watch out for events that you may be able to participate in.

Information for this particualr event can be found at www.bookemfoundation.org so if you happen to be in the Charleston area I would check this site out.

Visit your library this weekend and see what you can find! 

Writing Your Way to Recognition

One of the best things you can do to build visibility to your book is to publish your other writings.  Being published in trade journals and magazines can raise your visibility as a writer and thereby raise the visibility of your book.  You can also publish articles on-line as well.

I found the following information in a forum I am involved with that I think can really be of use when trying to find some other outlets to publish your book. 

“1. You can write for sites like Associated Content (www.associatedcontent.com) or Helium (www.helium.com) as a way of getting started. The pay is not a lot ($5 or less in many cases), but it’s a great way of improving your writing.

2. The Writer’s Market book is a wonderful resource and has contact information for many magazines (trade magazines are a great way to get started and there are more magazines listed than you could ever imagine)

3. Media Bistro and Writer’s Weekly are two other spots which list freelance work for people of all experience levels.”

I would definitely recommend giving some of these options a try and seeing if some other work published can help your book!

Success Story – Award Winner

One of the authors I work with, T.K. Garrison, just won the National Indie Excellence Award in the Young Adult Fiction category for his book, The Collin Chronicles: Book 1 – Magic, Bones, and Catacombs.

Here is a link to his website so you can learn more about his book – http://www.tkgarrison.com/

Here is a link to his book on Amazon.com – http://www.amazon.com/Collin-Chronicles-Magic-Bones-Catacombs/dp/1419658875/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210339450&sr=8-7

If you are looking for a book in this category be sure to check his out! 

Using Amazon Upgrade Program to Increase Sales

One of my authors emailed me today to inform me of a new option Amazon has released that may help you get additional sales of your book by allowing customers to purchase a digital version of your book right after they purchase the print version. It is a fairly small fee and allows the customer to start reading the book right away while allowing you to earn a few more dollars on your book. As long as your book is in Amazon’s Search Inside program you can use this feature. If your book is not activated with Search Inside and you are published through Booksurge you simply need to email customerservice@booksurge.com and ask that they activate this Search Inside feature for you. If you are not a Booksurge author and need this feature for your book see this link – http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=14061791

If you are interested in signing up for the Amazon upgrade service you can email digitalbooks@amazon.com.

If you have more questions about this program please visit the FAQ section on Amazon.com – http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=110744011

I hope this program helps get you some incremental sales!

Another Way to Build Visibility To Your Blog – Allowing Visitors to Subscribe

Feedburner allows you to make it where people can subscribe to your blog so that they then get an update every time you make a posting. This is a great way to build a dedicated following around your blog and your book.

Feedburner also gives you an RSS feed that you can place into your Amazon.com Connect account so that your blog feeds into Connect automatically.

To do this go to http://www.feedburner.com/ and do the following:

(1) Place the URL for your blog into the blank provided
(2) Choose the RSS option
(3) Setup a username and password
(4) Click next and select all the stat options and click next again
(5) Under Blogger (click one of the other options if you are not using blogger) clcik on the publish a chicklet to display your feedburner feed
(6) Then you need to follow the directions it provides you on how to proceed
(7) I chose the smaller version of the first two widget options and do make sure that you select “Use as a widget in Blogger” if you used Blogger to create your blog
(8) If you used Blogger it will then direct you right to blogger and will place the widget in for you.

You can see how this looks by looking in the upper left hand section of my blog – it is the field that says “subscribe in a reader”

Go ahead and subscribe to my blog while you are there so that you can receive the posting updates!

How to Start Your Marketing Effort

I received this email from one of my authors:

John,
I thought you might be interested in some of my marketing:

1)I received a good review in a local Arts Magazine (circulation: 65,000) on 2/7. Here is a link to the online version. The print version includes the book cover.

http://artvoice.com/issues/v7n6/book_reviews/there_are_no_doors_on_a_cocoon_ugly_little_tales_of_nasty_little_humans_by_lou_rera

2) I am taping an interview on WKBW-TV (ABC), for a show called “Off Beat Cinema” on Thursday, 2/14. The promotional value is tremendous for online sales promotion. The show is part of the RTN network and is broadcast in over 40 markets across the U.S. I will focus on BookSurge and Amazon.

3) I am one of the vendors in a book fair in March in Buffalo, NY. Here are details for your blog:
The 2008 Buffalo Small Press Book Fair will be on March 22, 2008 at Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, 453 Porter Avenue, Buffalo, NY.

4) Lastly,I have the book stocked in the Borders bookstores in Western New York, as well as other local book chains.

Thanks John,
Lou Rera

This is a great start to marketing your book so I ask Lou what types of activities he has been doing to get this attention. He responded with the following:

Hi John,
Here is what I did for these promotional efforts.

For the arts magazine book review I sent the editor of literary section a copy of the book. There is an editor specifically for the genre area I write, which is flash fiction. There is a larger hurdle to have self-published books reviewed, they don’t always do this. That part makes it more difficult. I have had stories published by the magazine in the past, which may have helped. But nothing can guarantee a good review. I am grateful mine was.

The television show is produced by a local affiliate, which happens to be the taping station for this syndicated show. I sent the producer an email, followed by a press kit I had put together for book stores and media. The press kit had a brief bio with photo, a press release, a copy of the book, bookmarks from the book outline and a cover letter. I followed up on the press kit mailing with more emails. I was not accepted for the morning talk show, but I was accepted for the syndicated show. I am still waiting for another TV station locally to respond to a similar query.

The bookstore placement was set-up with press kits and personal contact with store managers, each with there own requirements. Borders and Barnes and Noble with other local stores.

I’m working on radio next. I have two readings/signings I’ve set up over the next two weeks and I cross promoted those through the arts magazine literary events calendar.

The tips from BookSurge, Writer’s Digest and other web sites helped me formulate a promotional game plan. I’m hoping within the next few months to generate the bottom line: book sales. Persistence of vision.

Thanks John,
Lou Rera

Here is his book on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/There-are-no-doors-cocoon/dp/1605305936/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202828092&sr=8-1

I hope you can take some of what Lou did for his book and use it in your own promotional efforts!

Success Story – Getting on local TV stations

This author was able to get some interest from a local TV station after an article about her book was placed in the local newspaper. It is important to try and build off of your successes and Marta was able to branch one success by getting into the newspaper into another success with getting on TV. In her own words:

The television video coverage of “La Fiesta y el Mariachi” came about soon after our story was placed in the North County Times, a San Diego County area newspaper. This article was very well written and well received. We got many compliments. Channel 10 News in San Diego contacted Mrs. Hawes, the artist, and plans were made thereafter to set a date for us to show the book, read the story, and conduct interviews. Evie Ramos, of 10News.com, was our primary reporter. She was so professional and friendly. All of us felt at ease working with her. The entire taping took forty-five minutes. This positive experience was one Jefferson Elementary students and Dr. VanVooren, the principal, as well as Marsha Hawes and myself, really appreciate. (Recording was conducted 1-8-08/ airing: 1-23-08)

Here is a link to the airing:
www.10news.com/video/15124232/index.html?taf=sand

Here is her book on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Fiesta-y-el-Mariachi/dp/1419663399/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201539421&sr=1-1

Google Books

One of my authors has been working with Google to get his book information into their system. This would be another avenue for visibility into your book and I highly recommend listing your book in this service. To my knowledge there is no fee to do this and it is basically where someone can learn more about your book. The listing will be very similar to Amazon.com’s Search Inside feature. They then have buying options on this Google page where customers can go to Amazon.com to purchase the book.

It looks from the FAQ section that you need to have PDF files of the book so those of you who used our Express option will have no problem working with this program. If you used our help to create the files then you will need to send me an email and I can get you the low-res proof so that you can use it for this purpose.

See this link: http://books.google.com/support/

Here is his email:

John,
I have placed my book on Google books. You requested that I send you information about this program. The program is called “Google Books Partner Program” (beta) Now that it’s live, I need to fine tune the parameters.

I am trying to narrow the keywords and category, which are a major factor in successful search criteria. Since I am unknown, I need to drive buyers to my book via those filters.

You can see that the links for sales are readily available. Here is the result of the basic Google layout. The process takes about two weeks from sign-up to a live link. Basically, it’s a do-it-yourself process with a fairly straightforward user interface.
http://books.google.com/books?q=lou+rera&as_brr=3

Here is Lou’s book on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/There-are-no-doors-cocoon/dp/1605305936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201189846&sr=1-1

Beyond the Bookstore Ideas

It is imperative for authors to think beyond the bookstore when marketing a self-published book. A bookstore is where you have the most competition – the lowest likelihood of being carried – and would make the least amount of profit.

One of my authors has written a book that explains the sport of soccer at a very basic level. Instead of going to bookstores I recommended going to local YMCA’s and other youth soccer leagues marketing the book to the parents of these kids. Try and get creative about your own book concept and look for opportunities such as this.

Here is a link to his book on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Soccer-Sidelines-Whats-goin-there/dp/1419653423/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197906619&sr=1-1

Another one of my authors recently emailed me about one of his newest beyond the bookstore ideas. Here is his email:

“john here is a good lead for your customers…..cigarette cigar stores…..we just did one at a place called cigarette express….sold 18 books from noon till 2 pm (more there than a borders store)…lots of walk in traffic etc….”

Here is his book on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/These-Scars-Are-Sacred-Written/dp/1419627988/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197906585&sr=8-1

Try and get creative about your own book concept and look for opportunities such as this.

Video for Book

I posted previously on how to make a trailer for your book. One of my authors recently did something of this nature where she took images from her book and put them to a music score and then listed this on YouTube. This can be an additional avenue for people to find out about your book and can also be a good tool to send to prospective television interviews.

“I created the videos in Windows Movie Maker, just using still photos (many of which are in my book). It was fairly straightforward and simple to do, and I was able to complete it in one afternoon.”

Here is her link on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB1iuyo9Mk4

Here is her link on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Born-Without-Tail-Ariel-Wulff/dp/1419664360/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196435732&sr=8-1