Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Teen Fantasy Author Kamilla Reid

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.

Our guest blogger for today is Kamilla Reid, author of The Questory of Rootkarbunkulus.

I am often asked how I came up with the idea for “The Questory” and how I actually made it into a real live published book. Well, it’s a bit of a long story so I’ll try to omit the boring parts.

Hmmmm….Well, I had the idea for DréAmm, the location for my book many, many years ago and because I was involved in live theatre I wrote it as a musical. But I never really liked the feel of it in this format. It felt limited. Plus, I hadn’t quite come into the ‘hook’ yet, that thing that made me go “yes, this is it!” It wasn’t until years later when I caught a snippet of that reality tv show “The Amazing Race” that I finally got that ‘aha!’ moment. I loved the idea of teams of kids all racing against each other in a glorified kind of scavenger hunt to find something very, very important. DréAmm then became a magical land where virtually anything could happen. That’s when the main character, Root Karbunkulus just showed up and toured me around. Of course then the plot got really got good with all sorts of agendas going on, personal and otherwise. In the end, the name ‘DréAmm’ stayed but everything else was ditched.

Around this same time I was leaving the theatre and facing a new role as Single Mum; the perfect combination for finally doing that thing that you promised yourself that you would do but never did.

As far as getting published, I knew from the start that I wanted to go out on my own first. After years in live theatre where budgets dictated everything and I just couldn’t treadmill out another 6-person musical, I wanted complete freedom to explore this new field on my own. I wanted to write my book and have fun creating the book cover and I wanted to make an awesome website and book trailer. I wanted to do it all for the fun of it but also to learn the business of books.

I think self-promotion is absolutely necessary. Right out of the gate I was building an amazing website and book trailer. The trailer won awards and took off on the internet, which was great for creating some buzz. But it was also the most important part of my book tour. I played it on big screens before every reading and it was a huge hit with the kids. You can view it on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIgo1wS_0JI or at the book’s website, http://www.rootkarbunkulus.com.

which is also truly incredible and creates a big impression on my teen readers. I had trendy dogtags made up and used them as prizes for Q and A’s along with props and my signature red ‘Valador’ cloak as a costume. I did a huge book launch, too that really got the word out at the beginning. You can also view it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA-b7DAfZrQ&feature=related

The book tour was by far the most rewarding and successful as it helped me to sell 1000 books in 8 weeks. Since then it has been a steady sell. I also submitted my book for reviews and used them in promotions. The internet was probably my biggest challenge as, after the website and trailer, I just had no idea where to even begin. But I think the internet is a huge, HUGE asset to promoting and so I have been learning as I go along.

It has been very worth it to me.

On the downside, wearing too many hats, not to mention the Single Mum Crown began to take its toll. I was doing too much and getting burnt out. But the good thing is that I had managed a fair amount of success on my own, which was a great thing to bring to the tables of agents and traditional publishers.

And now I feel like I’m living the dream! To me there is nothing greater than sharing my stories with the world, knowing my words are making readers laugh and cry and smile and cheer. I love getting emails from kids who have read my book and can’t wait to find out what happens next. It is pure joy!

About the Author:

At age 29, Kamilla Reid became the youngest person to hold the position of Artistic Director for a professional theater company in Edmonton. During this time at Celebrations Theatre she honed her artistic skills by writing and directing five shows per year. Over this ten year incumbency the position evolved and Kamilla developed her own independent theatrical production company to which the dinner theater contracted out. This worked quite well with her new schedule due to the birth of her daughter.

After forty produced plays, Kamilla felt she’d creatively done all she could within the live theater format and, during a period of massive change whereby she found herself in the role of single mother, she began scrawling and plunking on the keyboard and finally, drawing out the long held images of DreAmm and its freckled young inhabitant Root Karbunkulus.

Currently Kamilla is working on book two of the “Questory” series. You can visit her website at www.rootkarbunkulus.com or her blog at www.rootkarbunkuls.com/blog.

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Financial Expert James Burns

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.

Our guest blogger for today is James Burns, author of THE 3 SECRET PILLARS OF WEALTH: HOW TO CRACK YOUR WEALTH CODE USING THE TOOLS OF SELF-MADE BILLIONAIRES.

I have to acknowledge that with my schedule and diverse interests, not to mention my short attention span that writing the book now seems to have the easy part. I had ideas of grandeur that the book would just magically sell and it has when people know and hear about it but therein lies the devil in the details.

The promotion is a special art and I think you have to enlist a team of people to help you. I had a nice book signing party that a company called Sognari International in Irvine, California did for me and sold 200 books in the first evening and then I followed up with giving several live seminars afterwards but then things stalled.

My plan now is to continue building partnerships and joint ventures using edge craft which is a way of thinking horizontally of who can become a strategic partner, affiliate or opportunity that I normally wouldn’t recognize because I’m too busy chunking upwards or downwards for the obvious relationships. To this end, I’ve found several real estate, insurance and financial literacy partners who want to collaborate in selling my book so I create a royalty or income opportunity with them. I have the conventional sales with the big booksellers but that does not do much to monetize for me.

I am doing the virtual book tour and will be doing more of these under the tutelage of Alex Mandossian who is a master salesman in this arena. Alex tells a great story of when Al and Tipper Gore came to a famous bookstore in Marin County, California and not too many people showed up, about 200. I sold that many books at my book signing and I’m nowhere in the same category as a former vice president. The idea of a virtual book tour and tele-seminar for your book means you can have thousands of people attend and there are not seating limitations. You have to get as many people hooked into your vision as possible and as soon as possible to create the momentum.

I am also working with a PR firm for guaranteed radio; this is a new idea in PR to get it guaranteed. My publisher is launching 50 new press releases in several areas spinning my book as it relate to a current financial event and then I’m turning to a guy in the industry who is legendary in turning people into a top seller. I write regular articles and make sure they get out there because it is all about getting out there when you consider 70% of all news is placed…why not join that.

The biggest hurdles are time and money. When you self-publish you have to have a huge reserve for the marketing. I know content and ease of reading are important but let’s face it; some uninteresting books have made it to the best sellers list because it was marketing over mastery and therein lays the secret. You have to be an unabashed maverick with the energy of a hummingbird in flight to promote your book. In sum, you have to be seen to be sold and this is not for the faint at heart.

About the Author:

James is a tax attorney who served honorably in the United States Marine Corps’ Force Reconnaissance (akin to Navy SEAL program). James brings the same commitment and loyalty to his clients that he exhibited when he served our country. He is also CEO of White Diamond Properties, Inc. a real property investment acquisition firm and is on the Advisory Board of Wave Uranium Holdings (WAVU.OB), a development stage company that engages in the acquisition, exploration, and development of uranium properties in the United States.

James is on the Advisory Board of Sognari International www.sognari.com/james which is an entrepreneur platform that has famed Michael Gerber involved and they are creating opportunities that are discussed in the book.

You can visit his website at www.3pillarsofwealth.com.

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Contemporary Romance Author LaConnie Taylor-Jones

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.

Our guest blogger for today is LaConnie Taylor-Jones, author of WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN.

Book promotion is by far one of the most challenging endeavors an author will ever face. At least it has been for me. With thousands of ISBN’s issued each year, exactly how does a new author inform readers there’s another kid on the literary block?

Well, there are several traditional venues to consider: book and/or banner ads, local book signings, and launch parties. However, when the time came for me to promote my debut novel, I discovered a whole host of other promotional avenues such as: on-line promotion, podcasts, book trailers, and virtual book tours. Recently, I’ve added a few social marketing concepts that include: Shelfari, blog sites, MySpace and Yahoo groups. These Internet marketing tools are not only effective, but have allowed me to reach thousands of readers with the push of a button. Despite the convenience and expediency of today’s technology, none of them will ever take the place of a good, old-fashion word-of-mouth recommendation from a reader. I’ve found this type of promotion to be invaluable and it has increased my reader base, tremendously.

At the start of my promotion campaign, I wondered whether my efforts would one day pay off. I believe it has. Not only have my sales ranking on Amazon.com soared, they’ve remained constant. I’ve even had other authors contact me and comment that they’ve seen my book titles advertised everywhere.

Guess my promotion campaign is working after all.

About the Author:

LaConnie Taylor-Jones, a native Memphian, is a health educator consultant and holds advanced degrees in community public health and business administration. Married, she is the mother of four and resides with her family in Antioch, California located in Northern California. She is also an active member of the Contra Costa Alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the African American Community Health Advisory Committee, Black Women Organized for Political Action, and the San Francisco Area and Black Diamond chapters of Romance Writers of America. You can visit her website at http://www.laconnietaylorjones.com/.

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Multicultural Romance Author Victoria Wells

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.

Our guest blogger for today is Victoria Wells, author of A SPECIAL SUMMER.

Now that I’ve been a published author for several months I’m seeing that writing my story was the easiest part of my literary journey. I never imagined that promoting my work would be so labor intensive, yet rewarding. Thank goodness I’ve had the fortune of meeting some very wonderful people in the business that were willing to help me along this bumpy road of promotion.

To get the word out about my debut novel A Special Summer one of the first things I did was tell anyone who was willing to listen that I was in the process of writing a romance novel that would be coming out soon. I felt it was important to give folks something that was tangible, so I had bookmarks, business cards, and brochures containing the release date, an excerpt, publisher information, along with purchasing information. I am never without a stack of my promo items. The best conversation starter for my book is, “Excuse me, I see you’re reading a book, let me give you this bookmark.” Once the individual looks at what I’ve handed them this usually initiates conversation about my book.

In this age of cyberspace I knew I needed to have two of the most essential high tech forms of internet media. A website and a Myspace page! I would surf the net looking at other authors and varies businesses websites and Myspace pages just to get a feel for what would be eye catching. I noticed that a lot of sites were very bright and colorful. I didn’t go with that vibe. Because my novel is romance I wanted a seductive ambiance, something that would draw the visitor in when visiting my website. However, for the Myspace page I selected a background that suited my personality, warm and inviting.

In order to target a large population of readers I hired a PR consultant to do a press release and pitch letters that were sent the media. I’ve done a number of radio interviews, a blog interview and was a guest blogger for a week on a very popular blogging site. Also, I’ve done some paid advertisement on a few sites that target literary lovers. In addition, understanding that readers depend on good reviews I submitted my book to a few reliable and well respected sources readers trust.

Building relationships with bookstore managers, book clubs, readers, online groups and other authors in the genre have all proven to be an asset. It still amazes me how receptive others can be and are willing to help promote you if just simply share yourself and your story. Being willing to promote my book on a personal level has opened the door to be a guest author to four local book clubs. Not bad for a debut author.

Because I am a nurse I’ve reached out to different entities in my field. A national nursing magazine did an article on me in print and online. The support has been overwhelming. Just recently for Nurse’s Week I was invited to speak at a hospital’s Nurse’s Week Dinner about my career as a nurse. (The administrator was kind enough to let me sale books.) Immediately after I finished giving my talk the CEO of the hospital approached me wanting to buy thirty copies of my books! He even went as far as to offer a job. The night just got better as nurses came out to the lobby wanting to buy a copy of my novel. I know that night I definitely built a fan base.

Honestly, promoting my book is an ongoing task. I’m always willing to try new and creative ideas. My latest adventure is having friends and family host book parties for me. My brother and his wife will be hosting my first party at their yearly 4^th of July shindig! We’re planning on having a blast with family, friends, good food, prizes and an excellent summer read for the beach or lounging by the pool!

About the Author:

Victoria Wells is a Philadelphia native. She has been an avid reader since childhood. Wells’ interest in writing took root while taking a creative writing course in college. Her most memorable assignment was the rewriting of the last chapter of The Color Purple. Though she did very well in this course it would be years before she would pen a novel.

Professionally, Wells (Gaye Riddick-Burden) earned a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Nursing from La Salle University. Over her seventeen-year career as a nurse, Wells (Riddick-Burden) has written, lectured, and presented at national conferences extensively on sickle cell disease. Her dedication to caring for patients with this disease earned her the Regional and National 2005 Nursing Spectrum’s Nurse of the Year Nursing Excellence Award in Clinical Care. Nursing Spectrum wrote, “Riddick-Burden is a strong advocate for patients with sickle cell disease. She was instrumental in designing and implementing the outpatient Sickle Cell Day Treatment Unit for these often underserved patients. The program is driven by Riddick-Burden’s desire to provide timely and effective care to patients with sickle cell crisis ― decreasing long waits in the ED and avoiding inpatient stays that separates patients from their families.”

Wells’ dedication to the nursing profession and work in the African American community organizing and running a free Hypertension Clinic at her church, Refuge Evangelical Baptist Church earned her another award. On March 19, 2006, Wells was awarded the Movers and Shakers Award presented by the American Women’s Heritage Society, National Association of University Women, National Association of Phi Delta Kappa, Top Ladies of Distinction and Two Thousand African American Women. At this ceremony, the City Council of Philadelphia also presented her with a Citation.

Using writing as a tool to escape the hassles and worries of everyday life, Wells decided to pen a novel. In November 2006 she released her self-published debut romance novel, A Special Summer. After receiving positive feedback and believing her story portrayed strong, intelligent, self-sufficient African American characters dealing with and working through relationship issues, Wells decided to submit her manuscript for traditional publishing. In August 2007, Xpress Yourself Publishing made an offer to re-release A Special Summer, March 4, 2008.

Wells works as an adult nurse practitioner. She is married and the proud mom of three children.You can visit Victoria’s website at www.victoria-wells.com or her blog at www.blog.victoria-wells.com.

ATTENTION: This guest post is being brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion. As a special promotion for Victoria Wells’ novel, A SPECIAL SUMMER, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away one FREE virtual book tour or $25 Amazon gift certificate to one lucky person who comments on her blog stops during her virtual book tour in June. Leave a comment below to have a chance to win one of these prizes! For more stops on Victoria’s tour, visit www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com.

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Literary Fiction Author Linda Merlino

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.

Our guest blogger for today is Linda Merlino, author of BELLY OF THE WHALE.

My research for Belly of the Whale took place over the span of about a year.  It was the first year of “writing” of the story.  That year I collected information more than I wrote.  The idea was in my head and not so much on paper.  I was concerned for authentic emotions and correct therapies.  I did not want to write a book about cancer, but I had to be accurate none-the-less.

I resourced through magazine articles, newspapers, online articles and “talking” to doctors and breast cancer victims.  I was focused on how a young woman with a family history of breast cancer would handle a diagnosis and subsequent treatment.  I wanted to find out about caregivers and especially spouses.  From all I garnered it was repeated over and over that the compassionate, supportive spouse was a key factor in recovery and in acceptance of what might happen.

Lastly I took myself into her head, after all, I created Hudson Catalina, I could get into her mind.  The story is very emotional…that was deliberate.  I was very careful of mis-speaking on a subject that I had not experienced, other than being a “driver” for friends to chemotherapy and of course, my mother’s surviving breast cancer, I had no brushes with the beast.  I tried to use the emotional thread that is in all of us, which is that hope binds us to the planet, that hope connects us to life, hope is the lifeline; the umbilical cord.

About the Author:

Life is our daily teacher. One lesson begets another and then another.

Once-upon-a-time life kicked me off my writer’s path and led me to pursue a more practical profession. My childhood dream of becoming a journalist was silenced.

Years later, I became a single parent, not by choice but by necessity, and my most trustworthy partner became a ballpoint. The fiction in my head turned into words on yellow legal pad. I wrote anywhere, any time, on my dining room table, and on my lunch hour. No place was my sacred space. I wrote in my car during soccer practices, under an umbrella on rain drenched sidelines, in fast food restaurants and in chain hotels. I wrote during championship after championship in cities and states, from Jersey to Phoenix.

The quieted yearning to be a writer reawakened onto the pages of a novel. My first was self-published after five years of juggling work, kids and day-to-day. A flawed but beautiful story emerged onto paper and “Swan Boat Souvenir” enjoyed local acclaim and success.

I knew there was more to do, more to write and that the next book would be published traditionally, that the next manuscript would have the benefit of an editor and the advice of professionals. After months of writing, Belly of the Whale went from paper, to computer, to draft after draft and finally into the arms of Kunati Publishers.

My children are grown. My passion to write remains a constant. Each book I complete is dedicated to the magic of believing in my dream, to my son and to my daughters.

ATTENTION: This guest post is being brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion. As a special promotion for Linda Merlino’s novel, BELLY OF THE WHALE, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away one FREE virtual book tour or $25 Amazon gift certificate to one lucky person who comments on her blog stops during her virtual book tour in June. Leave a comment below to have a chance to win one of these prizes! For more stops on Linda’s tour, visit www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com.

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Self-Publishing Guru Peter Bowerman

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.

Our guest blogger for today is Peter Bowerman, author of The Well-Fed Self-Publisher.

How do you sell 52,000 copies of your books (as I have)? How do you create – again, as I’ve been fortunate to do – a full-time income stream from two books for five-plus years? Marketing, of course.

(NOTE: A five-year, full-time publishing income stream from 52,000 books requires self-publishing; it’d never happen with a conventional publisher, and it certainly won’t happen with POD publishing!)

BUT, marketing of a commercially successful self-published title starts with Book Publishing Rule #1: Write a GOOD Book That People Will Want to Read. Duh, right? Well, judging from the sheer number of shoddily produced self-published books out there on overdone or wildly obscure topics, maybe it’s not so obvious…

Are there 20 books on your subject already? If so, does the world need a 21^st and if so, how will yours be different in some way truly valuable to a reader? There was exactly one book on the market on “commercial” freelancing (i.e. writing for companies freelance, and for $50-125+ an hour), the subject of my first book, “The Well-Fed Writer” (TWFW) when I self-published it in 2000. Plenty of room for a second.

With my latest title, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher, a step-by-step self-publishing how-to guide, I had more competition, so I made a point – on my book cover, in my book intro, and on my web site (both in my sample chapter and in the “Attn: Media” section) (http://www.wellfedsp.com/media.html) – to tell people what set it apart from others.

PLUS, I made my books good, solid, meaty, fun and comprehensive. I put the time into creating great titles, and the money into hiring the creative pros to produce a finished product indistinguishable in quality from any conventionally published book. At that point, book promotion – already in progress with “buzz-building” – kicked into high gear…

NICHE vs. MAINSTREAM BOOKS

I realized early on that TWFW was a niche book (how many people want to write for companies for a living?). If you’re a relatively unknown author of a niche book, by and large, the mainstream media (MSM) just don’t care about you. Go ahead, send endless press releases to already over-contacted journalists, but your progress on that front will likely be glacial.

(P.S. If you DO contact MSM, make sure any release talks about your book ONLY as it relates to a topical trend, NOT the book itself. See the “News Pegs” link in my “Attn: Media” section (link above), where I spell out for journalists and reviewers the angle my book represents for their readers).

So, given my niche subject, I bypassed MSM, opting instead for a 4-step Internet-based approach:

1) IDENTIFY TARGET AUDIENCES. For TWFW, that meant writers, at-home Moms, home-based business-seekers, 55+ (the latter three because of the flexible, lucrative, home-based nature of the biz), and others.

2) DETERMINE WHERE AUDIENCES GATHER. Hundreds of web sites cater to those groups, and because of their niche focus, my pitch would resonate FAR more effectively with them than it would with MSM. Logical. And remember: niche sites like these are always looking for content relevant to their members, to ensure that they stick around.

3) CONTACT SITES. I emailed those sites, explaining who I was, why my book would appeal to their audience, and offered a review copy – with an eye toward landing book reviews, interviews, promo blurbs (note those as well at Media link above), green lights to write articles or be a guest blogger (like this!), etc.

4) TAKE MASSIVE ACTION. A few dozen review copies won’t build a full-time income. Think hundreds. Get that many copies of a GOOD book circulating, and you’ll reap magical word-of-mouth advertising – the gift that keeps on giving (assuming, of course, that you followed Rule #1 above…). To date, I’ve sent out 400+ review copies of TWFW. I can hear you groaning, but remember, roughly half were part of the initial book release push, and the rest spread out over several years. Plus, you’ve got a secret weapon…

INTERNS: I used interns – at about $9 an hour – to build my review copy list for books #2 (TWFW: Back For Seconds) and #3, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher (TWFSP). In both cases, we started from an existing review copy list, building on it by brainstorming other avenues. I set her up with several standard cut-’n-paste email pitches (one for folks on the existing list and a second for new additions).

For each book, over the course of a summer, she built a list of 150 firm Yes’s (i.e., “Yes, we’d love to get a copy of Peter’s upcoming book”), agreeing to promote the book in any number of ways. Along the way, I’d always pick up a handful of invites to speak at this or that conference (paying expenses and speaking fee).

Self-publishing isn’t easy, but thanks to the Internet and a bit of creative thinking, it’s more feasible that ever before. Good luck!

BONUS TIP: Want to turn your efforts into TRUE “well-fed self-publishing” and more than double your profits on web site book sales? What could you create as a companion ebook to sell with your book? After writing TWFSP, I assembled a 100-page ebook containing “virtually every piece of marketing material used in the course of marketing my successful titles.” I sell it for $20 extra with my book ($30 standalone) as an automatic ebook download – a steal, according to most buyers, but that makes it an easy “impulse buy.” Other than the time it took to create it, I have ZERO costs. So instead of roughly $14 net profit on a $20 book sale off my site, I have $34 net profit on a $40 sale (roughly $6 cost for book production costs, plus shipping to me and customer.)

Peter Bowerman, a veteran commercial freelancer and business coach, is the author of the 2000 award-winning Book-of-the-Month Club selection, The Well-Fed Writer, and its 2005 companion volume, TWFW: Back For Seconds (both self-published; www.wellfedwriter.com). His books have become how-to “standards” on starting a lucrative commercial freelancing business – writing for businesses, large and small, and for rates of $50-125+ an hour. He chronicled his self-publishing success (52,000 copies of his first two books in print and a full-time living for over five years) in his third book, the award-winning 2007 release, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living. www.wellfedsp.com.

ATTENTION: This guest post is being brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion. As a special promotion for Peter Bowerman’s book, THE WELL-FED SELF-PUBLISHER: HOW TO TURN ONE BOOK INTO A FULL-TIME LIVING, Pump Up Your Book Promotion is giving away one FREE virtual book tour or $25 Amazon gift certificate to one lucky person who comments on Peter’s blog stops during his virtual book tour in June. Leave a comment below to have a chance to win one of these prizes! For more stops on Peter’s tour, visit www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com.

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Contemporary Romance Author LaConnie Taylor-Jones

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.

Our guest blogger for today is LaConnie Taylor-Jones, author of When a Man Loves a Woman.

Book promotion is by far one of the most challenging endeavors and author will ever face. At least it has been for me. With thousands of ISBNs issued each year, exactly how does a new author inform readers there’s another kid on the literary block?

Well, there are several traditional venues to consider: book and/or banner ads, local book signings, and launch parties. However, when the time came for me to promote my debut novel, I discovered a whole host of other promotional avenues such as: online promotion, podcasts, book trailers and virtual book tours.

Recently, I’ve added a few social marketing concepts that include Shelfari, blog sites, MySpace and Yahoo groups. These Internet marketing tools are not only effective, but have allowed me to reach thousands of readers with the push of a button. Despite the convenience and expediency of today’s technology, none of them will ever take the place of a good, old-fashion word of mouth recommendation from a reader. I’ve found this type of promotion to be invaluable and it has increased my reader base tremendously.

At the start of my promotion campaign, I wondered whether my efforts would one day pay off. I believe it has. Not only have my sales ranking on Amazon soared, they’ve remained constant. I’ve even had other authors contact me and comment that they’ve seen my book titles advertised everywhere.

Guess my promotion campaign is working after all.

LaConnie Taylor-Jones is the author of the contemporary romance novel, WHEN A MAN LOVES A WOMAN. You can visit her website at www.laconnietaylorjones.com.

ATTENTION!!! LaConnie will be traveling the blogosphere during June on a virtual book tour to promote her new book! Leave a comment at any of her tour stops (including this one!) and you could win a FREE virtual book tour from Pump Up Your Book Promotion if you are a published author or a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate if you are not published. The winner will be announced at the end of the month at www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.wordpress.com.

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Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Women’s Fiction Author Phyllis Zimbler Miller

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.

Our guest blogger for today is Phyllis Zimbler Miller, author of Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel.

My main book marketing plan is to become the queen of internet marketers for the promotion of my book MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL.

When friends ask if I’m going to have book signings, or they suggest I contact the local library, I politely thank them. Then I explain that I can reach more people in one hour of online marketing than I can reach in hours and hours of book signings. And I add that I have to allocate my limited resources of time to maximize my return on investment. (That’s what having an M.B.A. from Wharton will help you realize.)

(Besides, in 1992 when the Jewish holiday book SEASONS OF CELEBRATION that I co-wrote with Rabbi Karen L. Fox was published, Karen and I did book signings. We found that, unless you’re a famous author, most book signings are sparsely attended.)

Of course I had a website built before MRS. LIEUTENANT was released. But it was thanks to MRS. LIEUTENANT being named a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award that I stumbled upon using AmazonConnect to blog about the book. From there, thanks in part to books Amazon suggested to me, I read book after book in order to learn about internet marketing.

Some of the books I found particularly helpful are:
Sell Your Book on Amazon by Brent Sampson (terrific ways to establish a presence on Amazon)
Red Hot Internet Publicity by Penny C. Sansevieri (you can sign up for free email info from her by sending an email to subscribe@amarketingexpert.com)
Plug Your Book by Steve Weber (subtitle: Online Book Marketing for Authors)
1001 Ways to Market Your Books (sixth edition) by John Kremer (huge book so for now I only read Chapter 12 — “How to Sell Books Via Computer”) (you can sign up for free email info from him at www.bookmarket.com and I’m taking a two-day seminar with him May 28 and 29 here in LA)

I’ve followed every lead I’ve come across – and I get good leads from such places as Joan Stewart the Publicity Hound (sign up for free email info at www.publicityhound.com). I’m signed up on book sites such as Redroom.com and AuthorsDen.com and on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. And I’m signed up on www.helpareporter.com to get email updates for sources that reporters need.

Eventually I learned enough to set up a free blog in addition to AmazonConnect – www.mrslieutenant.blogspot.com. Later I learned how to automatically feed this blog into my AmazonConnect and to Plaxo.com and to Facebook.

And I keep learning more and more from everyone I come across who has good internet marketing info. These valuable resources include Dorothy Thompson of PumpUpYourBookPromotion and the two BlogSquad partners Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff.

I’ve even changed my PublishersMarketplace page from an author page to a blogger page. I didn’t know that such things existed until I started turning over every rock as part of my quest to become the queen of internet marketing.

I could go on and on except that my strategic marketing plan calls for me to now switch to learning more about Technorati tags. So I’ll sign off with this thought – there is always another new frontier of internet marketing waiting right around the corner for which to hitch our horses. It just takes a lot of hard work and, truth be told, maybe a dash of obsession.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL. You can visit her website at www.mrslieutenant.com. Leave a comment on her guest blog post and you could win a FREE virtual book tour (for published authors with a book recently released) or a $25 Amazon gift certificate (for non-authors)!

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Nonfiction Author Adina Rishe Kewirtz

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.

Our guest blogger for today is Adina Rishe Gewirtz, author of How to Say It: Business Writing That Works.

Book promotion is a strange business. Here you are an expert in whatever you wrote your book about – in my case, how to structure a piece of business writing – and suddenly, you need to become an expert in marketing.

Like many first-time authors, I had a lot of false notions about book promotion flying ‘round in my head when I got started. I imagined a book signing or two, and certainly thought people who had already benefited from my writing seminars would buy the book, but I didn’t think much beyond that. Focused on writing the manuscript, and on my own teaching and work as an editor and writer’s coach, it didn’t occur to me to wonder how people learn about a book once it’s “out there.” In part, that was because I’d always written directly for publications – newspapers or magazines – that found the audience for me. I discovered quickly that book-marketing is a world unto itself.

Even though I had a large publishing house behind me – Prentice Hall, which is a part of Penguin – I discovered that after the initial publication, it’s primarily the writer’s job to get the word out. And so beyond my own personal contacts, through teaching and coaching, I learned that the Internet is the newest and possibly the best way to market a book.
As a book-buyer myself, I know the web is the first place I go to learn about a book, and usually to purchase it. And my primary audience – people writing for work – don’t have time to browse bookstore shelves. They’re much more likely to browse the net. So that’s where I turned.
I began by building up my page on Amazon.com, and writing about my book, How to Say It: Business Writing That Works. I added a few of the positive reviews I had gotten there, and linked my website directly to my book’s page on Amazon. I also began writing a blog, at www.thewritersroadmap.blogspot.com, and joined several book marketing websites, like the book marketing network at bookmarket.ning.com. I began making contact with people interested in good business writing, people looking for a system to make writing everything from a letter to a performance review to a proposal a lot easier. I wrote to Grammar Girl, and was featured in a giveaway on her popular podcast.

Most of all, I continue to try to reach out to people who need what my book offers: solid, easy to follow advice about how to get through the writing process; how to understand your audience, research your topic, organize your thoughts, know what you plan to say, and then get it all down in a coherent draft. To that end, through my website, I offer writing coaching. That again leads back to the book itself, because even those who want personal writing help benefit when they read about the system and understand it in advance.

So while I’m not yet an expert at book marketing, I’m happy to say I’m beginning to understand the incredible power of the net, this nearly infinite marketplace where people looking for ideas, books, and yes – business writing advice – can find help just by searching for something like “Adina Gewirtz” or, even better, “writing coach.”

Adina Rishe Gewirtz is the author of the business book, How to Say It: Business Writing That Works.  You can visit her website at www.writersroadmap.com or her blog at www.thewritersroadmap.blogspot.com.

Book Marketing Buzz: Book Promotion & Publicity Tips: How to Promote Your Books with Christian Author Heidi Hess Saxton

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.

Our guest blogger for today is Heidi Hess Saxton, author of Behold Your Mother: Mary Stories and Reflections from a Catholic Convert.

In some ways, releasing a book into the market is a lot like watching your child take his first tentative steps onto the preschool playground. You take a deep breath, and hope your little bundle of joy doesn’t get clobbered by the big boys. Today when I checked my book’s progress on Amazon, my heart actually skipped a beat when I saw that its sales rank was now solidly in the five-digit rankings (rather than the six-digit abyss where it had been languishing a few weeks long ago).

So … what have I been doing to give my book wings, to fly unencumbered into reader’s virtual shopping carts? Well, I can point to a few things that seem to have helped.

• Radio interviews. At my publisher’s suggestion, I gave up trying to direct people to my website and sent them to Amazon.com instead. (My Amazon.com author’s page will take them to the related blog if they so desire.) Podcasts are also a good way to go.
• Link like there’s no tomorrow. In addition to posting regularly to “Behold Your Mother: The Blog” (http://beholdyourmotherbook.blogspot.com), I regularly check Catholic blogs using several different search engines – including one exclusively Catholic one – for high-quality posts, which I then link to my blog and comment on the original blog. The stats don’t lie: this approach has approximately doubled my weekly blog hit average. (I may not be using the right blog lingo here … sorry.)
• Think ahead. Starting in early April, I began my “Tea with Mary” Mother’s Day promotion, offering a signed copy of the book and a sample of my favorite tea and bookmark for the same price as a regular book. I send the whole thing in a pretty rose-decorated envelope, and point out that Mom will treasure this more than a Hallmark card! For those who are interested, here is the post: http://beholdyourmotherbook.blogspot.com/2008/03/mothers-day-is-coming.html (Notice that the ad appears in the left sidebar, too.)
• For non-fiction, find a “partner” organization that can help you promote your work. I’m in the process of developing a group study for a Catholic women’s apostolate, who will then sell the book and study (along with a video) into parishes for group studies. It takes time to cultivate these kinds of connections, but it can be worthwhile.

Heidi Hess Saxton is the author of BEHOLD YOUR MOTHER: MARY STORIES AND REFLECTIONS FROM A CATHOLIC CONVERT.  You can visit her website at www.christianword.com.