Book Marketing Bestsellers: Book Promotion Blog

Book Marketing Makeover: How to Sell Books Using Facebook

2012-01-24T00:12:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Steve Harrison

Leif Peterson has a unique claim to fame: He’s the author of Missing, the first novel written entirely on Facebook. Initially started as a short writing challenge from a friend, Peterson soon realized the story, about a man who sees his own face on a Missing Person poster, had greater potential.

“I started posting daily installments on Facebook pretty much on a whim, but right away I realized that there were a lot of people paying attention,” Peterson says. “The fact that people were following along and often leaving comments was very motivating.”

For four months, five days a week, he posted new installments to his story and attracted many eager readers. Some of his biggest fans frequently shared their opinions on his Facebook page, and expressed frustration at having to wait 24 hours for the next chapter. Peterson decided to reward some of those readers by naming new characters after them.

Though Peterson had previously published fiction commercially, he chose to self-publish Missing about a year after he completed it, after his agent declined the story. Because of the unusual nature of the story’s genesis, he ended up getting a lot of unexpected attention online.

According to Peterson, “Once the book was published I sent out a press release. Interestingly, the press release got repeated on hundreds of websites and blogs. It even showed up on the New Yorker’s website, and a guy in the Philippines did a podcast about it.”

As Peterson’s story shows, Facebook’s viral quality makes this giant of social networking sites an important tool for any author’s promotional strategy. Fortunately, you don’t have to write an entire novel on Facebook to take advantage of its marketing power.

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Karen Morss, the author of the self-published children’s book Flying Poodles: A Christmas Story, discovered another unique and fun way to promote her work — through profile matching.

“I had about 200 Facebook friends at the time, and I decided to post a new profile photo that was me and my standard poodle, Miss Lucy Ball,” Morss says. “All of a sudden, Facebook started suggesting friends that had poodles in their profiles. I also joined all the poodle pages on Facebook, and within six months I had over 1,800 friends, 1,600 of whom own poodles, or at least love them.” For Morss, the increase in Facebook friends led to an increase in book sales, as her story started being seen by the right audience.

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For fiction authors, a fun Facebook promotion idea is to create pages and profiles for your main characters. Seth Grahame-Smith has a page for his bestselling novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and has created character profiles for Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth Bennett, and Corpse Bill, among others. The page for his book has nearly 13,000 “likes” and the characters remain active on Facebook, interacting with fans.

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With Facebook, the promotion possibilities are endless — but it’s important to understand how the site works, and what members want (or don’t want) to see in their friend feeds. Here are some tips for you on generating Facebook buzz without alienating your followers.

Tip No. 1: Do use Facebook’s tools to add friends.

Because Facebook is an interactive network, it will often suggest friends, events and groups for you to like. If you’ve always ignored these little prompts that appear on the side of the page, start checking them out. The more friends you have on Facebook, the greater opportunity you’ll have for people to find out more about you.

Make sure your profile includes easily accessible information about your book. You can fill out the About Me box under your profile picture with your book title and a brief description, so that visitors to your profile can immediately see you’re an author. Don’t forget to list your website under your personal information, too!

Tip No. 2: Don’t add friends or join groups blindly.

While it’s good to have a lot of Facebook friends, it’s better to have a lot of quality Facebook friends. There are still quite a few trolls out there looking to add people just for the sake of getting more page views to promote a website — usually an unsavory one. It only takes a second to view the profile for any friend or group request you receive, so make sure to check it out before you accept.

Tip No. 3: Do join groups that share interests related to your book’s subject.

Like Morss has done with her poodle book, joining relevant Facebook groups can give you a built-in audience that is interested in what you have to say. It’s easy to find groups on Facebook — simply enter a subject in the search box, and then click on the Groups tab of the results page.

Once you’ve joined a group, make sure you’re active and participatory. Being a static group member is not likely to help with your promotional efforts. Introduce yourself on the group’s wall, and participate in discussions and conversations that are going on within the group. This increases the chance that other group members will want to click through to your profile.

Tip No. 4: Don’t be a broken record.

If there’s one thing most people on Facebook don’t like, it’s friends who do nothing but ask them to buy something or join something every time they update their status. Don’t make every status update about your book. This is the fastest way to get people on Facebook to ignore you, or even unfriend you.

Instead, you can post links to interesting articles that are related to your book’s subject, share funny or inspirational quotes, add photos or videos, or offer valuable content for your friends or group members, such as free downloads or discounts.

The best way to promote on Facebook is to make your status updates interesting enough to get people to view your profile — which is where you should keep all the information about your book — and keep them coming back for future updates.

About the Author

Steve Harrison of Bradley Communications is the editor-in-chief of Book Marketing Update, a paid print newsletter. The above article originally appeared in that newsletter which goes out to members of the Million Dollar Author Club. You can get more information at http://www.milliondollarauthorclub.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: Write a Tip Blog Post in 30 Minutes or Less

2012-01-23T12:46:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Judy Cullins

Are you blog marketing with tips already? Do you fully realize the benefits of that?

As you look for tips to help you in your business, millions of others are looking as well. Your online audiences love tips because they don't want to spend a lot of time reading. They want the easy-to-read nuggets that pertain to their needs and interests so they can skim. Your potential buyers want solutions to their problems and concerns.

When you give solutions, you show yourself as a trusted authority in your niche and bring your target market to your website. Once your visitor signs up for your ongoing tips, you will develop trust that brings eventual clients and program sales.

If you don’t write excellent blog tips, you won’t stand out from the crowd and won’t get those visitors you want. You will stay unknown; business will stagnate. That’s sad, because you won’t make the sales you want either.

So, are you ready to discover a blog marketing strategy that always works?

Meet the 30-minute Tip Blog Post!

The tip blog post delivers. You can write one in 30 minutes. Leverage your writing time. Take information from a longer how-to blog post of about 1,200 words or take from your how-to or self-help book chapters. You have hundreds of these in your files and folders awaiting a transformation.

Even if you're not a professional writer, you can write a tip because you know your audience's challenges. With a tip blog post you can partially solve your audience’s concerns. They’ll know you can do even more for them when they visit your website.

Remember, not all tips are equal. They need to follow a format. Many professionals write sloppy tips that don’t deliver information clearly. But now, you can be a top resource with this strategy.

Four Steps to Writing Your Tip Blog Post

1. Create a tip blog post title that pulls your audience in.

Include a benefit and/or your specific audience in your title. Put appropriate key words in the blog title, so the search engines will rank you higher.

Blog Coaching Tip. Make your first sentence count. Use keywords in it.

2. Write a hook and thesis in the first paragraph.

Look at my first line and paragraph above. It engages with questions on where you are now, gives benefits so you keep reading, and invites you in with enthusiasm.

3. Use a command verb to start each tip.

For example, “Do this, using specifics.” When you mix noun phases, some using –ing words, know that they are passive and your reader may yawn. Command verbs show action. When your tips are not consistent, your reader may get confused. When consistent, they move your audience to action.

4. Share the benefits for doing the tip.

Or share the consequences from not doing it after each command verb tip in each paragraph.

Most of us want to use positive outcomes, and yet some of our audiences will react better to consequences as motivators to move.

5. Give your readers resources to find more solutions to their challenges in each tip.

“Where do I find great people and programs on this topic?” your blog reader asks. One way is to include one or two website URL’s as a resource to use where your reader can get more information. Mention a book and its URL where they can get deeper information beyond the tips.

Use Google keyword phrases in this anchor text that will take your readers to expanded information. And, mention mentors who specialize in this category. If you don’t share where to get this information, you leave your readers unsatisfied.

Blog Coaching Tip. Write 10 blog tips in one article if you want 1000 words or more. Some blog sites require longer guest blogs. Write 3, 5 or 7 tips for shorter blogs that you and other blog sites want.

When you apply these blog tip gems, you will put your business on a fast track, and you’ll be known as a trusted authority who will make good things happen with your clients.

What was the number one tip you learned from this blog that will make your blog marketing more successful? And, leave your burning question too! I will answer it.

Get more specific blog help in LinkedIn Marketing: 8 Best Tactics to Build Your Book and Business Sales at http://bookcoaching.com/linkedin-marketing.php.

About the Author

Book and Blog Coach Judy Cullins helps you transform your blog into an income stream for life. Author of 14 books for business people and authors including LinkedIn Marketing: 8 Best Tactics to Build Book and Business Sales and Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast!, Judy offers free, weekly publications on writing and online marketing at http://www.bookcoaching.com/help-writing-a-book.php.

Book Marketing Makeover: Using Twitter to Promote Your Books

2012-01-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Coleen Torres

Before the onslaught of social media promotions, book marketing was done through more traditional routes such as book tours, mailing book copies out to be reviewed, and radio or TV interviews.

However, while those are still great ways to get word out there, utilizing the different social media platforms is an even more effective way to promote your latest book venture because of the magnitude of people they allow you to reach all at once. And while most people turn to Facebook first for marketing purposes, Twitter is an equally efficient and easy way to spread the word.

1. Create your own hashtag.

Having a unique hashtag (e.g., #HarryPotter) makes it easy for people to find all of the conversations ensuing around one particular topic – in this case, your book. The hashtag should be something pertinent to the book, such as the title of the book (if it’s short enough) or a prominent and well-known character from the book (if it’s from a series).

2. Have a custom landing page.

Your Twitter homepage should be a custom created Twitter page and not one that is a basic, run-of-the-mill page. Having a custom page is more visually appealing to people and shows that you are a professional and not just some random person.

Your Twitter profile page is essentially your first impression, and you want it to be one that encourages people to stay and learn more, not something that gets lost in the crowd. Be sure to include a link to your blog or book website so that interested people can easily locate your book.

3. Make your tweets real.

Don’t only send out automated-sounding tweets that are designed to sell your book. Send out tweets that help personalize you as well. People thrive on feeling a connection with others through social media, so you have to straddle the line between promoting your book and still being a real person. When you can learn to balance the two, you will find yourself infinitely more successful.

4. Market everything.

If you’re doing a book tour, having a book signing, hosting a Twitter chat, writing a blog or anything else that relates to you and your book, then you should be tweeting about it! This will help your expand your exposure.

5. Network!

Follow authors within your genre, reporters, book reviewers, booksellers, literary agents, etc. Twitter allows you to follow anyone and everyone, so you can connect and form relationships with people who can help you move forward within your profession. Once you form a relationship with them, you can use that as a tool to help you in your book promotions.

Twitter allows you to form more intimate relationships with people than other traditional social media platforms because it allows you to create a professional and yet personal persona. Use this the right way and you can escalate your book promotions to a whole new level of exposure and success.

About the Author

Coleen Torres is an editor with http://www.phonetvinternet.com. You can find more about her at her profile for the home phone service.

Book Marketing Makeover: Creative Marketing Nets Real Results

2012-01-21T00:09:00.000-08:00

Guest post by David A. Koop

I have tried many out of the box ideas for marketing my top 10 bestselling cancer memoir Cancer It's a Good Thing I Got It! What I would like to share with you now combines several of those ideas together, providing spectacular results for me. They can do the same for you.

While I was still in the middle of the writing process, I had business cards printed up. Yes, the full color cover of my book on the front and some very important information on the back.

I talked and talked with everyone about my book and always gave them a card. Every time I paid a bill I put two of my book cards in with the check. After paying for my meal at restaurants I always left a book card with the receipt. I still do these things today.

Part of the information on the back of the first book cards, those issued prior to publication, offered readers a chance to pre-purchase an autographed copy of my book at a discount. Yes, I did receive early orders with payment.

Those back orders were a strong incentive for me to finish writing the book. I had received readers’ hard-earned cash and even spent it, so I really needed to finish the book. If I could get people to pay that much money for the promise of a book, imagine how many I could sell with an actual book in hand.

One particular group of people who received a lot of those cards was Alaska Airlines employees: Ticket agents, gate agents, baggage handlers and flight attendants. It was great to see orders coming in online, the majority with one thing in common. jane@alaskaair.com, bob@alaskaair.com, francine@alaskaair.com, and on and on and on. WOW! It really works.

Many people who chose not to pre-order took advantage of another discount code "I Met Him." It gave them a 20% discount. They emailed us their interest in getting a copy of the book when it was published. With their names on our email list, a publication notice went out when the book was done and a wave of new orders came in.

It worked so well that with the help of all the pre-orders and pent up demand, my book was pushed onto the bestseller list!

I never go anywhere without my books in my briefcase, and I sell books every day that I can be out and about. The employees of Alaska Airlines are still top customers. I have yet to take a trip where I haven't sold a least one book per leg of the trip, usually more. Some employees have purchased one for themselves and extra copies for gifts.

I give the employee the card first and later, when the bulk of their duties on the plane are done, I ask them if they would like to see the book as I hand them a copy. The front and back cover usually seal the deal. Depending on the flight length, I sometimes suggest they check out the table of contents and maybe read a chapter or two. I make sure they know that they can get a copy autographed at a discount. I return to my seat and let them have as much time as they need.

One here, three or four there, no I’m not going to get rich at that rate. But at the end of the year it is an extra 300 to 400 books sold and lots of new readers spreading the word. Talk to everyone, everywhere, all the time and NEVER go out without some books.

Note from John Kremer: David attended the Palm Springs seminar I did recently, and I know he sold copies to many of the attendees, including multiple copies in some cases. David has a great story to tell - and he sells it well.

About the Author

David A. Koop is a bestselling author, speaker, and world class speaking coach. You can check out his moving cancer memoir Cancer It's a Good Thing I Got It! at http://www.somedaygroup.com.

Yes, "I Met Him" will still get you (the reader of this blog) a 20% discount at checkout on his website. It’s as easy as ABC - Always Be Closing.

Book Marketing Makeover: Don't Trip When Opportunity Calls

2012-01-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Nancy Juetten

Do you want to be a sought-after and well compensated consultant, speaker, and media expert? And, when you read these words, is your head nodding YES in a big way?

Imagine what it would mean for your business if the following happened for you:

Make News - You are tired of seeing your competitors featured in the news instead of your own perspectives. Now, you are ready to take your place in the media spotlight and take the initiative to seek out the right opportunities. Finally you turn media envy into media triumph – and smile all the way to the bank.

Makeover Your Website - You want to makeover the copy on your home page or your About Us page so it lands with impact for people who can’t wait to engage you to work your magic. Your new message is one that gives your balance sheet cause for celebration because your ideal clients “get to YES” about the programs, products, and services you offer.

Get Paid to Speak - You’ve set a goal to welcome 10 paid speaking engagements in the new year. And your new and compelling speaker sheet is just the ticket to compel meeting planners to get to a fast YES about you and your signature topic. They gladly pay your four or five-figure speaking fee.

It all sounds rather intoxicating, doesn't it?

Free Broadcast Your Brilliance Webinar

Date: Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Time: 5 p.m. Pacific / 8 p.m. Eastern

Here is the link to register: http://www.mainstreetmediasavvy.com/nancy-juetten-and-john-kremer-say-bye-bye-boring-bio-and-get-ready-for-opportunity-in-the-new-year

During this live call:

I will guide you through a five-step system that you can apply immediately to prepare winning stories about your expertise. Whether you want to attract clients, speaking gigs, or media interviews.

You’ll learn the essential messages you need to convey to get booked now.

You’ll learn some of the most common mis-steps to avoid so you can pave your path to prosperity faster.

When you are ready, you can respond with speed, ease, and grace to every opportunity to broadcast your brilliance and accelerate your path to prosperity now.

You are in good position to:

Get selected over the competition.

Get known as someone who is on the ball and a joy to work with.

Welcome referrals to other influential decision makers, joint venture partners, and meeting planners, and leveraged media opportunities that can bring your message far and wide to more of the right people.

Over the last year, I have finely tuned a program that guides independent business professionals, speakers, authors, and mission-driven experts to get seen, heard, celebrated and compensated for their expert status. Scores of graduates are celebrating their successes as measured by their enhanced credibility, visibility, and prosperity. And they are making it happen under their own power!

Wait and See Rarely Delivers the Right Rewards

Many aspiring and emerging experts choose to get ready to stand out and shine so they can step into their full potential. Others take a wait and see approach. They say that they will get ready when opportunity calls. Or, they just haven’t yet gotten around to getting their act together.

Far too many people are scrambling, which means that they aren’t making winning first impressions. Chances are, they are dropping other important balls with high priority projects in order to pull together what is needed. And they are wishing they had gotten their act together yesterday.

The fact is, being ready for opportunity counts for a lot.

If you know in your gut that you aren’t quite ready and you are ready to take action to change that, help is as close as your telephone or computer. I am inviting you to a free webinar that I and John Kremer are hosting on Tuesday, January 24th at 5 p.m. Pacific / 8 p.m. Eastern.

This call will get you fast on the path to readiness to welcome the right oportunities with ease, grace, and impact.

Again, visit the link below to register now. And, of course, invite your friends!

http://www.mainstreetmediasavvy.com/nancy-juetten-and-john-kremer-say-bye-bye-boring-bio-and-get-ready-for-opportunity-in-the-new-year

About the Author

Nancy “Broadcast Your Brilliance” Juetten is a word wizard, workshop leader, and Bye-Bye Boring Bio author on a quest to guide mission-driven experts to spell out their greatness and broadcast their brilliance through the power of storytelling and publicity.

Whether clients seek to attract clients, speaking gigs, or media attention, they learn to welcome those results by acting on Nancy’s road-tested and proven advice to tell stories all their own. Best of all, they broadcast their brilliance with confidence, readiness, and ease so the right people can celebrate, invest, and benefit.

Book Marketing Makeover: Broadcast Your Brilliance

2012-01-19T13:04:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Nancy Juetten

Aspiring experts and authors around the world are starting off the year with the bold intention to get known and get paid for their expert status. If this is your goal, here are a few tips inspired by the classic film “The Wizard of Oz” to guide you forward:

Don’t let blue bird envy stand in your way. Wishing and hoping doesn’t get the job done. Get into action today to earn the attention you seek for your message.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help to get what you need. Good witches and mentors are everywhere — if you just ask the local munchkins for quality recommendations.
Don't settle. Along your yellow brick road to success, don’t settle for Munchkin Land when the Emerald City or the Land of Oz is what you really want. Think big about what you want to accomplish and the perfect outlets where you most want your message to be heard.
Celebrate new media. If the crystal ball isn’t delivering the solutions and information you need, find alternative ways to learn how to carry your message forward.
Put your best dress on and your best face forward before you make your pitch.
Stand out. It takes brains, courage, and heart to make your message stand out.
Stand apart. Frame your story as a horse of a different color so it stands apart.
Make magic. Just as Dorothy discovered, you can make a lot of magic happen if you just click your heels together and get to work.

Learn more by attending a free high-value webinar with Nancy Juetten hosted by John Kremer.

Tuesday, January 24th at 5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Eastern

Here is the link to save your place: http://www.mainstreetmediasavvy.com/nancy-juetten-and-john-kremer-say-bye-bye-boring-bio-and-get-ready-for-opportunity-in-the-new-year

About the Author

Publicity expert Nancy Juetten has spoken to thousands of business owners through webinars, teleseminars, media interviews and articles. Juetten teaches the Broadcast Your Brilliance webinar series that trains professionals, speakers, and authors to get seen and heard in the media to attract clients, earn credibility, and make money. Sign up now for her high-impact webinar next week.

Book Marketing Makeover: 5 Ways to Promote Self-Published Books

2012-01-18T00:02:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Sarah Gilbert

Whether books have been published traditionally or through self-publishing routes, it is important for every author to know effective ways to promote their books. Someone can be the best writer in the world, but if people don’t know about their book, they won’t have many sales.

It is crucial, when you self publish your book, that you in turn do things to promote it.. Taking the time to promote your book will result in an increase in sales, recognition and success, without a doubt.

Here are 5 ways to promote self published books:

1. Start blogging. Blogging can be an effective way to build a platform. Using the right search engine optimization (SEO) words can help draw in traffic to the blog. Blogs can contain written posts or even video posts. Use it as a way to connect with current fans and create new ones.

2. Give talks. Giving talks or book readings can be an effective way to get noticed. Offer to give them at local book clubs and libraries. Or do an online virtual book tour or engage in webinars.

3. Connect with media. Many media outlets can be helpful in getting a book or author noticed. Send a press release or work with a public relations agent to contact local radio, television, and print media outlets. Offer to do talks, be a show guest, etc.

4. Send review copies. Many people review books, either on blogs or in print. Sending out some review copies, with a nice note enclosed, can be a good way to get them interested in choosing the book for a published review.

5. Use social media. The power of social media cannot be denied. Whether using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or something else, these are effective ways to connect with people and spread the word. Make it a goal to get connected.

Book sales really come down to people knowing about the book in the first place. The job of every author, whether self-published or not, is to let people know about your book and why they should read it. Make an effective plan of action for marketing your book, and then work toward it each month.

About the Author

Sarah Gilbert is the director of sales at Lulu.com, a print-on-demand publisher. Lulu has 1.1 million creators with 20,000 titles added to their collection each month.

Their print-on-demand publishing service is provided free (with additional add-on services that do cost money) and authors retain all rights as well as 80 percent of all profit from sales. For more information, visit their website at http://www.lulu.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: John Kremer's Book Marketing Birthday Bash

2012-01-17T00:12:00.000-08:00

Post by John Kremer

Last night, on my 63rd birthday, I hosted a Book Marketing Birthday Bash Q&A teleseminar. Here are a few of the questions that were asked and answered during the session:

I write children's books and magazine and newspaper articles. Do I need 2 websites, 1 for each?
What is the single biggest mistake self-publishing authors make promoting their books?
Can you give me any branding tips for book authors?
What are the best ways to gun up audience for Twitter or blogs?
What is a blog tour?
How do you get invited on a blog tour?
My book has been at the publishers for a while now. I do not know when it will be completed so I am not too sure what kind of marketing to do without a publication date. Any suggestions?
What's your feeling on the usefulness of book trailers?
We have a Christian book about weight loss. We have a website for the book. How would you recommend marketing it to churches around the country?
Is there an ideal size for an ebook? For example, the number of print pages that makes for a good ebook?
Is it a good idea to put your e-book in Amazon's free Kindle library? Any advantages?
Which is your favorite service for ebook conversion and distribution?
Is the book cover important in selling an ebook?
What, if anything, are the best kinds of swag to have for conferences, book stores, etc.?
My novel is published as an ebook only. Will your Real Fast Book Marketing program be a good fit for me?

I covered other areas as well in answering some of the above questions. You can listen to this free book promotion teleseminar at the following URL: http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventID=25717449.

At the same URL, you can also download the teleseminar as an MP3 for listening as you drive, pack your books, jog, exercise, or work on your computer.

Your webinar on your birthday was SO helpful! I took notes throughout the hour and will plan to check out the many sites and ideas you recommended. I’ll continue listening to you and recommending you to my writing friends. - Kayleen Reusser, author of Recipe and Craft Guide to Indonesia

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books as well as the developer of the following programs:

Book Marketing Magic: http://www.bookmarket.com/novelmarketing.htm - How to market novels, children's books, memoirs, and more. $48 special offer

15,000 Eyeballs Internet Marketing Program: http://www.bookmarket.com/15000eyeballs.htm - Ten lessons on how to get thousands of impressions for you, your book, your blog, or your website. $50

Real Fast Book Marketing: http://www.bookmarket.com/realfastbookmarketing.htm - How to sell 100 to 200 copies of any book in two weeks or less. $97

Blog Tour Palooza: http://www.bookmarket.com/blog-tour-palooza.htm - How to carry out a blog tour or virtual book tour that gets millions of impressions, builds your brand, and sells thousands of books. $297

Book Marketing Makeover: Seth Godin's Advice to Book Authors, Part II

2012-01-16T00:08:00.000-08:00

Like pre-editing the book before you submit it.

Like putting the right to work on the cover with them in the contract.

And, most of all, getting the ability to buy hundreds of books at cost that you can use as samples and promotional pieces.

10. In case you skipped it, please check #2 again. That’s the most important one, by far.

11. Blurbs are overrated, imho.

12. Blog mentions, on the other hand, matter a lot.

13. If you’ve got the patience, bookstore signings and talking to book clubs by phone are the two lowest-paid but most guaranteed to work methods you have for promoting a really really good book. If you do it 200 times a year, it will pay.

14. Consider the free PDF alternative. Some have gotten millions of downloads. No hassles, no time wasted, no trying to make a living on it. All the joy, in other words, without debating whether you should quit your day job (you shouldn’t!).

15. If you want to reach people who don’t normally buy books, show up in places where people who don’t usually buy books are. Media places, virtual places and real places too.

16. Most books that sell by the truckload sell by the caseload. In other words, sell to organizations that buy on behalf of their members/employees.

17. Publishing a book is not the same as printing a book. Publishing is about marketing and sales and distribution and risk. If you don’t want to be in that business, don’t! Printing a book is trivially easy. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. You’ll find plenty of printers who can match the look and feel of the bestselling book of your choice for just a few dollars a copy. That’s not the hard part.

18. Bookstores, in general, are run by absolutely terrific people. Bookstores, in general, are really lousy businesses. They are often where books go to die. While some readers will discover your book in a store, it’s way more likely they will discover the book before they get to the store, and the store is just there hoping to have the right book for the right person at the time she wants it. If the match isn’t made, no sale.

19. Writing a book is a tremendous experience. It pays off intellectually. It clarifies your thinking. It builds credibility. It is a living engine of marketing and idea spreading, working every day to deliver your message with authority. You should write one.

About the Author

Seth Godin is the founder of The Domino Project and has written twelve books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and, most of all, changing everything.

John Kremer's Free Book Marketing Birthday Bash Teleseminar

2012-01-15T23:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all of you who are wishing a great birthday on January 16th. I'm 63 years young.

I'm celebrating by giving a free teleseminar to answer all your book marketing and ebook promotion questions.

Details here: http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventID=25717449

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, developer of the Blog Tour Palooza program, and webmaster of BookMarket.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: Seth Godin's Advice to Book Authors, Part I

2012-01-15T00:16:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Seth Godin

If you’re an author or an aspiring author (and I trust that you are), it’s time to end the fruitless struggle with a dying business model and think hard about how the world has changed. I wrote two posts on this subject five years ago. Here, unchanged, is the first post:

Advice for Book Authors, Part I

Always beware of free advice. It is worth what it costs!

That said, I get a fair number of notes from well respected, intelligent people who are embarking on their first nonfiction book project. They tend to ask very similar questions, so I thought I’d go ahead and put down my five big ideas in one place to make it easier for everyone.

I guarantee you that you won’t agree with all of them, but, as they say, your mileage may vary.

1. Book publishing is an organized hobby, not a business.

The return on equity and return on time for authors and for publishers is horrendous. If you’re doing it for the money, you’re going to be disappointed.

On the other hand, a book gives you leverage to spread an idea and a brand far and wide. There’s a worldview that’s quite common that says that people who write books know what they are talking about and that a book confers some sort of authority.

2. The timeframe for the launch of books has gone from silly to unrealistic.

When the world moved more slowly, waiting more than a year for a book to come out was not great, but tolerable. Today, even though all other media has accelerated rapidly, books still take a year or more. You need to consider what the shelf life of your idea is.

3. There is no such thing as effective book promotion by a book publisher.

This isn’t true, of course. Harry Potter gets promoted. So did Freakonomics. But out of the 75,000 titles published last year in the US alone, I figure 100 were effectively promoted by the publishers. This leaves a pretty big gap. [Note from John Kremer: Now there are half a million titles published last year and, alas, only about 100 are effectively promoted by publishers.]

This gap is either unfilled, in which case the book fails, or it is filled by the author. Here’s the thing: publishing a book is really nothing but a socially acceptable opportunity to promote yourself and your ideas far and wide and often.

If you don’t promote it, no one will. If you don’t have a better strategy than, “Let’s get on Oprah,” you should stop now. If you don’t have an asset already–a permission base of thousands or tens of thousands of people, a popular blog, thousands of employees, a personal relationship with Willard Scott… then it’s too late to start building that asset once you start working on a book.

By the way, blurbs don’t sell books. Not really. You can get all the blurbs in the world for your book and it won’t help if you haven’t done everything else (quick aside: the guy who invented the word “blurb” also wrote the poem Purple Cow).

4. Books cost money and require the user to read them for the idea to spread.

Obvious, sure, but real problems. Real problems because the cost of a book introduces friction to your idea. It makes the idea spread much much more slowly than an online meme because in order for it to spread, someone has to buy it. Add to that the growing (and sad) fact that people hate to read. Too often, people have told me, with pride, that they read three chapters of my book. Just three.

5. Publishing is like venture capital, not like printing.

Printing your own book is very very easy and not particularly expensive. You can hire professional copyeditors and designers and end up with a book that looks just like one from Random House. That’s easy stuff.

What Random House and others do is invest. They invest cash in an advance. They invest time in creating the book itself and selling it in and they invest more cash in printing books. Like all VCs, they want a big return.

If you need the advance to live on, then publishers serve an essential function. If, on the other hand, you’re like most non-fiction authors and spreading the idea is worth more than the advance, you may not.

So, what’s my best advice for book authors?

Build an asset. Large numbers of influential people who read your blog or read your emails or watch your TV show or love your restaurant or or or…

Then, put your idea into a format where it will spread fast. That could be an ebook (a free one) or a pamphlet (a cheap one–the Joy of Jello sold millions and millions of copies at a dollar or less).

Then, if your idea catches on, you can sell the souvenir edition. The book. The thing people keep on their shelf or lend out or get from the library. Books are wonderful (I own too many!) but they’re not necessarily the best vessel for spreading your idea.

And the punchline, of course, is that if you do all these things, you won’t need a publisher. And that’s exactly when a publisher will want you! That’s the sort of author publishers do the best with.

Tomorrow: Part II of my Advice for Book Authors

About the Author

Seth Godin is the founder of The Domino Project and has written twelve books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and, most of all, changing everything.

Book Marketing Makeover: Networking with Colleagues

2012-01-14T00:05:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Lynnette Phillips

Collegial networking - Impressive sounding jargon for something as simple as learning from and keeping in touch with your colleagues. The surprising thing that I have found is how generous people in the book world can be. Fellow marketers are eager to share their tips and information, authors go out of their way to keep in touch, publishers and publicists make sure you know how much you’re appreciated.

Networking like all marketing is built on relationships and, like in all relationships, some reciprocity is involved. Also realize that you have more colleagues in this field than just your fellow writers. Anyone who touches your work can be considered a colleague: editors, marketers, reviewers, readers, bloggers.

So how do you touch their lives regularly?

Share your thoughts, ideas, and tips or ask a question. These are great ways to network with colleagues and, like with marketing, there’s a variety of means! Try using both online and offline venues to reach the widest audience.

Social media is key. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are considered to be the top four networking sites online. Don’t mistake these as the only options though. Target your networking the same way you’d target your readers or marketing venues.

What genre or sub‑genre do you work in most often? Look for forums, discussion boards or even associations that support the avenue your publishing follows; what are your interests, are you self‑published, are your books in e-book format?

Target your followers. Make your social media networking more effective and efficient by targeting your followers, too. There are sites that promise to get you 1,000 new followers overnight but these won’t be quality followers. You’ll want to be able to weed out the spammers and anyone else who couldn’t care less about what you do. Ask yourself: Who would be most likely to retweet or recommend my posts to others?

Limit the number of fellow authors. Remember, you want to populate your group of followers with people who compliment what you do, not counterparts.

To do this you’ll want to accept each of your followers individually. I know, this sounds very time consuming but the payoff will come in the number of contacts you make; http://www.socialoomph.com can help you in this with their vet followers feature. Note: You want to increase the number of contacts you can make not the number of followers you can accumulate.

Connect with readers. As a writer you’ll want to form relationships and connect with readers. GoodReads is the largest reader networking community online making it an excellent place for an author to interact.

Join groups on Facebook to target audiences there. Find groups and individuals by typing search terms into the search bar at the top of the page. For example, you might type in “book bloggers” or “book blogger groups” or “book review groups” or “book reviewers.”

Mail thank you notes or cards. Everyone likes to be remembered and there’s a service that makes this easier than ever. Visit CardsforAuthors.com whether the relationship is online or offline oriented. You can select a card or note, inscribe your message and mail it off all from the comfort of your home. They will handle the addressing of the envelope and getting it to the post office with real postage!

Become part of a writer’s group or take a writing class. Before you know it you’ll be forming alliances with like-minded writers, critiquing each other’s work, learning from one another and even trading cross editing tasks. Why not network with a writer’s group online and another offline?

Join or organize a literary event such as a poetry reading or author’s meet and greet.

Become a member of a writers’ association such as the Western Writers of America.

Consider not only writing guest blog posts for colleagues but also interviewing other writers and reviewing each other’s books.

About the Author

Lynnette Phillips maintains three blogs; one for book reviews, one for book marketing tips and information and a third the provides links, resources and tips information on free platforms and writing contests available to writers and authors.

She also authors book marketing and self-publishing guides available on Kindle, including Fight Back! Don't Let Twitter and Facebook Take Over. She created Book Marketing on Auto-Pilot to help busy writers and authors automate their daily marketing tasks.

Book Marketing Makeover: You Can Be on ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX News Next Week!

2012-01-13T00:56:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Clint Arthur

Before I appeared on TV the first time, I remember thinking to myself, Why would anybody want to put me on the news? I’m an unknown middle-age guy. I’m not a celebrity, not a movie star, not a politician. I have no TV experience. My book is self-published. So why would any producer want me?

But money is an amazing thing. I agreed to pay a publicist $1,500 for every local TV interview she got me, and a week later I received this email: “Congratulations! Just booked you on ABC15 Phoenix TV Friday, January 29, 2010.”

And after that one, three more followed in short order. I ended up paying that publicist $6,000 for my first four interviews. She was thrilled. I turned out to be pretty horrible on all 4 shows. Didn’t even budge the needle for my book on Amazon.

After posting the 4th video clip on YouTube, I was faced with a tough decision. As a businessman I had a hard time rationalizing an ROI of zero, but I knew that becoming great at TV interviews was important to my career as a writer. So I decided to do the only thing that made sense: I learned how to book myself on local TV shows.

It took months of trial and error, but I finally broke the code. Since then I’ve booked 31 interviews in cities all across America, including Las Vegas, New Orleans, San Diego, Albuquerque, Boston, Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Making so many appearances and getting onto such big market stations has helped me to promote my books all the way to #1 on Amazon.

Once I knew what I was doing it got so easy that I started teaching my friends and business associates my tricks and secrets, and now my students have booked themselves in Connecticut, Virginia, Arkansas, Memphis, Atlanta, St. Louis, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York!

It turns out that it’s better to book yourself on local TV shows than to hire a publicist.

1. Booking yourself is free. All it takes is time and phone-calls. You can do it, or you can have an assistant or secretary do it for you.

2. Booking yourself gives you the opportunity to audition for a producer right there on the phone, and using this form of instant audition you can often get booked on the spot.

3. Booking yourself allows you to respond and modify your pitch to meet a producer’s needs. Two authors who teach people how to make toasts switched gears when a Las Vegas producer didn’t have time in her schedule prior to New Year’s Eve. They modified their pitch to work for early January and got booked for CBS News Las Vegas on January 2, 2011.

4. You care more about your career. It’s better to book yourself because you actually care more about your career than publicists who only care about their careers. You don’t have to be wise King Solomon to know that nobody really cares about anyone beside themselves.

5. When you are booking yourself, you have more certainty. If producers are saying “No,” at least you really know that they are saying no. When my publicist told me “Good Morning America isn’t interested in you,” I always wondered if Good Morning America ever actually heard about me?

6. When you book yourself, you get to maintain total control over your relationship with the producers. Great relationships with producers have resulted in my eight appearances on Fox 5 San Diego, repeat appearances three times in Las Vegas, four times in Houston, and twice in both Chicago and Boston.

7. You can switch pitches. If you have more than one area of expertise and a producer says no to one pitch, you can instantly switch to another pitch while you’ve got her on the phone. You can make a second pitch for yourself, but a publicist will probably pitch a different client.

8. Local TV producers will actually book you off a voicemail message. I got booked on ABC Chicago my first time like that.

9. Local TV producers will book you off an email. Once you have the right media assets properly displayed on your website, you can get booked in major markets simply by sending out a segment proposal in an email. In the last two weeks I’ve appeared in Dallas (#5 Neilsen Market) and Los Angeles (#2 Neilsen Market) as a result of emails that I sent to producers who had never spoken to me prior to meeting me in their studios.

When I started booking myself on TV interviews, I was originally intimidated and shy about pitching. After all, who was I to be calling up these producers? And wasn’t it egotistical of me to pitch myself? I had a lot of insecurities, but as the number of interviews increased, I’ve come to realize this is perfectly acceptable.

Along the way I’ve met other authors who also book themselves.

Stephanie Ashcroft has done more than 1,000 local TV news interviews, and credits this publicity with helping to make her book 101 Things to Do with Cake Mix a New York Times bestseller.

Since releasing my New TV Power training program in September, I’ve taught hundreds of students how to start working their way up the ladder of local TV shows and into the major leagues of top 10 markets and national television shows.

Veronica Grey started New TV Power on October 26, 2011, and has done ten TV interviews to promote her three books and her independent movie since taking the course.

If you’re an entrepreneur, author, speaker, coach, seminar leader, filmmaker, or anyone with a message that needs to be shared with the world, local TV news is a wonderful forum to get the word out. It’s also a great way to hone your craft of being a great television interviewee, so when the big day comes and Good Morning America calls you, you won’t suck.

You can promote any book or product on TV. If you don’t have a product, you can use TV news interviews to position yourself as an expert. Alan Ladd of InterviewTheBest.com doesn’t have a book to back up his credentials, but nevertheless has appeared on Fox Los Angeles three times as an expert on how to get a job. Now he’s an expert because Fox LA News says he is.

Booking yourself on local TV interviews is a wide open playing field. The producers need you to fill time on their air. As long as you know how to give them what they need how they want it, they’ll be happy to let you use their shows to position yourself as an expert, build your platform, and promote your products/services.

Instead of asking yourself Who am I to want to be on TV? A much better question is What am I waiting for?

About the Author

Clint Arthur has used his New TV Power system to publicize his books What They Teach You At The Wharton Business School, The Last Year Of Your Life, The Income Doubler, and Daddy Loves You on TV shows across America, and has been a featured speaker on the topic of local TV interviews at The National Publicity Summit, Author 101 University, and the Quantum Leap Program.

Get three free training videos on how to book yourself on local TV at http://www.FreeTVPublicity.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: The Power of Smart Trust, The Story of Zane's Cycles

2012-01-12T00:08:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link

Successful organizations lead out in extending Smart Trust to their customers. In addition to the companies we’ve already highlighted, you can see this manifested in businesses such as Zane’s Cycles of Connecticut, one of the three largest bike shops in the United States.

Zane’s allows customers to go out the door for test drives on their bikes without asking for any identification or collateral. When customers offer to leave their driver’s licenses, they are politely refused. The message Zane’s communicates to its customers is: Just have a great ride. We trust you.

As its founder, Chris Zane, put it, “Why start out that relationship by questioning their integrity? We choose to believe our customers.”

The company’s high-trust message also communicates clearly to its employees that Zane’s is in the business of building customer relationships, not merely selling products. The result is $13 million in annual sales, with a 23 percent average annual growth rate since opening in 1981 and a loss of only five of the 5,000 bikes sold each year to theft.

Zane states: “Most customers are blown away by how much we trust them, and that goes far in building their confidence in us. As soon as we begin distrusting our customers and treating them like potential thieves, we’ll automatically be putting our relationship in jeopardy. Sure, we may lose those five bikes a year, but the other 4,995 that are test ridden do return.”

Zane firmly believes that the customers appreciate being trusted and that they reciprocate that trust by becoming lifelong customers, returning again and again and referring family and friends. So although there’s a risk, with the company losing five bikes a year, Zane is convinced that it’s Smart Trust because it’s selling significantly more bikes than it would without such a high-trust, referral-generating approach.

About the Authors

Stephen M.R. Covey is the New York Times bestselling author of The Speed of Trust. Greg Link is co-founder of The Covey Leadership Center. The two orchestrated the strategy that led Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to be one of the bestselling business books of the 20th Century.

The above story is excerpted from their new book, Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World. Great book!

I've arranged access to Covey’s upcoming private 60-minute broadcast for free if you buy the book at Amazon this week (January 9 to 13): http://goo.gl/AV2Gi.

And you can sign up for the live interactive telecast on January 12th here: http://goo.gl/HXLQr.

======

"John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books was instrumental to our success in making The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one of the two most influential business books of the 20th century." - Stephen M. R. Covey and Greg Link, authors of Smart Trust

======

"Thanks to you, Smart Trust is #1 in all books on Amazon & B&N. What can we say?? Thanks seems so insufficient. How's this: You rocked the free world, you extraordinary enlightened earthling you. Well, you rocked our world anyway!

"Please, please keep advocating trust. Together we can trigger a global renaissance of trust and shift the trajectory of life and leadership for generations to come." - In gratitude, Greg Link and Stephen M. R. Covey, co-authors of Smart Trust

Book Marketing Makeover: The Power of Trust, The Story of Ebay

2012-01-11T00:02:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link

When Meg Whitman joined eBay as CEO in 1998, she said the reason was because she was “blown away by the power of trust.”

The company was founded by the French-born Iranian-American entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar, and from the beginning, it quickly became wildly successful. Today the company has a market capitalization in excess of $35 billion, with 235 million registered buyers and sellers engaging in more than 1 million transactions a day.

So how has eBay managed to become so successful, especially considering that success involves millions of transactions each year between people around the globe who don’t even know each other?

The company was built on Omidyar’s high-trust belief that “most people are basically good.”

Whitman said: “More than a decade later, I still believe that Pierre was right: The fundamental reason eBay worked was that people everywhere are basically good. We provided the tools and reinforced the values, but our users built eBay. Our community’s willingness to trust eBay—and one another—was the foundation of eBay’s success.”

Does that mean that eBay operates on blind trust? Not at all.

According to Whitman: “Pierre’s premise was not that all people are good; it was that most people are basically good. I agree that it is an optimistic statement, but let’s be clear: We did not build eBay by sticking our heads in the sand. We did not ignore or deny that fraud, distasteful behavior, or unlawful activities occurred on eBay from time to time.

“Quite the contrary: We invested significantly in eBay’s Trust & Safety division, which policed the site. We created software that looked for patterns that might be signs of trading in counterfeit goods, illegal bidding, or even behavior that was simply inappropriate, such as one user stealing a digital photograph from another user’s auction page. But from day one it was clear to us that such behavior involved only a tiny minority of people.”

About the Authors

Stephen M.R. Covey is the New York Times bestselling author of The Speed of Trust. Greg Link is co-founder of The Covey Leadership Center. The two orchestrated the strategy that led Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to be one of the bestselling business books of the 20th Century.

The above story is excerpted from their new book, Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World. Great book!

I've arranged access to Covey’s upcoming private 60-minute broadcast for free if you buy the book at Amazon this week (January 9 to 13): http://goo.gl/AV2Gi.

And you can sign up for the live interactive telecast on January 12th here: http://goo.gl/HXLQr.

======

"John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books was instrumental to our success in making The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one of the two most influential business books of the 20th century." - Stephen M. R. Covey and Greg Link, authors of Smart Trust

======

"Thanks to you, Smart Trust is #1 in all books on Amazon & B&N. What can we say?? Thanks seems so insufficient. How's this: You rocked the free world, you extraordinary enlightened earthling you. Well, you rocked our world anyway!

"Please, please keep advocating trust. Together we can trigger a global renaissance of trust and shift the trajectory of life and leadership for generations to come." - In gratitude, Greg Link and Stephen M. R. Covey, co-authors of Smart Trust

Book Marketing Makeover: The Magic of Self-Trust, A Magic Johnson Story

2012-01-10T00:05:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link

The personal congruence that leads to self-trust instills in us the confidence and credibility to inspire others. The two of us have seen countless examples of leaders—many times informal ones—who reach inside themselves, rise to the occasion, and turn the tide in leading a team or organization.

One of the more inspiring stories we recall to illustrate this point is from the NBA basketball championship series of 1980. The Los Angeles Lakers led the Philadelphia 76ers three games to two in a best-of-seven series. The Lakers’ star player, seven-foot, two-inch center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had severely sprained his ankle in game five and would not be traveling with the team to Philadelphia for game six in the hope that he could heal enough to play in game seven, if necessary.

An unlikely hero presented himself in the form of a nineteen-year-old rookie just drafted from Michigan State University, Earvin “Magic” Johnson. Johnson sensed fear and hopelessness in his more experienced and somewhat jaded teammates, who had relied on Kareem for the entire season and had just watched him miraculously score fourteen points in the fourth quarter on a badly sprained ankle to win game five.

In the words of coach Pat Riley, as recorded in Tell to Win by Peter Guber, when Johnson heard his teammates say they were going to lose, he said, “I know what the problem is. All you guys are afraid because Kareem isn’t here. Well, I’ll be Kareem.”

Riley continued, “We get on the plane for Philadelphia, and 1A is Kareem’s seat. Even when he was sick, nobody ever sat in 1A. He’d put a sign there: Don’t sit in my seat. I’m Kareem. But Magic sat in his seat and said, ‘Hey, I’m Kareem. I’m here.’ ”

According to the NBA encyclopedia: Johnson’s confidence lifted his team’s spirits, and then he backed it up with one of the most remarkable games in NBA Playoff history. He began by jumping the opening tap in Abdul-Jabbar’s place, then went on to play every position on the floor at one time or another, from his customary point guard role to Abdul-Jabbar’s pivot spot. Johnson scored 42 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and handed out 7 assists as the Lakers stunned the 76ers 123-107 to clinch the first of his five NBA championships.

After the game, he looked into the TV cameras and sent a message to Abdul-Jabbar back in his Bel-Air home: “This one’s for you, Big Fella!”

Magic’s confidence was not about himself; it was about his desire to rise to the occasion and draw on his trust in his own character and competence to inspire his team. As Guber commented, “The irony is, Earvin Johnson’s greatest act of magic was the story he told to move his team into believing he was their hero. It was a pretty gutsy story for a rookie, but he pulled it off because he knew he was up to the role and because his ultimate goal was to benefit them all.”

That Johnson’s character and competence typified him over time is evidenced in a New York Times article written eleven years later: “Magic Johnson gained the respect of many because, among other things, he devoted much of his off-the-court time to raising money for charities. On the court, he kept making himself better in his profession, no matter how good he got. And that, too, seemed to indicate the heart and mind of the man.”

To be clear, self-trust is not ego, arrogance, or unwarranted bravado. It’s a quiet inner confidence that reflects our awareness of the most important kind of prosperity we will ever have—a high balance in our own personal trust account. And whatever our current balance (or the balance of our team or organization) may be, the good news is that we can increase it significantly by making regular deposits through behaviors that both develop and demonstrate character and competence.

About the Authors

Stephen M.R. Covey is the New York Times bestselling author of The Speed of Trust. Greg Link is co-founder of The Covey Leadership Center. The two orchestrated the strategy that led Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to be one of the bestselling business books of the 20th Century.

The above story is excerpted from their new book, Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World. Great book!

I've arranged access to Covey’s upcoming private 60-minute broadcast for free if you buy the book at Amazon this week (January 9 to 13): http://goo.gl/AV2Gi.

And you can sign up for the live interactive telecast on January 12th here: http://goo.gl/HXLQr.

======

"John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books was instrumental to our success in making The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one of the two most influential business books of the 20th century." - Stephen M. R. Covey and Greg Link, authors of Smart Trust

======

"Thanks to you, Smart Trust is #1 in all books on Amazon & B&N. What can we say?? Thanks seems so insufficient. How's this: You rocked the free world, you extraordinary enlightened earthling you. Well, you rocked our world anyway!

"Please, please keep advocating trust. Together we can trigger a global renaissance of trust and shift the trajectory of life and leadership for generations to come." - In gratitude, Greg Link and Stephen M. R. Covey, co-authors of Smart Trust

Book Marketing Makeover: The Moment of Trust, A Mark Zuckerberg Story

2012-01-09T00:08:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link

Almost daily, most of us have what we could call moments of trust, single instances in which our behavior enables us to build, extend, or restore trust or to diminish it. How we respond in those key moments, large or small, often has a disproportionate impact, sometimes beyond our wildest imagination.

One remarkable moment of trust occurred for Mark Zuckerberg right after his social networking service, Facebook (then called Thefacebook), was launched in 2004. Zuckerberg had entered into a verbal agreement for critically needed funding with Donald Graham, the chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company.

Just a few weeks later, the Accel Partners venture capital firm bettered the offer by $4 million. At a dinner with one of Accel’s co–managing partners, who was trying to close the deal, Zuckerberg appeared to tune out of the conversation. He left to go to the bathroom and didn’t come back.

In The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick wrote:

Cohler [one of the first executives hired by Zuckerberg] got up to see if everything was okay.

There, on the floor of the men’s room with his head down, was Zuckerberg. And he was crying. Through his tears he was saying, “This is wrong. I can’t do this. I gave my word!”

Cohler responded, “Why don’t you just call Don up and ask him what he thinks?”

Zuckerberg took awhile to compose himself and returned to the table. The next morning he did call Graham. “Don, I haven’t talked to you since we agreed on terms, and since then I’ve had a much higher offer from a venture capital firm out here. And I feel I have a moral dilemma,” Zuckerberg began.

Graham had already talked to Breyer, so he was disappointed but not surprised. But he was also impressed. “I just thought to myself, ‘Wow, for twenty years old that is impressive—he’s not calling to tell me he’s taking the other guy’s money. He’s calling me to talk it out.’”

Graham knew that even his first offer was very high for a company so tiny and so young.... “Mark, does the money matter to you?” Graham asked.

Zuckerberg said that it did. It could, he went on, be the one thing that could prevent Thefacebook from going into the red or having to borrow money....

“Mark, I’ll release you from your moral dilemma,” said Graham after a twenty-minute conversation. “Go ahead and take their money and develop the company, and all the best.”

For Zuckerberg, it was a huge relief. And it further increased his respect and admiration for Graham.

Obviously, Zuckerberg has many years still ahead of him, but what has happened following that moment of trust has been nothing short of astounding. Today Facebook has more than 800 million active users worldwide and is literally redefining our world in ways both small and great, from enabling youths to share everyday thoughts with friends to fueling massive social movements, such as the 2011democracy uprising in Egypt.

In 2010, Zuckerberg was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, and today the company is valued at more than $80 billion and continues to rise.

About the Authors

Stephen M.R. Covey is the New York Times bestselling author of The Speed of Trust. Greg Link is co-founder of The Covey Leadership Center. The two orchestrated the strategy that led Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to be one of the bestselling business books of the 20th Century.

The above story is excerpted from their new book, Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World. Great book!

I've arranged access to Covey’s upcoming private 60-minute broadcast for free if you buy the book at Amazon this week (January 9 to 13): http://goo.gl/AV2Gi.

And you can sign up for the live interactive telecast on January 12th here: http://goo.gl/HXLQr.

======

"John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books was instrumental to our success in making The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one of the two most influential business books of the 20th century." - Stephen M. R. Covey and Greg Link, authors of Smart Trust

======

"Thanks to you, Smart Trust is #1 in all books on Amazon & B&N. What can we say?? Thanks seems so insufficient. How's this: You rocked the free world, you extraordinary enlightened earthling you. Well, you rocked our world anyway!

"Please, please keep advocating trust. Together we can trigger a global renaissance of trust and shift the trajectory of life and leadership for generations to come." - In gratitude, Greg Link and Stephen M. R. Covey, co-authors of Smart Trust

Book Marketing Makeover: The Importance of Trust, A Steve Jobs Story

2012-01-08T00:07:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Stephen M.R. Covey and Greg Link

In 2007, Ted Morgan, the CEO of an unknown location-finding technology company called Skyhook, had been trying for months to get major companies to use his technology. Then one day when Morgan checked his voice mail, he found that a caller had left the following message: “Ted, this is Steve Jobs from Apple. I’d like to talk to you about Skyhook. Call me at . . .”

Thinking the message was a joke played by someone on his team, Morgan deleted it. Later that day, he told Mike Shean, Skyhook’s cofounder, “Good try, but you gave it away by pretending to be Steve Jobs. You should have said you were Scott or one of the other managers we just met at Apple.”

Shean said he knew nothing about the message. When Morgan realized the call had actually been from Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple asking to meet with him, he sat up in a hurry. Morgan returned the call and met with Jobs, and things started happening quickly. It looked as though a great deal was in the making.

Then one day, Jobs called Morgan and said that Apple had a big Macworld event coming up, that it was close to doing a deal with Skyhook, and that he wanted to model Skyhook’s technology at the event—but he couldn’t do it without Skyhook’s code. So Jobs asked Morgan to give him the code.

While still on the phone, Morgan turned to his management team and whispered, “He’s wanting our code.”

The immediate response of the team was “No! No! No!”

Morgan said to Jobs, “Steve, as you might imagine, we’ve never given out our code. That code is our intellectual property. It’s everything we have.”

Jobs replied, “I know that. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

Against the advice of his team, Morgan gave Jobs the code.

We later asked Morgan, “What do you think would have happened if you had said, ‘Steve, I just can’t?”

He replied, “You never know. But personally, I don’t think he would have done the deal. I think Steve would have moved on.”

Instead, Jobs rewarded Morgan by personally demonstrating Skyhook’s technology at Macworld in January 2008, giving an animated explanation of how the technology worked and adding, “Isn’t that cool? It’s really cool.”

Morgan called Jobs’s spotlight on Skyhook “the biggest publicity event any company can have.”

Skyhook’s WPS became the primary location engine for Google Maps and other applications used by both the iPhone and iPod Touch until April 2010, and the company continues to provide location-based services for Apple as well as other technology giants such as Samsung, Motorola, Dell, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments. Its software powers thousands of mobile applications and is being used on tens of millions of devices around the globe.

Morgan’s leap of trust turned out to be a huge positive game changer for Skyhook. It also affirms that although there is risk in trusting, there is often greater risk in not trusting.

About the Authors

Stephen M.R. Covey is the New York Times bestselling author of The Speed of Trust. Greg Link is co-founder of The Covey Leadership Center. The two orchestrated the strategy that led Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to be one of the bestselling business books of the 20th Century.

The above story is excerpted from their new book, Smart Trust: Creating Prosperity, Energy, and Joy in a Low-Trust World. Great book!

I've arranged access to Covey’s upcoming private 60-minute broadcast for free if you buy the book at Amazon this week (January 9 to 13): http://goo.gl/AV2Gi.
And you can sign up for the live interactive telecast on January 12th here: http://goo.gl/HXLQr.

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"John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books was instrumental to our success in making The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one of the two most influential business books of the 20th century." - Stephen M. R. Covey and Greg Link, authors of Smart Trust

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"Thanks to you, Smart Trust is #1 in all books on Amazon & B&N. What can we say?? Thanks seems so insufficient. How's this: You rocked the free world, you extraordinary enlightened earthling you. Well, you rocked our world anyway!

"Please, please keep advocating trust. Together we can trigger a global renaissance of trust and shift the trajectory of life and leadership for generations to come." - In gratitude, Greg Link and Stephen M. R. Covey, co-authors of Smart Trust

Book Marketing Makeover: Stupid Ways to Market Via the Internet

2012-01-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Blog post by John Kremer, Question from Cindy Bellinger

Question: I watched your short book marketing video clip at http://blog.bookmarket.com/2011/12/book-marketing-makeover-john-kremers.html.

You said the best way to sell your book is by marketing on the Internet, "but don't do it the stupid way most people do it these days." What is the stupid way? - Cindy Bellinger

John's Answer: Cindy, below is my short answer to your insightful question.

Here are four key stupid ways that you don't want to follow:

1. Too much social networking without measuring results. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. can be real time-sucking activities. Make sure you are getting results from what you do on any social network.

2. Not creating relationships with high-traffic targeted websites and audiences. Real relationships with highly targeted websites (to your topic or to your audience) is the most important way to market on the Internet, bar none. The most effective. The least time-consuming. The most productive.

3. Doing ineffective blog tours rather than SuperStar Blog Tours, Mega Blog Tours or BlogPaloozas. Do a real virtual book tour EVENT rather than the hum-drum blog tours most authors do. You can learn more at http://www.bookmarket.com/blog-tour-paloozas.htm.

4. Jumping on each new Internet marketing bandwagon rather than focusing on key measurable activities that have already proven to be effective. I see so many authors flitting from one activity to another, never settling down to mining the activities that really work. Such a waste of time. Be focused. Don't scatter your attention and activities.

There are more. I could write a book. But the above four ways are the major ones that really bog down most book authors' (and most other promoters') efforts in Internet marketing.

About the Author

John Kremer is the developer of the 15,000 Eyeballs Program and the Blog Tour Palooza Program - both intended to help book authors and others to get more attention and sell more books, products, and services via Internet marketing.

Book Marketing Makeover: How to Get More Twitter Followers

2012-01-06T00:06:00.000-08:00

Guest post by David Griffiths

To gain more followers on Twitter, I began by creating a new Twitter account, @SelfPubSolution, for my website, Self-Publishing-Solutions.com, so that I wouldn’t have to split my tweets from @David_Griffiths between my book, The Misadventures of Russell Quigley, and my website.

Then I read John Kremer’s 151 Ways to Tweet, What to Tweet, How to Tweet and learned that I was doing many things wrong. I began to look for questions to answer, for other ways to help out, and for good material to re-tweet. I respond only to meaningful Mentions and Direct Messages. I can tell by the responses I am getting, that I am on the right track.

Next, I enlisted the help of a program called TweetAdder. It adds followers 20 at a time based on keywords that you supply, and after several days it unfollows those who have not followed you back. I spent time double checking my new followers. Most of them were just what I was looking for; however, I did weed out a few misfits.

It seems that most people are using some form of automated response to being followed. My favorite was, “I auto respond, so I do.” Overall, the automated responses do not add any useful information to the conversation, so I am not using them. It is annoying and time consuming to dig through a ton of automated Direct Messages to find the helpful, interesting, and personalized responses.

@David_Griffiths began with 304 followers. It now has 5,156, and I am following 4,690.

@SelfPubSolution began with 0 and now has 4,259. The traffic to my website increased 64 percent with the first 1,500 followers. It is too early to tell much about book sales.

It was a fascinating and productive experience. I have a lot to learn. My Kindle is bursting with books to be read, and I have discovered that John Kremer’s material is not that expensive, and not just for the pros. His 15000 Eyeballs Online Program has already proved to be a bargain and will keep me busy for quite a while.

About the Author

David Griffiths is the author of The Misadventures of Russell Quigley, a hilarious collection of sea stories woven into the fabric of Russell’s life as a Navy photographer.You can find out more about the book at http://www.self-publishing-solutions.com/russell-quigley.html.

Book Marketing Makeover: Creating a Viral Story

2012-01-05T00:04:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Kayleen Reusser

In 1989 a 10-minute incident with a stranger helped me through a miserable day during the Christmas season. The encounter wouldn't leave me. “If I’m still thinking about this incident,” I thought, “maybe it would impact someone else.”

I crafted an essay about the experience the next year at the beginning of my writing career. I wrote the story, titled “A Lesson in Forgiveness,” at 500 words, including details about the weather, the reasons for my bad mood and how I felt transformed following our interaction.

The subject of forgiveness was popular with religious magazines and editors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Newspaper editors seeking holiday stories loved it. I even turned the incident into a skit that was purchased for a church program book.

Since its initial publication, “A Lesson in Forgiveness” has been reprinted more than 30 times and I believe it will continue to be evergreen because of its timeless message.

A Lesson in Forgiveness

It was snowing as I finished unbuckling my baby from her car seat. A toot from behind reminded me that I was holding up traffic on the one-way street.

I didn’t care. My six-month-old had to get an immunization shot, which meant she would be up all night with a fever. My head ached like I was coming down with the flu and my husband’s job didn’t look steady for the holidays. I wasn’t in a good mood.

The truck tooted its horn again. When I finally had my little one in my arms and covered from the cold air, I looked up and felt my heart sink. I had inadvertently parked in a delivery zone. A look at the name printed on the truck confirmed that I was parked in its delivery zone.

Angry at myself for not noticing the sign sooner, I put my baby back into the car and looked down the street. The nearest empty place was more than a block away. Gritting my teeth, I was tempted to go home and reschedule my baby’s vaccination for a day when things were going better, but I didn’t.

After managing to park in a tight spot, I again got ready to get out of my car. Glancing up, I saw someone waiting for me outside. I knew it was the truck driver. Bracing myself for a verbal attack, I slowly emerged from the car.

“Sorry about that back there.” A strong note of apology rang in the man’s voice. I looked at him suspiciously. He was actually grinning at me!

“I saw you had a baby,” he continued, “but there wasn’t any other place big enough for me to park in.”

I managed to stammer my own apology, though I was completely taken aback by his friendly manner. Like Scrooge, I wondered if this was a setup.

“I’d like to give you this.” The stranger held out a coffee mug with his company’s name on the side. He didn’t wait for my reply, but shouted “Merry Christmas” and sprinted away, as fast as he dared on the slick pavement.

I stared after him, the coffee mug still in my hand. As the snow continued to fall steadily around me, a warm feeling spread throughout my body and I smiled for the first time all day.

At home that coffee mug serves as a constant reminder to me of the way that driver showed unexpected kindness and forgiveness to me that day. As I drink from it each day, it also reminds me of the way God forgives each of us when we least deserve it.

Using the coffee mug each morning as I begin my day inspires me to work on showing that same kindness and forgiveness to everyone I will meet -- clerks, cashiers, complete strangers -- not just at Christmas, but every day of the year.

About the Author

Kayleen Reusser has written nine children’s books, including biographies on Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, three books on the Greek gods, and Recipe and Craft Guide to Indonesia, all from Mitchell Lane Publishing.

She has written articles for Chicken Soup for the Soul, Indianapolis Monthly, Boy Scouting, The Lookout, Focus on the Family, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, and Bluffton News-Banner. She is a weekly columnist for the Ossian Sun Riser and co-founder of a writing group.

She currently works in a public middle school library where she finds inspiration for ideas among the students and books. Check her out at http://www.KayleenR.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: How One Author Got a Book Assignment That Led to 9 Titles

2012-01-04T00:09:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Kayleen Reusser

After writing for adults for 20 years in magazines and newspapers, I enrolled in a children’s writing class at a local university. I felt it was a responsibility to write for children and had never considered myself good enough before.

The instructor, Michelle Medlock Adams, had written several children’s books. She said to the class, “If you’ve never written a children’s book before, you may want to try this company called Mitchell Lane. They give new authors a chance.”

So even though I had never written anything for children, I wrote a letter to the president of the company, Barbara Mitchell, telling her of my desire to write a children’s book and asking to be considered for a position.

A couple of weeks later, she replied, asking me to send a sample of my writing. I sent a newspaper article I had written about a children’s circus. She emailed back, asking me if I’d consider writing a biography for Grades 4-8 on a certain country music singer who seemed to be a rising star. I had never heard of Taylor Swift at that point but was willing to give it a go.

How glad I am that I did!

The next book assignment was another zinger of a biography – Selena Gomez!

Then followed 3 books on the Greek gods. They came out right when Rick Riordan’s series of books called Percy Jackson and the Olympians was released. Every kid who read Riordan’s books knew Hermes, Hephaestus, and Hades because of Riordan’s popular books and movie!

Another book assignment, possibly my favorite, was Recipe and Craft Guide to Indonesia. This was written with my daughter who lives in Indonesia. They published our photos in the back. A plus for this book was that the editor wanted me to use live models. So I invited kids from the middle school where I work in the library to my home to make the 10 crafts and 10 recipes and then pose as models with the recipes/crafts. We had a great time! Some of the photos from the book are posted on my website at http://www.KayleenR.com.

Biographies on British pop star Leona Lewis, another biography on Taylor Swift (Grades 1-3) and another book called Celebrities Giving Back added to my string of nonfiction titles with Mitchell Lane.

I’ve had great fun speaking to children at schools about the importance of reading to become an author. My goal is to write more children’s books in 2012.

About the Author

Kayleen Reusser has written nine children’s books, including biographies on Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, three books on the Greek gods, and Recipe and Craft Guide to Indonesia, all from Mitchell Lane Publishing.

She has written articles for Chicken Soup for the Soul, Indianapolis Monthly, Boy Scouting, The Lookout, Focus on the Family, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, and Bluffton News-Banner. She is a weekly columnist for the Ossian Sun Riser and co-founder of a writing group.

She currently works in a public middle school library where she finds inspiration for ideas among the students and books. Check her out at http://www.KayleenR.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: Use AdSense to Make Money from Your Old Material

2012-01-03T00:10:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Eric Giguere

Most nonfiction books eventually stop selling because they’re outdated in some way. This is especially true of technology books—often outdated the day they’re published—but it applies to almost any book.

The obvious solution is to publish a new edition of the book with revised material, but that’s not always possible. The publisher may not want to revise the book. Or you may not be interested enough in the topic any more to do the revision. Either way, you don’t normally see more money from that book once it’s stopped selling. But, with Google AdSense, you can make more money from your old material by putting it on a website and displaying targeted advertisements next to the content.

How you do this is very simple. First, obtain the rights to the material if they’re not already yours. This may require some negotiation: if your book’s not formally out-of-print yet, ask the publisher to revert the rights back to you. If they’re unwilling, ask them if you can at least have the rights to place some of the book content (like the most important chapters) on your own website. They may be more amenable to that.

Once you have the rights, convert the material into a set of HTML pages. How easy this is depends on whether or not you have electronic versions of the original text. If you have to retype everything, it’s probably not worth the effort. Note that you can also extract the text from the PDF files that the publisher might have sent you at some point during the proofing process.

Converting the content to HTML will probably take several hours to do a good job of it, so don’t underestimate the time this step will take. Here are a few rules to keep in mind:

Put each section or subsection on its own page. Don’t do one chapter per page. This will expose the reader to more advertisements, which means more chances for you to make money, and it also ensures that the advertisements that are shown are better targeted.

Keep simple search engine optimization (SEO) principles in mind when you create the page. SEO is important because a lot of your traffic will be from the search engines, so you need to make sure that the search engines can find your content appropriately.

For example, the title of the HTML page should be the title of the section, not something like Section 12. Even the name of the HTML file itself should be based either on the section name or else the keywords that best describe what the section’s about. Place the section title in an headline tag.

Highlight the occasional important keyword in bold. Rewrite a few sentences here and there if necessary. There’s lot of material about SEO available for free on the Internet to guide you.

Organize the web pages intelligently. Make sure that each section links to the next and previous sections in the book, that there’s a table of contents page listing all the sections, that each section also links back to the table of contents. Make it easy to jump around the book.

Put the pages up on a site. If you don’t have your own site, get one. It’s cheap and easy. Get your own domain name. Never use someone else’s free domain name.

Join AdSense. Once your site is up, apply to join Google’s AdSense program (http://www.google.com/adsense). AdSense is a program that allows you rent space on your web pages to Google, who then uses it to display advertising. You get a cut of the money they make from the advertising – whenever a visitor clicks an ad.

For a quick summary of how AdSense works, see http://www.memwg.com or read my book, Make Easy Money with Google. There are other advertising programs out there as well, but AdSense is the best to start with unless the content of your book doesn’t fit within AdSense’s content guidelines.

Place the AdSense code (you literally cut and paste it) on your pages. You’ll start seeing contextually-selected advertising. Whatever you do, though, don’t click any of the ads yourself –you’ll get yourself kicked out of the program.

Start getting traffic to your site. Submit it to the various search engines. Place a link to it in your email signature. Tell your mailing lists about it. Encourage other websites to link to your new site.

If you’re into blogging, you can also republish the content in a blog, either in addition to the website or as a replacement to the website. Blogs can be real traffic generators, so they’re good to have.

You probably won’t make a lot of money with this, but it’s definitely possible to make some money this way. And doing this simple program might make you see your content in a whole new light. You might find your self wanting to use the content as the basis for further articles or even books.

About the Author

Eric Giguere wrote Uncommon AdSense: Expert AdSense advice in one convenient package. You can learn more about the book at http://www.memwg.com or by mailing Eric at ericgiguere@ericgiguere.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: Giving Away Content to Build an Audience

2012-01-02T00:10:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Leo Babauta

John's Note: Leo Babauta's ZenHabits.net is one of the top blogs in the world with more than 230,000 subscribes and an Alexa rank of 7,023. As readers of this Book Marketing Bestsellers blog know, I often recommended giving content away - especially to build an audience. Leo takes that to the ultimate extreme. Check out his reasoning below.

Open Source Blogging: Feel Free to Steal My Content

I get a lot of emails asking me for permission to reprint Zen Habits articles on other blogs, in newsletters, in conferences and in classrooms. I get requests to translate certain posts, or my entire blog, into dozens of languages. I get requests to translate Zen To Done or republish it in another format.

Until now, I granted limited permission, mostly for non-commercial use.

Now, I’m granting full permission to use any of my content on Zen Habits or in my ebook, Zen To Done, in any way you like.

I release my copyright on this content.

From now on, there is no need to email me for permission. Use it however you want! Email it, share it, reprint it with or without credit. Change it around, put in a bunch of swear words and attribute them to me. It’s OK. :)

Credit and payment

While you are under no obligation to do so, I would appreciate it if you give me credit for any work of mine that you use, and ideally, link back to the original. If you feel like spreading a copy of my ebook, I’d appreciate payment. I’d prefer people buy my ebook, but if they want to share with friends, they have every right to do so.

Why I’m releasing copyright

I’m not a big fan of copyright laws anyway, especially as they’re being applied these days by corporations, used to crack down on the little guys so they can continue their large profits.
Copyrights are often touted as protecting the artist, but in most cases the artist gets very little while the corporations make most of the money. I’m trying this experiment to see whether releasing copyright really hurts the creator of the content.

I think, in most cases, the protectionism that is touted by “anti-piracy” campaigns and lawsuits and lobbying actually hurts the artist. Limiting distribution to protect profits isn’t a good thing.
The lack of copyright, and blatant copying by other artists and even businesses, never hurt Leonardo da Vinci when it comes to images such as the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, or the Vitruvian Man. It’s never hurt Shakespeare. I doubt that it’s ever really hurt any artist (although I might just be ignorant here).

And while I’m no da Vinci or Shakespeare, I can’t help but wonder whether copyright hurts me or helps me. If someone feels like sharing my content on their blog, or in any other form for that matter, that seems like a good thing for me. If someone wanted to share my ebook with 100 friends, I don’t see how that hurts me. My work is being spread to many more people than I could do myself. That’s a plus, as I see it.

And if someone wants to take my work and improve upon it, as artists have been doing for centuries, I think that’s a wonderful thing. If they can take my favorite posts and make something funny or inspiring or thought-provoking or even sad … I say more power to them. The creative community only benefits from derivations and inspirations.

This isn’t a new concept, of course, and I’m freely ripping ideas off here. Which is kinda the point.

Counter arguments and all that

There are a number of objects that will likely be brought up to this idea, and while I can’t possibly answer all of them, here are a few of my responses in anticipation:

1. Google rank will go down. My understanding is that Google penalizes pages that have exact duplicates on other sites, when it comes to PageRank. I don’t know how much of a penalty that is. If people duplicate my content (which they already are, even without permission), it’s possible that my PageRank will drop and people will have a harder time finding my content on Google search. If that’s the case, I accept that penalty. I’ve never been one to go for SEO techniques anyway, so this is nothing new to me.

2. You’ll lose ebook revenues. If people buy my ebook and then distribute it to 20 people, and each of those distributes it to 20 more, and those to 20 more … I’ve lost $76,000 in ebook revenues. Perhaps. That’s if you agree with the assumption that all those people would have bought the ebook if it hadn’t been freely distributed. I don’t buy that. In this example, thousands of people are reading my work (and learning about Zen Habits) who wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s good for any content creator.

3. Who knows what people will do with your work? Someone could take my work, turn it into a piece of … baloney … and put my name on it. They could translate it with all kinds of errors. They could … well, they could do just about anything. But that kind of thinking stems from a mind that wants to control content … while I am of the opinion that you can’t control it, and even if you can, it’s not a good thing. What if someone takes my work and turns it into something brilliant, and becomes the next James Joyce? Or more likely, what if they take the work and extend the concepts and make it even more useful, to even more people? Release control, and see what happens. People are wonderful, creative creatures. Let’s see what they can do.

4. You’re making other bloggers look bad. Perhaps, if you want to see things in a negative light. But I’m not doing this as a challenge to other bloggers, or as a comment on their policies. I’m doing it simply to stay in line with my values. And who knows? Maybe others will be inspired by this in some way. Or maybe they won’t. Either way, please don’t judge others based on what I do.

5. What about when you write that print book you’re always talking about? When I get published by a major publisher, I probably won’t be able to release copyright. I accept that as a cost of getting published in print, which is a dream of mine. If I contradict myself, very well … I contradict myself. [Edit: I should have attributed this before, but the last sentence is a paraphrase of Whitman.]

6. What if someone publishes a book with all your content and makes a million dollars off it? I hope they at least give me credit. And my deepest desire is that they give some of that money to a good cause.

7. But … but … they’re stealing from you! You can’t steal what is given freely. I call this sharing, not piracy.

Inspirations: Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig; and GNU by Richard Stallman

Edit: Just to clarify, this post is an official notification that my writing here at Zen Habits and in the Zen To Done ebook are now in the public domain. I hereby waive all claim of copyright in this work; it may be used or altered in any manner without attribution or notice to the me. Attribution, of course, is appreciated.

About the Author

Leo Babauta's ZenHabits.net is one of the top blogs in the world with more than 230,000 subscribes and an Alexa rank of 7,023. The source for this post: http://zenhabits.net/open-source-blogging-feel-free-to-steal-my-content.

Check out Leo's books and other writings at http://www.zenhabits.net.

Book Marketing Makeover: 4 Book Promotion Predictions for 2012

2012-01-01T00:17:00.000-08:00

Now, at the beginning of the year, is a good time to think about your plans from marketing your books. Here are four predictions I have for events or trends that could affect your book promotions.

1. Ebooks will get more important. This trend is obvious. Ebooks are making a major impact on book sales. That means that you should plan to publish your books in all formats, both print and ebook formats, in the coming years. And, at the same time, learn how to market ebooks. Note: Ebook marketing is not the same as book marketing. Ebooks require a different strategy.

2. Online book sales will continue to increase. That means you must learn how to market your books online. If you don't have an integrated plan for marketing your books both offline and online, you will miss out on a lot of book sales. But you have to do more than have a website, write a blog, and spend time on Facebook and Twitter. The key tool for marketing on the Internet will continue to be creating relationships with high-traffic websites and blogs.

3. Book sales will diminish. The reality is that people are getting their entertainment, information, and inspiration from many sources: TV, blogs, social networks, websites, mobile apps, newsletters, teleseminars, etc. If you expect to make a living selling books only, you will be disappointed. You must expand your offerings to include not only printed and ebook versions of your content, but also audio, video, web, and/or app versions. And live versions: consulting, speaking, events, teleseminars, webinars, coaching, etc.

4. A universal prediction: The authors who take responsibility for their book sales will be the ones who see the most sales. This prediction, of course, is based on the experience of authors over the past 20 years. Those who take action gets the results. So, in one sense, this prediction is actually simply a statement of past results. But, note, it will hold true again this year. If you want more book sales, take more action.

Now, if you look carefully at the above four predictions, you'll quickly notice that these predictions are actually based on trends that have been occurring for a number of years.

Last year was one of the saddest years for bookselling - what with the demise of Borders and the closing of many good independents - but the neat thing is that many of those former Borders stores have been taken over by other booksellers. And, for the first time in years, there has been an increase in people taking a chance by opening new independent bookstores (I base this observation on my tracking of indie booksellers for my Top 700 Independent Bookstores list).

So, don't ignore indie booksellers. They can still be an incredible source of book sales and exposure.

About the Author

John Kremer is presenting a live seminar in Palm Springs on January 8th where he will talk about how you can use the above trends to sell even more books in the coming years.

Start the new year of 2012 with a fully loaded plan to accelerate your book sales for the next 12 months and beyond! In one day, John will teach you all the latest secrets of how other book publishers are selling more books - not less - every day.

To sign up for this insider's book marketing seminar, click here:
Palm Springs Seminar - http://bit.ly/PalmSpringsSeminar

Book Marketing Makeover: My New Years Wish List

2011-12-31T00:01:00.000-08:00

Blog post by John Kremer

Here is a wish list I wrote a number of years ago for my newsletter. I thought I'd share it with you this year. The wishes are still consistent with what I feel now. Enjoy the new year.

My Holiday Wish List

Real people connecting with real people. Talking. Really talking. In person, face to face, body to body, soul to soul.

People taking the time to grow as people rather than growing as employees or as cogs in some great machine. People learning to be great souls. Kind souls. Generous souls.

People taking the time to be parents, grandparents, children, and neighbors. People taking the time to be friends and lovers.

People taking the time to cultivate a garden. As someone once wrote, a garden is the best place to find God – because you can dig for him there.

People taking the time to get back in touch with what is really important.

Call it religion. Call it spirit. Call it soul. Call it whatever you like.

But it is deep. And it is rich. And it is incredibly abundant. And it is the only thing that really matters.

John Kremer

Book Marketing Makeover: 10 Tips to Create Your Best Internet Radio Show

2011-12-30T00:09:00.000-08:00

Guest post adapted from Blog Talk Radio

Internet radio shows are a great way to build a tribe, create relationships with many top websites and blogs, and produce new product that you can sell, give away, or use to build a brand.

Here are a few tips adapted from Blog Talk Radio's Ten Tips for Preparing for Your BlogTalkRadio Show (available free at http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com)

1. Choose a Title - Before setting up a radio show, be sure to select a show name you can live with. Also write a good description and decide on the keywords you want to focus on.

2. Be Consistent - When choosing to do a radio show, you'll build up a larger audience and create true fans if you host your show at the same time every week. A weekly show is best. Monthly is too infrequent to build a solid fan base.

3. Create an Intro - Every show needs a great intro. Add music, voice over, and pizazz to the introduction of your show. It also helps to have a closing outro to create a more professional sounding show.

4. Outline Your Show - If you want to avoid dead air or rambling shows, create an outline and stick to it.

5. Get Ready for Your Guests - Make sure your guests know the number to call in and the time and date for the show. Also prepare them with some questions you will be asking. And prepare yourself so you know your guest and what they will talk about as well as possible.

6. Queue Up Your Audio - Make sure you have your intro, outro, and other audio ready to go. It makes it easier for you to produce a professional-sounding show.

7. Test Your Show - Before announcing your show publicly, carry out one or two test shows so you can work out all the kinks in running your show.

8. Find a Quiet Place - Broadcast your show from a room that is quiet and away from any potential interruptions. Be sure to turn off any phones, ban the kids and pets, and soundproof your room as much as possible.

9. Dial in Ahead of Time - Call in 10 to 15 minutes ahead of time to launch the chat room, make sure all the sound settings are correct, and get settled before going on the air.

10. Optimize Sound Quality - Dial into your show with a high-quality landline or high-quality headset (if using Skype). Don't use a speaker phone, cellphone, or conference line.

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The top ten things you can do in 2012 to sell more books: http://blog.bookmarket.com/2011/12/i-am-presenting-one-day-live-seminar-at.html

John Kremer is presenting a special one-day live seminar in Palm Springs, California on January 8th. Learn how to market your books more effectively.

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Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting.

Book Marketing Makeover: One Author's Book Promotion Journey

2011-12-29T00:34:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Rosie Cochran

Writing is a joy. It's fun. It's stimulating. It's an outlet.

And then there is marketing. You've written a great novel. You've poured your heart and soul into it, but what good is a book if you can't market it? Where do you even begin? I've asked myself that question.

Marketing is a journey. For the uninitiated, it may seem strewn with boulders, broken bridges, detours, and sometimes dead-ends. You may find your gas tank close to empty and wonder if you'll ever reach your destination. As the miles pass you by, and you see no impressive results, you may be tempted to give up. The fog of uncertainty rolls in. You find yourself tempted to do a u-turn and head back to the safety of your home. It's then that you need to remind yourself that marketing is a journey. It's not a race. It's not a quick trip to the marketplace. It's a journey.

As my journey began, I committed myself to continue on despite the obstacles. Some of my attempts at marketing can be deemed total failures, but that is part of the learning process. It's been said that smart people learn from their mistakes, and that wise people learn from the mistakes of others. Along the way I have met wonderful authors who have been more than generous in sharing tips from their own experiences. They have shared what has worked and what has not worked. I can consider myself wise when I observe what has and has not worked for others and determine how best to implement those methods for my unique situation.

As a relatively unknown author, they've convinced me that exposure is my greatest need. Initially, exposure is more important than financial reward. Obscurity will never result in sales. They've convinced me that, though giving away copies of my novel may appear counterproductive, it isn't.

Getting copies into the hands of avid readers willing to give reviews initiates the word of mouth cycle. It creates a ripple effect. One pebble thrown into the pond may ripple out to a select group of readers. Ten pebbles thrown into the pond can cause ripples to various groups. Ripples are good.

Social media can be likened to a great pond. As reviews are given, we can throw pebbles into Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Goodreads---and then watch for the ripple effect. Self-promotion is okay, but what we really want is to get other people talking about our books on these social medias. We want ripples.

Where am I at on this journey? I'm traveling down a stretch of the road called Exposure. I'm still throwing pebbles into the pond. Sometimes I see the ripples; sometimes I don't. But that's okay. It's a journey, not a race. I just need to remind myself of that from time to time. I need to take the time to enjoy the journey. I love to hear where you are at on your journey!

About the Author

Rosie Cochran is author of A Murder Unseen. You can download a free ebook edition at Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/105174). Use the coupon code: YZ29M. This free offer is good until January 5, 2012.

Rosie also blogs at Writing to Marketing (http://writingtomarketing.wordpress.com) and Rosie Rambles On (http://rosierambleson.wordpress.com).

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The top ten things you can do in 2012 to sell more books: http://blog.bookmarket.com/2011/12/i-am-presenting-one-day-live-seminar-at.html

John Kremer is presenting a special one-day live seminar in Palm Springs, California on January 8th. Learn how to market your books more effectively.

Book Marketing Makeover: The 12 Days of Christmas for Book Promotion

2011-12-28T00:40:00.000-08:00

Blog post by John Kremer

On the first day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
A short speech in a bookstore.

On the second day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the third day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the fourth day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the fifth day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Five TV shows
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the sixth day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Six news releases
Five TV shows
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the seventh day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Seven Facebook pages
Six news releases
Five TV shows
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the eighth day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Eight books a-giving
Seven Facebook pages
Six news releases
Five TV shows
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the ninth day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Nine columns writing
Eight books a-giving
Seven Facebook pages
Six news releases
Five TV shows
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the tenth day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Ten podcasts sending
Nine columns writing
Eight books a-giving
Seven Facebook pages
Six news releases
Five TV shows
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the eleventh day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Eleven blogs commenting
Ten podcasts sending
Nine columns writing
Eight books a-giving
Seven Facebook pages
Six news releases
Five TV shows
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My promo tip is this:
Twelve guest posts making
Eleven blogs commenting
Ten podcasts sending
Nine columns writing
Eight books a-giving
Seven Facebook pages
Six news releases
Five TV shows
Four webinars
Three blog posts
Two Twitter tweets
And a short speech in a bookstore.

Please let me know your own book promotion tips. You can email those to me at johnkremer@bookmarket.com or via comments below. Thanks.

About the Author

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and the multimedia course on Book Marketing Magic.

Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing, ebook promotion, and Internet marketing consulting with John Kremer. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting.

Details on consulting services here: http://www.bookmarket.com/consulting.htm

Book Marketing Makeover: A Gift of Marketing Interviews from Jay Abraham

2011-12-27T00:05:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Jay Abraham

Just a few hours ago, I received the following email from Jay Abraham, one of the top marketing wizards of today. Check out his generous offer below:

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It's holiday time. I'm giving the perfect gift to anyone of you who doesn't have everything you want - in business (of course, but in your personal life, too!).

It's an outrageous collection of business lessons, life secrets, high-achievement ethical short-cuts, performance enhancement accelerators, explosive ways to leverage-up your impact/output/results.

It's a one-of-its-kind Collector-Worthy compendium of deep, penetrating, Socratic interviews I personally conducted in the last two months with six legendary Super Stars of business, sports, entertainment, arts and entrepreneurship.

Originally conducted for four magazines I'm a partner in--my interviews ended up going so wildly deep and broad that only 1/4th of each interview could fit into the format of each magazine.

Rather than see the electric ideas I mined out of each legend's mammoth brain go unused, I took each unabridged full-length interview (averaging 1 and 1/2 non-stop hours / 15-20 transcribed pages each), combined them all together into one wildly enriching compendium - totaling 100 pages of rich wisdom, exceptional insights and rarely discussed fresh slants on business, life, personal performance, competing masterfully, and so much more.

Consider this compendium: My Holiday Gift To You! It's offered with my hope that you'll read each interview carefully, then reflect on its abundant lessons and message.

Oh yes, I should probably identify my six legendary Super Star subjects so you'll be highly motivated to download this gift:

Daymond John - Star of TV's runaway success reality show "Shark Tank"
Harvey MacKay - Author of the Swim With Sharks Without Getting Eaten Alive
Bruce Buffer - The Voice of Ultimate Fighting and an entrepreneur who controls $400 million in business
Josh Linkner - Founder of e-prize, investment partner with Magic Johnson
Shaquille O'Neal - Basketball legend
Sid Haig - Horror Movie Icon and star of Rob Zombie films

Eclectic collection of personages? Yes, absolutely! Electric collection of insights, ideas and lessons? Unquestionably!

Why am I doing this?Because I CAN and most people can't. Also, because I was blessed to draw out exceedingly inspiring commentary from each one of these legends and, frankly, it'd be a travesty to keep it all to myself.

I'm not trying to sell you a thing.In fact, if you take the one benevolent action step I request in the compendium, I'll send you four more killer full-length interview transcripts:

Stephen M.R. Covey on gaining trust
Stephen R. Covey on effectiveness and gaining passion for what you do and who you do it for.
Hall-of-Fame football legend Fran Tarkenton on the meaning of business life
And a brand new interview with Bruce Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee.

Go here http://www.abraham.com/superstars/interviews.html

No opt-in required. Nothing ever to buy. No sales offer is contained in the compendium either.It REALLY is a gift! Enjoy and prosper.

My purpose in life is to provide direction, guidance, advice and expert answers for all deserving, achievement-oriented business owners and entrepreneurs whose businesses are not living up to their true profit and performance potential.

I seek to plug them all into the minds and methods of superstar legends that are true game changers in whatever it is they do.

I'm constantly searching for breakthrough thinking, performance-enhancing perspectives, specialized understanding of issues and challenges. I'm hunting for success-based, high-level achievers whose masterful grasp of something can meaningfully help people like you better navigate and perform in the volatile business world you compete in today.

The express goal of every interview I conduct is to evoke highly actionable insights, ideas, recommendations and advice that an entrepreneur in your situation can implement and apply, right now!

About the Author

Jay Abraham is a mastermind marketer of the highest caliber. Download his free gift via his website here: http://www.abraham.com/superstars/interviews.html. Again, the free gift includes a 100-page PDF as well as four downloadable audio interviews. And, if you act on the free offer in the PDF, you'll get four more

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Book Marketing Makeover: Marketing Your Books in 2012 and Beyond

2011-12-26T16:35:00.000-08:00

Join me in Palm Springs for an incredible almost one-on-one seminar that will rock your book marketing world in 2012. Let me help you sell more books in 2012!

I am presenting a one-day live seminar at the Miramonte Hotel and Spa in Palm Springs, California (actually Indian Wells near Palm Springs) on Sunday, January 8th. Here's what I will be covering:

The top ten things you can do in 2012 to sell more books.
The key secrets to setting up and carrying out an effective virtual book tour.
How to have your book, your website, and your brand go viral via the Internet.
The inside secrets to developing relationships that will help you sell a lot more books.

This one-day get-results seminar is only $130, including a great lunch. The seminar will be from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 pm. with the delicious lunch break and other pauses during the day.

Start the new year of 2012 with a fully loaded plan to accelerate your book sales for the next 12 months and beyond!

In one day, I will teach you all the latest secrets of how other book publishers are selling more books every day.

To sign up for this insider's book marketing seminar, click here:
Palm Springs Seminar - http://bit.ly/PalmSpringsSeminar

Bonus: If you sign up before the actual seminar, you'll also get a free ebook version of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books as well as three other ebooks worth $100. Sign up here: http://bit.ly/PalmSpringsSeminar

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John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and the Book Marketing Magic multimedia course.

Book Marketing Makeover Event - Happy Holidays

2011-12-25T00:09:00.000-08:00

I wish you all a blessed and happy holiday period and a very abundant New Year.

Book Marketing Makeover: The Difference Between Book Publishing and Book Printing

2011-12-24T00:30:00.000-08:00

Guest post courtesy of Pubslush.com

Pubslush Question: With the advent of print on demand technology, the meaning of publishing is evolving. Can you talk a bit more about your perspective on what it means to actually be published in the 21st century?

Susan Henderson's Answer: Well, first I think it’s important to make a distinction between printing and publishing a book. Anyone can take their writing, give it a nice font, add a pretty cover, and make it available for purchase. That is not a published book.

What publishing means is that someone has a plan for getting that book onto the radar of the people most likely to enjoy it. A publisher has a relationship with booksellers, book bloggers, readers, and reviewers, and so hopefully doesn’t rely on spam or the writer’s friends as the marketing strategy.

I think the reason self-publishing has such a poor reputation with booksellers and readers is that the field is flooded with impatient writers—writers who are not avid readers themselves, who haven’t taken the time to hone their craft, who take rejections from agents and editors to mean that the system is unfair rather than their work isn’t ready.

However, I think the pressure these outside publishing models are putting on the traditional system is a good thing. The current system overworks and underpays all of its players, and the big money is made primarily from celebrity memoirs, calendars, and diet books, which doesn’t say a lot about the system’s staying power or its protection of the arts.

These alternatives (whether they’re self-publishing, print on demand, small press, or direct e-publishing) are trying to address the parts of the system that are broken—the classically poor treatment of writers through the submission process, the lag time between getting a book deal and seeing the book on the shelves, the wildly miscalculated print runs, and so on. I don’t think anyone’s found the ultimate answer yet, but I’m convinced it’s going to come as a result of these outside pressures.

For the entire informative interview with Susan, see http://www.pubslush.com/blog/archives/257.

About the Author

Susan Henderson is the author of Up from the Blue, a debut novel published by HarperCollins in 2010 (with four printings so far). She blogs at LitPark and The Nervous Breakdown.

Pubslush is a new publishing company that uses crowdsourcing to select books forpublication. Authors submit their manuscripts to us, and visitors vote onwhich ones they like the most. Check out their website at http://www.pubslush.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: Feature Contests for a Quick and Effective Blog Post

2011-12-23T00:06:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Cathy Stucker

Looking for a quick blog post idea? Try this:

In every issue of BloggerLinkUp there are several notices of bloggers running contests and other giveaways. These listings are especially useful to our members with blogs about freebies, sweepstakes, etc. However, even if that isn't the focus of your blog, you can do at least an occasional post about these opportunities.

Just scan the list of Contests and Giveaways and choose one or more that would be of interest to your readers. Put together a short post about this cool thing you found, and tell your readers how they can enter to win.

Voila! You have a blog post. And your readers will learn about the chance to win something they want. Who doesn't like that?

Contests and Giveaways

Here are a few of the contests and giveaways announced one day in November on BloggerLinkUp:

27) $1000 Cash - Bring in the Holidays
28) black fabric rose hair pin brooch giveaway
29) Win Free Affiliate Summit Passes! #asw12
30) Loving Lilo $150 Sweepstakes
31) PartSelect is giving away $5000 in GE Appliances to one lucky blogger
32) TakePart "End Hunger" Gift Pack (Le Creuset Dutch Oven & More)
33) Win $100 Prize Package at Great Beauty Buys
34) Win an Oreck Forever Vacuum Cleaner!
35) www.KidsPartyWorld.com - Win a Kindle Fire
36) $100 Visa Gift Card (Ends 11/25) US
37) 5 Great Sponsors - 7 Chances to Win!
38) Seeking bloggers for an Indian Adventure
39) Vegan Pie in the Sky Cookbook {Rafflecopter Giveaway}
40) BornFreeŽ Eco Bottles Contest & Giveaway
41) Modern Floor Lamp - Win an authentic Pablo Prado Design!
42) Sister Devout book giveaway
43) Win 2 Holiday Specialty Gold Canyon Candles
44) Huge $190 Grand Prize Giveaway & More!
45) 25 CrazyDayz of Giving
46) Goo Goo Cluster's SEC Football Championship Trip Giveaway
47) Live a Pain Free Life Sweepstakes - Win a Vacation
48) Over $200 in Prizes!
49) Prize pack worth $70, Workout DVDS, Shake and T-shirt giveaway end 11-25-11
50) Shielo Hair Care VOLUME Volumizing Shampoo {Rafflecopter Giveaway}
51) Weight Loss Prize Pack (RV $191) or Food/Cooking Prize Pack (RV $115)
52) Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Almonds Pieces {Rafflecopter Giveaway}
53) Win a $100 Best Buy Gift Card

Look at all the opportunities above that could connect with your readers and fans.

About the Author

Cathy Stucker, the Idea Lady, is the founder of BloggerLinkUp. You can sign up for BloggerLinkUp at http://www.BloggerLinkUp.com.

Request Guest Posts: http://bloggerlinkup.com/guest-post-ask

Offer Guest Posts: http://bloggerlinkup.com/guest-post-offer

Request Sources for Interviews: http://bloggerlinkup.com/sources

Offer Products for Review or Giveaway: http://bloggerlinkup.com/review

Announce Contests and Giveaways: http://bloggerlinkup.com/giveaway

Book Marketing Makeover: Using Social Networks and Facebook Contests to Sell Books

2011-12-22T00:08:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Omar Luqmaan-Harris

1. How large is your platform or network? Did you use your platform or network in marketing your book? If so, how?

The platform for The Pantheon Collective (an independent publishing venture) is currently over 11,000 strong. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Slideshare, Flickr, and Goodreads) is essential to our marketing strategy.

Growing this network and engaging them has been essential to the success of our three published books: Sellout by James W. Lewis, When Love Isn't Enough by Stephanie Casher, A Hard Man is Good to Find by James W. Lewis, and our soon to be published fourth novel: One Blood by Qwantu Amaru.

2. Are you involved in any social networks? Have you used them in marketing your book? Again, if so, how?

Currently we have 7 Facebook pages, 4 Twitter accounts, 4 websites, a Slideshare page, 4 YouTube channels, a LinkedIn page, and 3 Goodreads pages.

One of the keys to leveraging social media into sales and marketing is to clearly define the target audience for our books. We have created several Facebook pages branded specifically to the book we are promoting and we engage each page's audience very differently depending on the profile of that audience.

For example, on our oneblood Fanpage (http://www.facebook.com/onebloodbook), which is a horror/supernatural suspense novel, we engage the audience via posting horror related content every day with a few calls to action sprinkled in between. On Scribd and Slideshare, we have posted profiles of the characters of One Blood, as well as a free 30-chapter preview of the novel. Then we link back to these properties on Facebook, Twitter, and our websites.

3. Have you created and posted any online videos? Did any of them go viral? How many people viewed them?

Video has been a part of our engagement strategy from the beginning of our publishing venture. The book teaser for our first novel Sellout by James W. Lewis has received over 2,000 views and has won several book teaser awards. Our latest book teaser for One Blood by Qwantu Amaru has been viewed nearly 3,000 times.

4. What Internet marketing technique produced the best sales results for your book? Did you do anything interesting to boost the effectiveness of the technique?

Figuring out how to make the normally passive and voyeuristic Facebook audience active and engaged in promoting our books has been a key marketing tactic we've used to sell nearly 10,000 copies of 3 books (91% via Amazon kindle) in less than two years.

We found a social contest site, Wildfire interactive, and integrated this with our Facebook pages. The contest was simple: We encouraged existing fans of the Facebook page to share the page with five of their friends. Once they did this, they sent us an email with the subject I Shared and we would send them a free PDF copy of the book. They needed to read their free book and post a review on Amazon.com. Once the book reached the requisite number of reviews on Amazon, one lucky person would receive a $150 Amazon gift card and free signed copies of all of our books. We have used this promotion twice in the past year to significantly boost the fan page numbers, Amazon reviews, and our opt-in e-mail database.

Final Prediction

Here’s a prediction for you that’s already partially come true. First, ebooks will reach and then exceed trade paperbacks in unit sales. Trade paperbacks are the bread and butter of bookstore chains so they will crumble under the weight of all that stagnating inventory on their shelves.

Big Publishing will respond by jacking up the prices of their own ebooks without upping their author’s royalties, causing a mass exodus of authors from their ranks. The best literary agents will broker phenomenal deals for the superstar authors making the bottom line ache even more for the Big Guys. To hide their wounds, The Big 6 will become the Big 2 or 3 as inevitable consolidation becomes all the rage.

Meanwhile, indie publishers and authors will become savvier and the complexion of top lists like the New York Times Bestseller list will change permanently when there are as many indie authors represented as traditionally published authors. It is at this moment that Big Publishing will give up the ghost and start a massive round of layoffs.

This is the worst thing they could ever do, as some of the world’s best editors, book marketers, and sales people will now be free agents and thus competitors to the very companies that fired them. Consolidation will continue until there are only two Big Guys left who have finally found a niche to make money: hardcovers for the die-hard collectors and textbooks.

About the Author

Omar Luqmaan-Harris, aka Qwantu Amaru, is author of One Blood and a co-founder of The Pantheon Collective.

The mission of The Pantheon Collective is to empower and inspire authors to take control of their publishing dreams. Follow us on our website at http://www.pantheoncollective.com to get free information on publishing, book marketing, and other useful tips.

Book Marketing Makeover: How Much Should an Ebook Cost?

2011-12-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Seth Godin

How much should an ebook cost? This is the wrong question.

The right question is: How much will an ebook cost?

Because the answer isn’t up to one author or one publisher or even a price-fixing cartel. It’s up to the market, which is a far more complicated entity. There are no shoulds in the market, just reality.

On one hand, the marginal cost of delivering a single ebook is close to zero. It might cost Amazon and B&N a dime to transmit it, but it certainly costs the publisher nothing.

(People who disagree with that statement don’t understand the concept of marginal cost and should look it up before participating in this discussion. Marginal cost is very different from opportunity cost or sunk cost or lost profits.)

In a market where the marginal cost is close to zero, prices tend to race to zero as well. Except…

Except when there are no substitutes. If you want Elvis Costello to call you on the phone and wish you a happy birthday, he can charge you whatever he wants, because even though it costs him very little, you have no alternatives. If you want Elvis, well, there’s only one. Take it or leave it.

Two Price Points for Ebooks

So our analysis begins with the notion that there will be at least two price points for ebooks. One will be super cheap, perhaps a dollar, for ebooks where there are substitutes. Genre fiction, diet books, manuals, instruction guides, travel books–if you can’t tell them apart before you read them, then of course you should buy the cheaper one, all other things being equal (and those other things might include reviews, reputation, etc.).

But what about books where there is no obvious substitute. A Neil Gaiman book, or a Tiger Mother, or even that one Ellery Queen book you haven’t read?

Here, we need to take a moment and think about the nature of substitute. Of course, there is no substitute for Neil. On the other hand, at $100 a book, most of us would make do and move on to our second choice. So there is a substitute, just not a perfect one or an easy one.

For books that come with a provenance, with a brand we seek out, I think there are again two price points. One is for the book we need to read right now, the hot one, the one for which there is buzz. These books can demand a premium and probably will. Certainly less than $20 (a moral ceiling related to the price of a paper copy) and probably more than $10 (which is the floor set by Amazon as the price of a bestseller on the Kindle). In a moment, I’ll riff on how this buzz might come to happen more productively from the point of view of the publisher.

For books that aren’t hot, that aren’t new or fresh or filled with buzz, it’s hard for me to see how profit and volume can be maximized at a price like that. All the data I’ve seen and produced in experiments shows me that trial and purchase and conversion goes up significantly at less than $10.

Certainly, at zero there’s a huge boost: perhaps 100 or 1,000 times as many copies a day are sold at zero than at ten dollars. While zero gets you volume, you make nothing, so that’s not sustainable in the long run.

I’m guessing that market for backlist titles where there are possible substitutes is going to settle in at $7. Low enough to be less than $10, to indicate that this is a bargain, at least psychically, but high enough that selling a few thousand of a five year old title is just fine.

Creating Buzz to Sell More Ebooks

Which leads to my guess/proposal for creating buzz, particularly for unknown authors with great books. That category (call them UAGB) is the most interesting in all of publishing, because it’s about buzz and breaking open a new idea/author.

I would start those books at ZERO and raise the price a penny for every ten purchases until I got to $15 and then hold it there for three months.

If the book really is great, the first 1,000 readers (who are easy to find, because they love to read and love a bargain and have to hurry before the price exceeds a dollar) either start raving about the book or they don’t. If they do, then the next few thousand readers are going to stampede along. Still a bargain, but moving fast.

Now, by the time the book hits $15, it’s been read by 15,000 people. Understand, please, that in the book business, 15,000 readers in a week is a national bestseller, a huge hit. You’ve just created a new must-read author.

That means that pricing of the future looks like:

Zero: promo titles

$1: backlist service titles, useful but not irreplaceable

$7: backlist titles from authors you love

$15: current bestsellers

There’s probably no form of media that has as much history of crazy pricing as books. There are $100 art books on the bestseller lists and 3 cent Chick tracts handed out every Sunday. Most of this is related to the fact that the marginal cost of a printed book varies so much (records, movies and videogames vary not at all). Now that books are entering the same space as these other sorts of media, expect that the pricing follows suit.

About the Author

Seth Godin is the founder of The Domino Project and has written twelve books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and, most of all, changing everything.

How do you price your ebooks? Please leave a comment below. Join in the discussion and help all of us get a better handle on how to price our ebooks.

Book Marketing Makeover: How Will the Economy Affect Book Sales in 2012?

2011-12-20T00:09:00.000-08:00

Blog post via The Economic Collapse

According to The Economic Collapse, here are some economic numbers from 2011 that will not only shock you but could really impact your book sales in 2012.

Note: Sources of these statistics are included in the original post on The Economic Collapse Blog: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/50-economic-numbers-from-2011-that-are-almost-too-crazy-to-believe.

48% of Americans are considered low income or are living in poverty.
57% of all U.S. children are living in homes considered low income or impoverished.
If the number of Americans that wanted jobs were the same today as in 2007, the official unemployment rate would be 11%.
The average American worker now stays unemployed for over 40 weeks.
77% of small businesses do not plan to hire new workers.
There are fewer payroll jobs in the U.S. today than back in 2000 (even though we've added 30 million more people).
Accounting for inflation, median household income has dropped by 6.8% since 2007.
In December 2006, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed; in December 2011 that number had shrunk to 14.5 million (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Almost 20% of U.S. adults who are currently employed consider themselves underemployed (Gallup Poll).
20% of American adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages (Paul Osterman).
More than 40% of all jobs in the U.S. are low income jobs (no definition of low income).
In July 2011, 81.2% of working age men (ages 25 to 54) had a job.
One out of 3 Americans would not be able to make their mortgage or rent payment if they lost their current job (a recent survey).
The total net worth of U.S. households dropped by 4.1% in the 3rd quarter of 2011 (Federal Reserve).
The ratio of household debt to personal income is now 154% (BlackRock Investment Institute).
51% of Americans over the age of 18 are married. In 1960, that percentage was 72% (Pew Research Center).
The post office has lost more than $5 billion over the past year. How will you ship your books if they go out of business?
New home construction in the U.S. will set an all-time record low in 2011.
19% of men between the ages of 25 and 34 now live with their parents.
Electricity bills in the U.S. have risen faster than inflation for five years in a row.
Health care costs now account for 16.3% of personal consumption (Bureau of Economic Analysis).
41% of working age Americans are currently paying off medical debt (or are having medical bill problems).
The U.S. trade deficit is projected to be $558.2 billion in 2011.
46% of American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement (Employee Benefit Research Institute).
16% of elderly Americans live below the federal poverty line.
37% of U.S. households led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.
One out of seven Americans are on food stamps (and one out of four children).
48.5% of Americans live in a household that receives some form of government assistance.
Federal spending accounts for 24% of GDP.
For three years, the Federal government has had a budget deficit of more than a trillion dollars.
The national debt has increased by more than $4.4 trillion in the past three years. The federal debt now stands as more than $15 trillion.
If the federal government began right now to repay the national debt at a rate of five dollars per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
During the Obama administration, the federal government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time George Washington took office to the time Bill Clinton took office. That means approximately 1/3 of our national debt accumulated during the first 200 years. During the next 16 years, that national debt doubled. And, during the last three years, the federal government has accumulated another 1/3 of the total debt. That is an incredible acceleration of debt.

These numbers mean that at least 50% of all Americans probably can't afford your book. And probably won't be able to afford any books for at least another two to five years.

Americans will still be holding back on spending probably for most of 2012 and possibly beyond. That means you really need to understand WHY people might want to buy your book and sell them on the need for your book (either as information, inspiration, education, or entertainment).

About the Source

The Economic Collapse Blog chronicles the changes that have been occurring in the American economy over the past four years as well as the on-going threat to American budgets.

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Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting.

Book Marketing Makeover: John Kremer's Tips for Effective Book Promotion

2011-12-19T00:11:00.000-08:00

Blog post by John Kremer

Here's a video Q&A with me where I describe some of the most effective book promotion tips:

Enjoy!

Please let me know your own book promotion tips. You can email those to me at johnkremer@bookmarket.com or via comments below. Thanks.

About the Author

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and the multimedia course on Book Marketing Magic.

Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting.

Book Marketing Makeover: Selling Books Via Event Planners

2011-12-18T00:08:00.000-08:00

Guest post by D. E. Boone

I learned from John Kremer's 15,000 Eyeballs Program that one of the best ways to promote a book is to give away free copies. At first this made no sense to me. Although giving away free books seems counter-intuitive, I kept hearing that it worked.

John suggested that we give away an ebook version of our book. It's much less expensive and much easier to give away online. I am doing that now, but initially I decided to try something more risky.

At a social gathering, I met an event planner. Instead of my business card, I gave her a free copy of my humorous gift book, Legs Talk: A Modern Girl's Dating Tale. Legs Talk is a quirky, offbeat, Sex in the City kind of girlie book. Photographs take the reader on a wacky relationship trip that makes you laugh and sigh. It is an illustrated story of a relationship that soured and eventually went bad. The story is told by a pair of gorgeous legs.

The event planner told me she was putting together a ladies only party. She enjoyed my book so much, she asked me to donate 20 free print copies for the event. Since most of the attendees were single women, she figured they would enjoy Legs Talk's witty one-liners and break up humor. The idea was to turn poison into medicine. I took a chance and gave this stranger 20 copies of my book with order forms attached. It worked. Legs Talk was a big hit.

Currently, the event planner purchases copies of my book (at a discount) whenever she throws a similar event. She has even planned ladies only get-over him parties. So far, I sold over 100 books and expect to sell many more.

About the Author
D.E. Boone is the author of Legs Talk: A Modern Girl's Dating Tale. Find out more about her book at http://www.legs-talk.com.

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Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting.

Book Marketing Makeover: How to Personalize Tweets on Twitter

2011-12-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Mari Smith

Here is a short excerpt from Chapter 2 of Mari Smith's new book, The New Relationship Marketing...

Before sending my tweet to Owen, I glanced at his Twitter profile and saw that his city is listed as Vancouver, British Columbia. Now, he may be from anywhere in the world, but currently he lives in Canada—something I would ordinarily have no way of knowing. But, if he were a native, he would know exactly where Kootenay Lake is (about 500 miles inland from Vancouver), which is where I spent my childhood.

Figure 1 - Owen Clark’s @ByzhubOwen Twitter profile

Figure 2 - Owen’s tweet back to Mari

Even though my tweet seems short and simple, I put a fair bit of thought into it before writing and posting by considering the following:

I was responding to a previous tweet from Owen and started my reply with “thanks”—a very powerful word that you’ll want to use as frequently as possible. In fact, “thank you” is even better, as it has the word “you” in it too!
I used Owen’s first name naturally.
I found something in his bio that it appeared I had in common with him, and checked if this fact was true with a simple question.
I shared a little about myself by letting him know where I spent my summers.

As you can see from Owen’s reply, he was impressed and replied with a wonderful warm message suggesting that we might meet up in person next time I was in the area.

Over time, you’ll become unconsciously competent with these habits too; the more you practice, the better you’ll become.

About the Author

Mari Smith is the author of The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, and Profitable Network Using the Social Web.

You can download a free copy of Chapter 2 of Mari's new book by visiting her website here: http://marismith.com/NewRelationshipMarketing_MariSmith_SampleChapter.pdf.

Book Marketing Makeover: How a Book Marketing Technique Turned into a Brand New and Far More Lucrative Product

2011-12-16T00:03:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Elizabeth Claire

By 1996 I had written five or six books in the field of English as a second language that were published by Prentice Hall and others. I was poking along, poking along at a 5% royalty, not making much money for me.

I decided to give my books a boost by starting a newspaper for immigrants (the likely target of some of my books) that would be given out free in Bergen County, New Jersey. I bought books from the publishers at the resellers discount and promoted my books in the newspaper. As a result, I made 40% for myself in addition to the 5% royalty.

Thus began Easy English NEWS, a 12-page tabloid-size freebie newspaper that I wrote and with a partner distributed to high schools, adult schools, libraries, ethnic book stores, etc. It was full of useful information that immigrants need to know, in short sentences and simple vocabulary. My 20 years experience teaching newcomers made me an expert in what English language learners want to know - and how to write that in simple English. We were going to fund the newspaper with ads in addition to ads for my own books.

A year later, and a few book sales later, my partner convinced me to give a try at selling Easy English NEWS by subscription rather than give it away. We changed it to a national paper for immigrants, sent samples out to high schools and adult schools with ESL programs and, quite honestly, I hoped no one would buy it, as it was far too much work.

But teachers ordered it. It filled a need in this niche, and there was nothing else on the market like it. Compliments kept me going for the first five years that it took us to break even and start to build up enough money for a salary for me.

Seventeen years later, it is still going strong, a half million dollars in subscription sales each year, with a circulation of 45,000, and a readership of 120,000. An ad in the paper invites teachers and students to my website where I sell the 26 books, games, and CDs I have produced by now.

Easy English NEWS became the breadwinner, and although I offer specials and sales at the website, many schools with meager budgets buy only one copy of the books and photocopy them - but it is very hard to photocopy a tabloid size newspaper!

To market the newspaper has been easier than marketing the books. Reason? When you print 45,000 copies on newsprint, the cost per each paper is low enough to give away samples, even class sets to teachers, whereas it's prohibitive to give away samples of books that teachers are going to photocopy and never buy any more.

When teachers have a copy of Easy English NEWS in their hand, they can see its value ... and want to get next month's and the month after that edition as well. I have a graduated volume discount, so the larger the class size or the district, the lower the price. This makes it a no brainer for them to subscribe. While the typical order is for 20 copies a month at $1.40 per copy for ten months, New York City Dept of Ed Adult Education Program orders 6,000 copies of the paper every month. At 90 cents per copy, they get a fantastic bargain, and I do OK as well.

Of course, the down side of this is that I have to produce the product over and over and over: plan, research, write many articles, get photos and illustrations, rewrite to simple English, define difficult words, send to copy editors, enter edits, layout and design each page...and all by a deadline. That doesn't leave a lot of time to market my books other than to send out free samples twice a year to a list of ESL programs across the country.

I haven't missed a deadline, though, in 17 years, through computer crashes, lightning strikes, broken elbow, broken heart, cancer surgery, family emergencies, new love, and moving to Virginia. I almost sold out three times, but I am getting good at it, get lots of accolades and appreciation, and have decided to keep on keeping on.

In addition to covering my grandkids' dental bills and helping with tuition, I have a paid-off sea captain's house for a summer retreat on the Bay of Fundy, and a winter headquarters on a lake (with two kayaks) in Virginia Beach, which will be paid off in another two weeks.

I wake up each morning so happy to have created so much work for myself, doing what I love, contributing to others, creating jobs for others, in a place of great beauty and clean air, having fun, and paying my bills. And working most days in my pajamas. Until it's time to kayak.

Life is good, and I have to say, I owe so much of getting started to you, way back with my first book, Dangerous English, in 1981. Thank you!!

About the Author

Elizabeth Claire is the author of numerous books on English as a second language but her greatest success is her job as editor and publisher of Easy English NEWS. For more about Elizabeth's books and newspaper, check out her website at http://www.elizabethclaire.com.

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Want to know how to blog you way to success? Then check out http://www.bookmarket.com/blog-tour-palooza.htm.

Book Marketing Makeover: Selling to Libraries, Bookstores, and Other Retailers

2011-12-15T00:32:00.000-08:00

Guest audio with Elaine Wilkes and John Kremer

Listen in to this audio podcast featuring Elaine Wilkes and John Kremer. It features lots of great content about selling to libraries, bookstores, and other retailers. As well as key information on ebook publishing, ISBN numbers, and more.

Click here to listen to the podcast

About the Authors

Elaine Wilkes is the Hay House author of Nature's Secret Messages: Hidden in Plain Sight. John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.

Book Marketing Makeover: Promoting November As Picture Book Month

2011-12-14T00:04:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Dianne de Las Casas

Have I got a great story to tell about how a literacy movement I created called Picture Book Month that went viral and was featured on the Oprah Life Lift blog. First, the answers to your questions:

How large is your platform or network? Did you use your platform or network in marketing your book? If so, how?

Personal Website: 10 million+ hits per year
Email newsletter: 12,000+ monthly
Facebook: nearly 2,871
Facebook Page: 1,210
Twitter: 5,338 followers (60 Klout)
Google+: 598 have me in their circles
LinkedIn: 942 connections

I heavily use my website, the Picture Book Month website, email newsletter, Twitter, and Facebook to connect with my network.

What publicity produced the best results in terms of book sales? Magazines, newspapers, radio, TV? Which TV shows or magazines created the most impact?

Oprah Life Lift blog, Huffington Post, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Deccan Herald (India), tons and tons of blogs

What Internet marketing technique produced the best sales results for your book? Did you do anything interesting to boost the effectiveness of the technique?

I sent out press releases to major industry media. Stories by the media coupled with social media using Twitter and Facebook produced the best results.

So here's the story.

November is Picture Book Month!

I am a children's book author and storyteller. I specialize in picture books. In October 2010, the New York Times published an article that declared "Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children." It set the children's book world on fire and it set me on fire.

In September 2011, I had the idea to create a campaign, an international initiative designating November as Picture Book Month. I enlisted the aid of several movers and shakers in my industry and created a marketing plan. I wanted Picture Book Month to be repeated year after year so the first year in existence was very important.

A timeless logo was created by Joyce Wan, a picture book author and owner of a stationery company. I created a hook: "November is Picture Book Month! Read * Share * Celebrate!" My web designer and I built a website: http://www.picturebookmonth.com, which featured an essay a day about the importance of picture books by Picture Book Month Champions, prominent people in the field - authors, illustrators, bloggers, and literacy experts.

I reached out and found major partners like the Children's Book Council, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Better World Books, and Scholastic. I wrote a press release that was sent to all the children's book industry media. Digital badges were made so that people could put them on their websites. A Twibbon was created for Twitter and Facebook. A Twitter hashtag (#PictureBookMonth) was created. The website featured a month-long theme calendar, activities, and printables for librarians and teachers. Professional videos were produced by a motion graphics designer. All of this was done in less than a month!

My co-founders (Katie Davis, Elizabeth Dulemba, Tara Lazar and Wendy Martin) and I began shouting it out on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. The initiative struck a chord and became a movement. It took hold on Twitter, Facebook, and all over the kidlitosphere.

The movement became so big that it was written about in School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Huffington Post, and OPRAH! (http://www.oprah.com/blogs/November-is-Picture-Book-Month). A story about Picture Book Month was featured on Life Lift, The Oprah blog. By the time it hit Oprah, the movement had gone viral and went worldwide. I was getting emails, photos, and videos from around the world with schools and libraries holding Picture Book Month celebrations.

You know you have a cause and a movement when the "me" becomes a "we." Picture Book Month was also written about in Jamaica, Philippines, Australia, Canada, and India, to name a few countries. Go ahead and Google "Picture Book Month." You'll get a few million results.

To create a cause like this you need a few things in place. The first and most important thing is a genuine passion and a love for your cause. Secondly, others need to share that passion. Next, you need to have a balance of what I call newsmakers and news reporters. The newsmakers are the celebrities people want to read about. The news reporters are the people who evangelize the cause.

You must also have a strong network. Without this network to spread the news, there is no news. Your vision must be backed up by a solid plan. Finally, be prepared to work. Movements need leaders and leaders must work.

I have already lined up Picture Book Month Champions for next year. 2012 promises to be even bigger and better. It will be even more international in scope, bridging picture books and picture book lovers around the world. If you would like to be involved, please fill out the contact form on our website at http://www.picturebookmonth.com.

November is Picture Book Month! Read * Share * Celebrate!

When submitting your answer, please also send me your name and website or blog, plus a short sales message. This information will be featured at the end of your interview.

About the Author

Dianne de Las Casas is an author, storyteller, and founder of Picture Book Month. Check out her storyteller website at http://www.storyconnection.net. And, of course, the Picture Book Month website at http://www.picturebookmonth.com.

Please leave a comment below to tell us how you plan to celebrate Picture Book Month during November next year. Thanks for sharing.

Book Marketing Makeover: Do You Avoid LinkedIn Because You Don't Know How to Use It?

2011-12-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Judy Cullins

I’m discouraged by what I see on LinkedIn. Many authors don’t take advantage of LinkedIn’s power to promote and market themselves and their books there. It’s frustrating for me to see the big mistakes authors are making on what has become the second largest social network in the U.S, and the one that is perfect for authors and businesses that brand themselves with a book.

LinkedIn is the best way to get you and your book seen and loved! You get much more visibility and credibility on LinkedIn than FB and Twitter.

Proof of LinkedIn Results

My own targeted traffic comes first, from my name and brand, Judy Cullins / book coaching, and other related searches on Google. Second source? LinkedIn, by a mile! My results include more than doubled traffic, from around 2,200 to over 6,000 a month, and also more opt-ins. From these opt-ins, book and coaching sales have doubled this year.

What Are Book Authors and Professionals Doing Wrong on LinkedIn?

Here are just a few of the problems I see regularly...

They sign up and forget about it.
They don’t update their LI profile enough. Canned and old information looks OLD.
They join the wrong groups. They need to focus on their target audience and groups that they can network in.
They use the groups, but don’t interact and make relationships. They blatantly shout "Buy my book!"
They don’t know how to use LinkedIn’s applications such as connecting your blog with LinkedIn or listing your books with direct links in your profile.
They don’t know how to prioritize their profile placements. Which is more important - your recommendations and summary or your college?
They don’t have a personalized URL (mine is http://Linkedin.com/in/JudyCullins).
They sign up for 40-50 groups and don’t participate much. You must build relationships.
They collect numbers. They send invites to anyone! They don’t focus on their best audiences.
They don't use laser focus on their main book or service. Too many things to distract their audience.
Their profile focuses on them, not their audience. Use the YOU point of view here.

See more LinkedIn benefits at http://bookcoaching.com/linkedin-marketing.php

About the Author

Book, Blog, and LinkedIn Coach Judy Cullins helps you transform your LinkedIn presence into an income stream for life. Author of 14 books that include LinkedIn Marketing: 8 Best Tactics to Build Book and Business Sales, Judy offers free, up-to-the minute weekly publications on writing and online marketing at http://www.bookcoaching.com/help-writing-a-book.php.

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Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting

Book Marketing Makeover: How to Get Your Book into Bookstores, Retail Outlets, and Internet Retailers

2011-12-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Elaine Wilkes

Here's a fact . . .

Tons of books are still sold through retail outlets and 140,000 plus libraries. The message: You should be selling your books both online AND off.

And there are lots of places in addition to traditional bookstores where your book will sell. That's why you should register for this webinar:

How to Get Your Book into Bookstores, Chain Stores, Internet Retailers, and Specialty Retailers

This is an A to Z training and it's completely complimentary. You can listen in here:

http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventID=24934296

In this profit-packed webinar you'll discover how to ...

How authors make over $1 million in sales. What are they're doing that you can do too.
The vital not-so-obvious information store buyers want and need to see in emails
What to say and what not to say to arouse the most interest in your book
Secrets to selling your book to libraries
Outside-the-box thinking to get buyers’ attention
What to say (and what not to say) to arouse the most interest in your book
Plus much, much more.

This webinar is designed to help you get tons of books in all types of retail and online outlets (not just book stores).

As both a published and self-published author, I worked diligently to find out how to get my books into stores and on the Internet. I ended up calling over 1000 store buyers, along with spending hundreds of hours of tedious research, and conducting numerous interviews with book business insiders to discover the secrets for getting your book into all types of places.

That's when I realized that other authors would want to know these secrets, so I decided to create an
extensive training program designed specifically for both self-published and trade-published authors.

You’ll want to attend this excellent webinar where I take you through the exact steps for helping you promote your book to buyers.

Again, you can listen in here:

http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventID=24934296

About the Author

Elaine Wilkes is the Hay House author of Nature's Secret Messages: Hidden in Plain Sight.

Book Marketing Makeover: How Amanda Hocking Really Did It

2011-12-11T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Scott Lorenz

Amanda Hocking, as I’m sure you know, is a bestselling ebook author on Amazon.com. Since uploading her first ebook in the spring of 2010, she has grossed about $2 million. She’s got 10 novels under her belt, all of which fall into the paranormal-romance category. The prominent entertainment company, Media Rights Capital, optioned her four-book Trylle vampire series.

Clearly, she’s had great success self-publishing her ebooks. So, it was a surprise when Hocking decided to sign with St. Martin’s Press, which is a very established publishing house.

Hocking has openly explained that she suffered from depression for the vast majority of her life and turned to writing as a sort of escape. She finished her first novel at 17, titled Dreams I Can’t Remember and was turned down by each of the 50 agents to whom she’d sent her work.

Not long thereafter, she caught a clip on YouTube of the band Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus encouraging American youth to make their dreams come true. Hocking admits having a sort of aha moment and realized that she could not wait for her dreams to come true. She had to put forth the effort and make them come true.

In 2009, Hocking began to treat writing as a job rather than something she did for entertainment. She wrote a few more novels, sent them off to agents, and still received only rejections.

In April 2010, Hocking uploaded her novel My Blood Approves to Amazon, then later to Smashwords, then directly on Barnes & Noble’s site. Hocking started selling books, first a few a day, then as she uploaded more of her work, she managed to sell 26 books in one day in May. These days, the author is selling 9,000 books a day.

Just how did she do it? Well, the stories she writes are an obvious piece of her success. Her novels combine action and romance with a dash of quirk and topped off by Hocking’s creative style of writing. Additionally, by selling ebooks, Hocking was able to sell the books for far less money compared to a traditional bookstore book. People were more inclined to spend the 99¢ or $3.00 to read her work instead of dropping upwards of $15.00 for a book off the shelf of a trendy bookstore.

Hocking has a very blasé attitude in regard to her success and rapid writing. When asked just how she manages to complete her work so quickly, Hocking responds on her blog, “I don’t know. I just write a lot and drink a lot of Red Bull.”

Hocking also suggests that writing paired with reading more than she writes was instrumental in her success. She made sure to edit her novels a great deal in order to get them just right. Learning to take criticism was useful to Hocking’s success because she was able to understand that although her books weren’t for everyone, they did have an audience.

Taking a look at her blog, Hocking describes herself as an obsessive tweeter. John Hughes mourner. Batman devotee. Muppet activist. Unicorn enthusiast. Fraggin Aardvarks guitarist. Author of the USA Today bestselling Trylle trilogy and the upcoming Watersong series.

She actively updates her blog, so her fans always have something new to read. This past October was Hocking’s second annual Zombiepalooza! on her blog, which ran for the entire month of October. Hocking explains that while she especially enjoys zombies, Zombiepalooza is really a celebration of all things horror and Halloween. Throughout the month, there were guest posts, giveaways, and other fun goodies, such as the ultimate Halloween Playlist.

John Kremer recently mentioned Amanda Hocking in a seminar about blog tours. Amanda Hocking inspired him to name a particular type of blog tour a Blogpalooza. John got the name from Hocking, after her first Zombiepalooza in October 2010.

In his seminar, John also explained a few of Amanda’s stats, which were affected dramatically by Zombiepalooza. Before Zombiepalooza, Amanda had been selling about 3,000 to 5,000 copies of Kindle ebooks each month. She sold about 20,000 total before October 2010. In December 2010, after Zombiepalooza, she sold 100,000 copies in the month of December alone. In January, she sold 450,000 copies of her Kindle ebook novels.

In February of 2011, she made the USA Today bestseller list. By the end of February, she had sold 900,000 copies of self-published Kindle ebooks. In March 2011, her book sales totaled over 1 million copies, and she subsequently sold the rights to four of her books to St. Martin’s Press for $2 million.

Some were surprised by her decision to sell her book rights, but Hocking has explained that in order to be a billion-dollar author, she needs people to buy her books at Wal-Mart. In order to get her books onto shelves, she had to partner with St. Martin’s Press.

Says Hocking, “I'm a writer. I want to be a writer. I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling emails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. Right now, being me is a full-time corporation. I am spending so much time on things that are not writing.”

“I like writing. I even like marketing, especially when it comes to interacting with readers. And I don't mind editing. I just don't want to run my corporation, because that takes away from writing and everything else that I actually enjoy doing,” concludes Hocking.

After gaining so much success, Amanda has been able to seize unique opportunities. For example, she was a featured speaker at Comic Con in San Diego. Additionally, she was able to buy a life-size Han Solo figure from Star Wars, which was encased in carbonite. The life-size figure is rare and was something Hocking had her eye on for quite some time. The unique purchase was due in great part to the success of her Zombiepalooza.

In addition to her own blog, Hocking has separate blogs for her book Virtue, My Blood Approves, The Hollows series, as well as a blog dedicated to soundtracks for her various books. Hocking follows dozens of blogs herself. Having blogged since April 2009, Hocking has had nearly 2 million page views. Check out Amanda’s blog to learn more about her, her work, and to see release dates of her upcoming books at http://AmandaHocking.blogspot.com or her Facebook fan page. http://www.facebook.com/amandahockingfans.

The bottom line: Amanda Hocking is an incredibly talented author. She has achieved great success in her career, largely due to marketing her novels so effectively. Amanda began writing ebooks and now has a multimillion dollar book deal. Her talent for both writing and knowing how to market her books has enabled her to become a wildly successful author. Amanda Hocking has helped pave the way for authors to follow in her footsteps without the traditional gatekeepers of publishing being involved.

About the Author

Book publicist Scott Lorenz is president of Westwind Communications, a public relations and marketing firm that has a special knack for working with authors to help them get all the publicity they deserve. His clients have been featured by Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, CNN, ABC News, New York Times, Nightline, Time, PBS, LA Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Woman's World, and Howard Stern, to name a few.

Learn more about Westwind Communications' approach to book marketing at http://www.book-marketing-expert.com. Contact Lorenz at 734-667-2090. Email: scottlorenz@westwindcos.com. Follow him on Twitter @aBookPublicist.

Book Marketing Makeovers - Query Letters That Work: Grab Them with the First Sentence

2011-12-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Jeff Rivera

Agents are so busy nowadays they won't even give a query letter an entire paragraph to grab them.

If you've passed the first test, what I like to call the scan test (meaning it looks professional at first glance), then you'll be lucky to go on to the next test: the first sentence.

They might be patient enough to even give you the first few sentences but Honey, if you don't have it together by then, you can kiss your chances of landing that agent goodbye. There are so many different ways to grab an agent.

These are 5 of the techniques I use for my clients. I've ghostwritten over 100 query letters for clients successfully. 100% of them have interested at least 10 top agents that have requested to read their manuscript or book proposal. In other words, use these techniques - they work.

You don't need to use all of them, just choose one.

The Top 5 Ways to Grab an Agent with Your Very First Sentence

1) Start with a question that makes them ponder?

2) Talk about a dramatic moment in your personal life that connects with the book you've written

3) Tell them immediately about your platform

4) Compliment them on a specific recent sale

5) Tell them who referred you

Use one of the 5 suggestions above, and you'll be one step closer to landing an agent.

If you would like to see an example of query letters that worked, visit: http://www.HowtoWriteaQueryLetter.com.

Jeff Rivera is the founder of http://www.HowtoWriteaQueryLetter.com. He and his works have been featured or mentioned in Publishers Weekly, GalleyCat, Mediabistro, Los Angeles Times, New York Observer, NPR and many other media outlets.

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The reader with the best comment on this guest post will win a CD interview of Samantha Ettus on how to brand yourself through social media and networking.

Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting

Book Marketing Makeover: Writing Effective Emails That Get Attention

2011-12-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Jill Konrath

The following tips are excerpted with permission from Jill Konrath's The Ultimate Guide to Email Prospecting.

According to email provider ExactTarget, people take only 2.7 seconds to decide if they will read, forward or delete a message. These busy people sit with their finger on the delete button ready to blast you into oblivion the moment they detect that you're trying to sell them something.

So what does it take to capture their attention? Is it even possible to craft an irresistible message that compels potential prospects to immediately hit “Reply” and request a meeting with you?

One seller sent an email to the CEO of a company and just eight minutes later got a return message asking for a conference call.
Another salesperson had been trying unsuccessfully to reach a decision maker for months. When she changed her messaging, she got a request for a meeting 30 minutes later.
An inside salesperson used these strategies to set up meetings with marketing VPs. While his competitors were battling it out in purchasing, he'd get the business with no competition.

Snap Factors Matter

What's behind these lightning-quick decisions? I spent several years studying this behavior before Iwrote SNAP Selling, my newest book that's focused on selling to frazzled people. I discovered that they evaluated every sales interaction (phone calls, emails, meetings) by asking themselves these four key questions.

How simple is it? In other words, does it require effort for me to quickly grasp the meaning or will it throw me into overload?
Does this person bring value? Yes, they're making a decision about YOU personally. Not your company, service or solution. You!
Is this aligned with my objectives? Unless what you say is clearly aligned, it's irrelevant and not worth even one more second of their valuable time.
How big a priority is it? Urgent matters always take precedence over everything else.

Mastering the Basics

Here are the primary things you need to think about before you even craft your message.

Length. Keep your prospecting emails under 90 words. Shorter is nearly always better when dealing with today's crazy-busy prospects. Remember that many people are reading your messages in their preview screen or mobile device. They hate scrolling and worse, they hate rambling messages.
Look. Simple text (black and white) messages are essential when reaching out to a new person. If you have fancy templates, save them for your friends or family. They don't evoke the image of a highly capable resource. Also, think carefully before using logos, and definitely avoid using colored fonts. Logos and color, especially red, catch the eye of spam blockers.
Links. If you have some good resources on your website that you want to drive your prospects to, only send one link per email. People will look at one link, but more than that sends them into overwhelm. Future emails can include the additional links.
Attachments. Don't send any with your first email. People are wary of opening attachments from strangers. But after you've initiated a conversation (either online or via phone), it's okay to send an attachment. Again, just send one at a time. If you send more, they won't read any.
Proofing. Read your emails three times. Then print your email and read it again. You’ll be surprised at how different it looks, and you’ll catch overlooked errors. Spelling and obvious grammar errors give prospects the opportunity they’re looking for to hit the delete key.

If you'd like to read the entire free report, The Ultimate Guide to Email Prospecting, get it here: http://learn.gotomeeting.com/forms/G2MC-Sales-WP-2011-Ult-Guide-S?ID=70150000000Xmqf (made available free via GoToMeeting but registration is required).

About the Author

If you liked the ideas in this above post, check out Jill Konrath's Prospecting Tool Kit that contains four free must-have sales tools. They'll help you open more doors - and ultimately close more sales. Download the Prospecting Tool Kit now: http://bit.ly/ProspectingKit.

For more about Jill Konrath and her book Snap Selling, go to http://www.jillkonrath.com.

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Win a CD Interview on how to sell a million books!

The reader with the best comment on this guest post will win a CD interview of Cindy Cashman, where she talks about how she sold over 1 million books.

Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting

Book Marketing Makeover: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Ebooks, and Should You Go Digital Only?

2011-12-07T23:48:00.000-08:00

You remember the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang starring Dick Van Dyke and Sally Ann Howes? You know, the one with the magical car that could also float and fly? Still one of my all-time favorite movies.

In that movie there was a creepy character called the Child Catcher, whose job it was to capture kids because they were banned in the mythical land of Vulgaria. In one particular scene he is attempting to lure out two children who are hiding by bribing them with treats and in the course of his efforts he utters the line “All free today.” So naturally, the children are captured and hauled off to be imprisoned in the castle.

“All free today.” That’s kind of like the promise made by those who urge authors to do only ebooks and deliver all of their information products digitally. No production costs, no graphics design costs, no shipping costs. All free today, right?

Well maybe, maybe not.

If you’re a book marketer, there will be some segment of your potential market that definitely wants the immediate gratification of digital delivery. And the lower prices that go along with it. And since you’ve avoided those printing, graphics and shipping costs, you may feel like you’re getting something for free.

But what portion of your potential market prefers the tangible? How many want to hold in their hands your actual printed book? Who want to curl up on the couch and read an actual book, not a Kindle or other e-reader?

Remember, it’s about maximum total profit. If you have a number of people who will not buy your book because they don’t want digital only delivery then your profit per unit sold may be less but your total overall profits may be greater.

Don’t assume that digital only is the way to go. Make sure you know your market and test to see which gets you get greater overall profit.

“All free today.” Those words keep coming back to me. Be careful to not get blindly lured into the digital only world without doing your homework first.

About the Author

Bret Ridgway is co-founder of Speaker Fulfillment Services, a company that provides product duplication and fulfillment for authors, speakers and information marketers. For more info visit http://www.SpeakerFulfillmentServices.com.

Note from John Kremer: SFS is the company than handles by book fulfillment. Good people to work with. Fast and responsive.

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Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting

Book Marketing Makeover: Writing Contest Promotes Las Vegas Novel

2011-12-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Avery Cardoza

To promote my new novel, Lost in Las Vegas, I came up with the idea of offering a nationwide writing contest with $5,000 in prizes that gets readers and potential writers into the madcap spirit of the book.

I played off the city’s oft-used marketing slogan, “Should everything that happens in Vegas stay in Vegas” with an answer: We don’t think so! There's not another city in the world that evokes such strong reactions from people as Las Vegas. Crazy experiences, crazy times, things that a person may never do or experience in their lives, occur in this city where people let it all hang out. These ideas form the spirit of Lost in Las Vegas, and likewise, the focus of the writing contest.

Here is the teaser for the writing contest: “What have you lost in Las Vegas? Your money, your honey, your virginity? Or maybe you found something in Sin City—a big poker game, a binge, a gorgeous spouse (freedom from that spouse), whatever.

We’d like to hear about it! Keeping within the spirit and theme of Lost in Las Vegas—trouble, hard luck, good luck, or madcap adventure—we want your craziest Vegas true adventure story, or a fictional story that happened only in the Vegas of your wildest dreams.

The contest awards cash prizes as follows: 1st Place - $2,500, 2nd Place - $1,000, 3rd Place - $500, 4th Place - $375, and 5th Place - $250. Also, Reader’s Choice Awards: 1st Place - $250 and 2nd Place - $125. We’re telling writers to have fun writing their story, meaning readers will have fun reading it. As an added bonus, we’re going to publish the best stories in a book, Wild and Crazy Las Vegas Stories.

It has always been difficult to get attention for novels, which means you have to do something different. You must attempt to stand out in the crowd. After 13 excruciatingly difficult drafts and 10 years of work to complete my life’s work, I wanted to give Lost in Las Vegas every chance it could get to reach readers. Hence, this fun contest with $5,000 in prizes and a chance to get published themselves.

Lost in Las Vegas is an offbeat, dark comedy that follows John and Ludo, two hapless vacationers in Las Vegas, through a series of misadventures as their world collapses around them and their lives spiral downward into the seedy and treacherous underbelly of Sin City.

As the result of a dangerous infatuation with a mysterious woman, this bad-luck and no-luck duo in just twenty-four hours—find themselves hunted by the mob, FBI, six ferocious killers, police, and the Rat, a psychopathic ex-husband, in a world where nothing is as it seems. And from there, things go downhill—they’re broke, homeless, and wandering the streets with no way to get out of town.

Bickering every step of the way, they cross paths with eccentric and colorful characters inhabiting the shadows of Las Vegas casinos, strip clubs, and downtown streets. John and Ludo don’t quite know who is who and what is what as they desperately try to keep one step ahead of their pursuers and fulfill one very simple dream—get the hell out of Vegas!

About the Author

Avery Cardoza is the former editor-in-chief of Player, has written 21 books on beating the casino, and is the world’s largest publisher of gaming and gambling titles. Cardoza is also the owner of the legendary Gambler’s Book Club in Las Vegas (http://www.gamblersbookclub.com), home to the world’s largest selection of gaming books. Lost in Las Vegas is Cardoza’s first novel, which he began writing in the spring of 2002.

To find out more about the writing contest, contact Cardoza, or learn more about the book, go to http://www.lostinlasvegas.com.

Follow me on Twitter @averycardoza for news about Lost in Las Vegas, the $5,000 writing contest, exclusive gambling tips, Vegas happenings, more! Visit the book's website!

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Win a CD Interview on how to conduct effective Twitter contests!

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Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting

Book Marketing Makeover: First-Time Novelist Novel Marketing Strategies

2011-12-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post Q&A with Simone Bailey

Simone Bailey is an Australia author who specializes in adult satire and young adult fiction. As a member of The Book Marketing Network, she volunteered to be interviewed about her marketing efforts for her debut novel, Calumny While Reading Irving Welsh.

Question: Are you involved in any social networks? Have you used them in marketing your book? Again, if so, how?

Answer: Yes, I am a user of social media. I use Facebook and Twitter to publicize my work. I have posted some articles on The Book Marketing Network, which has the facility for sharing to these sites. I have also attached reviews for my work, reviews I have written for other's work, my press release, and newspaper interviews.

Question: Did you speak to promote your book? If so, what audiences or venues produced the best sales?

Answer: Yes, I have spoken at book launches, libraries, and classrooms. The book launch talks have been the most fruitful in terms of sales.

Question: What Internet marketing technique produced the best sales results for your book? Did you do anything interesting to boost the effectiveness of the technique?

Answer: My personal blog is where I do a lot of my marketing. I receive up to 1,000 hits per day on average. I have just posted on it,. Recently I've asked about getting some advertising on my blog as a form of extra income.

About the Author

Simone Bailey is the author of Calumny While Reading Irving Welsh. Her personal blog is at http://bingellsblog.bigblog.com.au.

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Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting

Book Marketing Makeover: Dead Body Cookies Create Killer Sales for Mystery Novel

2011-12-05T02:22:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Cindy Sample

When I began writing, I fantasized about how my life would change when I became a rich and famous published author. This fantasy did not include me spending more time in the kitchen. Yet now I’m in there more than when I was raising my kids. The death of my writer fantasy occurred with the birth of my launch party for Dying for a Date.

Back in my corporate life, one of our company mottos was “feed the client.” We had chili cook-offs, pancake breakfasts, and BBQ’s. Our clients were happy and well fed. So, when my neighbor graciously offered her backyard for the launch party and offered to make dead body cookies, I was in heaven. We covered her patio with chalk outlines of dead bodies, decorated the house with crime scene tape, and wined and dined the participants. But the dead body cookies were the life of the party.

From then on, I gave away dead body cookies at all of my author events. It was great, right up until the day my neighbor went out of town, and I was forced to make 3 dozen cookies. By myself.

Creating corpse cookies requires more of a skill set than I realized. If the dough is too thin, you’re stuck with a platter full of dead body parts. If the dough is too thick, the cookies resemble chubby aliens. Your friends might even rudely blog about your big foot cookies just because one (or a dozen) looked like Sasquatch on steroids.

After spending that entire day baking cookies, every speck of my kitchen was coated with flour and icing. I decided there was no way I was giving these cookies away for free. No sir. If you wanted a cookie, you had to buy a book.

And they did. EVERYONE wanted a dead body cookie and Dying for a Date sold like crazy. At one event, just for fun, I changed the sign to read: free book with purchase of dead body cookie.

I sold just as many books. People had to have a cookie. I had created a marketing monster. How was I going to top this promotion when Dying for a Dance was launched?

Without giving anything away, if you write a ballroom dance mystery, there is a high possibility that a stiletto heel may be involved in a murder.

And a new literary culinary creation was born: the chocolate stiletto. A carbohydrate infused weapon that is truly to die for. And if one of the shoes looks more like a loafer, well, I am a dedicated author. I’ll go the extra mile and eat that chunky stiletto for the good of my craft and my fans.

About the Author

Cindy Sample is the author of two great mysteries: Dying for a Dance and Dying for a Date. Find out more about her books at http://www.cindysamplebooks.com.You can email her at cindy@cindysamplebooks.com.

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Special Book Marketing Makeover offer: 40% off book marketing and ebook promotion consulting with John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Order here: http://bit.ly/JohnKremerConsulting

Book Marketing Makeover - Three Golden Rules to Selling an Ebook

2011-12-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Simon Cheshire

Some say that publishing is dead, that mainstream book production is fast going the way of the dodo, and that we should all be in a state of cultural panic. Others say that there's never been a better time to be a writer, and that we're living in a publishing renaissance on a par with the days of Gutenburg.

I'm not quite sure I agree with either scenario. Making money from writing is now, frankly, every bit as hard as it's always been (and I've been in the business almost thirty years), but on the other hand the opportunities open to an entrepreneurial author today are mouth-watering. And most of those opportunities revolve around ebooks.

Here are my personal top tips when it comes to the e-publishing revolution:

1. Keep that code clean!

Although you can upload Word documents to the likes of Amazon or Smashwords for auto-conversion into various e-formats, I’d say don’t. You'll spend days re-uploading them over and over again, as you try to iron out the weird layout glitches.

You almost never get a good result the first time, and if there's one thing ebook readers absolutely hate, it's typos, formatting oddities and layout glitches. Even the most up-to-date and expensive ebooks can be riddled with little errors.

Ebooks use a version of HTML, and if you want your ebook to look good you should start with an HTML file, with the text derived from a format-stripped, plain TXT source. Everything, from paragraph marks and italics to chapter headings and em dashes, should be individually coded. Yes, that means a lot of work, but clean, clear HTML code is at the heart of the ebook ecosystem.

2. Don't take sides in the format war.

Like a lot of ebook readers, I wish the industry would make up its mind and settle on one standard ebook format. However, that's not likely to happen any time soon. Should you go to the time, trouble and expense of producing your ebook in both MOBI (for Kindles) and ePub (for everything else) versions?

The short answer is yes. Both formats claim the biggest slice of the market. You need to keep a spoon in both pots, as you might say. However, one word of warning: while both Amazon and the ePub stores issue detailed guidelines on how to submit ebooks to them, Amazon's DTP system is by far the more user-friendly.

Apple and Kobo in particular are very, very picky about the files they accept – and I don't mean picky about formatting glitches (as in item 1 above), I mean picky about such things as encoding files with BISAC codes and using a lower case 'a' if the title includes the word 'and'. If you want to get into the iBookstore, for instance, you're far better going via one of their official aggregators than trying to upload to them direct.

3. Never underestimate the value of your work.

There’s great debate all over the ebook world about pricing. All to often, the advice is: Make it as near to free as possible. While this does entice some readers, it also badly devalues the long hours of work you’ve put into your book. You wouldn’t get Gordon Ramsey flogging dinners for the same price as a Big Mac, would you? Or Apple doing iPhones for the same as an entry-level pay-as-you-go?

Almost all ebook stores let you sample before you buy. If the book is good, readers will pay a fair price for it. I’d say a fair price is a few dollars less than the print equivalent.

About the Author

Simon Cheshire is one of the UK's leading children's writers. His bestsellers include the Saxby Smart detective stories for older children, and You've Got to Read This: A Beginner's Guide to Great Writers and the History of Books, which is read by as many adults as kids, and which is rapidly becoming a standard text in many schools.

He learnt about coding ebooks the hard way – through trial and error while preparing over a dozen of his own titles for publication via Kindle and the iBookstore. He's recently started sharing his knowledge of ebook setup by offering fellow writers an ebook formatting and design service at www.bookdesign.me.uk.

Book Marketing Makeover - Shocking News to Authors: The Book Business Is a Business First

2011-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by W. Terry Whalin

Before I began working inside a book publishing house, I had written more than 50 nonfiction books, ranging from children’s to adult books. I had never self-published a book and always worked through traditional publishers. However, I was unaware of the financial production numbers for nonfiction books and I found it shocking—and something critical for potential authors to understand.

The author never sees these figures for their books as the publisher doesn’t reveal them throughout the contract negotiation process. A publisher will produce these financial calculations as simply a part of good business practices. As an author, understanding this helped me see publishing as a business.

Authors have huge amounts of time and emotional investment in their words. When I saw these production numbers, I understood that the publisher, not the author, has the largest out-of-pocket cash investment in a book.

Inside the publisher, the editor will gather a sales projection about how many copies the sales department believes they can sell of your title the first year. That sales figure will be used to calculate the production costs of ink, paper and binding for various amounts of printing (5,000, 10,000 or 15,000 copies). As the initial print number is raised, the cost per book decreases.

You may ask, So why not print a large volume each time? The answer is, if the publisher prints a large number of copies, then he has to store those copies in their warehouse (read cost and expense), plus make sure they actually sell those copies within a year’s time frame. The cost of tying up financial resources in storing and warehousing books that aren’t selling is large.

Also the federal government taxes publishers on each copy in storage. These tax rules have forced publishers to think long and hard about how many copies of each book to print.

Inside my former publisher, we calculated the overall printing details of the book (paperback with general publishing look or hardcover with jacket) and the number of books to print before offering a book contract. In short, publishers pour a great deal of work into their books and financial projections before they call you and offer a nonfiction book contract. Understanding this process helps you see some of the reasons it takes such a long time for an author to receive a publishing contract…

Often the publisher returns to an author with whom they have already published a book. If the publisher takes a second or third book from the same author, they are investing in that author’s career and trying to build that author’s audience and market. If the author’s books are selling well, then the publisher will be eager for another project. Each week, publishers monitor sales numbers on their books to see if particular authors merit another book contract.

Many writers focus only on the creative aspects of writing a book and getting it published, but the executives inside a publishing house are business people who want to sell books and turn a profit at the end of the day. It’s a delicate balance between creating the best possible product and assuring that each product has the best opportunity to sell into the market and reach the target audience.

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and publisher lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. A former acquisitions editor, former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. To help writers, he has created a 12-lesson online course called Write A Book Proposal. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: Top 15 Reasons to Do a Virtual Book Tour

2011-12-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Guest post by Dana Lynn Smith, The Savvy Book Marketer

As publishers' promotional budgets shrink and travel costs rise, the traditional city to city author tour is waning in popularity. But what if you could reach a much larger, highly targeted audience from the comfort of home? You can, with a virtual book tour.

On a virtual book tour, authors promote their books by making virtual guest appearances during a particular time frame on blogs, podcasts, radio shows, social networks, or other venues.

So why should you do your own virtual tour?

1. Sell books. You will sell books during the tour and afterward as a result of the tour.

2. Spend less. Virtual tours are less expensive and time consuming than real-world travelling. Generally the only cost of a do-it-yourself tour is the cost of mailing your book to tour hosts.

3. Reach far more people and a more targeted audience with a virtual tour. In contrast, live author appearances by authors who aren't well known tend to have low attendance.

4. Get great links. The virtual tour provides quality, lasting links to your website. These links have search engine optimization value and may continue to bring new visitors for months or years to come.

5. Get out there! Making a commitment to a tour gives you an incentive to get out there and promote your book and get content onto other websites.

6. Get book reviews. If any of your tour hosts do a review of your book, you'll get the benefit of additional reviews.

7. Build buzz. Tours build buzz for your book and get people talking about you and your book - and sharing with others.

8. Earn implied endorsements. When others host you on their blog or show, there is an implied endorsement of you which enhances your author platform.

9. Interact with your readers. You have the chance to interact with readers and potential customers.

10. Earn a higher Amazon rank. Getting a lot of book sales in short period of time pushes up the Amazon rank of your book.

11. Develop relationships. You get the chance to develop relationships with bloggers and other key influencers in your field or genre.

12. Let readers sample your work. The content of a virtual book tour gives potential book buyers an opportunity to sample your work.

13. Grow as an expert. Nonfiction authors can enhance their expert status by posting content on other venues.

14. Expose your book to new audiences. You get exposure to new audiences you might not reach any other way.

15. Build your mailing list. Additional traffic to your website during the tour gives you the opportunity to build your mailing list and blog subscribers.

To learn how to organize your own successful virtual book tour, check out Dana's new Virtual Book Tour Magic guidebook for authors.

Book Tour Special: Order Virtual Book Tour Magic by December 12 and you'll get an invitation to an exclusive book tour Q&A session with Dana on December 15.

About the Author

Dana Lynn Smith, The Savvy Book Marketer, helps authors and indie publishers learn how to sell more books through her how-to guides, blog, newsletter, and private coaching. For more book promotion tips, get her free Top Book Marketing Tips ebooks at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com

Book Marketing Makeover: Social Media: Pros and Cons - Should You Join in the Fray?

2011-12-01T00:11:00.001-08:00

Millions of Americans make daily blog entries, share video and photos, tweet, or post information on places like Facebook. Is it worth their time and effort to do it?

Before we answer that question, let’s examine the potential non-financial payoffs.

Make new friends or keep up with existing relationships.
Share ideas and information that is meaningful to you in hopes you will help or influence others.
Serve your inflated ego and narcissistic leanings.
Initiate a public dialogue on an issue or topic of importance.
It may help you get noticed by major news media.

Now let’s look at the potential monetized payoff of social networking:

It sells something, like a book -- hopefully lots of them.
It brands you as an expert who can then charge higher fees for existing services/products.
It generates more business or provides more client leads.
It helps you raise funds for a project, non-profit, or foundation.
It allows you to charge for advertising or sponsorship - or sell subscription fees.
It increases website traffic so you can sell a seminar or launch a new product or service.
It captures email addresses so you can market to your new fans in the future.

So are social networks worth joining?

It’s worth trying, first because it’s free (except for your time) and second because it’s becoming less a choice and more of an obligation. People expect authors to blog, tweet, and have a website.

If you were looking for a job – in almost any field – a potential employer will look at your online resume to see what you do and say, but in publishing magnify that by tenfold. You need to be out there, in the mix.

Still, aside from expectations or social pressures, authors and those in book publishing should be a part of the online dialogue where the book community now flourishes. You will connect with others, learn, discover and share information, and create your marketing footprint.

Others have gone too far in focusing on social media, as if that were the only way to promote a book. Please note: Few people can blog their way to a bestseller list. A balanced attack is necessary to sustain long-term growth as an author.

Traditional publicity, speaking engagements, direct marketing, select advertising, and social media are the pillars to launching and building a career in publishing. You can’t dismiss any of these parts and you can’t overly rely on any one of them.

The digital landscape will continue to evolve and change. Perhaps Twitter will disappear in a few years or change significantly but it or something else will be the playground for ideas and a driving force in the marketplace. Like anything else, your success with social media is dictated by the quantity and quality of your efforts, by your level of creativity, by your relationships, by your willingness to experiment, and your ability to learn to do new tricks.

So the answer is yes to social media, but you should diversify your activities. Allow it to fit your preferences, time demands, and needs, but don’t ignore it, dismiss it, or think it’s a big waste of time. But don’t think it’s the savior either.

Continue to do other things to market yourself. It’s okay to still send letters via the post office or to actually call people or even meet them for lunch. The world may have gone into a box that we hold in our hands but you should find a way to both live outside the box and in it.

– Brian Feinblum, the chief marketing officer for Planned Television Arts, has been promoting and marketing authors since 1989. Pick up the phone and call: 212-583-2718. Email: feinblumb@plannedtvarts.com. Web: http://www.plannedtvarts.com. Brian’s new blog can be found at http://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com.

Congratulations to Walter Foster Publishing for 90 Years of Publishing Excellence

2011-11-30T04:51:00.000-08:00

Walter Foster Publishing, a leading producer of how-to-draw and paint books and kits for adults and children, will celebrate its 90th year in business in March 2012.

Foundedin 1922 by artist Walter Foster, the publisher is know for its many series, including:

How to Draw & Paint
Fantasy Underground
Walter Foster Collectibles
Learn to Draw
Disney-Pixar Favorites
Nickelodeon's SpongeBob Square Pants
Walter Foster Studio Series
Fashion Design Workshop
How to Draw Magical, Monstrous & Mythological Creatures

Walter Foster books and kits are available at arts and crafts stores nationwide, including Michaels, Aaron Brothers, Hobby Lobby, Dick Blick, and online at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.

Check out their website at http://www.walterfoster.com.

Again, congratulations to a publishing company that has not only survived for 90 years, but has grown into a major force in how-to art books. Walter Foster is now part of the Quayside Publishing Group.

Happy Thanksgiving Today - Great Quotation from Helen Keller

2011-11-24T14:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Today!

Here's a great quotation from Helen Keller:

Enjoy a day of gratitude. Start with thanking your heart.

John Kremer

Cookbook Reviewer: The Best Cookbook List

2011-11-09T02:12:00.000-08:00

Just a short notice to draw your attention to a cookbook blogger who is actively looking for cookbooks to review. I found this blogger via Twitter - when she followed me. I always review everyone who follows me on Twitter and decide if I want to follow them as well.

http://thebestcookbookslist.typepad.com - "I am a food blogger/writer who has accumulated hundreds of cookbooks and love getting new ones! I review new cookbooks and old ones on my blog."

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.

If you want to launch a SuperStar Blog Tour™, Mega Blog Tour™, or Blogpalooza™, click here now!

Book Authors Perennial Question: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

2011-11-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

One question authors get asked a lot is: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Well, here's where I got my idea for a new Kindle ebook, 101 Ways to Blog as an eBook Author. I got the idea earlier this evening while listening to Ty Cohen present his Kindle Cash Flow webinar.

I thought: Why not turn some of my blog posts into books? One of my longest blog posts is one I did on 101 Ways to Blog as a Book Author. That, in turn, was inspired by another blog post I did in response to something I saw on Ezine Articles: 45 Ways to Blog as a Novelist: Tips for Writers of Fiction.

I've been asked many times by ebook authors to write some books specifically on how to market ebooks. During Ty's webinar, I realized I should do that. I'll be writing several such books, but I thought I'd start with one that is half-written: 101 Ways to Blog as an eBook Author.

Of course, as is my usual pattern, I'm expanding the ebook to include tons of samples and some more ideas. It'll be done sometime this week or early next week.

So, I'll update the links on this page when the Kindle ebook, 101 Ways to Blog as an eBook Author, is available.

Cookbook Authors on Tour

2011-11-05T00:19:00.000-07:00

Here's another way that cookbook authors can make money - besides, of course, selling their books. They can host a group trip to a location associated with the recipes in their cookbooks.

For example, Joanne Weir, a Mediterranean cookbook author, lead a trip to Marrakech, Morocco. During the trip, she offers five cooking lessons - from making lamb stew to kneading couscous by hand. They also visit wood carvers, caftan makers, seamstresses that do intricate embroidery, etc.

Anissa Helou, author of Mediterranean Street Food, lead a 10-day culinary and cultural tour of Turkey. The participants eat at top restaurants in Istanbul, take a class in making kissir (bulgur salad) at the Istanbul Culinary Institute, and visit the Blue Mosque and Ayah Sofia.

When organizing a tour, see if you can get a media sponsor or food partner to help publicize, organize, and carry out the tour. That should leave you with the fun part. Showing up, flying around, and entertaining.

The Top 4 Book Marketing Tactics in Today's World

2011-10-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

Here are the top four book promotion activities you can engage in to sell more books in today's world . . .

1. Speak. Speaking builds a word-of-mouth army better than anything else. Speak locally - at garden clubs, libraries, bookstores, Rotary clubs, JCs, poetry nights, story swaps, book club meetings, etc. Then expand out to a wider area, to nearby cities, to nearby states. Eventually, expand out to an even wider audience.

When someone hears you speak, they become a bigger fan than if they had just read your book. If they like you when they hear you speak, they will tell ten times more people than by just reading your book.

2. Book yourself on national TV. TV is still the largest mass market media. It still reaches more people than any other media - and with more impact. It's worth spending the time contacting the ten or twenty news and talk shows that reach your audience. For most national TV shows, you can get the contact information in one of two ways: 1. from their websites, and 2. via your network of friends and fellow authors.

Your appearance on one major TV show will not only expose you to millions of viewers, but it also opens the door to dozens and sometimes hundreds of other media: newspapers, magazines, radio, more TV shows, etc.

3. Create relationships with high-traffic websites. How many major high-traffic websites that attract your target reader have you created relationships with? Are these real relationships where you contribute content to them on a regular basis? In today’s world, Internet relationships are the key to marketing success.

Uncover five to ten top websites that already reach the audience you want to reach. Look over their sites until you find a way to contact someone behind the site - a webmaster, an editor, the founder. Then email them with an offer of free content for their readers: an interview with you, a review copy of your book, a free article (that is really good), some tips for their readers, a Q&A column on your specialty, etc. Their obligation, in return, is to link to your website or sales page.

4. Do a Superstar Blog Tour. Or a Mega Blog Tour. Or a Blogpalooza. I’m not talking about the old-style humdrum virtual book tour of 15 or 20 blogs. I’m talking about an event blog tour that creates Internet buzz on a major scale. Event blog tours can build brands, create incredible website traffic, and sell tons of books.

The neat thing is that effective event blog tours take less time to carry out than the traditional Amazon Bestseller Campaign - and are almost always more effective in selling books, building a brand, and driving traffic.

If you want to know more about event blog tours, check out this recording of me speaking about the value and method of carrying out an effective impact blog tour: http://www.bookmarket.com/blog-tour-palooza.htm.

Conclusion

These four book marketing techniques work for almost any kind of book: fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, children's books, how-to, spiritual, business, even cookbooks. You don't have to do all four. Start with one and work it hard – you'll get better results than doing Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, EzineArticles, or other Internet marketing flavors of the week.

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. If you want to launch a SuperStar Blog Tour™, Mega Blog Tour™, or Blogpalooza™, check out http://www.bookmarket.com/blog-tour-palooza.htm.

Book Promotion Via Giving Away Books

2011-10-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

Bill Barol, author of the crime caper novel Thanks for Killing Me, is conducting an experiment in book promotion. He self-published his novel via CreateSpace and, after discussing his book promotion with a publishing friend, decided to give his book away (or, at least, sell it for as low a price as he could, given his relationship with CreateSpace.

As his publishing friend advised him, “First, forget everything you know about traditional media; all your experience is worthless. Take all that time you spend screwing around on Twitter and put it into marketing your book. And, at least in the beginning, sell it as cheap as you can. In fact, you know what? Give it away.”

As Bill noted in a blog post about his adventures in self-publishing:

His reasoning was hard to argue with, and not just because I suddenly had a loud buzzing in my ears and the room was all swimmy. The logic went like this: Given two facts -- the odds of any self-published novel ever making any real dough were astronomically low, and the job of my novel was now to be its own loss leader -- why not set its retail valuation at zero and get it into as many hands as possible?

It sounded screwy, it sounded counter-intuitive -- hell, it was counter-intuitive, as my intuition was to make money by my work, and as much of it as possible. But the more I thought about it the less nuts it sounded. If I was really serious about exposing my work to a broad audience and generating the kind of critical mass that would make publishers reconsider, I had to make the book almost impossible for anyone with even a passing interest not to acquire.

The Get It/Don’t Get It decision had to be friction-free, and cost was the point of friction I could most easily lubricate.

To read more about his decision and how he priced his books to sell cheap, see his blog post at BoingBoing: Adventures in self-publishing: Why I took a year's work and tried my hardest to give it away.

Book Marketing Success Story: Sneaky Uses

2011-10-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

I just received an email from a reader of my email newsletter. He describes how he has had success for his book series.

Just wanted you to know I ordered another copy of "1001 Ways to Market Your Books" @ B&N last night.

I have passed 325,000 in total sales, will definitely reach 500,000 (at this rate since my 8th "Sneaky Uses" title will be published 11/1/2011) but I want to get to a million, or more.

So, I am going to do a 'system refresh' and start over with your latest edition to work on the next 5 to 10 years!

(I meet or get introduced to writers and the first thing I tell them is to order your book - and they love it.)

Regards,

Cy Tymony of http://www.sneakyuses.com

Book Author Success Story: Giving Away Free Books

2011-09-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

A Marketing Activity that Worked Wonders for My Book Sales: Giving Away Free Books

I have given away a number of copies of my book, Come Back Early Today. This has had three direct beneficial results.

1. Several friends of people I gave books to purchased copies for themselves. For example, I gave a copy of my book to my vet and five of her staff members immediately ordered copies.

2. Some people who got free books subsequently bought copies to give to their friends.

3. Many people who got free books subsequently wrote reviews on Amazon, and I’m confident others will, too, as soon as they finish reading the book.

None of these things would have happened had I not given away the books in the first place.

- Marie Marley, PhD., author of Come Back Early Today: A Memoir of Love, Alzheimer’s and Joy – A passionate love story of a young American woman and a delightfully eccentric Romanian gentleman interspersed with an inspirational guide for Alzheimer’s caregivers everywhere.

For more about the book, see http://www.ComeBackEarlyToday.com.

Note: The value of reviews is not only seen on Amazon, but also on GoodReads, Shelfari, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and other social networks. People who like you or your book will tell others.

Book Promotion: 31 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page

2011-09-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

I'm trying an interesting experiment. I'm promoting an important blog post on my AskJohnKremer.com website on how to promote your Facebook page by blogging about it on four different blogs: my Book Marketing Bestsellers blog (this one right here), my Ask the Booksellers blog, my Ask the Publicist blog, and my The Book Marketing Network blog. I also featured it on the home page of BookMarket.com.

If you want to get more action out of your Facebook pages, be sure to check this out: http://askjohnkremer.com/31-ways-to-promote-your-facebook-page.

Note: You can also use many of these techniques to promote your LinkedIn pages, Twitter profiles, and other social network profiles.

I think this particular blog post is valuable enough to promote more heavily than my usual blog posts. Another recent blog post I consider important is my 101 Ways to Blog as a Book Author. You can read it here: http://blog.bookmarket.com/2011/06/101-ways-to-blog-as-book-author-plus.html.

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.

Like The John Kremer: http://www.facebook.com/thejohnkremer

Like Book Marketing Bestsellers: http://www.facebook.com/book.marketing.bestsellers

Like Open Horizons: http://www.facebook.com/OpenHorizonsPublishing

Like 1001 Ways to Market Your Books: http://www.facebook.com/1001WaystoMarketYourBooks

Give with Joy: Day Six

2011-09-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

In my experience, you always get more than you give. If you can't wait for me to share these Give with Joy stories over the next 40 days, you can always go to this website to read or listen to all the stories in one shot: http://www.givewithjoy.org/true_stories_all40.htm.

Of course, then you'd miss my commentary.

Day Six: Managing God's supply line for over 40 years

http://www.givewithjoy.org/radio/GWJ-006.mp3

In the 1950’s, Ressa and Al took $5,000 out of their savings and gave it to a pastor who wanted to start a Christian camp. The pastor ultimately left his church so he could direct the camp ministry full-time.

For the next 40 years, Ressa and Al sent money to the camp every month. The first year, only 19 children attended the camp, but now thousands come to the camp every year. While the camp director was on the the front lines, Ressa and Al helped man the supply line with their monthly gifts.

1 Samuel 30:24 says those who stay with the supplies will share equally with those in the battle. In heaven, Ressa and Al will get to meet thousands of people they helped lead to Christ through their faithful and generous giving that helped start and sustain that camp for many years.

You don't have to be Christian or even religious to appreciate this story. Note that you don't have to be on the front lines if you are supporting your cause through logistics, money, writing, background help, etc. Whatever your cause, whatever your passion, whatever your inspiration - you can do so much to promote that cause, that passion, that inspiration via your writing.

I believe that's why many of us write: To promote a passion, to celebrate a cause, to pass on an inspiration. So, keep on writing!

Viral Video Tie-In: World Record Water Balloon Fight

2011-09-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

The Christian Student Fellowship of the University of Kentucky set a world record on August 26, 2011 for a group water balloon fight: 175,141 water balloons. 8,957 participants.

Plus a viral video with 638,500 views in less than three weeks!

Could you tie in to this viral video? Do you have a book about water? A book on ecology? A college guide? A book about world records? A book about war?

If so, you could easily create a viral video spinning off of this viral video. Use an excerpt. Title your video the same as this one. Create a mock video of your own world record water balloon fight (with three people). There are many ways to piggy-back on a viral video, especially one like this that should get millions of new views in the coming year.

Your book promotion possibilities are endless. Just look around you.

Book Promotion Special: How to Sell 10,000 Copies of Your Book

2011-09-15T02:13:00.000-07:00

Here's one way to get a company interested in buying 10,000 copies of your book:

Jonathan Fields, author of Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance, is selling his head for $170,000. That's the cost of 10,000 copies of his book.

He's offered to shave his head to featured the logo of the first company that orders 10,000 copies of his book. He'll also dye his hair to match the color of the company's brand.

But, Fields noted, "I'm only doing it once, for obvious reasons. And only for the right partner."

How far will you go to sell 10,000 copies of your book?

Note: I'd be surprised if any company took Fields up on his offer but - and this is crucial - he got major media attention from making his offer. And that is certainly worth something.

Give with Joy: Day Five

2011-09-14T23:34:00.000-07:00

In my experience, you always get more than you give. It's just the way it is with the laws of life. If you can't wait for me to share these Give with Joy stories over the next 40 days, you can always go to: http://www.givewithjoy.org/true_stories_all40.htm.

Day Five: Young girl helps buy a multimillion dollar camp for only $1

http://www.givewithjoy.org/radio/GWJ-005.mp3

John Bechtel, a missionary in Hong Kong, wanted to start a Christian camp to reach people for Christ. A bankrupt multimillion-dollar hotel and conference center became available for sale. He made an offer to purchase the property and then traveled around the world to raise the millions he would need. But no one was willing to help and he returned to Hong Kong discouraged.

Then one day he got a letter from a young girl that included $1 and a note saying she wanted him to use this to buy the camp. John Bechtel prayed and took the girl’s $1 to the real estate closing and the corporation decided to accept the $1 as full payment!

Since the camp first opened, over a million people have come and over 100,000 have accepted Christ.

What have you not done because of the lack of $1.00? How have you let your thinking be limited?

Have you listened to that one champion - someone like the girl with $1.00 - and then acted on what you heard? You'll be surprised by the people who can offer a little help if you simply listen, pay attention, and act.

Book Promotion Tweets You Can Use: First Two Weeks in September

2011-09-14T01:05:00.000-07:00

There are some great book marketing lessons and book promotion tips included within these short tweets that I shared during the first two weeks in September . . .

Book Promotion Ideas

Book Promotion Carnival #7 - Book promotion tips, Internet marketing, book marketing tips - http://askjohnkremer.com/book-promotion-carnival-7

Spend about half an hour to one hour a day on online book promotion. More than that and you are wasting time.

Selling Books on the Street Corners - the legal technicalities - http://askjohnkremer.com/selling-books-on-the-street-corners

Book Promotion Carnival #6 - http://askjohnkremer.com/book-promotion-carnival-6 with book promotion tip and Internet marketing tip

Book Publicity Resources

Raising Arizona Kids - editorial contacts - http://magagenie.com/raising-arizona-kids

Arizona Parenting editors - http://magagenie.com/arizona-parenting

Internet Book Marketing Tips

QR PR Quick Response Codes | QR Code Sends a Tweet to Twitter - http://qrpr.tv/qr-code-sends-a-tweet-to-twitter

QR PR Quick Response Codes | Top 10 Uses for QR Codes - http://qrpr.tv/top-10-uses-for-qr-codes

Miscellaneous Tips

If it’s nothing more than a smile, give that away and keep on giving it. - Beth Brown

Oprah Winfrey Greatest Quotations (or at least some of them) - http://myincrediblewebsite.com/oprah-winfrey-greatest-quotations

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. - Frank Capra, director

The above are just some of the tweets I sent out during the past two weeks. What more did you miss? Follow my tweets at http://twitter.com/johnkremer

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. If you want to launch a SuperStar Blog Tour™, a Mega Blog Tour™, or a Blogpalooza™, watch this space for more details later this week.

Give with Joy: Day 4

2011-09-14T00:41:00.000-07:00

As I have noted in the previous days, I decided to share something that talks about giving, generosity, and sharing. While these audio episodes focus on Christian giving, I believe we can all learn something from these short lessons on how to live a good life, whether we are Christian, agnostic, or believers in another religion.

In my experience, you always get more than you give. It's just the way it is with the laws of life. If you can't wait for me to share these stories over the next 40 days, you can always go here to listen in or read at: http://www.givewithjoy.org/true_stories_all40.htm.

Day Four: Middle class family gives a million dollars

http://www.givewithjoy.org/radio/GWJ-004.mp3

Steve owned a small business and had an annual salary of $50,000. He went to a conference where Dr. Bill Bright challenged people to give a million dollars to the LORD’s work. Steve told Dr. Bright it would be impossible for his family to give a million dollars.

Dr. Bright asked, “How much money did you make last year, and how much did you give?”

Steve said, “My salary is $50,000 and we gave $15,000.”

Dr. Bright said, “Next year, trust God to help you give $50,000.”

But Steve said, “That’s my entire salary!”

Dr. Bright said, “Trust God and see how He provides.”

With God’s help, Steve’s business did well and his family joyfully gave $50,000. The following year, God helped them give $100,000. Each year, his family lived on his $50,000 salary and gave all their extra income to the Lord’s work. Within several years, they gave over a million dollars!

Now, doesn't that inspire you. You don't have to give money. Give time. Give your book. Give your stories. Share with others.

You don't have to give to a church. You can give to Nature Conservancy, United Way, your local Girl Scouts, Sierra Club, American Cancer Society, or whatever. Give and share. Be generous. It will come back to you in a thousand ways.

Give with Joy: Day Three

2011-09-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

As I have noted, I decided to share something I found online that talks about giving, generosity, and sharing. While these audio episodes focus on Christian giving, I believe we can all learn something from these short lessons on how to live a good life, whether we are Christian, agnostic, or believers in another religion.

In my experience, you always get more than you give. It's just the way it is with the laws of life. If you can't wait for me to share these stories over the next 40 days, you can always go here to listen in or read at: http://www.givewithjoy.org/true_stories_all40.htm.

Day Three: Does God Want You to Be Rich?

http://www.givewithjoy.org/radio/GWJ-003.mp3

After my 40-Day Spiritual Journey to a More Generous Life became an unexpected bestseller, I was contacted by NBC to do a TV news story.

When the TV reporter interviewed me, she asked, “So, you think God wants everyone rich?”

I said, “No, I don’t believe that.”

She was a little surprised by my answer and then asked, “Well, what do you believe?”

I responded, “I believe that everyone needs to learn to become more generous with whatever God has given them.”

She then asked, “Well, didn’t your book becoming a bestseller make you rich?”

I replied, “No, it helped me become more generous!”

The truth is--every one of us in America is rich when you compare us to the rest of the world. What each of us needs to learn is how to become more generous with whatever God entrusts to us.

- Brian Kluth, author of 40-Day Spiritual Journey to a More Generous Life

Give with Joy: Day Two

2011-09-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

As noted yesterday, I have decided to share something I found online that talks about giving, generosity, and sharing. While these audio episodes focus on Christian giving, I believe we can all learn something from these short lessons on how to live a good life, whether we are Christian, agnostic, or believers in another religion.

In my experience, you always get more than you give. It's just the way it is with the laws of life. If you can't wait for me to share these stories over the next 40 days, you can always go here to listen in or read at: http://www.givewithjoy.org/true_stories_all40.htm.

Day Two: African man saves children going blind

http://www.givewithjoy.org/radio/GWJ-002.mp3

While ministering in Africa, I met a Christian worker who raised his 6 children on $10 a month. He told me the story of how children in his village were going blind because of a disease that could be prevented with medicine that only cost 50 cents. He began to pray and ask God to send a rich person to their village to help give the money for the medicine, but no one ever came. As he kept praying, the Lord told him he should give the money to buy the medicine. But with 6 children and only a $10 a month salary, he couldn’t see how he could do this. But he and his family prayed and decided that every month they would buy the medicine to help one child. When I last spoke with him, he'd been doing this for 7 years and had saved 84 children from going blind. And his family saw God meet all of their needs.

Give with Joy: 40 Days of Giving

2011-09-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

I decided to share something I found online that talks about giving, generosity, and sharing. While these audio episodes focus on Christian giving, I believe we can all learn something from these short lessons on how to live a good life.

In my experience, you always get more than you give. It's just the way it is with the laws of life. So, for the next 40 days, I'm going to share with you some short stories (in print or audio) on the power of giving. If you can't wait for me to share these stories over the next 40 days, you can always go here to listen in or read at: http://www.givewithjoy.org/true_stories_all40.htm.

Day One: A Single Mother Gives

http://www.givewithjoy.org/radio/GWJ-001.mp3

Nancy was was a single mother with young children. Her ex-husband sent her only a small amount of grocery money every week--so small it couldn’t even feed 1 person, much less her family of 4. But Nancy decided to begin giving to God from her little bit of grocery money and trust Him to provide. Shortly after, she got a job with a cookbook company. The company paid Nancy to go grocery shopping and prepare meals so they could take photographs for their cookbooks. When they were done taking pictures, Nancy could keep the food she had purchased and prepared. Isn’t that an amazing story of God’s goodness? Nancy learned that even if you’re poor, you still need to learn to give from whatever you have.

Book Marketing Tweets You Can Use: August 2011

2011-09-01T00:07:00.000-07:00

There are some great book marketing lessons and book promotion tips included within these short tweets that I shared during the last two weeks of August . . .

Book Promotion Carnival #5 - http://askjohnkremer.com/book-promotion-carnival-5 - Internet marketing tips for book authors

The Frugal Book Promoter: Asking for Help from Partners - http://askjohnkremer.com/the-frugal-book-promoter-asking-for-help-from-partnershttp://askthepublicist.com/creative-penny-pinching-make-a-splash-at-a-fair

Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go. - e. e. cummings - I love this poet.

Need answers to your book marketing and book publishing questions? Check out http://www.askjohnkremer.com

24 Reasons Selling is Better Than Sex | BNET - http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine/24-reasons-selling-is-better-than-sex/17252

What Book Marketing Books Should I Read? - http://askjohnkremer.com/what-book-marketing-books-should-i-read

Free ebooks on marketing, publicity, business, and Internet marketing - http://www.freebooksforall.com/business.htm

What Is the Best Way to Market Poetry? - http://askjohnkremer.com/what-is-the-best-way-to-market-poetry

How Tim O'Reilly Bootstrapped O'Reilly Media with Happy Accidents - http://blog.bookmarket.com/2011/08/how-tim-oreilly-bootstrapped-oreilly.html

How Do I Market a Christian Thriller? - http://askjohnkremer.com/how-do-i-market-a-christian-thriller

The Golden Key to Internet Marketing: It's All About Relationships - http://askjohnkremer.com/the-golden-key-to-internet-marketing

The above are just some of the tweets I sent out during the past two weeks. What more did you miss? Follow my tweets at http://twitter.com/johnkremer

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. If you want to launch a SuperStar Blog Tour™, a Mega Blog Tour™, or a Blogpalooza™, watch this space for news in the coming week.

Online411 Email Newsletter: First Issue

2011-08-29T00:03:00.000-07:00

This is a reprinting of my first Online 411 email newsletter. Today I want to talk about a website that got me over 1,000 impressions within 4 days. The website: http://www.Quora.com.

Quora.com is a question-and-answer website. And, to my mind, the most useful for both asking and answering questions - much better than Yahoo Answers. I just joined on August 8th and answered nine questions in the first two days.

The first question I answered was: Would self-publishing a novel as an eBook affect the likelihood of it getting published in print by a publisher? That question had been viewed 148 times between July 6th when it was asked and August 12th when I checked.

My answer to that question was viewed 167 times within the first 8 hours! And 186 times in the first four days.

Here was my answer: Self-publishing a novel will not turn off publishers - IF you sell a lot of books via great book promotion. Of course, if you don't sell any copies of your novel, then no publisher will be interested.

Self-publishing offers many rewards if done right. Need some inspiration? See the Self-Publishing Hall of Fame at http://www.bookmarket.com/selfpublish.html. That hall of fame features 400 authors who have successfully self-published, including many novelists.

In 3 to 4 days, my other answers were viewed 125 times, 134 times, 133 times, 126 times, 149 times, 143 times, and 124 times.

In the first two days on Quora, I answered 9 questions. So far, that's created 1,120 impressions in less than 4 days - and that doesn't count one answer I can't track.

While links on Quora.com are no-follow (meaning the search engines don't give them any value), users can and do click through on the links you shared. In my first 9 answers, I shared links to my websites at least 3 times - all resulting in more traffic to my websites.

If you feel comfortable answering questions on your specialty (the topic of your book or website), you should start answering questions on Quora.

My first 9 answers took me about 20 minutes total to find questions and respond to them.

I'll be sharing more online marketing tips in the next issue.

John Kremer
http://www.askjohnkremer.com

How Tim O'Reilly Bootstrapped O'Reilly Media with Happy Accidents

2011-08-24T00:08:00.000-07:00

Neat video conversation with Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media on how he started up this computer book publisher:

Lesson Plans Help to Sell Children's Books

2011-08-18T00:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a story from Renee Heiss, author of several books for teachers and parents:

Since my books target teachers and parents, I took them to the NJEA teacher’s convention. There, I showcased my books at a small display table (I couldn’t afford more than the tiny space!)

As teachers browsed my books, I offered a sample lesson plan they could use to implement the ideas contained within the books. I printed a different plan for each book at my table. Those lesson plans were the single most effective marketing ploy at the convention. Without them, I doubt I would have sold as many books as I did.

The lesson plans include page numbers for reference in my books and the National Standards that apply to the activities. As a retired teacher, I know what teachers want for their students. As a book author, I had a less than strong hold on how to market my books until I provided the lesson plans to promote my books.

These lesson plans are also available at my website by book title:

Feng Shui for the Classroom: 101 Easy-to-Use Ideas (http://www.reneeheiss.com/fengshui.html) - Tips on how to balance your classroom by placing objects to energize your students.

Helping Kids Help: Organizing Successful Charitable Projects (http://www.reneeheiss.com/hkh.html) - Ideas on how to plan, structure, motivate, and implement philanthropy for kids.

Somebody Cares! (http://www.reneeheiss.com/somebodycares.html) - Book highlights the efforts of the Care Bags Foundation as a fictional girl plans a very different birthday party.

Author Success Story: Selling Books in Grocery Stores

2011-08-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

Back in 1993 I convinced a local Richmond, Virginia grocery chain, Ukrop’s, to let me set up a table near their grill during dinner time when people would have to wait for their orders so I could sell copies of Wired. I sold over 100 copies, including to the woman who whispered to her husband, “I thought she was the sample lady.”

The sale went so well the chain decided to start carrying local authors and hold similar appearances.

- Story from Martha Randolph Carr, author of Wired. Her website: http://www.marthacarr.com.

Wired is now available on Nook, Kindle, Smashwords & iBooks!

Book Promotion for Novelists and Other Book Authors

2011-08-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

The following interview is one I did for Gatekeepers Post:

How do you balance promoting your book and writing time as well?

I find that promoting my book generates new content for new books, so book promotion is not a waste of time and really doesn't take away from writing new books or revising old books.

Besides, book promotion - if done right - really shouldn't take you more than an hour a day. If you are taking more than one hour a day, you are doing the wrong things to promote your books.

In the above sentence, I'm talking about proactive book promotion actions like writing emails, posting to social networks, writing a blog, etc. These actions should not take much time.

It is perfectly okay to spend more time doing interviews, attending effective book-signing events, organizing blog tours, etc. Stick with the actions that actually produce measurable results.

Would you suggest Twitter as a great way to promote your novel?

Twitter is an okay way to promote a novel or a book. It is not a great way.

Personally, I find the most effective way to use Twitter is to post 3 to 4 times a day with great content. Then repost your tweets to your email newsletter and/or your blog. I get at least 80% of my tweet views - and clickthroughs - from my email newsletter and blog posts.

The above actions takes me about 10 minutes a day at most.

What are common mistakes authors make when writing?

Listening to others. Listen to your heart instead.

Second mistake: Not writing every day. Writing every day is the best way to discover and improve your style. It is also an incredible way to discover what you really want to write.

What are common mistakes when writers are promoting their books?

1. Doing time-sucking promotional activities. As noted above, if you are spending more than one hour a day doing book promotion, you are wasting too much time on nonproductive actions. Stick with actions that work.

2. Not joining in with like-minded book authors to do joint promotional campaigns. You can easily connect with other book authors via The Book Marketing Network.

What are your tips for not using too many flashbacks?

Since I don't write novels, I have no tips for this. But note: Flashbacks slow down the action. Great novels move. They sweep you along in a wave of action. They keep you reading.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Sometimes flashbacks are very effective. The Time Traveler's Wife couldn't have worked without a lot of flashbacks.

What are your thoughts on what writers like Joe Konrath are doing?

I applaud them. I think more and more novelists and other book authors are going to find it makes much more sense in today's world to publish ebooks and sell online. Why get 10% royalties, one year or more delays, and loss of control when you can have full control, instant publishing, and 70% royalties?

Of course, that comes with a caveat: You do have to do book promotion if you want to succeed selling your own ebooks and print-on-demand books. Without really great book promotion, you'll be having full control and no sales. That makes no sense at all.

So, for authors that want to go the way of Joe Konrath or Amanda Hocking, they have to learn how to promote their books. That simple.

John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. If you want to launch a SuperStar Blog Tour™, a Mega Blog Tour™, or a Blogpalooza™, watch this space for news in the coming week.

A Classy Professional Football Player

2011-08-12T23:26:00.001-07:00

David Akers, placekicker for the Philadelphia Eagles, was let go this year and he had to pick up and move to Seattle to find work as an NFL placekicker.

Before he left Philadelphia, he paid to have the following billboard place near the Interstate going by the NFL stadium in Philadelphia where he used to work:

Now, that's a man I'd want on my team.