For book/ebook authors, publishers, & self-publishers

What's Working for You?

I'd like to start a new forum where people can talk about what's working for you right now in marketing your book.

I think this will help other authors to prioritize their activities if they can find out what's working for other people. This would be especially valuable to new authors.

I've share the hottest tool that I'm using right now. And that's Twitter. As you will note on the main page of this Book Marketing Network website, both my http://www.bookmarket.com website and this network have been rising in Alexa ranks (and visits) because of my use of Twitter.

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Permalink Reply by Sunny Frazier on August 23, 2009 at 8:40pm

Okay, I don't Tweet, but I'm active on about 35 Internet sites. My trick? I keep a folder with "blog items" so all I have to do is cut & paste into forums, discussions, blogs. I have a backlog of blogs from a newspaper column on writing; I set it up so one automatically posts once a month. That covers me for the next year.

I only work on social sites on Sundays, but I devote the whole day to them. I keep a list of sites (in alphabetical order) and write what changes or additions I have done. I color code by month, so at a glance I can tell which sites haven't been updated in awhile.

Sounds like a lot of work, right? WRONG! I'm organized and this makes it possible to look more productive than I actually am. I've created shortcuts that still make my writing look fresh and spontaneous.

And folks, I just copied this piece to use elsewhere. Always thinking ahead.

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Permalink Reply by J. Steve Miller on August 24, 2009 at 6:16am

Sunny, this is great! These sites that you're posting to - are they all your personal sites? Or, do you have columns going on other people's sites?

I'm finding that organization is critical to my marketing plan. In my marketing notebook, I have dividers for sections on Blogs, Reviews, TV and Radio, Magazines, Local Sales, Schools, etc. I write down every book I've sent out for review, and keep a copy of every e-mail requesting a review copy. In this way, I can follow up on requests, check to see if I've been reviewed, and keep notes of what's working and what's not.

J. Steve Miller, author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Enjoy It - http://www.amazon.com/Enjoy-Your-Money-Make-Invest/dp/098187567X/re...

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Permalink Reply by Steve Payne on December 23, 2009 at 4:29am

Hi,

By cutting and pasting one piece of work into multiple locations aren't you feeding google with duplicate content? Or do you tweak it so its slightly different in each location? This is what I currently do but it takes more time.

Obviously it works for you, so I am genuinely curious.

Thanks

Steve

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Permalink Reply by J. Steve Miller on August 24, 2009 at 8:40am

Great list, Dr. Mani! Looks like your ducks are all in a row.

Praying for you and for your book launch tomorrow! (Anybody who's reading, purchase Dr. Mani's book tomorrow and it will help him achieve a high ranking on Amazon. By the way, I don't work for him. Just trying to help one another out in this marketing thing!)

Over time, could you please keep us up with what you think is working best and what least? Out of the thousands of things we can do to market our books, it's necessary for us to narrow down to our best bets. Sure, different things work for different authors and different books, but the more we know about what's actually working for other authors, the better we can decide which paths to try out.

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Permalink Reply by John Kremer on August 25, 2009 at 11:54pm

Congrats on getting that high on Amazon. Do you know how many copies you sold?

Relationships are what it is all about.

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Permalink Reply by J. Steve Miller on August 26, 2009 at 2:53pm

Looking forward to following you on this!

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Permalink Reply by J. Steve Miller on December 23, 2009 at 8:39am

Dr. Mani,

Thanks so much for this list! Can you tell us anything about how sales are going? Do you have any idea of what might be working more than something else? (Example: Is it more effective to network with other bloggers and try to get them talking about your book, or better to spend your time trying to do a blog of excellence and draw people to your blog?) We're all short on time and want to concentrate on what has the most potential payoff.

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Permalink Reply by Skeeze Whitlow on August 28, 2009 at 12:45am

Allow me to state that I have had modest success as an author. And I should be grateful. I have over a thousand hits on the internet -- yet, I wish to do more. To be more.

When I settled down to write, I thought it would take a couple months, perhaps a year...

But I have been working at it, steady, for 25 years. Don't get me wrong, I love writing. But, we live in a world where the publishers and literary agents are members of an elitist club which refuses admittance to newcomers.

Yet, the state of optimism leads to one sure way to attain goals. A goal is a dream with a deadline. In my next 25 years, I shall attain my goals.

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Permalink Reply by albertasequeira on December 23, 2009 at 9:43am

I get excited with over 13,000 hits on my site. But....I'm missing something. Why? My books aren't selling fast (I'm selling a lot myself with talks, booksignings,etc.). My royalties and sales on Amazon aren't moving.

I'm not getting interested parities wanting me to do speaking engagements or workshops. SO, SOMETHING is wrong. I'm not getting the attention.

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Permalink Reply by albertasequeira on December 23, 2009 at 9:44am

VISIT my site at www.albertasequeira.com and let me know what you all think.

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Permalink Reply by ZLS Publishing, LLC on August 30, 2009 at 10:54am

Social networking is definitely working for me. I'm using places like Ning, Gather, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc. to promote business. Since ZLS works mainly with small businesses and authors and we do stuff like marketing, web design and graphic design for them, social networking works perfectly for us. That and word of mouth which we reward with discounts for service.
www.zlspublishing.com

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Permalink Reply by J. Steve Miller on August 30, 2009 at 11:20am

ZLZ,

Cool! Can you give us an example of a specific book that's getting large numbers of specific sales from these social networking avenues, or do you keep track of these specifics?