The Book Marketing Network

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

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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Great idea, Lynda. Thanks, I'll try it.
This is a good ideal. I will try it.
Great and awesome Idea. Thanks for this. It ain't that hard! Just start slowly. Thanks for the link! I'm also trying to figure out Twitter, but like others here have said, I'm just not seeing how it's so different than Facebook (minus the pics & stuff).
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Lawyer Marketing
Keep pursuing reviews beyond the big-time reviewers!

About 8 months after my book came out, I sent my book to VOYA Magazine, a niche publication that librarians consult for their young adult collections. They did a nice review, and within a month, I received a request from the Follett Corporation (http://www.follett.com/about.cfm), saying they'd received requests for the book and wanted to distribute it to school libraries. I looked up Follett in my book marketing books to find that they were indeed a respected (founded in 1873!), large distributor who actively market their books to libraries. They're starting to order my books and so far appear very professional. I give them a 55% discount off retail, but they provide free shipping through their Fed Ex account.

I've wanted to get my book into libraries, but I'm sure it would have been a long, arduous task for me to pull off personally. Since libraries are used to working with Follett and respect them, this should be a wonderful opportunity!

So, if you think your book might be valuable for school libraries or the youth collections of other libraries, consider sending a copy to VOYA magazine. Here's some of their information:

VOYA Magazine, Voice of Youth Advocates, "The Library Magazine Serving Those Who Serve Young Adults" "VOYA is the only magazine that matters for librarians working with young adults. . . . Simply the best there is."—Patrick Jones, public librarian and author of Connecting Young Adults and Libraries, 2nd Ed. (Neal-Schuman, 1998). Founded in 1978. http://www.voya.com/aboutus/index.shtml#history

J. Steve Miller
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books"
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html
Hi Steve,

I email VOYA and they asked me to send my book Someone Stop This Merry-Go-Round; An Alcoholic Family in Crisis. Their magazines if for kids 12-18. I hope they think my book is okay for them.

Thanks for the lead.
Cool! Another idea that might work for you: Here's a free place to submit a news release that goes out to librarians. You can see how I did my news release for them (The Librarian's News Wire) here:

http://liswire.com/content/personal-finance-book-teaches-gen-y-go-%...

I sent this one out in November, so it's possible that the distributor was getting orders based on this news release rather than the other review I mentioned. I haven't read Kremer's stuff on "1000 Eyeballs" (sorry John, but my wife's reading it now, so I should be up to speed soon!), but I suppose that's a good way to describe what we're trying to do here. If we get a review at VOYA and they put it on their site with a link to our book info, then we get a link back from the Librarian's News Wire, then we've got 2 of our thousand ways for eyeballs to find our book.

Once we get articles on free articles sites linking back to us, blog posts and reviews pointing back to us, videos of our speaking pointing back to us from Youtube, etc.; eventually, there will be so many ways to find us that 1) Google thinks we're cool and allows more searches to come our way (number and quality of incoming links is the holy grail of search engine optimization) and 2) with more links out there, it's just more and more likely that people will happen upon us. That really makes sense.

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
"The money book for people who hate money books."
http://wisdomcreekpress.com/press_kits.html
If you go to searchwarp, you will find the article I wrote, "Marketing a POD Book in 2009, Reflections on What Worked and What Didn't."

http://searchwarp.com/swa562239-Marketing-A-Pod-Book-In-2009-Reflec....

I am very transparent and hope I can help someone else.
Lorilyn,

Thanks for sharing from your book marketing experience! Please keep us up on what's working and, just as importantly, what's NOT working. Although those may differ from book to book, we can learn from these experiences. So many book marketing organizations will talk grandly about "You've gotta do this," but when I actually do it, I may find no success at all.

I'll link to your article from my blog, where I've been keeping people up for about the past 10 months on what's working and what's not concerning selling my book. I'm at http://freelancewriterblog.blogspot.com/
Steve, I subscribed to RSS feeds on your blog. thanks for the great information.
Lorilyn, you give a lot of good advice about marketing. Marketing does not create sales. People buy books they feel they have a personal stake in. I like to stay in contact with people who purchase my books, since it makes for good friends, and many people like to have an inside view into a writers head. One day I spent an entire day emailing readers/fans, and I feel it is worth it. I've recently added a call-up fan who lives in Oakland, CA, and I live in St. Louis, MO. So, I'm happiest when I'm at the job of writing/publishing/promoting/etc., 24/7. There's nothing I enjoy more than having to cut my sleep short to work with my writing connections.
Thanks Lorilyn! Do keep us up on what you're learning!
Hi Steve,
I went with Bostick Communications like I had mentioned before but I had no luck. With all my speaking engagements, appearances on cable TV and radio, my platform didn't impress anyone to call. I had six people wanting the book to review, lucky my publisher sent them for me. I called everyone back who had been on the list and not one person replied back. I did see one review from someone who requested a book. I was very disappointed. With the price of $175, I thought it was worth a try. Authors never get any guarantees!

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