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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GOOGLE-MICROSOFT

In the first year after I retired from FT work, July 1999 to July 2000, Google officially became the world's largest search engine. With its introduction of a billion-page index by June 2000 much of the internet's content became available in a searchable format at one search engine. In the next several years, 2000-2005, as I was retiring from PT work as well as casual and most volunteer activity that had occupied me for decades, Google entered into a series of partnerships and made a series of innovations that brought their vast internet enterprize billions of users in the international marketplace. Not only did Google have billions of users, but internet users like myself throughout the world gained access to billions of web documents in Google’s growing index/library. It was a finer and more useful library than any of those in the small towns where I would spend my retirement in the years ahead. It was also a library with a myriad locations in which I could interact with others and engage in teaching and consolidation activities in ways I had never dreamt of in the first four decades I had been a member of the Bahá'í Faith: 1959-1999.

In 1994, at the age of fifty and as I was beginning to eye my retirement from FT work as a teacher and lecturer, Microsoft launched its public internet web domain with a home page. Website traffic climbed steadily and episodically in the years 1995 to 1999. Daily site traffic of 35,000 in mid-1996, at the very start of the new Bahá'í culture of learning and growth, the new Bahá'í paradigm, grew to 5.1 million visitors by 1999 when I had taken a sea-change and retired to Tasmania at the age of 55. Throughout 1997 and 1998 the site grew up and went from being the web equivalent of a start-up company to a world-class organization. I retired from FT work, then, at just the right time in terms of the internet capacity to provide me with: (a) access to information by the truckload on virtually any topic; and (b) teaching opportunies, both direct and indirect, far in excess of any I had had in my previous years as a Bahá'í.

This new technology had also developed sufficiently to a stage that gave me the opportunity, the capacity to post, write, indeed, “publish” is quite an appropriate term, on the internet at the same time. From 1999 to 2005, as I say, I released myself from FT, PT, casual and most volunteer work, and Google and Microsoft offered more and more technology for my writing activity for my work in a Cause that I had devoted my life to since my late teens and early twenties.

The Internet has become emblematic in many respects of globalisation. Its planetary system of fibre optic cables and instantaneous transfer of information are considered, by many accounts, one of the essential keys to understanding the transformation of the world into some degree of order and the ability to imagine the world as a single, global space. The Internet has widely been viewed as an essential catalyst of contemporary globalisation and it has been central to debates about what globalisation means and where it will lead.

There are now several hundred thousand readers, as I say above, engaged in parts of my internet tapestry, my jig-saw puzzle, my literary product, my creation, my immense pile of words across the internet--and hundreds of people with whom I correspond on occasion as a result. This amazing technical facility, the world wide web, has made this literary success possible. If my writing had been left in the hands of the traditional hard and soft cover publishers, where it had been without success when I was employed full time as a teacher, lecturer, adult educator and casual/volunteer teacher from 1981 to 2001, these results would never have been achieved.

I have been asked how I have come to have so many readers at my website and on my internet tapestry of writing that I have created across the world-wide-web. My literary product is just another form of published writing in addition to the traditional forms in the hands of publishers. The literally hundreds of thousands of readers(perhaps even millions since it has become impossible to keep even an accurate account of all those who come across what I write and see the name of the Cause) I have at locations on my tapestry of prose and poetry, a tapestry I have sewn in a loose-fitting warp and weft across the internet, are found at over 4000 websites where I have registered: forums, message boards, discussion sites, blogs, locations for debate and the exchange of views. They are sites to place essays, articles, books, ebooks, poems and other genres of writing. I have registered at this multitude of sites, placed the many forms of my literary output there and engaged in discussions with literally thousands of people, little by little and day by day over the last decade. I enjoy these results without ever having to deal with publishers as I did for two decades without any success.
I've found that my blog has been getting more exposure than normal and it's helped a lot with sales. I know blogs are a must at this point, but I've found that finding subject matter can almost be debilitating when you put yourself on a schedule to blog.

Debilitating can lead to writer's block and that's no good so what do I do? I search the net, get onto google and allow them to show me popular writings from search words, and I also write from personal experience. I put all of it in and I always say this phrase BEFORE I start a post, "Write it and they will come."

This phrase seems to help me because I get my point across without all the fear. Sometimes fear comes in the form of writing for fans, editors, or whatever. But remember, you have a voice that your readers like and they come to your blog, read your article, book, or whatever because of it. Just keep writing and they WILL come.

I had proof of this today when I came across a link to my blog. I didn't see it before. This was a new thing for me. It was from a writer praising my blog. I still can't believe it. I never thought it would happen because I was on the mantra, "Write it and they will come". My blog was listed as one of the top 8 to check out! I CAN'T believe it!

I don't want to advertise my site here, but I'd like this post to be an inspiration to other people. If I can post the link to the article naming my blog-- please let me know. Thanks.
Kimberly, it's perfectly legitimate to let us know where your blog is located. I wanted to click on it to see what you were doing there, but was disappointed not to see a link. Congrats on consistent blogging and getting a following!
Thanks Steve! I'm sorry about not putting the link in sooner. You can read the article about my blog and go to my blog by following this link.
Kimberley,

Nice blog! And that recommendation from such a prominent site is wonderful! Sometimes it seems like I just keep trudging along with not much happening, then a recommendation or something comes out of nowhere that makes things really take off.

And my son has been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is similar to the subject of your site. Very helpful. Thanks!
Thanks so much for the kind words Steve! I agree that sometimes you feel like you are just trudging along and then BAM! something good or great happens. This is the first time anything of this magnitude has happened to me. It can feel a little intimidating at times.

On one hand, you write because of a need to say something and your audience follows because they like your style. On the other, you can start to feel the pressure of writing what your audience wants to hear, hence, loosing that precious voice that you started out with. Yes, recognition can be intimidating indeed.

I'm sorry to hear about your son. Yes CFS is very similar to FMS, in fact, some doctors believe they are the same disease. There's a links page on my blog that he may want to take a look at because I have several sites on there that are geared exclusively towards men. I hope they help.
Kimberly,

I have a blog www.albertasequeira.wordpress.com and have only had one person contact me on it. The woman was the director of the Dighton Library asking me to do a speaking engagement on alcoholism and book sign; which I'll be doing on the 23rd this month.

How do you pull people to your site and how do I connect to them:
The book network such as Goodreads.com, Shelfari.com, etc... are excellent places to promote your book. Also the main marketing sites such as facebook, myspace, youtube, etc... are really helping my sales.
Alexander, can you tell us a bit more specifically how you're using Goodreads and Shalfari? I've never used either of them.

Any specifics on how you're effectively using youtube, etc. would be helpful as well.
Hi Steve,

I use Goodreads, Shelfari, Anobii, and Librarything for networking with readers, writers and reviewers. I started with Shelfari and added most of the books I've read to my shelf. As a fiction writer, this can be helpful way for prospective readers to see what kind of books inspired me. If we like the same kind of books, then there's a good chance they will like my work.

Once I had all my books in Shelfari, I exported my library to a spreadsheet, then copied and pasted the ISBN column into a new spreadsheet. Save the new spreadsheet as CSV, and you can import your entire library into Goodreads, Librarything, etc. What a time saver!

Authors can get a free author profile on Goodreads which includes Quotes, Events, Blog, and some other cool features. I use the shelf widget on my website, for example, so people can check out my bookshelves from directly on my webpage. Goodreads also has a nice Facebook app. Goodreads also has a very popular book giveaway program that could generate some more interest.

If nothing else, having a nice profile on these sites makes you visible to a lot of readers. Chances are most author's books are already listed on these sites (by those who have librarian status), and it looks better to have your picture shown when the author name is clicked rather than a standard "no picture provided" avatar.

Plus, these sites are great places for getting quality backlinks to your website.

The last thing I'll say about Goodreads is that most of those I have as friends on Goodreads have found me, and the list continues to grow. Forming relationships with those people (like with Twitter) is up to you.

As for YouTube, I made nice little book trailer and it slowly collected views. Recently though, it was featured on a blog about book trailers and now has had over 1,000 views. I'm no YouTube expert, but I'm going to say that content is king and more is better. I plan to record some of my public speaking engagements and air those on YouTube for greater exposure.

Hope that helps,
Brian
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2854898.Brian_Rathbone
http://twitter.com/brianrathbone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK-GkDOI3RM
http://brianrathbone.com/free-fantasy-ebook.html
Now I understand. Thanks for the specifics!
Extremely helpful

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