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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Thanks KC,

I'll do that.

Alberta

Alberta, I have followed the exchanges that your thoughtful contributions have provoked. I admire your persistence and for trying so many things. I am probably an unlikely first author as a retired stock broker. Of course, the service of helping someone with the management of his or her finances and investments was immediate and personal and was based on trust. That said, it was nevertheless a real scramble to find another prospective client. My mantra was, "Stir on the right. Stir on the left. Something will happen in the middle." Keep on stirring.

I haven't been able to translate my marketing skills as a better-than-the-average-bear broker into this arena. I am convinced, however, that the principles are the same and only the tools are different.

I am mindful of an experience as a boy. My brother and I once set up a stand to sell Kool-Aid in our front yard. It was a peaceful street. People pulled up to the curb, bought a glass for a nickle or a dime, thanked us, smiled, and said they thought we were good little guys. But we, we had eyes for the highway that went through town with all of its traffic. So the next time we set up for business. we carted everthing down to a vacant lot near that busy, busy street and set up shop. The traffic whizzed by. Dozens of cars, whereas before maybe there had been one or two. But few stopped. Too busy. Too hazardous to pull over and talk to us. You get the point. The highway to my mind is the Internet today. Find some backstreet on it. Get known as a good author and as a conscietious person, be patient, and I think it will pay off. I don't know for sure because it hasn't for me yet. But I am not going to try to set up shop on the freeway. John

Hi John,

I looked your books up on the Internet. Great covers. I see you are also self-published. First of all, it's costly paying to get published, buy your books, promote, advertise, and market. Boy, it can be exhausting. I have three memoirs (the first being reprinted with a new title and book cover). 

Money goes out more than coming in. That's why I'm branching out this year, hopefully, with speaking engagements.

Look at your book and see what you can get out of it to get into locations to talk. There's an author friend of mine, Diane Kozak, who wrote a fiction book titled Full Circle 911 with the sequel Exposing Eurabia. I'm sure she'd be thrilled knowing I'm mentioning her.

I loved the books but couldn't understand how her books written on

terrorist attacks in Europe could get her into the doors of numerous high schools to talk. The kids love her. She took the "issues" in the book and related them to the problems with the school kids, bulling, gangs, etc. She give the teaches 7 topics for them to pick 3 out of them and she talks about them. She has a bank that she was a manager at sponsor her for the schools. They buy the books for the schools.

So, you have to see what you can get out of your book.

this is a good idea...i like it and I will write to you

Best

Kamelia

I think that it is important to decide how much a person really wants to do in promoting and marketing a book. In my novel Deadly Portfolio, a main character is about to retire. Over a glass of one evening, he comments that he has worked all of his life, since he was a boy mowing lawns and working a paper route. That sentiment came right out of  my view of the world for myself. I don't want a second career promoting and marketing my book. I don't want to deplete my retirement reserves putting a $1.10 out for every $1.00 I get back. I need to be content with the acceptance the critics have given my novel which is very gratifying. I plan to put in a couple of hours a day five days a week working the internet, and that's it. If I can't get the book underway with that effort, I am not interested in doing more. It is a quality of life issue for me.

Hi John,

There is nothing wrong with how you feel with promoting your book. You're right on the $110 out of the $100. I've spent so much, like most authors, with promoting. I've stopped all advertising in newspapers and magazines. I didn't sell one book from it.

I'm getting great comments on my blog www.albertasequeira.wordpress.com and think I need to concentrate on that. I'm having a terrible time with having the ability to answer my comments with my email. I'll have no followers if I can't. We're working on it.

 

I find giving speaking engagements much easier than sitting all day at a bookstore or festivals. You come home exhausted with carrying the tables, chairs, books, etc. Then you realize you sold 3-10 books. I'm starting to re-think on attending these locations.

With my talks, my audience is already interested in my topic and excited to buy the books while they are in your company after the talk.

I feel like you, John, that if you can't sell on the Internet and get known, it's not to likely to get known.  I guess we all have to figure out what works best for us.

Why did you kick Smashwords to the curb if I amy ask? I was thinking they would be the way to get my books out as ebooks.
I was curious about why you kicked Smashwords to the curb as well. You never said why.

I won a website as best new scifi author with my publisher and I have used it to post Scifi Sunday's with the hipriestess, 5 cent tales, and to advertise my 3 novels.  So If you would like to check out my blog go to http://hipriestess.com/blog and read this week's edition.  I also have a guest author blog, if you have recently published a book, or are thinking of publishing a book, please email me at castdcas@aol.com and I will give you the particulars to be a guest author on my blog

 

donna

Hello Everyone!

 

I just had my first book published back in November. My novel, The Great Collapse, is set in the year 2025, when electronics all over the planet are permanently disabled by a solar flare and an EMP blast that combine to destroy all existing electronics, while also preventing any new electronics from ever functioning.

http://thebookmarketingnetwork.com/video/video/listForContributor?s...

http://www.hortonlibrary.com

 

In regards to marketing, I believe I have had the biggest bang for the buck by going where the readers are, sites like Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4478744.Jeff_W_Horton), and listing book giveaways, joining group discussions, etc. I also am in the process of joining Amazon's Author program ( https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/home), where I hope to be able to reach even more potential customers. I am also active on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Author.Jeff.Horton). In addition, I have subscribed to HARO (http://www.helpareporter.com/t) and RadioGuestList (http://www.radioguestlist.com/), where I seek out interviews. I also leverage  BlogTalkRadio  sites (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/prempromotions/2011/02/28/authors-arti...).

 

Bottom line, reach as many readers as possible, attend book signings, and do as many interviews as you can. Hopefully, we will all see our efforts pay off! Please let me know if you have had a lot of success reaching readers with different tools/strategies!

 

If you find any of the information I provided useful, please help spread the word about my novel, The Great Collapse!

 

Best Success to everyone!

 

Jeff Horton

Good luck and congrats. Thank you also for the websites.
How do you know that twitter is working?

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