Book Marketing Tips: Give Your Book Sales a Shot in the Arm

Guest post by Lynnette Phillips

There are no secrets to increasing your book sales. There are, however, many ways to achieve this goal. Here are some starting points.

First of all, for best sales results you’ll want to combine both online and offline techniques.

Secondly, protect your piggy bank. Take advantage of free publicity.

1. Never stop promoting. Marketing and promoting your book doesn’t have to take time from your writing. It may not be the most enjoyable part of becoming a successful author, but with a little diligence it can become habit forming and that is what you’re shooting for!

Two of the most profitable words available to book marketers are consistency and frequency. You can accomplish consistency and frequency by using RSS feeds for blog posts and pre-scheduling programs (such as HootSuite or Social Oomph) for Twitter and Facebook posts.

2. Create an activity calendar. Get organized and keep track of your marketing and promotional efforts. You might want to set up a calendar or a spreadsheet, maybe even both, whatever works best for you.

You’ll want to be aware of what is working best for you and what doesn’t. Follow the results. If it doesn’t work, why keep doing it? Also, you don’t want to miss an interview or speaking opportunity. And you might want to schedule a block of time each week to write Twitter posts to pre-schedule.

3. Print promotional items. Turn a business card into a promotional item. On the front include an image of your book cover, your name, title (author, of course) and the purchase URL [Do you have an Amazon vanity URL?].

Use the back side for prepublication offers or discounts. Example, Purchase your copy today at Thriller Con and get 20% off.

Bookmarks can be used as calling cards for your book.

Drop a postcard in the mail with a quick message to a TV station booking agent or news journalist.

4. Audio, video and pictures help readers relate to you. Create them whenever you attend a literary event or speaking engagement. Use them when you read excerpts, do an interview, or share expert tips. They encourage visitors to stay on your website longer and are great as background items for appearances.

5. Connect with the community. Volunteer at the library, speak to the local garden club, or participate in a local writers group. How many people have you talked to who dream of writing their own book? Offer your talents at the senior center or to a writing class at the community college. Read an excerpt of your book at the coffee shop.

6. Plan an event. Schedule a Google+ hangout or a Twitter contest. Or organize a literary event and involve other area authors.

7. Use press releases and public service announcements (PSA). A press release is your chance to become the news. Keep in mind this is not an ad, though. It helps me to think of it more as a short article.

Announce the publication of your new book using a press release but don‘t stop there. Use a press release anytime you want to gain media exposure: to promote an event and project, to offer information, or to attract an audience when planning an appearance or community event.

A PSA is a shorter version of a press release. In fact, you can use the first paragraph of your press release as a PSA. Deliver your PSA to community news departments at local radio or TV stations to be included in community calendar announcements.

8. “Free” is a very powerful tool. Online you can promote giveaways of your latest release. Use Facebook and Goodreads to promote the event. Offline donate copies of your book to the library, a school, or a local event.

9. Create a media kit. Offline assemble a synopsis of your book with a picture of the cover, the ISBN and purchase information. Include a testimonial or review quote. Also enclose a sample Q&A and your bio, including your picture and an author’s statement describing why you love writing, what you’ve written, your inspiration, etc.

Add any promotional materials you’ve had printed and assemble it into a two pocket folder. Distribute these to radio and TV stations. Contact the newspaper arts & entertainment reporters.

Online make sure your website includes a page for your media kit. Make it easy to share information about you and your book.

10. Develop a social media strategy. Dealing with Twitter and Facebook everyday steals your morning away before you know it. Make a plan to spend a minimum amount of time on social networks and stick to it. It’ll become a habit soon enough.

On days there just isn’t time for social networking, do a quick check and get on with your day.

Log in to Twitter and check your Mentions for any chatter. Perhaps search a couple of #hashtags to keep up on the chatter for subjects of interest.

Scan Google Alerts for any important or interesting articles.

Do a filtered search on LinkedIn and flag any industry or genre (of your choice) related posts or articles to attend to later.

Log in to Facebook and scan your wall and comments.

Final advice: Spend a few minutes every day promoting your book.



About the Author

Visit Lynnette’s Book World Marketing blog at http://www.lynnettephillips.info or see her Amazon collection of books.

Book Marketing Makeover: Networking with Colleagues

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.