Book Marketing Makeover: 5 Ways to Promote Self-Published Books

Guest post by Sarah Gilbert

Whether books have been published traditionally or through self-publishing routes, it is important for every author to know effective ways to promote their books. Someone can be the best writer in the world, but if people don’t know about their book, they won’t have many sales.

It is crucial, when you self publish your book, that you in turn do things to promote it.. Taking the time to promote your book will result in an increase in sales, recognition and success, without a doubt.

Here are 5 ways to promote self published books:

1. Start blogging. Blogging can be an effective way to build a platform. Using the right search engine optimization (SEO) words can help draw in traffic to the blog. Blogs can contain written posts or even video posts. Use it as a way to connect with current fans and create new ones.

2. Give talks. Giving talks or book readings can be an effective way to get noticed. Offer to give them at local book clubs and libraries. Or do an online virtual book tour or engage in webinars.

3. Connect with media. Many media outlets can be helpful in getting a book or author noticed. Send a press release or work with a public relations agent to contact local radio, television, and print media outlets. Offer to do talks, be a show guest, etc.

4. Send review copies. Many people review books, either on blogs or in print. Sending out some review copies, with a nice note enclosed, can be a good way to get them interested in choosing the book for a published review.

5. Use social media. The power of social media cannot be denied. Whether using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or something else, these are effective ways to connect with people and spread the word. Make it a goal to get connected.

Book sales really come down to people knowing about the book in the first place. The job of every author, whether self-published or not, is to let people know about your book and why they should read it. Make an effective plan of action for marketing your book, and then work toward it each month.



About the Author

Sarah Gilbert is the director of sales at Lulu.com, a print-on-demand publisher. Lulu has 1.1 million creators with 20,000 titles added to their collection each month.

Their  print-on-demand publishing service is provided free (with additional add-on services that do cost money) and authors retain all rights as well as 80 percent of all profit from sales. For more information, visit their website at http://www.lulu.com.

Book Marketing Makeover: The Difference Between Book Publishing and Book Printing

Guest post courtesy of Pubslush.com




Pubslush Question: With the advent of print on demand technology, the meaning of publishing is evolving. Can you talk a bit more about your perspective on what it means to actually be published in the 21st century?

Susan Henderson's Answer: Well, first I think it’s important to make a distinction between printing and publishing a book. Anyone can take their writing, give it a nice font, add a pretty cover, and make it available for purchase. That is not a published book.

What publishing means is that someone has a plan for getting that book onto the radar of the people most likely to enjoy it. A publisher has a relationship with booksellers, book bloggers, readers, and reviewers, and so hopefully doesn’t rely on spam or the writer’s friends as the marketing strategy.

I think the reason self-publishing has such a poor reputation with booksellers and readers is that the field is flooded with impatient writers—writers who are not avid readers themselves, who haven’t taken the time to hone their craft, who take rejections from agents and editors to mean that the system is unfair rather than their work isn’t ready.

However, I think the pressure these outside publishing models are putting on the traditional system is a good thing. The current system overworks and underpays all of its players, and the big money is made primarily from celebrity memoirs, calendars, and diet books, which doesn’t say a lot about the system’s staying power or its protection of the arts.

These alternatives (whether they’re self-publishing, print on demand, small press, or direct e-publishing) are trying to address the parts of the system that are broken—the classically poor treatment of writers through the submission process, the lag time between getting a book deal and seeing the book on the shelves, the wildly miscalculated print runs, and so on. I don’t think anyone’s found the ultimate answer yet, but I’m convinced it’s going to come as a result of these outside pressures.

For the entire informative interview with Susan, see http://www.pubslush.com/blog/archives/257.

About the Author



Susan Henderson is the author of Up from the Blue, a debut novel published by HarperCollins in 2010 (with four printings so far). She blogs at LitPark and The Nervous Breakdown.

Pubslush is a new publishing company that uses crowdsourcing to select books for publication. Authors submit their manuscripts to us, and visitors vote on which ones they like the most. Check out their website at http://www.pubslush.com.

Looking for a Good Book Printer? See AskTheBookPrinter.com

Looking for a good book printer?

Here’s a short video we had made for us to promote our new website featuring questions and answers about book printing: http://www.AskTheBookPrinter.com.

Headline: Stop playing around: http://www.AskTheBookPrinter.com.

The Long Tail in Writing and Marketing of Your Books

The following guest post is by Daniel Hall of RealFastBook.com

I want to start by telling you about a book I’ve been reading. The name of the book is the New York Times bestseller, The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.

I have scanned and read parts of this book in the past but I have never taken the opportunity to digest the significance of the ideas it describes until now. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the premise of the book, let me briefly describe it.

Mr. Anderson researched the top Internet-based businesses, companies like Amazon, iTunes, Rhapsody, Netflix and eBay, and learned some rather astonishing things about what happens when consumers are given more choices in the marketplace. He documented what is called in statistical analysis a long tail in just about everything people purchased online from books to coffee beans.

The idea of a long tail is this: When you graph what consumers with choices do when shopping at such places as Amazon or eBay, there is a group of products which make up the highest volume sellers. That is, the hits or the products that sell the most. Graphically, these are the products that make up the biggest bump on the graph. However, when you look past the 8,000 or 9,000 bestsellers at these sites the curve dramatically decreases to near the baseline but never quite going to zero sales, aka the long tail.



Now here’s the interesting thing: Anderson’s research found that the vast majority of products, the non-hits at such sites as Amazon and Netflix, sell at least once a quarter. And needless to say there are many more non-hits than there are bestsellers. This phenomenon is statistically represented by a very long tail when graphed.

Be that as it may, the long tail of the sales--as it turns out--is BIG business and the major online retailers know it. It is the reason why Amazon will actually carry books that may only sell once every other year. Fact is it cost them next to nothing to have the product listed and available for sale--just bandwidth and a copy or two of the book on the shelves. For retailers like iTunes and Rhapsody all that’s required to sell is bandwidth since everything sold is digitally delivered.

In effect, the Internet has transformed the supply chain. It used to be that consumers were mostly restricted to buying whatever local brick and mortar stores were selling. For their part local retailers were forced to stock only those products that would sell to the local market. The Internet now makes it economically feasible to list and sell myriad different products without restriction. The curious thing that has developed is that markets now organize themselves around niches based on personal preferences, tastes and affinities but not usually locality.

So what does all this have to do with YOUR financial freedom?

Well, as I read The Long Tail it dawned on me that the journey to your financial freedom and mine can be greatly accelerated by employing the business model of sites such as iTunes and Amazon. Or, said another way, we should strive to recognize and cultivate a bevy of long tail products and services in our own businesses.

Here’s what I realized: Using print-on-demand services to write, publish and distribute books such as I teach at http://www.realfastbook.com and produce and distribute DVD’s such as I show in step-by-step detail at http://freewarescreencapture.com, you too can reap the benefits of the long tail in much the same way as the big online retailers do.

That is, you too can put out books, audio programs, DVD’s and other physical products that are manufactured on demand and drop-shipped to customers without inventory costs and little to no set-up fees.

As you add new products you will naturally start to reap the benefits of the long tail. That is, some of your products will sell better than others and some will be more profitable but the real key is THEY WILL ALL SELL. The idea is to put enough products into the pipe and then you’ll really start feeling the financial impact of income rolling in from multiple sources. In effect, each new product becomes another of YOUR financial assets.

And it gets even better because these products can be literally set-it-and-forget-it propositions.

What do I mean?

Let’s say you wanted to do a short historical book on the battleship "Aurora" which on the firing of its guns signaled the start of the Bolshevik revolution. (I only use this example because as I write these words I am sitting in port in St. Petersburg, Russia near where the battleship is still berthed on the Neva River.) Now with print-on-demand you could easily research, write, publish and internationally distribute through Amazon a short book on the subject.

Now here’s the cool thing: Once you have it listed on Amazon, it is henceforth and evermore FOR SALE. You won’t have to pay any fees to continue to list it and you won’t have to promote it or try to sell it because here’s the cincher: When you put a book or other product up on a major marketplace like Amazon, you put the product in the path of traffic. People interested in Bolshevik, Russian, or naval history find you and your product. Many will buy it, as well.

Once you have one product up, you simply rinse and repeat. That is, you put out other products. You keep stuffing the pipe with new product.

Now, if you really want to turbo-charge your success, you don’t just willy-nilly create products. You first figure out what the market wants or what is selling in the particular niche you’re interested in. Then, only after doing your due diligence and research, do you create your products. If you need help with this, I devote an info-packed lesson on determining what will sell before you write it in my http://www.realfastbook.com training.

Now to maximize the selling power of your long tail it is also better to create products that are related or at least of interest to the group who purchased your last product. Let me give you an example: I broke into this business with a very unique and useful product called Speak On Cruise Ships: 8 Easy Steps to a Lifetime of Free Luxury Cruises, a product that continues to sell quite well to this day. By inferential logic I knew a couple things about the group who purchased this product. I knew that they were interested in travel and public speaking. I further knew that there were a good many professional speakers, coaches, consultants, trainers and authors among my buyers. Thus, it was rather easy for me to determine what types of products they want. I simply do my level-best to offer high-quality info products that deliver on the promise of the title, but most of the products are somehow related.

Another big benefit to developing related products is you can cross-promote them within your other products. This will result in more sales. In effect, the more related products you have the larger the net you can cast.

Needless to say the content of all your products should be of the very best quality. That is, they should deliver on the promises of the title. This is the best way to keep your customers coming back for more.

But again I want to stress as you add more products you will see a similar graphical representation of your sales as the major online retailers. That is, some of your products will sell more frequently and some less, but the exceedingly encouraging thing is probabilities are high that they will all sell. That’s the long tail at work--at work for you.

In this way, you build assets for yourself and when you build enough of them you will start seeing a real difference in your bottom line and a quantum leap toward you financial independence. I know, I’ve seen it in my own business.



So the question remains, how does one self-publish lots of high-quality, highly profitable products? Fortunately, I have some solutions for you. If you want to see my number one secret for producing books lickety-split you should check out http://www.realfastbook.com. And, if you know how to produce high-perceived value DVD’s cheap and quickly, you should check out http://freewarescreencapture.com. Yes, these are both products in my long-tail. Now go get some in yours!

The Amazon POD Conundrum

Amazon.com is apparently now requiring POD authors and publishers (that is, those who are using print-on-demand technologies to produce their books) to work with Amazon's sister company BookSurge to provide books to Amazon's site.

Now, a lot of people and organizations are making a lot of hub-bub and fuss about this change in Amazon's policy, but personally I understand it. Amazon made a good argument for making the change. It really makes sense for them to print the books at their warehouses and to send them out from there rather than wait to get books from Lightning Source or other POD printers. By printing in-house, they can ship orders around the world more quickly and also make sure that the entire order goes out right away rather than being held up by waiting for the POD book to be produced.

Now, the one nasty in this equation is that BookSurge has a hefty set-up cost which really isn't justified. If Amazon really wants to make their argument fairly, they should be providing much lower fees to authors and publishers who have already set up their books for POD (via Lightning Source or another provider). I think a $20 to $30 set-up fee per book would be fair.

If Amazon had offered such a low fee for set-up, I expect they would have avoided all the charges of piracy, monopoly, scuzzy dealing, etc. being launched their way by various associations, bloggers, writers, etc. Perhaps they will still make that change.

But all the fuss, hub-bub, ado, to-do, noise is way beyond what's going on here. The people who say "Give Amazon an inch and they will take a mile next week." are really pushing the noise level too far. Just my opinion.

Much too fussy. Get some dogs. Walk them. Learn from them. I do that every day, and their wonder at life and joy for little things just make these Amazon hijinks seem so unimportant and the fuss about the hijinks even less important.

Poetry Books: Best Options

Question from reader: I'm 15 years old and love writing. It's my true passion. I write free verses, modern poetry. I was just looking for a good publisher. Could you please assist me through this? I really want to bring out new poetry to the audience, because people seem to have forgotten poetry and go for Harry Potter or other fiction genres. I really know I can do this, and will try my best. I'm still writing and have around 20 free verses by now, obviously I'll continue.

John's Answer: For poetry, a book only sells if an author actually goes out and does a lot of readings. Most poets don't want to do that but, if you do, you can be successful as a published poet, although you might have to self-publish.

You can easily self-publish your book -- and much more quickly than any publisher -- by using a print-on-demand service. See http://www.bookmarket.com/ondemand.htm for a great list of such services. Among others, you can try Infinity Publishing, Iuniverse, or Lulu.com.

Aim to publish a book of poems that's about 60 to 80 pages long. Once you publish your book of poems, you can sell the books at your poetry readings. Start by checking out your local library author programs, local bookstores, and places around your city that do open poetry readings. Most cities have anywhere from 5 to 10 open poetry nights around the city hosted by various venues (coffee houses, bars, comedy clubs, etc.).

Also, check out my story about an author that is selling lots of books -- poetry and a first novel -- on the subways of New York: http://openhorizons.blogspot.com/2007/04/ selling-books-on-nyc-subway_29.html. As a 15-year-old, of course, you'd want at least one of your parents along if you were to ride the subways of New York every day.