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Plug Your Book!

Online Book Marketing for Authors

Book Publicity through Social Networking

By Steve Weber

Advance buzz for Plug Your Book!

"I don't care if you're writing a computer book, a science fiction novel or the next great self-help guide, you need to get your hands on a copy of Steve Weber's _Plug Your Book! _ ... I highly recommend this one to every author out there."

-- Joe Wikert, executive publisher, John Wiley & Sons Inc., professional/trade division#

"An amazingly rich collection of cutting-edge promotional tactics and strategies. Makes most other books about online publicity look sickly."

-- Aaron Shepard, author: Aiming at Amazon#

"In-depth information about using Amazon as a marketing platform."

-- Christine McNeil Montano, Amazon Top Reviewer#

"...I have launched online campaigns for more than 1,000 books. I've worked with most of America's largest book publishers, helping many of them build online marketing departments. The book you're holding now is the new training manual."

-- Steve O'Keefe, author: Publicity on the Internet#

"Practical, pragmatic, low-cost ideas for promoting the heck out of your own book, whether it's fiction, nonfiction, technical, business or anything else."

-- Dave Taylor, author: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Growing Your Business with Google#

"The first comprehensive guide to Internet book publicity."

-- Morris Rosenthal, publisher, Foner Books#

"A wealth of ideas for making your book stand out, including many techniques for Internet buzz you won't find elsewhere."

-- Jane Corn, Amazon Top Reviewer Also by Steve Weber:

The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site

Sell on Amazon: A Guide to Amazon's Marketplace, Seller Central and Fulfillment by Amazon Programs

eBay 101: Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days

Plug Your Book!
Online Book Marketing for Authors
Book Publicity through Social Networking Weber Books Falls Church, Va. www.WeberBooks.com

By Steve Weber

Published by Stephen W. Weber

Printed in the United States of America

Weber Books www.WeberBooks.com

Author: Steve Weber

Editor: Julie Bird

13-digit ISBN: 978-0-9772406-1-6

10-digit ISBN: 0-9772406-1-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006909769

Authorship-- Marketing

Front cover photo: Copyright 2007 JupiterImages Corp.

Back cover photo: Sam Holden Photography

Contents

#Introduction#

Taking control of your book sales

One big caveat

How to use this book

Staying current

#Electric word of mouth#

Riding the big river

Amazon's 'long tail'

Getting recommended

Personalized bookstores

The wisdom of crowds

Bubbling to the top

Recommendation effectiveness

#Amazon Bestseller Campaigns#

Making the list

How Bestseller Campaigns work

... and this is success?

Haywired recommendations

Is it worth it?

#Amateur book reviews#

Credibility through peers

Getting more Amazon reviews

Amazon Top Reviewers

Contacting Top Reviewers

Etiquette in approaching reviewers

Finding more Amazon reviewers

More ways to get reviews

Amazon Spotlight Reviews

Negative reviews

Countering malicious reviews

Old-media book reviews

Posting trade reviews on Amazon

Fee-based book reviews

#Building your author Web site#

Getting involved

Your domain

Building blocks of your site

A survey of author Web sites

Your online press kit

Multimedia for books

Podcasting for publicity

Waiting for results

When to launch your site

#Blogging for authors#

What is a blog?

Why blogs are better

Breathing the blogosphere

Connecting with readers

Blog comments: pros and cons

Blog style

Your blog's angle

Raw materials for posts

Your blog's title

Writing your blog posts

Blogging categories

Over the long haul

Selecting your blog publishing tool

Advertising-supported blogs

Blog-to-e-mail service

#Author blog platforms up close#

Business

Humor

Politics

Arts and crafts

Diaries

Romance

Memoir

Mystery

Publishing

Blogs into books

#Blog tours#

Targeting host blogs

Google PageRank

Building your excerpt

Excerpts that sell

Your pitch to bloggers

Your guest appearance

Blog conversation

Archiving your results

Encore appearances

More resources

#Social networking#

MySpace: Not just for kids

Making friends on MySpace

Picking your 'Top 8'

Tips for working MySpace

Your MySpace blog

MySpace groups

Create your own group

Dedicated pages for titles, characters

MySpace books?

Uploading videos

MySpace best practices

Other places on MySpace

More social-networking sites

#Tag οΏ½ You're it!#

Personal book tagging

Amazon tags

Amazon Media Library

LibraryThing

Tag-based marketing

Problems with tags

#Advanced Amazon tools#

Buy X, Get Y

Weaknesses of BXGY

Free paired placement

Single New Product e-mails

Amazon Connect

Listmania

Publicize your book

So You'd Like to . . . guides

Search Inside the Book

Statistically Improbable Phrases

Writing book reviews

ProductWikis (Amapedia)

Customer discussions

BookSurge

Your Amazon profile

Amazon friends

Interesting people

Fine-tuning book recommendations

Pricing and discounting strategies

#Social search#

del.icio.us

Smart crowds

Vertical search

Amazon Search Suggestions

Digg

#Google, Amazon, digital content#

Google Book Search

Accidental book discovery

Instant Online Access

Ad-Supported Access

Google Print on Demand

Amazon Upgrade

Amazon's Mobipocket

Amazon digital audio

Amazon Pages

#Book promotion with e-books#

Amazon Shorts

Client acquisition

Selling e-books on your site

#Syndicating your content#

Article banks

How duplicate content backfires

Really Simple Syndication

BlogBurst

Traditional media interviews

Press releases

Protecting your content

#Beyond the blogosphere#

BookCrossing

Usenet, Google groups

Yahoo, AOL Groups

Getting buzz on eBay

#Revenue from your Web site#

Amazon Associates program

Barnes & Noble

CommissionJunction

eBay

Google AdSense, other advertising

#Pay-per-click advertising#

Google AdWords

Yahoo Search Marketing

#Power tools#

Amazon Sales Rank

TitleZ

Affiliate partnerships

Analyzing your traffic

Linking strategy

Search engine optimization

Keyword density

Length of your lease

Publishers Portal

Privacy policies

Web site cardinal sins

#Selling on Amazon, beyond#

Print on demand

Amazon Advantage

Amazon Marketplace

Catalog accuracy

Handling sales on your site

Google Checkout

#Other major online retailers#

Barnes & Noble

BookSense

#Ethics of online marketing#

Shill reviews

Spam

#Recommended reading#

Introduction

No matter what kind of book you have, its success depends on two things: It must tell a good story, and you must find an audience for it. Easier said than done, but you might take a page from master storyteller Hans Christian Andersen.

As legend has it, schoolchildren in Andersen's 19th-century Danish town played hooky from school just to hear him spin his tales. Each time he felt like telling another one, Andersen signaled his desire by flying his kite. When the kite rose, word spread quickly, and the crowd gathered.

Can it be that simple in today's world? Can the modern author build an audience solely through community word of mouth?

Yes, you can, and you don't even need to leave your backyard. Today's authors can launch their kites to potentially huge audiences by participating in Internet communities. The big difference is, your online community isn't limited to your neighborhood--it can span the globe if you invest in some string.

More than ever, authors and readers are networking, even collaborating on books as peers. With simple Internet tools, determined writers--even beginners working on obscure projects--can find their audience. Using online communities, authors can bond with readers intimately, inspiring deep loyalty.

Internet social networking has handed authors their most powerful tool since the invention of paper. In the Networked Age, the stock of gatekeepers is going down, and the power of authors and readers is soaring.

Word of mouth is the only thing that can make a book really successful. And this has always been the challenge: How can the author break through? Until recently, it usually required "pull"--connections with powerful allies in the publishing food chain. Today, creative writers can connect with readers directly. The only requirements are a link to the Internet and the will to plug in.

Taking control of your book sales

This year, 150,000 authors will finish their masterpiece, but most of them will be horribly disappointed with their sales--only about one-third of new titles sell more than 100 copies. Most books fail in the marketplace simply because they never had a chance: Nobody ever heard about them.

Traditional marketing and advertising is less effective than ever; people aren't paying attention to it. But _free _ advertising is alive and well. The catch is, you can't manufacture free advertising; you must get it the old-fashioned way--by earning it.

Now for the first time, authors and readers can ignite word of mouth using online communities to spread the word about good books. Anyone with the skills to write an e-mail can publicize their book worldwide, effectively and economically.

Internet publicity isn't the only way to promote your book, but it's a great way to start--it can open doors you never dreamed of. The real value of online publicity is that it endures, and spawns more publicity, the kind that can't be bought. More than ever, journalists and producers of radio and television programs use the Internet to find expert commentators and new story ideas.

One big caveat

Not every song is a hit, and not every ballplayer makes it to the Hall of Fame. Likewise, an online campaign won't make a bad book successful.

On the Internet, word of mouth is amplified and accelerated. Thanks to online communities, it's getting easier to sell good books, but it's getting harder to sell mediocre ones. Word gets around. For the strategies in this book to work, your book needs to be strong, because your best competitors are online, too.

Internet word of mouth depends on an educated consumer. You're asking the reader to help promote your book, and this requires a _very good _ book, according to your audience. _Bad _ word of mouth will hurt your sales. Online marketing only helps a bad book fail faster.

How to use this book

The beginning sections of this book explain the basics of online book promotion, techniques that provide the most bang for your effort. As we proceed, some of the methods will be more complicated, requiring more skill and resources. Perhaps not everything discussed here will be practical for your book.

Your job is to select which promotional techniques might work best with your audience, and then use them aggressively and tirelessly. Online publicity works particularly well with nonfiction, but can be applied to fiction, too. The more techniques you try, the better your chances of success. A single strategy won't work, but a combined effort will produce results, and the effect will be cumulative.

Many author Web sites are mentioned in this book. Take time to view these sites, instead of skimming ahead. Consider what you like and don't like about what other authors have done, and apply the best ideas to your own efforts.

This book is not a quick-fix plan; there is no such thing as overnight success. It might require a year or more of steady work to see appreciable results. If that seems like a gamble and lots of work, it is. But I assure you, it's nothing compared with what it took to write your book.

Read through this entire book once. Then read it again, selecting and prioritizing what you'll tackle first. Mark on a calendar when you'll start each phase of your plan. Then get to it. Evaluate your progress after three months. Determine what's been successful, and redouble your efforts there. Then try something new.

Your freedom to use all the techniques described here might depend on how your book was published. Self-published authors who own the ISBN and online rights for their book can promote it however they please. Trade-published authors should confer with their publisher's marketing department and get approval for their plans.

One more bit of housekeeping: Just in case anyone is curious, I have no personal

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