Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers

When it comes to book marketing...where should you start?

I am a new author--okay, three months published--and would like to hear from others what kind of marketing they are doing for their books. I have found many "Experts" who have promised to help me with my promotions and marketing of my book only to find out they are also authors, many of whom haven't sold any books, just trying to recoup some cash they layed out. What makes a person an "expert?" Can anyone call themselves that?
I am a very positive person, but am getting a little skeptical about the book business and some of the people in it. I was told that "YOU must have a book trailer" by numerous people, then did a little investigating and found out the averge one gets seen only 65 times. Why spend over $1000 for this type of return. Press releases, media kits, postcards, bookmarks, etc...more and more cash outlay. Everyone wants to start out with a big bang...what is wrong with starting small and gaining momentum as you go?
Are there any "real" marketers and promoters that can help build a book buzz without a person going broke? Is there a better way to start? How long should a marketing plan last for? What are some of the newer ideas that are out there?
Please let me know your thoughts and your experiences in this area.
Let's walk this journey together!

1 member likes this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sandra Kitchen on October 25, 2009 at 3:02pm

I am not a professional by any means, but one of the best ways to get exposure for anything on the Internet where many people will hear about your book is in blogs. The blog here is good to post in and one at Wordpress or Tblogger, if you post in it several times weekly or daily will get exposure as long as you keep it interesting. There is also Twitter, which gets a lot of exposure.

Like I said I am not an expert of any kind, but I hope this gives you some avenues to explore.

Permalink Reply by Philip Nork on October 26, 2009 at 9:23pm

Thanks Sandra for the info on the blog here...I do have my own at www.philipnork.com but just used the one here for a post. I use both Twitter and Facebook regularly and have a nice following on both. In fact on Facebook I have a page dedicated to my book. Come and see about it!Thanks again for the help...keep in touch!

Permalink Reply by Kay Elizabeth on December 15, 2009 at 12:50am

Philip, sorry for missing this post before. This book trailer idea is a relatively new one. I had my suspicions it wouldn't be that effective although I like the idea. The price is steep indeed! I didn't know that.

$1000 would be better spent advertising the book in popular niche related forums or websites. While it's not a new idea, far less than $1000 would buy you more than 65 views of your ad if you choose a forum or site that has quality content and over a thousand visitors a day for example. There are no guarantees that they would click it of course. The odds are much higher in your favor though when 1000 people see the ad in one day compared to 65 over goodness knows how long.

Permalink Reply by David Bowman on December 27, 2009 at 10:20pm

I'll share one bit of advice that a book promotions expert (and sometime colleague) shared with me: Video book talks. They are simple and easy to prepare at home, upload to YouTube, and embed in your own site. They give the viewer a chance to "meet the author" and learn more about the book.

We have done this with our books, and so far, I'm pleased with the results in terms of book sales, pleased enough that I'll keep doing it.

One advantage, other than the buyer's ability to connect personally with the author, is that they are easy to replace. For example, our first book talk (in 5 parts, nonetheless), is...um...let's just say that it is ready to be replaced. The talk is decent, but I need to think a bit more carefully about what I'm going to say and how I want people to respond. If you need a good chuckle, you can see the videos here: http://hostileediting.com

Good luck with your new book! I look forward to reading about strategies that have worked for you.

Permalink Reply by scribbler on December 29, 2009 at 5:06am

Great suggestion. Videos by the author help us feel a connection to them as well. There's more video sites you can submit them to if you can see beyond YouTube alone. FridayTrafficReport has a list of the busiest free video sharing sites on the web.

Video Sites Top 50

David Bowman said:

I'll share one bit of advice that a book promotions expert (and sometime colleague) shared with me: Video book talks. They are simple and easy to prepare at home, upload to YouTube, and embed in your own site. They give the viewer a chance to "meet the author" and learn more about the book.

We have done this with our books, and so far, I'm pleased with the results in terms of book sales, pleased enough that I'll keep doing it.

One advantage, other than the buyer's ability to connect personally with the author, is that they are easy to replace. For example, our first book talk (in 5 parts, nonetheless), is...um...let's just say that it is ready to be replaced. The talk is decent, but I need to think a bit more carefully about what I'm going to say and how I want people to respond. If you need a good chuckle, you can see the videos here: http://hostileediting.com

Good luck with your new book! I look forward to reading about strategies that have worked for you.

Permalink Reply by Francesca Cassini on February 25, 2011 at 4:33pm

Hi Philip

It is a minefield out there for marketing and what works for one author may not work for another. I am not an author, I offer video content - by interviewing authors or creating trailers. I know that video is supposed to be the number 1 way of attracting search engines now that google owns youtube, so I recommend setting up your own youtube channel and embedding videos on to your website and blog - this way you have videos in several places and you can post them on facebook and twitter. It's easy enough to create videos - maybe even do a video blog, which you should be able to do on your own computer.

Most authors I work with don't do much with their videos - you need to get active, otherwise you will only receive a few hundred views per video. In my experience though a good video should keep attracting views even if its only a few a week. Having said that my most recent author has had phenomenal success with his videos...

He has an opinion and message in his novel which is controversial, and that always helps to get views and conversations going. Every time we make a video 'live' on his youtube channel he finds another video on youtube which has a lot of current popularity and relevance to his video and then adds his own as a 'video response'. This is done just as if you were to add a comment. Videos stay high up on the youtube page of the other persons video and can potentially attract a lot of new viewers to your own video....often resulting in new subscribers. In fact Tony Stephens has accumulated over 40,000 video views for 5 videos in less than 2 months and his book is not going to be published till next month! Now he has an interested audience.

You can see Tony's youtube channel and views here: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAnthonyStephens

Not every author fares so well, but it shows what can be done with a bit of thought and time.

Good luck with your marketing Philip.

RSS