Sunday, August 14, 2011

Tips On Selling Your Book - FFW

For the Fantastic Friday Writiers, the topic is marketing tips...

I  subscribe to a newsletter put out by Smith Publicity.  Sometimes I come across information I'd like to share.  Please note that all credit goes to Sandy Diaz, President of Smith Publicity, Inc. for writing this post.


Five Book Publicity Tips
by Sandy Diaz, President, Smith Publicity, Inc.

Now is the time to begin thinking about your book as a potential holiday gift. Magazine Gift Guide editors often “close” their search for books to include in their lists at the end of August/early September. If you are promoting your book on your own, research top magazine outlets you think have readers who would purchase your book as a gift. For example, if your book is about fly fishing, hitting women’s interest outlets is the way to go. Send a brief email with bullet points explaining why your book should be included. Offer to follow up with a copy of the book!

Summer Book Promotion. Summer can be a great time to promote a book simply because there is less competition compared to the volume of September and January book launches. While some national television shows go on a summer filming hiatus, producers at local, regional and some national outlets have time slots that need to be filled; newspaper and magazine editors must provide new content to their readers; bloggers still regularly blog; wire services still circulate articles, etc. Summer is a great time to build media credentials for you and your book and to increase your chances of soliciting national attention, come Fall.

Promote your books on Google for free. According to Google, you will sell a lot more books if a lot more people knew about them and they can help make that happen. Here are the instructions for adding your book(s) to Google Books, http://books.google.com/support/partner/bin/answer.py?answer=106169

Selling books on your website. We strongly recommend having a link to purchase your book on every page of your website—with as many options for the reader (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) as possible.  If your book is a candidate for bulk sales, let viewers know you offer volume discounts and the best way to contact you.

Book Awards. Book awards are a great way to boost credibility for your book. Here are some links to explore for submission:
http://www.independentpublisher.com/ipland/LearnMore.php
http://www.usabooknews.com/
http://800ceoread.com/

http://www.ibpa-online.org/pubresources/benfrank.aspx

http://www.bookspot.com/awards/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_awards




I hope you find this information helpful in your ongoing marketing strategy.


Check out the other Fantastic Friday Writers’ blogs!


3 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Ties in with our Fantastic Friday Writers post!

Anonymous said...

Excellent suggestions - thank you so much for sharing.

anthony stemke said...

Glad to read these tips, Thank You.