Promoting Your Book - A No BS Guide For Authors and Small Publishers

A good friend of mine, Stephanie Chandler, is holding a teleclass tomorrow entitled:

Build Your Online Marketing Plan for Authors

This class is based on methods in Stephanie Chandler’s newest book: The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform: Leveraging the Internet to Sell More Books.  Stephanie is a great resource and always over delivers …. if you want to get a ton of info about getting started - or advancing - your online marketing skills for book promotion at a very reasonable price, check out this event:

http://author-teleclass.eventbrite.com/

Blog Post Summary - The second part of my series of results from surveying people who spent the money to advertise in RTIR. Longer and more complete opinions than part 1

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My experience with RITR was good - I ran an ad for three months and ended up having approx 12 radio interviews. I am considering running more but my issue is time more than anything. I am a VP of Marketing and Communications at a major east coast firm and it simply takes the bulk of my time. I recommend them highly but realize that a certain % of your interviews will be with small stations or “internet talk radio”, which have small audiences. The experience gained was worth it for me as I now feel much more comfortable with the entire process.

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Over all I thought it was a good investment - there are a lot of people out there wanting your money to promote your book and RTIR was one that I actually got a lot of publicity through. Not sure if it broke even on profits through book sales but certainly got me a lot of radio interviews and even a local TV

That said, I got a much better response to some adverts than others. So my one bit of advice to you is not to let them push you in to an angle that you just don’t like or don’t resonate with and if you get say, a 4 month package, ask to have a new advert put in each month rather than having them run the same one over and over.

Also you will probably end up being told that Steve Harrisons Publicity summit is a great idea too. I went on it (spent a bundle) and got absolutely nothing for it so my advice on that one is to steer clear. It’s just not worth the price they charge.

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The answer is not Yes or No…the answer is: “it depends”. As a marketing and PR consultant to publishers and authors I can say that it has definitely been worth it in the past when we have represented big names like Ripley’s Believe it or Not! We had a great response with those ads. With our current ad, I would say the results are very modest in comparison.

If you do go ahead, make sure to utilize the assistance of their writers (they incude that service for free when you book an ad to help with the wording) - they know what tends to get attention and even though at times I felt their approach was a bit too “cheesy” - they know what works and what doesn’t.

More responses soon - sorry I have been off this blog for awhile. Been busy getting my speaking program going. All for now.

Mark

I am currently the Vice President of the Northern California Publishers and Authors association.  At our monthly meeting this weekend, the subject of traffic and websites came up.  I spent a couple of minutes answering the question but realized there must be a need for a more comprehensive answer.

I have seen this list (or variations of it) over the last few months.   It has some standard stuff but should be useful for other authors looking to promote and market their books through their websites

I have no idea who originated it or I would give them credit.  Que sera sera …

1. Write and submit articles to the article directories.

2. Leave comments on other people’s blogs with a backlink to your site.

3. Answer people’s questions on www.answers.yahoo.com.

4. Post in forums and have a link to your site in your signature.

5. Write a press release and submit it to www.PRWeb.com.

6. Advertise your website in the appropriate category on www.CraigsList.com.

7. Give an unbiased testimonial on a product/service that you have used in exchange for a backlink to your site.

8. Start a blog and submit it to the 100’s of free blog directories.

9. Manually submit your website to the major search engines.

10. Optimize each page of your website for a particular keyword or search phrase.

11. Add a link in your email signature to your website. It’s a free and easy way to get a little more traffic.

12. Make a custom 404 error page for your website redirecting people to your home page.

13. Use PPC search engine advertising.

14. Add a “bookmark this site” link to your webpages.

15. Have a tell-a-friend form on your site.

16. Send articles to ezine publishers that includes a link to your website.

17. Hold a crazy content and make it go viral.

18. Give away a freebie (ebook, report, e-course) to keep people coming back to your site.

19. Add an RSS feed to your blog.

20. Submit your site to any related niche directories on the net.

21. Participate in a banner or link exchange program.

22. Create a software program and give it away for free.

23. Purchase the misspellings or variations of your domain name, or those of your competitors.

24. Buy a domain name related to your niche that is already receiving traffic and forward it to your site.

25. Pass out business cards with your domain on them everywhere you go.

26. Start and affiliate program and let your affiliates send you visitors.

27. Start a page on social networking sites such as www.facebook.com.

28. Submit a viral video to www.YouTube.com

29. Conduct and publish surveys to your website.

30. Find joint venture partners that will send you traffic.

31. Start your own newsletter or ezine.

32. Use a autoresponder or email campaign to keep people coming back to your site.

33. Purchase ads on other sites.

34. Send a free copy of your product to other site owners in exchange for a product review.

35. Sell or place classified ads on www.eBay.com with a link to your site.

36. Post free classified ads on any of the sites that allow them with a link to your site.

37. Exchange reciprocal links with other related websites.

38. Network with other people at seminars or other live events.

39. Purchase advertising in popular newsletters or ezines.

40. Advertise on other product’s “thank you” pages.

41. Create a free ebook and list in on the “free ebook” sites.

42. Buy and use a memorable domain name.

43. Do something controversial.

44. Create an Amazon profile and submit reviews for books and other products that you have read.

45. Start a lens on www.Squidoo.com.

46. Use a traffic exchange (low quality traffic, but can sometimes be worthwhile).

47. Get referrals from similar but non-competing sites.

48. Create and sell a product with resell or giveaway rights and include a link to your site in it so others can pass it around for you.

49. Email your list. If you don’t have one, get one.  Soon.

50. Buy a pair of sandals; get your website engraved on the bottom and walk on the beach, stomp in the mud or play in the snow.

Blog Post Summary: The first of several posts on feedback I received from authors who have paid the money to advertise in RTIR. These are the straightforward one liners I received. More detailed responses will follow. Bottom line: decidedly more positives than negatives.

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This was my original email I sent out to approximately 45 individuals and/or their agents asking for feedback on their experience with RTIR as an effective medium for publicity and getting Radio and TV interviews for promoting your book:

Hi,

I saw your ad in a copy of Radio-TV Interview Report that I received as a part of their promo package to potential advertizers.

I just started the promotion campaign for my book (noted below) and am considering putting in an ad myself. I wanted to know if you were satified with the investment, results and the services you received with RTIR. Any kind of feedback would be useful in helping me with my decision. Yes/Good, No/Bad or any comments you would care to contribute would be appreciated.

Thanks and good luck with your own promotions,

–
Mark T. Rafter, Author
“The Wealth Manifesto:
Transforming Your Life from Survive to Thrive”

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These are the dozen or so brief responses that I got (some were very detailed and had great advice which I will start in with next time).

• YES!!!! RTIR Is great. Just make sure that you approve of your ad. I recommend it highly.
• I don’t know that I sold a lot of books as a result, but I did around 20-25 radio interviews as a result. I got on several national shows.
• It was absolutely worth it.
• It’s ok, not that great.
• Yes as far as radio goes it was quite effective
• I was generally satisfied, though it results in WAY more radio than TV bookings
• I personally did not think it was worth it.
• I ran ads for about 5 months. I had quite a few interviews that went well from one point of view but not ONE SALE of my book and just one inquiry re a speaking gig. Could have been me. For what it’s worth.
• I got a lot of radio interviews… And my film was not yet ready.. So hard to judge by sales… But by exposure, yes! Got a lot, and plan to advertise again when the companion book is ready…
• The first couple of months wasn’t that good. I had a total of 4-5 small station interviews. The last month we ended up doing about 15 radio interviews, although I sold very few books.
• The Investment at RTIR was great.I did 52 interviews from the 3 ads.
• It all depends on what you want to achieve with your ad. For me it was worth because of a few radio interviews I got. I didn’t get anything else than that.
• I think it is worth a shot or two so you can feel the waters
• You will get interviews. This effort alone will not give you success.
• RTIR was good for my project.

There you go … real results from real people. Alll for now.

Mark

PS - Hey, Steve Harrison … I’m giving YOU free publicity here for your magazine. How about you comp me a spot in RTIR for The Wealth Manifesto?

Hi, Mark T. Rafter here. I am an author and publisher of information products. I just finished my first book The Wealth Manifesto: Transforming Your Life from Survive to Thrive and am in the first phase of marketing and promotion.  Also in the beginning of planning my publishing empire.

So, I thought I would share. There is SO much info out there on what you should and could be doing to promote your book, I thought I would put something together that was a real guy (that’s me) actually implementing some subset of the advice that all the pundits are recommending.

I will pull no punches, not show favoritism, tell it like it is … like the title says … NO BS.

This is happening in real time. I have some catching up to do but I will be doing some kind of promotion activity nearly everyday and certainly multiple activities on many days. I will post it here for 2 reasons. One was already mentioned - I think it will be useful for people to see what one (reasonably resourceful) person is REALLY doing and the results that are achieved.  There are more ideas out there than any one person can do so I would love it too when people start commenting and adding their lessons learned to what I have experienced.

The other reason was that I found myself making tons of notes about who I sent books to, what I was waiting for from this person or that service. This was to know what I did this time so I could be repeating it for the next book (and the next and the next etc.)

I start with where I am now (what has been done, what I was thinking about during the last year when the book was written and the promotion begun.  Then I’ll do the individual things completed to date (I’ll catch up on that quickly) and then you will get the blow by blow … everyday in the trenches and what is really happening.

Hope you enjoy it.