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The key to a good newsletter list is simple really and the biggest piece of this is you’ve got to have something useful to say. While your friends and family might enjoy hearing about your latest book signing, people who happened onto your site and subscribed to your ezine might become bored with this information and unsubscribe. If you have a list or are considering starting one, consider these tips to get you going and help you maximize your newsletter.
Reprinted from “The Book Marketing Expert newsletter,” a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com
We’ve all heard this: capture email addresses on your website so you can market to them again. So we capture email addresses and then we wonder what to do with them. What if you don’t really have news? Do you mail the list anyway? How can I monetize my list and how much is too much?
We’ve had The Book Marketing Expert Newsletter for over eight years now and the newsletter, bursting in content, is one of the best promotional tools my company has. We’ve never done a single piece of advertisement for my firm, all of it has come from word of mouth, online, and our newsletter.
The key to a good newsletter list is simple really and the biggest piece of this is you’ve got to have something useful to say. While your friends and family might enjoy hearing about your latest book signing, people who happened onto your site and subscribed to your ezine might become bored with this information and unsubscribe. If you have a list or are considering starting one, consider these tips to get you going and help you maximize your newsletter.
1. Timing: How often you send the newsletter will really depend on your crowd but I don’t recommend anything less than once a month. I know some people who send a quarterly newsletter and that’s fine if you don’t really have much to say, but if you’re looking for content so you can send the newsletter more, then read on, I have some ideas and ways of maximizing the use of content for your newsletter.
2. Distribution: How will you send your newsletter? If your plan is to email it forget it unless you have less than 100 subscribers. Anything over that and you should consider using a service like Aweber or Constant Contact. These places will handle your subscribed and unsubscribes for you. If you start mailing to a list larger than 50 from your email service, you run the risk of getting shut down for spam.
3. Easy Opt In: Make it easy for people to sign up. Make sure there’s a sign up on your website, preferably the home page and then a mention of it again on your most popular page which, for most of us, is our blog. The opt-in will take new subscribers to your welcome page (which we’ll talk about in a minute) and handle sending your new readers right into the mailing list.
4. Ethical Bribe: So what will you give readers to get their email? It might not be enough just to tout that you have this fabulous newsletter, in fact often it isn’t. Having something that they’ll want, a key item, e-book, tip sheet whatever will entice readers to sign up for your newsletter. Here’s a hint: give them something they’ll have to keep referring to again and again so that your name and book stays in front of them.
5. Free: There are some folks in the industry who try to charge for their newsletter. Listen, I get it. A newsletter is a lot of work but if done properly, it is a key promotional tool and therefore, should be free. Magazines can charge for subscriptions, you can’t. Make it free. Don’t even put a value on it. I know folks who do this too. I think the value of the newsletter should be evident in its content, not in the price you chose to put on it.
6. Welcome pages: After someone signs up for your newsletter, what will they see? A simple thank you page on your website is a waste of an opportunity. Make sure there is a welcome page that shares their freebie (the ethical bribe) and tells them about one or two of your products. It’s also a great idea to offer a special on this welcome page as a “thank you” for signing up to your mailing list.
7. Check your facts: The quickest way to lose subscribers is to publish a newsletter full of factual mistakes. Do your fact and link checking prior to it going out. Seriously. It’s important not just to the credibility of your newsletter, but to you as well. I mean who wants to buy something from someone who can’t even be bothered to check their facts? Also, please get your newsletter edited. I’ve seen some newsletter with a disclaimer that they are unedited. If you aren’t an editor and can’t afford one, see if you can get it done for free and then blurb the person in your newsletter as a way to reciprocate. Remember, everything is your resume. Would you send a CV to a potential employer that was full of typos. I didn’t think so.
8. Promote: This is key because once you decide to do a newsletter you’ll want to promote it. You can do so by adding it to your signature line in email (sign up for my newsletter and get something), you should also never go to a book event without a signup sheet, and add your newsletter info to the byline of any article you write that gets syndicated online.
9. Collaborate: If you’re strapped for content and time, why not open up your newsletter to other collaborators? Our newsletter, The Book Marketing Expert, is a collaboration of a lot of voices. We have publishing tips, web site tips, social media tips, and the main article. It’s a great way to let others have a voice in your newsletter which helps to promote them and the best part of this is that if you have a collaborative newsletter you can all promote it to the different people you touch in your travels. This will help increase your sign up exponentially because you’re hitting that many more people. Your collaborators should be in the industry, but specializing in different areas. This will give your newsletter the flavor and interest it needs. Don’t worry about sharing your newsletter space with others, we’ve done it this way for years and it’s a great way to build lots of useful content.
10. Be generous: Give lots of good information. By giving away good information people will want to read it, when they read it you will build a readership and loyal following, not just for your newsletter but your books and products as well.
11. Balance: The key to a good newsletter that will not only get read, but passed along is balance. By this I mean balance giving with selling. My general rule of thumb is 95% helpful information and 5% selling, while that number may seem low trust me, this is a great balance and yes, you can offer specials, and offers to your readers but that’s the 5%.
12. Content creation: While it may seem daunting to have to write content for a newsletter every month or every two weeks, you can use and reuse this content because not everyone will find you in the same place. What I mean by this is that some folks will find you on your blog, others might find you on Twitter and still others will find you by searching online and happen on an article you’ve syndicated. Once I create content for The Book Marketing Expert Newsletter that content is then redistributed and reused in places like our blog, my Twitter account (@bookgal) our Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/bookmarketingame?ref=ts or on my page at The Huffington Pos thttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri. Use and reuse your content, though not too much. I generally will use my articles in one or two other places and that’s it, but the point is they can be used again.
The idea behind a good newsletter is one that not only brings your readers in but keeps them in. It’s the marketing funnel we marketing people love to talk about so much, once you get someone to sign up, stay on their radar screen with helpful content. Once you do, you’ll find not only loyal readers, but loyal buyers as well.
Let’s get an indoor gun range to make our children happy? Ergo, if they’re not happy, but rather frustrated, they still know how to handle guns, and one morning, when the frustration overflows, they go to college (or high school) to shoot fellow students and teachers?
The more you dig into the Demand Studios topic, the more dirt you find. For those who don’t know, Demand Studios offers “writing careers.” According to their website, “Demand Studios Empowers You to Take Control of Your Career – Work as much as you want, from wherever you want. Fill gaps between full-time jobs or work with us full-time – our freelance jobs are as flexible as you need them to be. If you are an experienced and passionate creator, we want you to join our team. We have more work than you can possibly handle, and we are growing every month. And though you can work from anywhere, it doesn’t mean you work alone. We have a team of editors and fellow freelancers to support you along the way.”
The plain truth is, working for Demand Studios represents the lowest level of journalism – if you can call it that. Their average writer works for less than minimum wage. For some it makes a living, but none of them seems really satisfied.
Anyways, this morning I checked my website statistics and noticed that I had received several hits from another website, DemandStudiosSucks.com – I had written about the topic before, and my post receives continuing attention. I was curious, so I checked the website out, and it was fun! Here is somebody who works for Demand Studios, doesn’t like the work, and runs an anonymous blog. His name is Patrick O’Doare, which seems to be a pseudonym, otherwise he would get fired immediately from his job with Demand Studios.
Let me quote from one of his entries, titled Title Clarification – How to Build an Indoor Gun Range: ”
The titles at Demand are all generated by a computer program. This program looks at what people are searching for on the web and then spits out a title for an article on that subject. This results in some rather humorous article titles (ie: The “How to Toss Someone’s Salad” incident). There’s a forum on the Demand Writers page where you can ask for clarifications regarding these titles. I’d just like to touch on some of these funny ones from time to time.
The one I stumbled across today was “How to Build an Indoor Gun Range”. Lord help us all if you’re setting about to build an indoor gun range and the first entry that you find in Google is the eHow article. In the forum, the writer for the article suggested that the title was a bit confusing, and instead suggested they focus on the aspects of building an indoor gun range – sound abatement, ventilation, bullet trap, safety features, etc.”
Feeling inspired, I did some research myself and found an article, How to Write a Grant Proposal for an Indoor Gun Range. One paragraph in the article made me almost choke, considering that I have three-year-old at home: “Emphasize the benefits an indoor gun range provides to the community. Always mention how the children in the area can benefit, as most people care about this a great deal. Shooting is an athletic event in, for example, the NCAA and the Olympic games, and acquiring the skill can help a young person go to college or learn dedication that will serve him in the future. Some people are scared of firearms, but an indoor gun range in the area usually has the opposite effect; once more people know how to shoot correctly, they are much safer around guns.”
Okay, let me get this right… Let’s get an indoor gun range to make our children happy? Ergo, if they’re not happy, but rather frustrated, they still know how to handle guns, and one morning, when the frustration overflows, they go to college (or high school) to shoot fellow students and teachers?
Yes, I can see how an indoor gun range can be beneficial for the community! And yes, this is the kind of stuff you can write for Demand Studios, empowering you to take control of your career.
Let me know what you think, whether you agree with me or not, by writing a response below. I’d like to hear from you!
Since I am having so much fun and success with maintaining my blog, why not post the progress on my newest novel on the world wide web? The best promotion for your first novel is the release of your second, and I didn’t have the patience to wait that long.
I note that you are putting together another masterwork, entitled American Male Prostitute. Might I suggest that you direct a little of that “research” towards yourself, and your own fantasy life?
- From a reader in Great Britain
For a short time after the release of my first novel The Bleeding Hills I felt like living in a mental vacuum. The work on the novel and researching the background information was intense, and that intensity vanished the day we submitted the finished work for distribution. It is said that the actual work comes when promoting your novel, and I engaged into a number of marketing activities, some of them not as effective as others. Nevertheless, I learned a lot about the market, for instance, by reading printed as well as online publications.
The idea for American Male Prostitute came after reading my favorite, most useless magazine, Writer’s Digest. Well, it is not totally useless, since it provided me with enough information to learn about the bizarre world of book publishing. Just the other day, I found yet another advertisement that made my blood broil, and I was ready to get my hands on that computer keyboard and add a flaming entry to my blog. Maybe, I thought, I’ll make this a series and share my experiences with every new, aspiring author.
To put it in a nut-shell, today’s publishing world is a shark tank. There is a great number of sharks out there, circling the waters, prying on the vast number of wannabe-authors who will never have a chance to sell their work, but are nevertheless naive enough to spend their money with useless services. It is a shame that a magazine such as Writer’s Digest is in the business to support these dubious businesses.
Through my research I found that the market for nonfiction on writing and publishing is cluttered ad nauseam. The majority of these works are – excuse my French – full of crap. Then I remembered the saying “Don’t anger me or I will write a novel about you”, and that is what I am currently doing. There is no better weapon than writing a novel about the industry. They deserve it.
Originally, I had in mind to publish American Male Prostitute as a regular paperback version, but during time I found that I was quite successful with promoting my personal website, FrogenYozurt.Com. I created FrogenYozurt initially to promote my first novel, The Bleeding Hills, but as it turned out, I had way too much fun writing about pretty much everything that interested me. According to my web statistics FrogenYozurt experiences continuously increasing web traffic, and that little fact encouraged me to go with a not-entirely-new idea of book promotion.
Since I am having so much fun and success with maintaining my blog, why not post the progress on my newest novel on the world wide web? The best promotion for your first novel is the release of your second, and I didn’t have the patience to wait that long. Promoting and selling your first novel is by far the toughest task in the business world, and the profit per sold book is ridiculous, not mentioning the virtually non-existing return of investment. Promoting my writing using an aggressive, yet very inexpensive method, and on top having so much fun doing it, seemed to be the logical consequence.
You can see the result at http://www.AmericanMaleProstitute.com, meaning you can read the novel free of charge. Please be aware that this is a work in progress. Instead of adding to and modifying my novel in Microsoft Word I will continue writing through WordPress – the technology behind the website. In addition I hope to receive feedback from other writers, wannabe-writers, or just regular readers. I am looking forward to a lively discussion with my readers.
Today’s writing and publishing world is shrugging off the old “exclusive-club” mentality, but it is, by any means, not a friendly place for an aspiring writer. As a matter of fact, the industry has turned into a shark tank. When I refer to “the industry” I mean, among other businesses, the traditional publishers, most of who are struggling these days, but they are not the actual problem. The “shark tank” is dominated by new startups in the industry, mostly vanity publishers, who produce significant profit without delivering the results they promise. It seems that scammers possess a much keener business sense than the traditional publishing businesses, and they are taking the better part of a multi-million Dollar business.
And How Corporate America Makes It A Billion Dollar Business
I have just finished a document that describes my view on the current writing and publishing industry (see bottom of this page for the download button). This document contains a series of entries from my blog at FrogenYozurt.com plus a few new ones. Please excuse that my comments sound a bit sarcastic at times, but I have been through the tiresome and frustrating process of writing, publishing, and promoting my first novel. I have learned the hard way that promoting a novel is one of the most difficult tasks in the business world. Add to this a great number of dubious businesses preying on the unsuspecting, aspiring writer.
Let me quote author TK Kenyon: “Writing, especially fiction writing, is a tough business to get into and a tougher one to stay in. Generally, neither authors nor publishers make a significant profit until an author’s fifth novel is published. Over 195,000 novels are published by traditional publishers in the U.S. every year. Of those, 70% sell fewer than 500 copies.”
Today’s writing and publishing world is shrugging off the old “exclusive-club” mentality, but it is, by any means, not a friendly place for an aspiring writer. As a matter of fact, the industry has turned into a shark tank. When I refer to “the industry” I mean, among other businesses, the traditional publishers, most of who are struggling these days, but they are not the actual problem. The “shark tank” is dominated by new startups in the industry, mostly vanity publishers, who produce significant profit without delivering the results they promise. It seems that scammers possess a much keener business sense than the traditional publishing businesses, and they are taking the better part of a multi-million Dollar business.
Unfortunately, too many writing sites and especially writers’ magazines (I exclude Poets & Writers specifically from this statement) are too busy spouting wonderful stories about the industry. They live from advertisement and a readership that is represented mostly by unsuccessful writers, the number one target for scammers. These days the best paying advertisers are primarily the previously mentioned vanity publishers, because – Duh! – they do have the means to purchase full page ad space.
In turn – to keep their advertisers happy – the magazines’ task is in motivating their readers to “hang on, because we are confident you will find success eventually.” They continue presenting the good in everything and everybody, and they give you the inspirational tour on a regular basis. My advice to everybody who believes in this motivational nonsense would be to start your own religious sect and call it… Writology. Go and worship yourselves. You’re good at that!
Yes, it is true; perseverance is imperative for the aspiring writer, but I question the reason to provide motivation. Their mission is not about helping writers, otherwise they would post warnings, which they – believe me – do not. It’s all about making profit. There is nothing wrong about making profit as long as you do it with professionalism and dignity, but today’s management is only about profit, profit, and profit without an iota of passion for their readership.
Everything you find in this document is based on my own experience with the writing and publishing world, and any statements made are based on my very personal opinion. I would like to emphasize that my writing is not based on anger, but keen observation of the industry. My narrow view is without a doubt not representative for the entire world of writing and publishing, but I am sure that many new writers had similar experiences.
Click the button to download the PDF file (Will open a new window).
Most of us aspiring writers sign up for Online forums, either to pitch new ideas and wait for feedback, or to ask for advice, but foremost to “build a platform.” “Building a platform” is based on a very basic principle: If nobody knows you, nobody will buy your books.
To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.
- Joan Klempner
Most of us aspiring writers sign up for Online forums, either to pitch new ideas and wait for feedback, or to ask for advice, but foremost to “build a platform.” “Building a platform” is based on a very basic principle: If nobody knows you, nobody will buy your books.
I always put the term “building a platform” in quotation marks, because, in my very personal opinion, there is a lot of nonsense connected with the idea, especially when it comes to forums. Yes, it is imperative for each new – and even the established – author to maintain a web site and create some attention for his/her work. But forums, with very few exceptions, have close to Absolute Null impact on a writer’s career. Nobody else but other aspiring writers will read your entries. After months of playing with various forums I have decided to cancel all but one of my accounts – I’ll keep the one at AuthorNation.com, because it’s actually fun being there (unless their server breaks down, which it does frequently).
But even on AuthorNation.com you will be pestered by what I call the “forum sharks.” Forum sharks “attack” each single new member and ask to be their Online friend, forcing them to read their – usually useless – blabbering about their books and other writings, may it be about infertility treatment, attracting money with your mind, new paths to riches, or even poems that don’t rhyme (Sorry, maybe I am just plain old-fashioned, but, in my world, good poetry rhymes).
You recognize the sharks by the vast number of “friends” they have, a number close to the total number of members on the forum. Their initial message is usually like “Welcome to the forum, and, by the way, please buy my newest novel…” They literally spend several hours a day to send their “friend requests” (without results that would justify the efforts, I may add – I checked them out).
Forum sharks usually do not participate in member communications, meaning they don’t read other members’ inquiries or offer advice, unless the forum is based solely on member communication. In the latter case, each newcomer will be greeted by a great number of members wishing you well in your efforts to become the next Hemingway, and while some of these greetings may be from the heart, most are designed not only to create readership, but foremost to place yet another hyperlink to their web site.
Again, we’re “building our platform,” and search engines love hyperlinks, and an increased number of hyperlinks will help increase awareness of your web site in the Internet community. Well…wrong! Any SEO (search engine optimization) expert will tell you that the mere number of hyperlinks doesn’t count when it comes from the same source, the same web site. Secondly, depending on how the forum is set up, search engines might not even be able to access member communications and thus not see the hyperlinks.
In another forum, that I signed up for and abandoned after a while, you could only insert hyperlinks into your posts after writing at least twenty-five entries. Ergo, some users invented the “word game.” I write an entry containing a single word, you respond with another, related word, I response with yet another, related word, and so on, and so on. Needless to say, but games like this one do not help to increase the quality of the Online forum, but the original purpose of the forum is not important to forum sharks.
Another forum categorizes you by the number of entries, starting at “New Member” (less than fifty entries) up to “Premium Member” (more than 500 entries). So, let’s get our hands at that computer keyboard and write something to improve our rank.
Then there are the semi-gods, members who either have participated for several years (and at the same time wasted their time writing literally thousands of entries), or they are real, accomplished authors. Some forums are sponsored by one of the sharks in the publishing industry, and some of them hire accomplished authors to “mentor” the newcomers. The advice they offer is, naturally, in line with their sponsor.
In my very personal opinion, the worst writers’ forum in the business is the one sponsored by Writer’s Digest, my favorite, most useless magazine. Writer’s Digest is specifically in the business of maintaining a dream world for aspiring, yet (hopefully) unsuccessful writers. Their Online forum, at the time when I signed up, was dominated by two elderly semi-gods, both with a reputation of a long writing career. At the same time, both were incredibly Internet-illiterate and, consequently, were opposed to radical ideas such as self-publishing. They wouldn’t offer any advice in that direction other than not to self-publish. I once dared to challenge their views, and their tone became increasingly aggressive, even insulting. In one post, one of these semi-gods stated that 99.9% of all aspiring writers – including myself – have no talent at all, which I thought was the wrong message to be sent to the forum’s members.
At another occasion (at another forum) I inquired regarding the effectiveness of paid review services for an author’s career, and one of the semi-gods blasted me for even posting such a ridiculous question. The last line in his entry was “Cut the crap!” His claim to fame was the publication of a Karate-Kid-replica novel that sold decently well on Amazon.com.
On a personal note, I was shocked by the lack of writing skills that far too many forum members, even the published authors among them, demonstrate in public, not necessarily in regards to style, but especially when it comes to the basics such as proper grammar and spelling. I don’t consider my own writing as perfect, but my excuse is that English is my second language.
My advice to the novice writer: First, browse the Internet for information, but avoid forums. Secondly, don’t buy books on writing; they’re just plain useless. Most importantly, read, read, read, and… read. Read Online newspapers, read Hemingway, or even Sarah Palin (Yikes!), everything works. This will be time well spent, and, if managed properly, will cost very little money.
Then, after all, write, write, write, and… write. Write about everything that comes to mind, especially topics you are passionate about. Put these writings on a blog. Continuous reading and writing will improve your writing style.
If you are talented and persevere, you will find success eventually. As a logical consequence, if you are not talented (nothing wrong with that), you will not find success. Online forums play no part in either scenario.
I just received the latest issue of my favorite most useless magazine, Writer’s Digest. Why I still receive it, I don’t know; I don’t keep track when my subscription ends, and it will hopefully end some time soon. It took me an annoying five minutes to page through the magazine to find there was nothing in there that would even remotely interest me.
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
- Sir Francis Burton
I just received the latest issue of my favorite most useless magazine, Writer’s Digest. Why I still receive it, I don’t know; I don’t keep track when my subscription ends, and it will hopefully end some time soon. It took me an annoying five minutes to page through the magazine to find there was nothing in there that would even remotely interest me. The only purpose I found in this publication was to investigate the fascinating, yet odd world of writing and publishing.
This last issue of Writer’s Digest, however, made me smile. It is a new year, and, accordingly, Writer’s Digest is taking the opportunity to initiate yet another motivational campaign for all those who are trying – unsuccessfully, I may add – to have their book published. Writer’s Digest’s motivational effort, however, is not a samaritan approach to help aspiring authors getting a book deal. Their business model is based on the assumption that there is a mind-staggering number of untalented writers out there – these times, more than ever – who are buying their magazine.
The equation is easy: No talent, no book deal. Ergo: If you give up, you won’t buy our magazine anymore. So, let’s step up the motivational efforts.
Accordingly, the articles in the February 2010 issue are titled Why Inspiration Matters, Essential of the Writing Life, Wake Up That Subconscious, and more of the same utter nonsense. Let me just add that I get inspiration and motivation every time I go to church, and I’d rather listen to our priest.
One article in particular, Why Inspiration Matters by Fred White, caught my attention, yet I have to admit I didn’t read it. However, the article’s seven reasons why inspiration matters caught my attention. They are:
1. Inspiration transforms us from creative readers to creative writers.
2. Inspiration heightens our senses.
3. Inspiration develops our understanding of human nature.
4. Inspiration improves our capacity for appreciating nature.
5. Inspiration helps us achieve mental discipline.
6. Inspiration intensifies our spiritual connection to our craft.
7. Inspiration reinforces our commitment to writing.
Wow! While I do not challenge Fred White’s conclusions, I am flabbergasted by the author’s intensity used to describe a simple matter like writing. In my child-like thinking, if you don’t feel inspired, if you are lacking mental discipline, or if you lack the commitment to writing, maybe writing isn’t your forte.
Maybe it’s just that I am the simple-minded guy. I go with James M. Berrie, who once said, “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.” If writing is work, and you need to read this inspirational nonsense to write your next novel or poem, maybe you shouldn’t be writing.
My advice to Writer’s Digest, and everybody who believes in this motivational nonsense, would be to start your own religious sect and call it… Writology. Go and worship yourselves. You’re good at that!
Please excuse my sarcasm, but I don’t believe in the nonsense that this magazine publishes on a regular basis. As I said, I am simple-minded. I just sit and write.
America: the only country in the world where failing to promote yourself is regarded as being arrogant.
- Garry Trudeau
1. You need a Blog!
Don’t even bother designing your own web site (you should be spending time writing your next novel) or even paying to have it designed. What you need is a blog! A blog allows [...]
America: the only country in the world where failing to promote yourself is regarded as being arrogant.
- Garry Trudeau
1. You need a Blog!
Don’t even bother designing your own web site (you should be spending time writing your next novel) or even paying to have it designed. What you need is a blog! A blog allows you write whatever you want and add pages to your web site without major hassles. And, after all, a blog is free!
There are a number of services proving free blogs, including Google. All you need is an internet connection and a browser. My personal recommendation is WordPress.com. Their web site templates are nothing short of amazing and you can select the one that fits your purposes best. You receive a lot more attention through their blog service than through your own web site, just due to the mere size of their web site.
Use the blog to shamelessly promote yourself and your work. Make sure you add pages on a regular basis to increase the size of your site. I cannot stress enough the importance of a web site with good content and a good (meaning: large) size. If you keep up extending your web site, the search engines will find you for sure.
2. Create an “Awareness Platform”
I put the term into quotation marks, because this is the term used in magazines and web sites that support the current antiquated publishing process. Their recommendations include, for instance, signing up at writers’ forums. Don’t be fooled! Forums do NOT help in any shape or form to increase your chance for a book deal. Don’t waste your time there! Forum entries do NOT create more traffic to your web site or blog.
The first step towards promoting your awareness platform is to create your own blog (as explained above). The blog will not increase your chances to get your book published, but it will help to promote your book.
If you are looking for credits, sign up for blogs that pay for content (e.g. today.com) or services looking for writers. There are more, similar service available on the Internet, and I personally haven’t made a lot of experiences with them, but I believe they help building your reputation as a writer.
3. Send press releases
There is a great number of press release services available through the Internet, some of them free-of-charge, some of them not. Here is a short list of services. Feel free to check them out, and search for more on the Internet.
http://www.prlog.com
http://www.openpr.com
http://www.free-press-release.com
http://www.prweb.com
4. Use Social Networks
Personally, I am not into the friend creating frenzy, but I did open a so-called “celebrity” account on facebook.com. This account also allows you to place advertisement on facebook.com. It works very similar to Google, meaning you pay per click, and you can determine your own budget. In addition, you can add facebook features to your web site/blog by adding a “fan box”, i.e. people can sign up as a fan. The vast advantage of facebook ads over Google ads is that you can select specific facebook user profiles, e.g. all users interested in historical fiction.
If you are using WordPress as you blog service, you can also add facebook features such as a “Share on Facebook” link.
In case you already have a facebook (or similar) account, use it shamelessly to promote your work.
5. Promote your blog/web site
There are other web sites where you can enter the web address and nature of your web site/blog. It does help to create more hyperlinks to your web site. Here is a short list, but feel free to search for more on the Internet.
http://www.contentpromote.com
http://www.digg.com
http://www.reddit.com
6. Do NOT use Google AdSense
It may sound strange, especially when you read what Google has to say about its advertisement offers, but you can spend a great amount of money on something that doesn’t pay off. I have been using AdSense for years, and it did increase the awareness of my web sites and products, but in the end I spent more money than I made through Google AdSense. There are several problems for the self-publisher. First, be aware that your ads may appear on thousands of web sites, but that some corrupt web site owners hire people from all over the world to click on the ads just to create revenue for the web site owner. Google has been increasing their activities to prevent this kind of scam, but I seriously doubt they got a good grip on it. I know of a business owner who spent roughly $1,500 per month on Google, but after two years decided to cancel them. There was no noticeable impact on his business, also due the fact that he used the money he saved to spruce up the web site. A good and extensive web site will always post you on the first page of Google search pages. The other problem is that you have to compete against the big names in the business. Always ask yourself the question how you can compete against Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc. The strength of the big guys is their extensive offer on almost every topic you can think of, but your strength is that you can elaborate on the same topic over pages and pages, meaning you provide more informational value.
7. The BIGGEST item of all: An Amazon.com listing
Maybe I should have placed this item on top, but I am continuously adding thoughts and ideas as they come to mind. I will not get into the topic of how to get your book listed on Amazon.com; I will address this in another article. For now let’s just say that you should check out the Amazon web site; look for setting up a seller account.
The importance of of an Amazon listing can not be emphasized enough! A listing on Amazon makes it impossible NOT to sell a book. There is a good reason why I personally promote Amazon over others like, for instance, Barnes & Noble. Amazon makes it very easy for the self-publisher to create a listing. You set up a seller account and as long as your book has an ISBN you can list it immediately. Barnes & Noble, for instance, just doesn’t get it. You can set up an account with them as well, but their application process is very cumbersome (e.g. you need to send them a hardcopy of the book so that they can approve it). Amazon also provides you a writer’s account that allows you to run a blog on the Amazon web site. The blog is directly attached to your book, meaning it will be attached to the listing.
