Book Marketing Blogs

We had a great show with host Penny Sansevieri and branding expert Liz Goodgold discussing the art of choosing the best book titles.

About our guest: Speaker and author Liz Goodgold is a fiery redhead with over 20 years of experience in marketing and branding. She is the author of RED FIRE BRANDING: Create a Hot Personal Brand and Have Customers for Life and DUH! Marketing.

Visit her at redfirebranding.com, follow her on Twitter, @lizgoodgold, or email Liz at liz@redfirebranding.com

Creating a great title is a combination of developing a great brand and a phenomenal subtitle, and informing your target audience what they are going to get by investing in your book. Pick a clear title that makes the benefits to the reader immediately evident. (more…)

Guest post by Aidan Lucid:

The following scenario is probably quite familiar to a lot of writers. You enter your favourite bookstore, browsing through the various books of your preferred genre and secretly you dream about that manuscript on your computer or gathering dust in the drawer at home, filling up the shelf space. Well, here’s my story of how my dream has become a reality and how yours can too.

It began back in early 2005. I was sitting home one day in my living-room and the image of the protagonist for my novel, Henry Simmons, garbed in golden armour and a red cloak fastened around his neck, entered my mind. I thought that this image was astounding and I commenced plotting out the first book, The Zargothian Tales: Return of the Son of Hamorin, which is part of a trilogy. Before I knew it, I had all the chapters mapped out and all that was left now was the daunting task of sitting down and writing the novel.

As I was approximately four chapters into The Zargothian Tales: Return of the Son of Hamorin, tragedy struck and I was knocked down by a car. The result was that I had a severely fractured right ankle and was wheelchair bound for seven months. Now, as with anyone in this rather unfavourable situation, the usual questions began to run through my mind: “Why did this happen to me?” “What did I do to deserve this?” The fear of never being able to walk again constantly hung over me like a dark cloud. Once these questions and worries had abated and a fortnight elapsed, I decided that instead of complaining and fretting, I should be grateful to be alive and that this accident granted me the opportunity to write my novel. (more…)

We’ve collected some of the top book marketing Tweets, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include setting the ideal ebook price, planning for a non-fiction book, authors promoting with Pinterest, and much more. Happy marketing!

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* Pinterest for Authors: How to Promote Your Writing on the Fastest Growing Website Ever

Pinterest is hot – it’s the fastest growing social media site – and it offers some great options for authors to promote their books. Here’s how:

http://workflowwriting.com/662432/pinterest-for-authors-how-to-promote-your-writing-on-the-fastest-growing-website-ever.php (more…)

Guest post by Jeff Rivera:

Character Appeal

Once you’ve compared your book to similar novels, you’re ready to take the next step in identifying your target audience. This step should be simple since it’s something that only you, the author, would know.

Take a look at the main character of your novel. Who are they? What do they look like? How old are they? What job do they have? Are they gay or straight? Even if they’re alien, who would they be if they were human living in our time?

That’s exactly who you should go after. If the reader can identify with the main character, they’re more likely to like the novel and tell all their friends, which is exactly what you want.  That is your target market, but there’s still one last step you need to take.

Who’s Looking for Your Novel?

Target (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now that you’ve reviewed the target markets of novels similar to yours, and you have a solid idea of what kind of person your main character relates to, you’re ready to take the third and final step in identifying your target audience. (more…)

Welcome to the May 7, 2012 edition of tips and tricks for writers and authors – our first Blog Carnival! We will run the carnival every Monday, featuring inspiring and informative articles to help you on your writing and marketing journey.

Laura Dawson presents Conquer Headlines and Shine! posted at Design Quotes Digital Marketing Blog ~ Design Quotes Blog ~ Digital Marketing Blog, saying, “Writing great content is enough of a challenge in itself, without the possibility that it may not even be read – all because your headline sucks. Learn how to put a new spin on old headline formulas.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of tips and tricks for writers and authors using our carnival submission form - we’re already getting submissions for next week! Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Are you ready to learn how to sell more books? What are the strategies you need to be more successful? In this video we walk you through how to make the most of your online work to maximize book sales!

How to Sell More Books!

We had a great show with host Penny Sansevieri discussing how to get great media coverage with special guest Liz Goodgold.

About our guest: Speaker and author Liz Goodgold is a fiery redhead with over 20 years of experience in marketing and branding. She is the author of RED FIRE BRANDING: Create a Hot Personal Brand and Have Customers for Life and DUH! Marketing.

Liz is a practicing “branding guru” having worked for such major clients as the World Trade Centers, Sharp HealthCare, Quaker Oats, Pfizer, and Univision, so that she knows what works and what doesn’t.

An often quoted expert, Liz has appeared in over 500 media outlets including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

Visit her at http://www.redfirebranding.com/content/, follow her on Twitter, @lizgoodgold, or email Liz at liz@redfirebranding.com

How did you learn about PR and get covered?

Liz had to learn it on her own… and she started the easy way by responding to reporter queries. There are free services including HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and Reporter Connection. Instead of trying to pitch the media you respond to what they need. It’s a case of the early bird catches the worm.

Learn more about media pitching and leads from two of Penny’s Huffington Post blogs:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/thirty-ways-to-make-yours_b_901089.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/maximizing-media-leads_b_748574.html (more…)

We’re rounding up some of the best book marketing Tweets from the past week, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include a search engine for writers, how to craft retweetable tweets, tools for Pinterest, and much more. Happy marketing!

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* A Search Engine for Writers

Ever heard of Writer’s Knowledge Base? Check it out:

http://booksbywomen.org/a-search-engine-for-writers-by-elizabeth-s-craig/ (more…)

Guest post by Jeff Rivera:

Stop Marketing!

I want you to completely throw the word “marketing” out the door.  That’s not what we’re doing here. What we’re doing is something that is a new way to do something old, but something that works more effectively than tweeting all day. In fact, it’s something that your grandparents might have taught you and their grandparents before them.

What you’re going to be doing is BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS! By this I mean treating people like normal human beings. Building lasting relationships with people is not only paramount to your success; it’s also a skill that can be developed online. But before we start that, there’s something you need to do. (more…)

Now that the Facebook changes have gone into effect, let’s take a look at how you can maximize the “new” Facebook Pages. Back with us again is Amy Porterfield who will step us through some of the creative ways to boost your exposure and your page on Facebook.

The apps that now appear on your Facebook Page can be used in all sorts of ways. You can use them in some pretty great ways but it will be important to make sure that the thumbnails associated with them are coordinated in colors and look. You can have fun with these, but I’d recommend keeping an eye on your branding because these show up on the top of your page and are very visible.

Amy, now that we know we can use these fun applications, what are some marketing tips that folks can use to make the most of these?

Well, you can and should rename your applications. When you do, make sure there’s a clear call to action, especially since the default welcome tabs have gone away, you can really use these to maximize your impact and get folks to sign up or whatever it is that you want them to do. You can also move these applications around.

So, how do you upload a custom thumbnail? 

The first thing you want to do is collapse all of your applications so they all show up.  And then, hover over the right corner of any of your applications and you’ll get that little edit pencil that popped up when you moved the boxes around.  Next, you’ll get the drop down and you want to click on Edit Settings.  Once you click on Edit Settings a box will pop-up here and you can add or remove the application, you can change the thumbnail image and you can name your application; like I said, put in a really good call to action – Enroll Now, Sign Up Here, Listen, or Watch or whatever you want to do. (more…)