Book Marketing Blogs

Guest post by Lea Ryan:

What is surrealism exactly? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as: principles, ideals or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film or literature.

I took a lot of art classes throughout elementary and high school. My favorite art almost always involved surrealism, the works of Salvador Dali, in particular.

Fantastic imagery never fails to pull my attention, whether it’s a painting, movie or a book. Surrealism is like being pulled into someone else’s dream, especially in the case of reading a novel. The further “out there” the imagery goes, the longer it stays with me.

The painting described in Rose Madder and the in-between  dimensions of Gaiman’s American Gods, the transformation of the world in Koontz’s The Taking and King’s The Mist, the twisting of reality makes for compelling reading, especially when that twist involves a hefty dose of danger. (more…)

Remember the days of being in high school and wanting to hang with all the cool kids? Well, maybe you were one of the “cool kids;” if you were, lucky you. But if you are like most of us, you really weren’t. These days marketing is sort of like being back in high school, but it’s a popularity contest that’s skewed a bit differently. Marketing, to a large degree, is about social proof. But now more than ever there are numerous ways to track the success of the company, individual, or product so it’s important to look at how influential you are in those areas.

I’ve had folks in the media tell me that they prefer to have people on their show or in their publication who have a lot of fans, friends, or followers on one or more of the major social media sites. In other words, you could have a fantastic message, a great product, or fantastic business but you still might face an uphill climb if your social media numbers are low. It’s a sad but true statement in our society, and everyone’s marketing plan should include increasing your social proof. (more…)

Here’s a look at some of the best book marketing Tweets from the past week, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include improving your Facebook Page fan engagement, promoting your book with social media, using Twitter for business, avoiding social media overload, and much more. Happy marketing!

**************

* Avoid Social Media Overload: 4 Steps to Take Today

http://ragan.com/Main/Articles/44454.aspx (more…)

Guest post by Steve Moore:

The media has become fixated on spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs boson (the so-called “God particle,” a name that would surely make Mr. Higgs cringe).  The Higgs mechanism (i.e. the spontaneous symmetry breaking) is necessary to give mass to some of the vector bosons in the electroweak or weak and electromagnetic interaction theory.  Forgotten in all this media hoopla is the theory that led to the idea of quarks and gluons, the Eightfold Way of symmetries popularized by Mr. Gell-Mann.  (Note that I refrain from using the term “discovered.”  In theoretical physics, the math is “out there.”  You just have to figure out what math matches up to the experimental data.  Experimental physics is where “discoveries” are made.)

Now that I’ve had some fun imagining your eyes glazing over as if you’d just had tequila mixed with sleeping pills, let me say that this post is not about physics.  (My eyes are glazed too, because the above is hardcore physics and I’ve been sipping my Jameson’s while writing like a madman.)  The Eightfold Way I consider here is the shining path that leads you to a finished novel that someone might want to read. It’s my distillation of rules for writing a novel—a distillation that is not the quality of a fine Irish whiskey, but I’ve put some thought to it and would like to share (I’d like to share the Jameson’s too, but the internet hasn’t discovered e-drinking yet). (more…)

With all the talk of Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+, it’s easy to forget some of the good, tried-and-true marketing tactics. For instance, the autoresponder. I started using autoresponders about eight years ago, and since then it’s become a consistent part of our marketing.

Image via CrunchBase

While autoresponders may not be as sexy as some of the new social media, it’s a method of marketing that should not be overlooked. Here’s why. We get flooded with information via text messages, Twitter tweets, or Facebook status updates – the information is endless. We don’t often retain what we read or hear just once. That’s why there is the “marketing rule of seven,” in other words it takes seven impressions to your book, message, or product for your consumer to take notice. Certainly it’s conceivable that you could manually send out email messages to your customer base. But if you’re trying to run a business, create a product, write new books, and all of the other things that fill your day, this really isn’t very reasonable. (more…)

We have rounded up some of the most informative book marketing Tweets from the past week, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include marketing with Pinterest, creating the ideal About page, sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, maximizing your publicity campaign, and much more. Happy marketing!

**************

* A Book Publicity Campaign is Only as Good as the Author’s Responsiveness

http://www.sellingbooks.com/book-publicity-authors-responsiveness/ (more…)

We had a great show with Arielle Ford, author and publicist, who discussed her latest book as well as what she did to market this book (compared to past books).

The show opened with some industry news from hosts Penny Sansevieri and Paula Krapf.

A lot of publishing news these days is tied to the letter “A” for Amazon. On Feb. 13, author J.A. Konrath wrote a post titled “Amazon Will Destroy You” for his blog, A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. He noted that Amazon is focused on the future – 2018 to be exact. Meanwhile, in his opinion, the New York publishing industry has not changed and is not competitive. Konrath feels the traditional publishing industry has been too slow – too slow to adapt to the Internet, to sell books through their sites, etc. He concluded: “Amazon is going to destroy the Big 6, destroy bookstores, destroy 95% of all agents, destroy distributors (Ingram, Baker & Taylor), and revolutionize the publishing industry by becoming the dominant force.” You can read the entire blog post here: (more…)

Building a media list is often tricky. Traditionally PR firms spend a lot of money on yearly subscriptions to online databases that give them access to every media contact in the US and sometimes the world. As a business owner, speaker or author you don’t need to have that big of a media list, you just need a strong set of contacts that you can go to when you have a news item, a launch, or an interesting story to tell.

• Start early: This process, while it will save you money, will take you anywhere from three to six months to pull a good list together. The longer you work this process, the more comprehensive a list you will develop. (more…)

Here’s a roundup of some of the best book marketing Tweets from the past week, courtesy of bloggers, marketers, authors and others. The topics include getting the most out of Pinterest, pros and cons of social medial for authors, marketing your business with ebooks, and much more. Happy marketing!

**************

* 10 Tips on Using Pinterest for Your Business

Pinterest has more than 10 million members. Learn how to make this social networking site work for you:

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/01/20/10-tips-to-get-the-most-out-of-pinterest-for-your-business/ (more…)

These days it seems everyone is after “social proof,” that elusive number of Likes or Followers that will make you seem part of the “in crowd.” Unfortunately getting someone to like you is only half the battle, you must now get them to stay “in like” with you.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Studies show that the expectation of content does vary by age, but the direction is still the same: it’s more than just getting someone to “Like” your page, you now must learn how to keep them. With all the social media options out there it’s critical to not just build numbers, but maintain them, too. In order to do this, it’s important to know what users want and when they want to see you post new content.

Image via CrunchBase

As I pointed out earlier, content expectations vary by age. For example, Facebook users between the ages of 18-26 have the lowest expectations of receiving something in exchange for their “Like” endorsement. When you go up the next rung, ages 27 to 34, they are more likely to expect something solid delivered in a Facebook update. But the users with the highest expectations, and those you are likely serving, is the 35-51 age group. This is also the group most likely to unlike a brand if it fails to meet expectations. (more…)