| Promoting
Books @ The Speed of Thought
Dan Poynter
Publishing
is changing—for the better. There is a New Model
for book
writing, producing, selling and promoting. One part of this revolutionary
change is in book promoting.
Here are several ways to use new technology to promote your book faster,
easier and cheaper.
Broadcast email, done properly, is not spam. Book announcements
should only be sent to existing customers, potential customers on opt-in
lists and targeted members of the press. Most of these people are in
your
personal address book. Match your offer to those who have already
expressed an interest in this type of information.
Make your publishing company Web-site centric. Put your book and all
your basic promotion documents on your site and print from the site
when you need hard copies. Don't maintain a stock of dealer bulletins
and news releases in your office. Keep the masters in your cyber
pressroom and retrieve them when required. For an example of a
pressroom, see
http://parapub.com/getpage.cfm?file=pressroom/pressroom.html
If you speak on the subject of your book, set up a speaking sub-site
with all the information on what you can do. Post your speech descriptions,
client list, fee schedule, facilities forms, speaking calendar, audio/video
clips, etc. Replace your press kits; avoid printing and mailing. For
an example of a speaking sub-site, see
http://parapub.com/getpage.cfm?file=/speaking/index.html
Help the information-seeking potential customer to make a buying
decision. Give enough information on the book. Provide the same
shopping experience they have in a store. If you are publishing fiction,
put the first chapter on your site as a free read. The first chapter
in a
creative work will give the reader a taste and is designed to keep the
buyer reading. If your work is nonfiction, provide the first page or
so of
each chapter to give the browser an idea of what is in the book. If you
need help setting up your web site on this model, contact Mary
Westheimer at http://www.BookZone.com.
BookZone hosts the websites for some 3,500 book publishers.
For the media, put the entire book in a unique address section (URL)
along with your promotional materials. Email a pitch letter to the editors
and reviewers and invite them to your web site to see your book, and
media kit: bio, testimonials, news releases, etc. Tell them what is in
the“
media kit” and remind them they will save time because they do
not
have to retype the material. Let them read the book free online. Capture
the reviewer’s address when they log on. Add the reviewer to
your list
and notify them directly when you are promoting your next book. The
mission is to design an online media kit that is so useful, the reviewers
will flock to use it. And, self-service will save you a lot of time and
money.
Publishers Weekly and USA Today recently reviewed their first
eGalleys. Invite reviewers to your site and offer to send an eGalley.
Promotion @
the speed of email is the wave of the future.
Do the reviewers want eGalleys? PW, for example, receives over 100
galleys each day. They select a handful and the rest go to a holding
room.
Periodically, someone comes to clean out the room. EGalleys avoid this
solid-waste disposal challenge.
Subsidiary rights. Send an email to editors of newsletters,
magazines and ezines and offer them the opportunity to excerpt parts
of your book
free. Ask them to include source, copyright and ordering information
at
the end of the excerpt.
To find the email addresses for magazines and newsletters, see
http://parapub.com/getpage.cfm?file=/bookprom.html
Email promotions can result in slightly fewer responses than traditional
mailings and follow-up telephone calls. But the costs in time and
money
are far less and the responses begin immediately.
Foreign Rights. Use email to ask foreign publishers
if they would like to
buy subsidiary rights and translate your book into their language.
Send
publishers directly to a rights section on your Web site. That section
will
provide a complete book, author bio, testimonials, cover image, news
releases, back cover sales copy and other promotional materials.
Capture
their address when they log on. Then follow up with email.
For foreign publisher email addresses, see International Literary
Market
Place. It lists publishers outside North America by country. Start
with the
major language groups: Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. Select
publishers that publish in your subject area. If you can’t find
many,
email the national publishing association for that particular country,
describe your book and ask for suggested matching publishers.
See the RightsCenter at http://www.rightscenter.com and PMA’s
Foreign
Rights Virtual Book Fair at
http://pma-online.org/pmafair/index.cfm .
Use every means possible to send people to your site. List your URL
in
ads, your .sig, and anywhere you might ordinarily leave your telephone
number.
Replace expensive four-color brochures with less expensive business
cards. Your card should have a photograph of the book’s cover,
your
usual contact information and a list of all the resources that can
be
found on your Web site. Use the cards to drive traffic to your web
site.
For great prices on cards, see http://www.MWMdexter.com
Related Web Sites. Surf the Web for sites related to the subject
of your
book. When you find one that matches, contact the owner and suggest
a
dealership. Get as many outlets as possible to sell your book.
Newsgroups. Take part in newsgroups related to your book’s subject.
Answer questions and become known as an expert on your subject. For
a
list of newsgroups, see Groups at http://www.excite.com http://www.YahooGroups.com and http://www.deja.com.
Promotion services. Do not hire the spammers who flood your email
box with offers to promote your site or product. Doing so will cost
you a
lot of money, incur the wrath of potential customers and will encourage
more spam.
Direct Contact Media Services will send out your news release to
carefully selected media via fax and email. Paul Krupin will rewrite
your
news release to make it more useful to the media. He will send the
announcement to 1,500 to 2,500 targeted print, radio and TV outlets.
1500 one-page releases cost $300. Contact him at dircon@owt.com and
see http://www.book-publicity.com .
For more ideas on promoting books online, see U-Publish.com by Dan
Poynter and Danny O. Snow. See http://www.u-publish.com .
New computer programs, new printing processes and the Web are
transforming the writing, producing, disseminating and promoting
of
information. Books will never be the same. The winners are author,
publishers and readers.
In the future, nonfiction book publishing will see minimized inventories
and maximized relationships between authors and customers (readers).
Publishing will become customer-centric and “books” will
thrive on
uniqueness, customization and variety. Book writing, publishing,
selling
and promoting are changing—for the better.
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