What’s More Important: Author Websites or Social Media?
Social media is widely considered necessary by authors and publishers for book marketing. But is it as important as an optimized author website?
Category Archives: Marketing & Promotion
MailChimp Alternatives for Authors
Is MailChimp the best choice for your email newsletter? Here’s a breakdown of the pros & cons of the three biggest email service providers that authors use.
How Time Zone Differences Affect Your Book Marketing
Do you know what time it is in Mumbai, India? Knowing time differences in the countries where you sell books is key to social media engagement, and ultimately sales.
Using Amazon Ads to Sell a YA Novel: A Detailed Analysis
While Amazon sponsored ads haven’t been a marketing miracle, I also haven’t lost that much money—and copies of my YA novel have sold at a steady pace.
Reader Analytics from Jellybooks: Crunching the Numbers to Improve Book Marketing and Sales
Reader analytics measures the strength of reader engagement with a book. This data helps publishers more effectively market and promote books to readers.
Self-Publishing a Debut Literary Novel: The Actions, The Costs, The Results
A self-published author breaks down her expenses and resulting sales after promoting on social media and email, paying for reviews, advertising, and more.
The Marketing Rule You Can’t Forget
When I work on a project—with clients, but particularly with my own writing—I start by acknowledging a blunt but important truth: Nobody cares about what I have made.
The Difference Between a Press Release and a Pitch (You Need Both)
The two biggest mistakes in book publicity pitches: they are too long in length, and not pointed or provocative enough.
5 Steps to Kick Your Marketing FOMO to the Curb
Marketing FOMO is more debilitating than distracting—and if you suffer from marketing FOMO, your marketing tasks will never be done.
How Do Books Become Bestsellers? (Can Authors Increase Those Chances?)
Is a book’s success all luck, even if ‘luck’ includes hitting the right subject matter at the right time, or is it marketing—and can an indie author in any way compete with a publisher?
Author Marketing Collectives: An Increasingly Important Component of Book Promotion
Authors need help with digital book marketing—the kind of help that traditional publishers rarely provide. Co-ops and collectives can help fill that gap.
How to Pitch the Media (Without Even Sending Your Book)
When you’re wooing the media, what you’re really trying to do is to intrigue them. To whet their appetites. Sometimes the best way to do that flows from remembering that less is often more.
Are You Clear About Your Writer Persona? Going Public by Design
As writers, we don’t always know how much of ourselves to share with the public. But it behooves us to create and curate an author persona—the public face for our work.
How to Optimize Your Amazon Author Central Pages (Don’t Forget the International Pages)
Every author, regardless of when or what they’ve published, has an Author Central page. But many authors have not claimed theirs—which is a big mistake.
Stop Focusing on Follower Count: 5 Better Approaches for Improving Social Media Use
When I ask most clients what their goals are in hiring me, I usually get some version of “to get more followers and sell more books.” I encourage them to think both bigger and more deeply about social media.
Using Online Education as a Pre-Publication Marketing Tool
In my latest column for Publishers Weekly, I discuss the potential of online education for book marketing, particularly prior to publication.
Case Study: Using NetGalley and Goodreads for Book Marketing and Publicity
Sarah Miniaci at Smith Publicity and Kristina Radke at NetGalley review the marketing and publicity strategies that can help increase your book’s discoverability, word-of-mouth, and reviews, using NetGalley and Goodreads in particular.
Is Amazon Exclusivity Right for You?
There are advantages to selling ebooks only through Amazon, and makes most sense for authors who are just starting out or who are relatively unknown.
Book Marketing Resources for Authors: The Best of 2016
Every year, I share hundreds (even thousands) of articles and reports on book marketing. Here, I look back on the best of what I found in 2016.
The Best Literary Fiction Blogs & Websites
A list of the best blogs and websites focused on literary fiction and culture
A Self-Published Poet’s Path to Her First Book Deal
How a self-publishing poet achieved visibility for her book—and landed a book deal with traditional publisher Andrews McMeel.
3 Things Your Traditional Publisher Is Unlikely to Do
The No. 1 disappointment of published authors is the lack of marketing support from their publisher. Here’s how to prepare for what will—and won’t—happen.
How to Network Effectively (Even If You Hate Networking): Start Close to Home
If you want to sell books and have people read them, you have to meet other people and tell them about it. Learn the best networking strategies for people who hate networking.
How to Use Reddit to Market Your Books (Carefully)
Reddit is an online community where you can get your book in front of hundreds of thousands of readers for free. That is, if you have the right strategy.
How to Run Short-Term Social Media Campaigns
A short-term marketing campaign is a series of strategies designed to reach a goal in a defined period of time, and include projects such as book launches. A short-term campaign has four definite phases: planning, pre-launch, launch, and follow-through.
9 Tips to Building the Book Cover Design You Always Wanted
Book cover designer Joshua Jadon offers nine tips for creating a visually intriguing book cover.
Thinking of Running a Facebook Ad? Proceed with Caution
Author Martha Conway discusses optimizing Facebook ad settings to ensure a realistic click-through rate, and her overall results with Facebook ads.
What Writers Too Often Overlook: Having a Call to Action
Just about every writer would love to have more readers—more readers of their books, their blog, their articles, or whatever creative work they’re producing. But few writers have given much thought to having a call to action that’s associated with their work.
Are You a Push Marketer or a Pull Marketer?
If you want to be successful at selling today, you need to quit pushing your needs (please buy my book) and messages at potential readers and concentrate on figuring out how to pull them in by putting their needs above yours. Give them something valuable.
Getting Ready to Launch a Book? Start with These 5 Questions
Social media and marketing expert Andrea Dunlop lists five questions you should ask yourself when starting to plan your book launch.
How to Leverage the Power of Someone Else’s Platform (Without Being Smarmy)
Kirsten Oliphant explains how to reach out to others who can help you build your author platform and how to generate a great pitch for collaboration.
The Power of Pods: Ask Your Friends to Lead a Mini-Brigade on Your Behalf
Author Robert Wilder explains the concept of pods (spheres of influence) and how to use them to help promote your book.
Not Sure How to Approach Social Media? CARE about Your Readers
Author and social media expert Frances Caballo discusses the CARE acronym and how to use it to guide your interactions with readers on social media.
Using Twitter to Make Powerful Connections as a Creative Professional
Author Daniel Parsons offers five tips for improving your Twitter interactions as a creative professional.
Should You Pay for a Publicist?
Author Dorit Sasson discusses the services publicists offer and whether you should opt to contract for a publicist’s services for your book.
How to Be Active on Social Media without Losing Your Mind
Author and social media expert Kirsten Oliphant explains how to manage your platform-building activities on social media sites.
How to Get More Speaking Gigs (Even If You Don’t Have a Lot of Speaking Experience)
Author and speaker Dorit Sasson offers tips on how to build author platform through local speaking engagements.
How to Find and Reach Influencers to Help Promote Your Book
Writing coach Angela Ackerman discusses how influencers can help you market your book, how to identify potential influencers, and how to reach them.
A Definition of Author Platform
Author platform is one of the most difficult concepts to explain, partly because everyone defines it a little differently. Here’s what agents and editors mean by platform, plus a clear definition of what platform is NOT.
How to Grow Your Email List
Kirsten Oliphant discusses various ways to grow your email subscriber list.
Learn an Overlooked Writing Skill: Free Training on July 27
Join me for a live training to learn to write sales copy that’s as impressive as your story; you’ll improve book descriptions, ad copy and reader emails.
5 Steps to a Killer Book Talk
Every author dreams of having a successful book reading in a roomful of admiring fans. Yet too few actually spend enough time planning what they will say.
5 Common Mistakes That Even Longtime Bloggers Make
Wondering why you don’t have more blog traffic—or if it’s worthwhile to continue your blogging effort? Here are the mistakes that commonly afflict authors.
Before You Start a Podcast: 4 Tips for Authors
Podcast producer Devon Fredericksen offers four tips for authors creating podcasts.
What Should You Put in Your Email Newsletter?
Learn about the various types of email newsletter that are sent by authors—with pros and cons of each—plus how to choose which type YOU should send.
Book Cover Redesign as Marketing Tool
Cover designer Alexander von Ness explains the value of a book cover redesign and walks through several cover redesigns and their goals.
When Less Is More on Social Media
Social media expert Chris Syme explains why less is more in social media, and how to make the most use of primary and secondary social media channels.
My Latest Advice on Book Publishing and Marketing
Get links to my latest interviews and Q&A sessions where I discuss the publishing industry as well as marketing and promotion.
How to Customize Your Email Newsletter Sign-Up Forms to Increase Reader Engagement
The connection with your email newsletter subscribers starts much sooner than you think, in a place that many gloss over or ignore: your signup forms.
Using Video for Author Marketing: What Beginners Need to Know
In my latest post over at Writer Unboxed, I discuss what writers need to know if they’re considering video as part of their marketing and promotion strategy. In brief, here’s what writers should avoid: Don’t do book trailers. Don’t talk at length in a static shot. Don’t post unedited video longer than a minute or […]