online marketing

Social media is just one component of your author platform, and not necessarily the most important component. It works best as part of a holistic book marketing and promotion strategy.

The two biggest mistakes in book publicity pitches: they are too long in length, and not pointed or provocative enough.

Primarily an indie published author, Aleatha Romig participates in Kindle Worlds, which allows other authors to write about the characters in her work.

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?

Is it better to have a long or short book description on Amazon? What should go in the first line? How do you research appropriate categories and keywords? Learn principles and tools to master the power of descriptions and reach your target market.

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.

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.

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.

How a self-publishing poet achieved visibility for her book—and landed a book deal with traditional publisher Andrews McMeel.

When embarking on a process that is new or unfamiliar, often you don't know what you don't know. A checklist helps you recognize what you don't know, so that many months later, you're not beating yourself up for complete ignorance. Without further ado, here are some of my most favored checklists, from sources I trust.

Getting traction for your online presence—especially a new blog—can feel like an impossible task when you're an unknown writer. But it can be done.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I think it's fair to say that most of us are not looking to add more social media activity to our lives.

The majority of authors will not benefit from paid book reviews, and should invest their time and money elsewhere. Here's why.

As publishing becomes increasingly digital-driven, how are the business models for authorship changing?

Be careful before applying someone else's social media advice to your situation.

How to improve the effectiveness of your email newsletter through very specific changes to your sign-up forms and content.

A children's author shares her strategies for promoting her picture books on Pinterest—as well as what adult fiction marketing techniques haven't worked for her.

If you need a place to start, then focus on talking about or posting about others you admire.

In a 30-minute video interview, I discuss the basics of author platform.

This 101 guide describes best practices for authors using Facebook for book marketing, with tips on when you should set up a fan page.

How many authors do you know who seem more renowned among their peers than readers—not because these "thriving ink-slingers" (Michael Deacon) are writing books only other authors could love, but because their output seems to focus on these redundant how-to's designed to crib a few more bucks from fellow would-be renowned authors?

Today's guest post is adapted from Red Hot Internet Publicity by Penny Sansevieri. Between Los Angeles and Las Vegas there’s

The following Q&A is with author Bob Tarte. Bob lives in Michigan with parrots, ducks, geese, parakeets, rabbits, doves, cats, hens,

If you're like most authors I know, you've wondered about how to best use Facebook. Should you stick to your

It is a pleasure to share this interview with two authors who are also marketing geniuses, Avery Monsen (@averymonsen) and

Today's Q&A is with Ron Hogan. For anyone who's worked in publishing for more than two minutes, Ron hardly needs an