Post by Lily on Mar 23, 2012 14:19:14 GMT -5
Marketing and Promoting Handbook from Solstice Publishing
The book is published. Now what? This is where all the fun and hard work begins. Ebooks need Social media to get the exposure they need to get sales. Times are different. The publishing world is different. You have to go about getting sales differently than before. There are a lot of things to know and remember. #1 Social networking is the most important thing. The things in these pages are not the only things to do but this will get you started anyway.
In today’s time (in my opinion) the #1 thing to do to promote is twitter. You are saying I have no clue how to do twitter. Well here is my marketing tips. For anyone new that doesn’t know: I write under a pen name Lizzy Stevens and I am an amazon and Fictionwise best seller. The things I am about to tell you are the things that I do myself for my own books. And they have worked for me.
First if you have not set up an account yet go to www.twitter.com and set up a free account.
Twitter 101
1. Don't just say buy my book.
The point is to brand your name and market it. The book sales will come in time. People like to buy books from their "friends" so the key is to make them all feel like friends
2.
Reply to what people say.
If they say I have no clue what to cook for dinner you can reply have you tried and just name something. If they like the sound of it they might reply. Then you have a connection made. That is the whole idea. Make connections. Maybe after everything you post you add the link to your book.
3. Get followers. You need thousands of followers not hundreds. So if you go to my twitter account under my pen name @lizzystevens123 and click on my followers and then just
follow everyone on the list most of them will follow you back. I have a good following of people who follow back and tweet alot and reply to tweets. That's a good place to start is with my followers. I will tweet about you and retweet what you tweet and reply to what you
do. So I will be in the background at all times helping you promote, but it looks better to people coming from one of their “friends” helping out another friend rather than a business trying to sell them a product. It works a lot better for you if I do it this way.
Then Follow these celebrities because they will follow you back and they will talk with you and retweet things you do.
@twopaddocks ---Sam Neil -- Actor
@stephen_jared -- Stephen Jared -- Actor --Solstice author
@claymillican --Clay Millican --topfuel driver
@davidhasselhoff --actor
@billyfranks --- Billy Franks -- singer -friends with Prince Harry
@johnnysolinger -- singer-- lead singer of skid row
@tinastullracing -- NHRA dragracer
@jonathanschaech --- actor
@leezagibbons -- tv host
@chriscagle -- country singer
@philvassar -- country singer
All of these stars will follow back and if you can get any of them to reply to something you say that will make you look a little more important. And when it comes to sales and marketing it's all about appearances and the illusion that you are "somebody"
Here are the top 5 tips I would keep in mind with twitter:
1. Follow People that have the same interests as you so you have things to talk about with each other.
2. Follow back followers that follow you. Nobody wants to follow a person that thinks they are too good to follow back and they will most likely unfollow you.
3. Get involved in a conversation. If somebody posts what they are
cooking for dinner and you like that reply to it "That sounds good" or "Yum" Anything to get involved.
4. Don't only talk about your book. Post that you have one and then post about it and links but also post other things. We don't need to likely make somebody not want to buy it. Post maybe for every 10 posts you add 1 about your book. But maybe on every post you go ahead and add just the link to your book.
5. Don't Direct Message spam about things. That is going to make your follower angry and they will unfollow you.
A couple twitter terms to know:
DM – Means “Direct Message” this is a private message that only the person you send it to sees. Instead of posting publicly for everyone to see.
LOL – Means “Laugh Out Loud” – People don’t know your personality. So It’s a good idea to let them know you are happy or just making a joke.
For example:
What were you thinking?
What were you thinking? LOL
What were you thinking? : )
See how just see how just adding a little bit of personality to it changed that sentence completely. It went from maybe mad but not sure to just having fun with a friend and laughing. OMG What were you thinking LOL
OMG – Means “Oh My God” or “Oh MY Gosh”
I have given you a lot of advice on twitter. This is the basics. You will learn as you go. The main thing is to just get out there and do it and don’t be shy. You wrote a book so now tell the world that you wrote a book.
Things to promote your book for FREE
1. Set up a website. You can do this completely free at www.webs.com or www.weebly.com and if you want it to be a true dot com you can go to www.godaddy.com or www.names.com and I'm sure there are others and pay for your domain name for the year. It will cost less than $12 and then you can go back to the free site and use your own domain. You have no fees at all and you have a new website.
2. www.facebook.com
Set up a facebook page and friend everyone and tell everyone about your page. Use your page to promote your book. Don't just open the page but actually go there and post on it daily.
3. www.twitter.com
Follow people and ask them to follow you. Tweet and retweet other people's tweets. Join in on the fun.
( I have already given you the twitter 101)
4. www.myspace.com
Same thing here. Friend people and ask them to friend you.
5. www.manicreaders.com has free pages. This is where you can upload your book cover, blurb, excerpt.
6. www.linkedin.com another social networking site. Same things. Friend people
7. Start a blog. There are a few different free ones. You can try www.blogspot.com or www.wordpress.com either one are free. I personally like Blogspot. It shows up on google and the idea
is to link you blog to people who have a little better following than you. Ask for guest bloggers. Post on your blog daily.
Link your blog name to celebrities.
Here is just an example:
In your blog title:
Blogging today about Channing Tatum
Then in your blog leave it to things that will not get you into trouble. Do not trash anyone or do anything that would get you sued LOL.
Simply write: I just watched "The Vow" over the weekened. Awesome movie. I loved it. It was about and tell what it was about or whatever.
You can do the same with a famous author. "I just read ___ by ____" then same thing. I loved it. blah
blah blah.
Basically you are linking your name. In the example above. Now when you google Channing Tatum your blog will pop up somewhere. Depending on how busy and popular the person is that you do this with is where you will rank on their page. You may be pages back but you will be there.
For example: last year when I did the guest blog for Billy Franks. I showed up on page 1 of his name because he promoted it and I promoted it. Then as the months went by and he did other promotional things my blog moved on. I think now after a year I'm on maybe page 10 but either way. It's still thereLOL. So you will get some fast promo out of it but in the end you will be buried under the rest of that person's promo.
Things to remember:
Don't post negative things. You don't want to be linked to that person as being a negative, bad review leaving, evil person. LOL
Be honest. Only blog about the actors, books, movies etc that you truly love. It will make the blog easier to write.
Be sure to put the person's name in the blog title. That's how it gets
linked to them. It has to be in the title. -- very important---
Set aside just one day a week. Pick a famous person. Post your positve review about their movie, cd, book whatever. Write your blog. Underneath that then put your book cover, blurb, buy link etc. Every blog you do plug your book.
8. Join yahoo groups. Be sure to follow their posting rules. They allow certain days that you can post a book promo.
9. www.goodreads.com is another good place to promote you book.
10. Get reviews for your book. The more reviews and good ratings the better. You can take that review and then tell all the above places. Out of every good review you get several promo opps out of it. If review sites are backed up just ask anyone to review it and post it as a “customer review.”
The book is published. Now what? This is where all the fun and hard work begins. Ebooks need Social media to get the exposure they need to get sales. Times are different. The publishing world is different. You have to go about getting sales differently than before. There are a lot of things to know and remember. #1 Social networking is the most important thing. The things in these pages are not the only things to do but this will get you started anyway.
In today’s time (in my opinion) the #1 thing to do to promote is twitter. You are saying I have no clue how to do twitter. Well here is my marketing tips. For anyone new that doesn’t know: I write under a pen name Lizzy Stevens and I am an amazon and Fictionwise best seller. The things I am about to tell you are the things that I do myself for my own books. And they have worked for me.
First if you have not set up an account yet go to www.twitter.com and set up a free account.
Twitter 101
1. Don't just say buy my book.
The point is to brand your name and market it. The book sales will come in time. People like to buy books from their "friends" so the key is to make them all feel like friends
2.
Reply to what people say.
If they say I have no clue what to cook for dinner you can reply have you tried and just name something. If they like the sound of it they might reply. Then you have a connection made. That is the whole idea. Make connections. Maybe after everything you post you add the link to your book.
3. Get followers. You need thousands of followers not hundreds. So if you go to my twitter account under my pen name @lizzystevens123 and click on my followers and then just
follow everyone on the list most of them will follow you back. I have a good following of people who follow back and tweet alot and reply to tweets. That's a good place to start is with my followers. I will tweet about you and retweet what you tweet and reply to what you
do. So I will be in the background at all times helping you promote, but it looks better to people coming from one of their “friends” helping out another friend rather than a business trying to sell them a product. It works a lot better for you if I do it this way.
Then Follow these celebrities because they will follow you back and they will talk with you and retweet things you do.
@twopaddocks ---Sam Neil -- Actor
@stephen_jared -- Stephen Jared -- Actor --Solstice author
@claymillican --Clay Millican --topfuel driver
@davidhasselhoff --actor
@billyfranks --- Billy Franks -- singer -friends with Prince Harry
@johnnysolinger -- singer-- lead singer of skid row
@tinastullracing -- NHRA dragracer
@jonathanschaech --- actor
@leezagibbons -- tv host
@chriscagle -- country singer
@philvassar -- country singer
All of these stars will follow back and if you can get any of them to reply to something you say that will make you look a little more important. And when it comes to sales and marketing it's all about appearances and the illusion that you are "somebody"
Here are the top 5 tips I would keep in mind with twitter:
1. Follow People that have the same interests as you so you have things to talk about with each other.
2. Follow back followers that follow you. Nobody wants to follow a person that thinks they are too good to follow back and they will most likely unfollow you.
3. Get involved in a conversation. If somebody posts what they are
cooking for dinner and you like that reply to it "That sounds good" or "Yum" Anything to get involved.
4. Don't only talk about your book. Post that you have one and then post about it and links but also post other things. We don't need to likely make somebody not want to buy it. Post maybe for every 10 posts you add 1 about your book. But maybe on every post you go ahead and add just the link to your book.
5. Don't Direct Message spam about things. That is going to make your follower angry and they will unfollow you.
A couple twitter terms to know:
DM – Means “Direct Message” this is a private message that only the person you send it to sees. Instead of posting publicly for everyone to see.
LOL – Means “Laugh Out Loud” – People don’t know your personality. So It’s a good idea to let them know you are happy or just making a joke.
For example:
What were you thinking?
What were you thinking? LOL
What were you thinking? : )
See how just see how just adding a little bit of personality to it changed that sentence completely. It went from maybe mad but not sure to just having fun with a friend and laughing. OMG What were you thinking LOL
OMG – Means “Oh My God” or “Oh MY Gosh”
I have given you a lot of advice on twitter. This is the basics. You will learn as you go. The main thing is to just get out there and do it and don’t be shy. You wrote a book so now tell the world that you wrote a book.
Things to promote your book for FREE
1. Set up a website. You can do this completely free at www.webs.com or www.weebly.com and if you want it to be a true dot com you can go to www.godaddy.com or www.names.com and I'm sure there are others and pay for your domain name for the year. It will cost less than $12 and then you can go back to the free site and use your own domain. You have no fees at all and you have a new website.
2. www.facebook.com
Set up a facebook page and friend everyone and tell everyone about your page. Use your page to promote your book. Don't just open the page but actually go there and post on it daily.
3. www.twitter.com
Follow people and ask them to follow you. Tweet and retweet other people's tweets. Join in on the fun.
( I have already given you the twitter 101)
4. www.myspace.com
Same thing here. Friend people and ask them to friend you.
5. www.manicreaders.com has free pages. This is where you can upload your book cover, blurb, excerpt.
6. www.linkedin.com another social networking site. Same things. Friend people
7. Start a blog. There are a few different free ones. You can try www.blogspot.com or www.wordpress.com either one are free. I personally like Blogspot. It shows up on google and the idea
is to link you blog to people who have a little better following than you. Ask for guest bloggers. Post on your blog daily.
Link your blog name to celebrities.
Here is just an example:
In your blog title:
Blogging today about Channing Tatum
Then in your blog leave it to things that will not get you into trouble. Do not trash anyone or do anything that would get you sued LOL.
Simply write: I just watched "The Vow" over the weekened. Awesome movie. I loved it. It was about and tell what it was about or whatever.
You can do the same with a famous author. "I just read ___ by ____" then same thing. I loved it. blah
blah blah.
Basically you are linking your name. In the example above. Now when you google Channing Tatum your blog will pop up somewhere. Depending on how busy and popular the person is that you do this with is where you will rank on their page. You may be pages back but you will be there.
For example: last year when I did the guest blog for Billy Franks. I showed up on page 1 of his name because he promoted it and I promoted it. Then as the months went by and he did other promotional things my blog moved on. I think now after a year I'm on maybe page 10 but either way. It's still thereLOL. So you will get some fast promo out of it but in the end you will be buried under the rest of that person's promo.
Things to remember:
Don't post negative things. You don't want to be linked to that person as being a negative, bad review leaving, evil person. LOL
Be honest. Only blog about the actors, books, movies etc that you truly love. It will make the blog easier to write.
Be sure to put the person's name in the blog title. That's how it gets
linked to them. It has to be in the title. -- very important---
Set aside just one day a week. Pick a famous person. Post your positve review about their movie, cd, book whatever. Write your blog. Underneath that then put your book cover, blurb, buy link etc. Every blog you do plug your book.
8. Join yahoo groups. Be sure to follow their posting rules. They allow certain days that you can post a book promo.
9. www.goodreads.com is another good place to promote you book.
10. Get reviews for your book. The more reviews and good ratings the better. You can take that review and then tell all the above places. Out of every good review you get several promo opps out of it. If review sites are backed up just ask anyone to review it and post it as a “customer review.”