Archive for the ‘Author Web Sites’ category

Marketing your book with a blog – Rules of Thumb

August 28th, 2009

rulesofthumbThis is yet another example of a successful author who is marketing his book with a blog.

Alan Webber is hardly a new face in the literary world.  In addition to being the the managing editor and editorial director of the Harvard Business Review for five years, in 1995 he launched the successful business magazine Fast Company which made news when it was sold to Gruner + Jahr for the second largest amount of any magazine in U.S. history.

So it’s not surprising that when Webber stepped down from performing his full-time editorial responsibilities that his next endeavor would be to write a book.  In  52 “Rules of Thumb” for business leaders, he shares his unique perspective on the “rules” for business success.

His rules include such words of wisdom as:

  • Don’t implement solutions, prevent problems
  • The difference between a crisis and an opportunity is when you learn about it
  • Learn to take “No” as a question

In Marketing your book with a blog, I wrote about Chris Brogan, who used his blog to help his book become a New York Times bestseller.   Chris gets over 200,000 visitors to his blog each month, has over 50K Twitter followers and has over 30,000 RSS subscribers – and is not only using his blog to promote HIS book Trust Agents – but he’s also recommending Alan’s book to his blog’s readers in the post “Seek the Bigger story – or tell a new one“.

Chris has already built a level of trust with his vast blog audience.  They have come to expect that Chris will only recommend the best products and services – this includes books.

This is a great example of how your book’s blog can work HARD at generating sales of your book.  Even though Alan is not a “blogger” per say – when Chris decided to create a link – he didn’t link to the book’s web site – instead he linked to the blog.

That’s because Chris knows that the blog is the place where the latest and greatest updates will be posted.  Even though Alan is not “blogging” per say – (in July his blog only had 11 posts – which is roughly a post every third day) he’s still able to communicate with potential book buyers there.

So if you thought that you had to create three or four blog posts a day to market your book using a blog – now you know that doesn’t HAVE to be the case.  Somoetimes a few well written posts do a better job than a few thousand poorly written ones.

The Best Reason to Write A Non-Fiction Book

September 30th, 2008

Just as there are two kinds of books, there are two kinds of authors.  There are authors who write Fiction and there are authors who write Non-Fiction.

This post is directed to the non-fiction author.

The best reason BY FAR to write a non-fiction book is to promote your business.

This is especially true if your business happens to be selling nothing but air.  Whether you’re a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist or a consultant, when your business revolves around selling a service, then your strategic internet marketing strategy should include writing a book to demonstrate your expertise.

That’s what Andrea Hess has done.  Andrea is the founder of the Soul Realignment professional intuitive training program where she assists clients and their businesses worldwide in creating a new level of financial abundance.  She calls what she does being an Intuitive Consultant.

If you’re an entrepreneur, struggling to make more money with less effort – Andrea is available to act as your secret weapon.

Andrea  understands that she’s selling nothing but air.   So, to market her practice, she’s set up a Blog Intuition in Business AND she’s written the book “Unlock Your Intuition: How to Accurately and Reliably Access Your Most Valuable Resource.”

When you visit her blog, you can easily see she’s written a book.  If you think she might have the answer for your business, you can do one of three things:

  • You can subscribe to her blog to get more “free” information.
  • You can buy her book.
  • You can schedule a free 15 minute consultation.

Chances are, you’ll first subscribe to her blog to get more information for free.  If, after a few posts, you like what you see there, the next step is to invest $11.53 to purchase her book.  You’ll read her book and see if she REALLY does have the answer you’re seeking.

Finally, after you’ve taken those steps, then you’ll be ready to click on the “buy” buttons she has on her blog pages.

Writing a non-fiction book can be the BEST advertising you can do for your service based business.  Combine writing your book with a blog and you have a powerful marketing strategy to promote your business.

Book Author Websites

July 8th, 2008

If you’re an author, it’s essential that you have your own author website.  Most of the big chain book stores won’t stock a self published book but many self published authors have found success by taking their book marketing efforts online.

Mark Landsberg launched Self Publisher’s Place as a way for self published authors to promote their book.  If you want to list your book at the website Self Publisher’s Place, having your own book author website is a requirement for listing your book. When Mark asks for your URL, he’s not asking for your publisher’s URL.  He wants the address you’ve established to promote your book.

If you’re an author, it’s essential that you have your own author website to promote your book.  That website should have a domain name that is yours and yours alone.  Ideally, the domain name is either the name of your book or your author name.

Your book is your PRODUCT and you need to have a place where people can go to purchase your book.   That’s why every author should have a website to sell and promote their book.