Each month, this column will focus on some aspect of writing, marketing or publishing.  Some steps will be from $uccess, Your Path to a Successful Book, that I co-authored with Brenda C. Hill and others will from different sources or new discoveries. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

This month, we are going to start with twelve different steps to help you market your book. I know most of you would rather just write. Writing for marketing may not be your preference but it is absolutely necessary.

Because everyone is busy, I’m suggesting that you take one step a week (if you’ve already done this, go on to the next). If one a week is too difficult, do one a month. If you want to take giant leaps, you might consider one every day. However, I don’t feel that is realistic as it would interfere with thoroughly grasping each step you’re working on.

Steps listed are aimed at helping you establish your identity, so as to market your name, book or magazine articles.

1. Write a 30 second “elevator pitch” of your book or article. Frequently, such a brief period is all the time you have available to pitch. There are two examples below—one for ‘$uccess’ and one for ‘Winner and Final Chairman’.

a. YOU possess the passion and purpose to be a published author of your own successful book. After reading $uccess, your path to publishing will be smoother.

b. This book is about a corporate power struggle, in which some great innovative plans fall apart for almost everyone, due to infighting, backstabbing and, ultimately, indifference.

After you finish your elevator pitch, be sure to fine tune it. In one instance we were asked to cut ours to 15 words.

2. Write a press release for your book. You need one, as it can represent the first impression for someone who may be an important influence in promoting your book.

a. Create a headline angle—the fact that your book exists is not what sells. Your clever title is what will help you relate all content to the title. This is the most crucial part. Have it be creative so it grabs attention.

b. Tell why your book will entertain or why readers will care. Also, let the reader know why you would be great to interview.

c. Be sure to have a paragraph with traditional information—who, why, what, where, how. Keep it brief.

d. Add a quote about your book or subject (preferably a quote from someone else).

e. Review all the most exciting components of your story and keep the release to one page.

f. Write it a couple of different ways, so you can chose one or two you like.

g. Use press releases for anything exciting that you do. I’ve had considerable success with this.

h. Here are some internet sites where you can post your releases.

- Click2newsites.com/press.asp

- Clickpress.com/releases/indes.shtml

- Ebookbroadcast.com

- Free-press-release.com/submit/free-press-release.php

- I-newswire.com/submit_free.php

We have listed more in our book, but these will give you a start.

3. Prepare a website. This should be close to number one in your priorities, but you may place it in the number twelve spot. You do not need to do it yourself - I haven’t. One of my best investments has been to have someone else do my website. You may believe you can do this yourself, and a few people can, but I believe the investment in a professional site provides a better end result.  If you are not ready to commit to a website yet, you still need to build an online presence.

a. Your website needs key words describing your book.

b. You should have a blog even though you think no one will read it. Posting a minimum of two blogs a week will give you a higher placement on Google.

c. If you are not willing to secure a website, use the site your publisher provides for your book and research how you can maximize using it.

4. Write three bios, 50,100 and 250 words. You will need these for marketing your book/articles and for social networking sites. They do not have to tell your entire life story. Their purpose is to show portray you as an expert in the area in which you are writing. These bios are necessary for interviews, networking sites, speaking engagements and at numerous other times.

5. Start building your Internet presence. Surprisingly this matters a great deal. From a study from Cone, an estimated 60% of Americans use social media and 59% interact with companies. People like to be able to interact. You do not have to spend hours a day on this activity. In fact, I limit my time between 10 and 30 minutes. Furthermore, you need to discover the groups with whom do have an interest. I recommend two “premier” networking sites for you to start with: Facebook.com and Linkedin.com. After you have been using one for 4 to 6 weeks, sign up for the other. They differ from one another, Facebook is more personal and LinkedIn is more business oriented. If you send me invitations from either networking site (Maralyn Hill --mdhill@noralyn.com ), I will agree to be one of your friends/connections.

a. Once you sign up for your free account (you only need the free part), there will be a tab to fill out your profile. This is where you will post one of your bios and a photo of yourself. If you don’t have one post your book cover in the meantime. I have the “Books By Hills” book covers in my Facebook Profile.

b. Learn your way around the site. Investigate some new part of it every few days.

c. The directions will allow you to search your e-mail address book for contacts who may also belong. Then you can invite them to connect. You can see how they are using this service. It is much easier to start with someone you know.

d. Find a group on the site and join it. I belong to “Foodies,” Organizational Development and Writers Group, as well as some others. I started with one until I got the hang of group membership. This allows me to communicate with people who have similar interests.

e. These groups will lead you to other people’s blogs, which we will cover next.

f. There are many more excellent networking sites and I will provide more about them later. I just started using these sites in early 2008 and it has made a difference in the sale of our books.

6. Blog, blog, blog — rather than all day, fit this within the 30 minutes to an hour that you spend marketing yourself. I hope you have a website that has a blog. If you don’t have a blog, put one on it and use it. Consistent postings result in frequent references in search engines so your name moves up the list. If you can’t think of what you’d blog about, consider blogging through one of the characters in your story. If you don’t have your own website yet, look for blogs that belong to others and start commenting. When you comment, always sign your name and website or blog address. After you start this process, some of the bloggers you visit will be happy to visit your blog when it is established and link to it.

Once you have your own blog, you may find it easier to write several blogs at once and indicate the dates you want them to post. I try to be a week ahead and, when I’m traveling, a month ahead. When I started my goal was once a week, now it is 3 times a week. Some posts are long and some are short. Sixty to a hundred word posts are well-received.  Currently, I’ve two blogs, Noralyn.com/blogger/blog1 and Noralyn.com/blogger/success. You can visit both my blogs and sign up for updates. This will allow you to receive one of my posts every time a new one is posted. This will give you an idea of what posts are like and you can opt out of the list whenever you’d like.

There are a lot of bells and whistles you can accomplish with blogs, but we will save that for another time.

7. Sign up for a writer’s newsletter. There are a great many exceptional newsletters. I would only sign up for a few of them since otherwise you will spend to much time reading and not enough time writing. I try to take one or sometimes two suggestions from them a week.
Here are a couple of good ones:

a. AMarketingExpert.com

b. Book Marketing Matters – E-mail BrianLJud@aol.com  and ask to be on his mailing list

c. Writing-World – E-mail editorial@writing-world.com  and ask to be on mailing list.

Most all of these people/firms sell services just like me. You can sign up for these services but most want you to complete the first six steps above. I strongly recommend you do this first. Once you achieve an initial presence, you will be in a more effective spot to have outside support.

8. Research who does book reviews. Some sites like Jerry Simmons, NothingBinding.com, will allow you to join and request a book review at no charge. Once you have a review, you can talk about it or post it on your site. Many of the authors who review for Jerry will also post their reviews on the Nothing Binding site, Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc. Reviews matter. It is much easier when someone else’s words are selling you. Keep a file of all of your book reviews.

9. Ask for blurbs from people who have read your book. Also ask them to post a comment on Amazon and other sites if they would. Keep a file of all the good comments you get about your book.

10. Line up radio and TV interviews and send out the links to these out as a promotion. Get links or DVD’s of the interviews. You can do a voice interview yourself on Yodio.com talking about your book. Script it first.

11. Speak up—sell yourself. It is fine to let someone know you are thrilled about a review you have received. Use that as an entrée to get more interviews.

12. Prepare a press kit.
It needs to contain:

a. Bio

b. Press releases

c. Any articles or promotions

d. CD or DVD if available

e. Synopsis and table of contents for your story/book

f. Speaking engagements

g. Any other pertinent data

h. Business cards

i. Your contact information—vitally important

Please ask any questions via e-mail. If you want coaching assistance with your marketing, call 480 840-3420 and we’ll discuss project and cost.

I hope these 12 steps get you started in a positive manner. You deserve to have a successful book.

Got Writing, Marketing or Publishing Questions? Email Maralyn with your Questions – Click Here.