source: http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/how-to-market-your-book-with-free-giveaways/

Written by: Dan Petrovic

Marketing a book means being creative. After all, there are new book releases coming out every other day. Staying ahead of the competition means thinking about how you can make a title and its author memorable. This is where giveaways really come in handy. People like to receive free things. The usual promotional products such as buttons, t-shirts, keychains, and desk items are useful and popular, however, it is always better to think of book-related giveaways when marketing a book. This is a chance to show people exactly what they are getting from an author. The following are some of the benefits to marketing a book with free giveaways.

Why Use Giveaways?

The key to marketing a book is to make people remember a book’s title, author, and message. This is where free giveaways become so useful. The right giveaway is something useful: An item that can be read or used while reading. By printing a book title on a bookplate, a cover image on a postcard, or offering folks the chance to download the first chapter of a book, a publisher can pique buyers’ interest. This in turn can motivate a person to invest in the book either for themselves or to give as a gift.

Exposure

Today, people do not want to spend their hard earned money on unproven products. This is why giveaways are effective: They give people a taste of what’s to come. By offering up book or reading accessories like reading lights or bookmarks, or even free chapters of a book, an author and his or her publisher give buyers a taste of what’s to come. This is a creative and effective way to spread the word about a new book release. Additionally, it ensures that people are satisfied once they invest in the book since they already have an idea of what it is about.

Book-Related Accessories

The great thing about bookmarks and bookplates is that people who like to read often collect them. Book buyers will not only gain something useful but will be more likely to invest in the title or author marketed on the book lights and postcards complete with the book’s cover art. Readers do not want yet another brochure that takes long to read or even skim. Instead, if free giveaways are book or reading related, people will be more likely to keep them and more likely to invest in the marketed book. Silicone wristbands are another great tool for marketing books, because a publisher can have the silicone accessories printed with fun quotations from the book. People will wear these bracelets around town, which in turn means that other people will see them and will be more likely to buy the book.

Free Chapters

Another giveaway and a great way to show buyers that an author and publisher are confident in a book is to offer free chapters. This can be done online with free downloads or can be done by emailing out the chapter or even printing it in brochure form. A free chapter shows readers what a book is like. This taste could wet the buyer’s appetite so that he or she invests in the book to find out what happens or what else is contained in it.

Giveaways are becoming increasingly popular as a tool for marketing books, since they are cheap, and people will keep them if they find them interesting and useful. People tend to buy books with titles and by authors they recognize. What better way to promote a book than putting the title of your book on a something that people will not throw away or walk by, but keep and look at often? Giveaways are a great, creative way to get noticed.

Dan Petrovic is a marketing specialist who writes articles for several blogs in his free time. He enjoys reading fiction, as well as nonfiction related to marketing and technology. He is currently working for 24 Hour Silicone Wristbands as a consultant.

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source: http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/book-marketing-is-not-the-same-as-sales/

Many authors mistakenly think that selling and marketing are the same.  They aren’t. You may already know that the book marketing process is broad and includes all of the following:
1. Identifying your target readers
2. Deciding upon a suitable subject, story and style
3. Writing and editing the book
4. Developing a suitable title for the book
5. Creating an attractive book cover
6. Getting reviews and endorsements from mavens and influential publications
7. Setting up distribution for your book in online and brick and mortar stores
8. Creating buzz for your book
9. Advertising your book
10. Getting your customer to buy your book (including order processing and calculating your royalties or revenues)

Most authors confuse the last step to be ALL of marketing.

Marketing is everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects. Sales is everything that you do to close the sale and get the book into the hands of your customer and the money into your bank account. You need both. Without marketing, you cannot expect a customer to carry out the final step and buy your book (except in certain freak purchases which are a result of luck.)

The book buying process works something like this:

4. She decides to purchase the book

The BookBuzzr Book Marketing Funnel which was featured in an earlier blog post is another way to understand how the book buying process works. As you move down the funnel, the number of people carrying out the activity decreases. To increase sales, you can either increase the size of the top of the funnel (i.e. get more people to hear about your book and look at your book cover.) Or you can improve the conversion rates from one stage to the next (and this is usually a result of quality … i.e. if your book title and cover are interesting, people proceed to the next stage; else, they abandon your book.)

Your goal then is to get people to hear about your book’s core idea (or about you or about the story behind your book.) The goal of your book front cover is to get people to look at the back cover. The goal of your back cover is to get people to look inside your book. The goal of the first few pages of your book is to entice your readers to continue reading (and buy the book.) So you are really selling on every page of your book.

Freado.com is designed to facilitate the first two steps of the initial process. Freado.com and the CoverMatcher game are designed to get as many people as possible from your target market to learn about your book title and view your book cover.

Freado also leverages upon the idea of the exposure effect. The exposure effect (also known as the mere exposure effect) is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. In studies of interpersonal attraction, the more often a person is seen by someone, the more pleasing and likeable that person appears to be.

Freado translates this idea to books. The more often a person sees your book cover and book title, the more likely that person is going to be to like or at least accept your book.

Now, one of the questions that we’re frequently asked by new authors is this:

“Does Freado.com guarantee that you will sell more copies of your book?”
And our answer always is a vociferous “NO!”

But Freado definitely increase your probability of selling more books. When a user constantly views your book cover inside the game, he or she begins to unconsciously memorize your book cover. So the next time this book lover is in a bookstore or on Amazon.com, and sees your book, the chances of him recognizing the book is increased. And it creates buzz for your book where people tend to discuss your book (or bid for your book if it is made available as a prize on Freado.)

In conclusion, when you put on your book promotion hat, it is important to understand that book marketing is a concept that is wider than sales. Sales are important. But they don’t happen unless you create the right conditions.

Or like author Chetan Dhruve says, “You know the saying in English – “You can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.” Similarly, we authors can bring the horse (reader) to the water, but we can’t make him buy the product, because that ultimately depends on the PRODUCT itself (i.e. the book). Think of the alternative, which is doing nothing, i.e. having no horses at the watering hole.”

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source: http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-tips-articles/book-marketing-on-a-budget-3398825.html

When it comes to book marketing, there are many ways to spend money fast.  It can be a costly endeavor.  You will want to make sure that you find ways to save money while still getting your book the visibility that it needs.  If you want to sell your book to your readers, then you will want to make sure that you are doing it the right way.  Depending on the type of book, you will want to take a different approach to each different style of writing.  Here are a few ideas of ways to save money when it comes to advertising your book.

A lot of the different strategies of book marketing require print advertising and other media advertising.  While these are usually pretty effective, you can always choose to market online.  Marketing online is really a great idea because you can get your book out there to millions of readers without breaking your bank.  It can help bring a lot of attention to your book from a wide variety of viewers.  Usually print marketing strategies will get your book out to a small geographical location.  This can be a lot of money for little visibility.

Focusing on internet marketing strategies is one of the best things that you can do with your book.  While you may find that it is difficult to get started with marketing and you may not see the payoff right at the start, you will need to think of the long run and the benefits that you will reap later on.  When you are paying for it in the beginning, you may not feel that it is worth it.  Just think of the copies of your books that you will sell by using greatbook marketing strategies.  It will have your book flying off shelves.

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source: http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/the-gamification-of-book-marketing-and-promotion/

By: Vikram Narayan

As part of my volunteering activities to serve the community, I teach public speaking to 14 year old school children at a local school on Saturday mornings. Sometime ago, one of the challenges I noticed was that students would not applaud and cheer when one of their peers completed a speech on stage. Worse, many of them would speak to each other and be distracted while one of their classmates was speaking. As you can imagine, this was demotivating for the young speakers, many of whom were giving a speech for the first time in their lives.

Then, I introduced a simple idea which has changed the atmosphere of these sessions considerably. With the help of a few “student officers”, we divided the class into four “houses” (groups) that competed against each other in a friendly manner. Next, we started giving points to the group that was the most enthusiastic audience. Overnight, we had a class full of hyper-interested students that were willing to listen carefully to their classmates’ speeches and cheer their progress.

The human brain is wired to play games. Competition, evaluating and managing risks, teamwork, chasing goals while overcoming obstacles and staying within boundaries (rules) and keeping score are part of what make us human.

What is a Game?
Jesse Schell, author of the excellent book – ‘The Art of Game Design’ offers this definition for a game:
“A game is a problem-solving activity, approached with a playful attitude.”

Now, what if we phrased the problem of marketing and promoting books using the “lens” of games? Then the game can be defined for readers in the broadest possible manner as:
“A game where you solve the problem of discovering new books and evangelizing them while having fun”

Now, maybe you’re thinking that this will never work. People are busy. They are serious. They don’t have time to play games. If this is your thought, then I ask you to reconsider … after thinking about the following examples:

1. The stock market – The stock market is a game. There are rules. There are goals (make as much money as possible while managing your risks.) And it can often be fun (especially if you make money!)

2. Discount sales – Have you ever been to a Labor Day sale at your local fashion store? Have you felt the rush of excitement as you get your hands on your favourite brand at 50% off? Here again, there is a problem (get a good product at a lower than normal price), there is competition and it is mostly fun.

3. The Wii – For most people, exercise can be boring. Then the Wii came along with the WiiFit and became a leader in the category of games called Exergaming. Overnight, many children who were glued to playing computer games started living more healthful lives by playing these games.

As can be seen from the above examples, even boring activities can be made exciting by bringing in some of the concepts of game design. At BookBuzzr, we’ve been hard at work trying to incorporate principles of game design into the book marketing and promotion process. For example, we’ve created a Hangman word game which allows authors to market their books in a unique format. In the example below, the author is attempting to capture the interest of those people who hate their bosses. All you have to do is to guess the ‘colourful’ name. As you can see this game would appeal to those who have had a bad boss. While they guess the words, they are likely to get interested in the author’s book.

Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzrCEO ) Vikram is a graduate from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.

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GREEN BAY, WI (1/05/12) – BookWhirl.com, one of the strongest pillars in the self-publishing industry rolled out its newly designed homepage on the first day of the year 2012. The new BookWhirl.com homepage now features a more dynamic touch, highlighting convergence and innovation. With its improved layout, BookWhirl.com is looking forward to offer more convenience for its current and upcoming clients in terms of interface and navigation.

BookWhirl.com offers online and specialty marketing services to self-published authors worldwide. It now has 12 staple products and services, covering advertising, marketing, and publicity.

“We definitely want to start the year right. So for the first day of 2012, we are just about to give the world a bird’s eye view of what’s going to happen. Are there going to be big changes? I say, huge. And today, we are happy to unveil BookWhirl.com’s redesigned homepage. Our creative team aims for a better experience, that’s why we have embraced convergence and innovation in our current design. Our newly redesigned homepage is just the beginning of a smashing year for BookWhirl.com. 2012 is going to be huge for our company, and the rest of our self-published authors. This year is definitely exciting. And I just can’t wait”, announced Don Harold, Marketing Director BookWhirl.com

For more information, please visit http://www.bookwhirl.com or call 1 (877) 207 1679.

About BookWhirl.com

BookWhirl.com is an online book marketing service company, specializing in providing low-cost, high-quality marketing services for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books. Through its unique, inexpensive book marketing services, BookWhirl.com helps authors promote their published works more effectively and connect to readers in a more effective, more efficient system. BookWhirl.com employs an experienced team of online marketing strategists, ad copywriters, graphic artists, and web designers, whose combined talents ensure an effective online marketing campaign at easily affordable rates.

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Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/publishing-articles/typecast-how-book-marketing-can-make-or-break-a-self-published-book-5496359.html

Written by: K. Leeds

It is often said that self-publication should be a last resort. Many will tell you that self-published books go nowhere; that self-published books are for desperate authors of weak books, and that self-publication is feeble attempt to become a legitimate author. Do not believe it. The bane of good literature is NOT self-publication; it is a lack of proper book marketing. If no one knows about your self-published book, no one will buy it, regardless of who puts it out in print!

What is this book marketing of which you speak?

Simply put, book marketing is a set of specific strategies employed to raise awareness of your book. With proper marketing, you can sell anything. This holds just as true for self-published books. Set up events, network, talk to bookstore owners and bibliophiles. You are your own book marketing dynamo. Don’t let anyone tell you that you won’t succeed just because you’ve self-published books.

How much is this going to cost me?

That depends. You can do your own book marketing, or you can hire a professional book marketing campaign group to take the ball and run with it while you self-publish more books. Nearly every publicist you check out will give you a different quote and itemized list for their services, and of course, it depends on the content and page count of your self-published book. Every book marketing campaign is different because every book is different.

I advertise extensively, what’s the difference?

A book marketing campaign is very different than advertising. With advertising, you pay for your information to get noticed by readers. You govern how that information is distributed, and to whom. With book marketing, no one knows what media entities will respond, how they will react to your self-published book, or whether or not they will even cover you. There are no guarantees. Book marketing and publicity of your self-published book is wholly dependent upon the interest of the public in your work. Greater public response equals greater publicity. Media coverage equates to credibility; anyone can pay for an ad, but when an editor or producer takes interest, it gives an author instant credibility.

Important note:

It is still much more difficult to generate buzz and interest about a self-published book than one through a publishing house, but difficult doesn’t mean impossible. The biggest key to your success is you. If your self-published book has merit, intriguing subject matter, high readability, and a new, bold flavor, you are much more likely to be successful. You will get out of any book marketing campaign only what you put into it. Dedicate yourself to your work as much as you believe in it, and you will be a successful self-published author.

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Source: http://www.bookbuzzr.com/blog/book-marketing/new-years-resolutions-for-marketing-your-book-say-yes-to-new-things/

Guest Expert: Phyllis Zimbler Miller

Thanks to the Internet, the release date of our published or self-published books no longer matter as long as the books are available online. We can continue to market our books indefinitely.

And this is a great time of year to look ahead and commit to trying new promotional opportunities.

Here then are some ideas to help you promote in 2012. Choose a couple of them to try out in the new year.

• Sparkabook.com – a site for selling rights that includes the ability to upload video and audio.

• Booksforfilm.ning.com – ask to be accepted for this site that promotes books ready for film.

• Join the “Book Marketing” group on LinkedIn to ask questions and exchange information. (Please follow the guidelines for the group.)

• Try out the new QuickQuiz feature on BookBuzzr – see http://www.freado.com/quickquiz.

• Participate on tweetchats on Twitter – there are weekly tweetchats on a variety of topics; consider book/writing topics as well as topics related to the subject of your fiction or nonfiction books.

• If you have been using your book cover as your social media profile photo, consider switching to your own headshot. People relate to people – usually the relationship comes before the interest in the book.

• If you are only using the initial of your last name instead of your full last name on your LinkedIn profile (assuming the profile name is your author name), switch to using your full name. As an author, you want to promote name recognition.

• If you do not yet have ebook versions of your books, get them now! The year 2012 is going to be the year that ebooks, already exploding all over the place, are going to explode exponentially because of the introduction of more and more ereaders and tablets. You can do the ebook conversion yourself or hire an ebook converter. Just make sure that your ebooks are formatted correctly so that they look good on ereaders and tablets.

• If you are self-publishing books or ebooks this year, consider hiring a professional editor if grammar, punctuation, and spelling are not your best skills. Do NOT rely only on your computer’s spell check and grammar check. If you get people to sample your book, you want them to read the entire book. You don’t want them to stop reading because of annoying errors in the book.

• Whenever you notice someone is having a contest and asking for prizes to give away, consider if the contest is appropriate for you to donate copies of your books. If your books are in digital format, this is very easy.

• Listen to marketing webinars, including the ones that BookBuzzr sponsors, for promotion ideas.

• Check that your Amazon public profile and your Amazon Author Page are current. If you have new information to add (or new blog post feeds), do so. (You can also now get a customized Amazon Author Page URL.)

• Final tip: If you want to use one service (there’s a free option) for scheduling your social media updates, check out Hootsuite.com .

The above are some ideas for possible New Year’s resolutions for promoting your books in 2012. If you have other ideas to suggest, please leave a comment below.

Remember, we authors are NOT in competition with each other. The more we encourage people to read the more readers there are for all of us.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company MillerMosaicLLC.com, which works with clients including book authors to effectively use social media, blogging and WordPress websites.

She is also the author of fiction and nonfiction books and has a new website at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com about her books and her volunteer activities.

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Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/online-promotion-articles/self-published-books-and-authors-are-gaining-credibility-and-popularity-through-book-marketing-5404095.html

Book publishing and marketing has been in existence in the United States since publishing began. At that time, it was mostly the task of small local booksellers or printers. As print technology and transportation began to improve, publishers were able to distribute books on a national level rather than just a local level. By the Civil War, publishing had grown significantly. Today, the U.S. book publishing industry continues to steadily grow and consists of approximately 3,000 establishments. Current book publishing options also include worldwide book marketing through modern technology and such marketing tools as Facebook, Twitter, Kindle, online games, and mobile devices. Authors are now gaining credibility and popularity by marketing their own self-published books.

Self-published Books are Gaining Worldwide Acceptance

Self-publishing once meant employing a publishing team (i.e. editor, book designer, cover artist, printer) to publish a book. Authors were, in essence, setting up their own personal publishing houses. They handled the entire book publication process, including printing, distribution, and marketing. This type of publishing, also referred to as independent publishing, was quite costly often resulted in amateurish books. Over the last decade, self-published books are more acceptable as self-publishing has become more credible and professional. Today, thanks to the Internet, authors can upload a word document or PDF file to an online company who will print and distribute the book for them worldwide at an affordable price. Self-publishing (not to be confused with vanity publishing) is gaining more credibility every year. Online self-publishing services have given authors an affordable way to create, publish, and promote their work.

Book Marketing of Self-published Books through Social Media

Authors are turning to self-published books for various reasons including:

• Continual rejection from a traditional publishing house
• The desire for full book control
• A fast turnaround of delivery
• The ability to keep more of book profits

The advent of the ebook has brought electronic publishing to the foreground, and many authors are now choosing this option for the publishing of their material.

Social media marketing also is becoming more and more popular in today’s digital world. Online book marketing is definitely a viable option for book marketing and an effective way to create a buzz and generate book sales. Social media book marketing allows authors to effectively reach a target market while connecting with readers and fans in online communities. With online marking, authors can build a worldwide reader base.

As an author, it’s important to keep abreast of emerging trends and technologies to gain the best advantage of publishing and book marketing opportunities. Such self-published authors as James Redfield (The Celestine Prophecy) and Peter Bowerman (The Well-Fed Writer) have proven there can be success with book marketing of self-published books.

Loraine D. is a freelance writer for Smith Publicity. Smith Publicity offers effective book marketing of self published books and publicity of their authors. We know how to secure the kind of media exposure formerly reserved only for traditionally published books. From non-fiction and novels to poetry and memoirs, Smith Publicity understands what it takes and can deliver the goods. Visit us online today.

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Source: http://www.authorinsider.com/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1150388889&archive=&start_from=&ucat=7&

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Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-tips-articles/book-marketing-for-new-authors-3398842.html

Many new authors have a hard time justifying spending money on their book marketing.  A lot of times when it comes to publishing your first book, you do not know how much you will need to spend in order to market it.  This is especially true when it comes to people who choose to market their books themselves.  A lot of times you will need to take a look at how many books you plan to sell.  You will want to plan based on that.  If you are just targeting a small group of readers, then you may not want to spend as much as you would if you were planning to target to a large group of readers.

One of the best things to do is find ways to make your money go the furthest.  A lot of people will focus on the different ways to market their book.  If you are trying to get into book marketing, then you will want to know the different avenues.  There are some areas of marketing that you may not even consider right up front.  You can do things such as holding seminars and other conferences and meetings to promote your book.  This will not only show your readers that you are personable, but it will also show them that you believe in your book.

Most writers will not write about something that does not interest them.  This comes in very helpful when it comes to book marketing.  Do not just focus on one area of marketing, because this is just like putting everything into one avenue.  If you do this, then you could just be setting yourself up for failure.  Make sure that you do everything that you can to get it out there on multiple platforms to make sure that you are able to sell many books.

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