Book Marketing Success Stories

[John Kremer]

This is a forum to allow people to showcase the things they've done that have worked well for them in marketing their books. Please share your stories here. Then we can all read them and learn from them. If we work together, we will all be much stronger and more successful in marketing our books.

[John Kremer]

If you love your book, you should spend at least three years marketing it. That doesn't mean you have to spend every waking minute marketing your book, but it does mean that you should do 3 to 5 things every day for every book of yours that you still love.

That doesn't have to take a lot of time: a few minutes a day. Pick up the phone and call someone who can make a difference for your book. Email someone. Tweet about your book. Create real relationships with top-rated websites. Lots of options.

Most important, have fun. Smile.

[Stacy-Deanne]

Hi John,

I gotta say ONLINE PROMOTION rules, baby!

For my last release, Melody, I worked (and continue to work) the social networks and online groups. It must have worked because I made back my advance in a few months! That's how I knew social networking was the way to go. I never did it much with my other books and my sells weren't as good as my third book. But, because I am out there more in the virtual world, my other books are selling more now too. I'm with a big pub, Simon and Schuster, but we all know that even with big pubs authors gotta work their butts off themselves.

The key to marketing and promoting online is that you have to take it seriously. You gotta put the time in everyday. I tell people all the time that they shouldn't just join online groups but that they need to participate on forums and become a true member. They can't just add folks and spam then expect to sell books. All promotion takes hard work. Some authors act like they shouldn't put in the time with online promotion but they should. You gotta be dedicated. The benefits I see from online networking is not just in selling copies either. I see this too:

1. Getting the chance to talk with and meet authors online I never would be able to meet. This way I can exchange promotional ideas and learn from them.

2. Writing articles that result in popularity as well as book sales.

3. Online marketing helps you build a steady fanbase much faster than the traditional methods.

4. When you do interviews or get your books reviewed on blogs/sites, they pop up on millions of other sites instantly bringing your work exposure as well as traffic to your own site.

5. Being able to talk with reviewers, book clubs, readers one-on-one.

All of this is promotion and promotion sells books. It may not happen very fast but if you keep it on going, you'll sell in the long run. Sometimes actual sales isn't the only thing to look at. Exposure and publicity can help build a career.

I have seen a bigger difference with online marketing than I ever did when I did book signings. I already plan to do multiple virtual book tours whenever my next release comes out. Online is also great promotion when watching your money and who isn't these days?

Best Wishes!

Hope that story is okay, LOL!

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

[John Kremer]

Great story. I will excerpt it in my Book Marketing Blog. Thanks for sharing.

[Vikram Narayan]

One thing that authors need to do is to make a preview of their excerpt available on their home page, blog or Facebook page. Being able to browse through a book and sample the book is probably one of the best ways to get a reader to purchase the book. At fReado, we've focused exclusively on creating a "portable author website" - called BookBuzzr - that allows authors and their fans to share their book-extract across 60+ social networks and book marking sites. The book-extract can be bundled with additional information such as where to buy, buzz about the book and information about the author. We've already had scores of books being uploaded into this format and hope that the folks on this forum will find this information useful.

[Gary Val Tenuta]

If your book falls into a niche category (or if any of its story elements fall into a particular niche) you might want to find websites that cater to that niche and see if you can purchase ad space on the site.

For example, the story in my novel, The Ezekiel Code, deals with the year 2012 and the end of the ancient Mayan Calendar. So I've been running a banner ad at december212012.com for over a year. The site carries all the news and events related to 2012 and is rated high in 2012 Google searches. My banner ad there continues to drive potential customers to my book's official website. The cost for a banner ad on that site is only $1.00 a day and it is seen by thousands of people every month. Now it's true that all of those views don't turn into book sales but the exposure to that many people per month is worth the extremely reasonable $1.00 a day expense.

Like Dr. Tokars (see her comment below), I have promo cards (business card size) that I carry with me all the time. They are very colorful, have an image of the book and a blurb on one side, and a synopsis on the flip side with my website URL. I drop them off where ever I go: doctor's office (on the table with the magazines), the place where I had the oil changed in my car, the library, the telephone booth at the grocery store, etc.

Exposure, Exposure, Exposure. You can't have too much exposure!


Wishing tremendous success to all of us!

[Gene Cartwright]

Your Book Jacket as an E-Card!

Great tool.
It works!

Gene
Author, CEO iFOGO.com | iFOGO Village

[Skeeze Whitlow]

[e-mail]

My second novel is now audio – like old time radio. All you have to do is listen. It’ll make you laff. Go to www.NewFiction,com

Choose ‘Senate Parking’

Skeeze Whitlow

[Stonemagick]

Well for me..I just jumped in the deep end, with little to no idea how to 'swim' the market place.
I cared little of the money I may have now or in the future, either for promotional work or other...and that had been one of my down falls.

Now that the book is out, I have no money for an ISBN code, no money to advertise on payed sites or anything else really.

So to remedy that to some degree, I added my link to a many of web crawlers and free "add your URL" sites. Not to mention bing, google,yahoo and so forth. Have I sold any copys? Well that is a double edges sword so to speak, because I have sold a few copys, but not enough to move to a castle in transylvania, or reopen the family castle in Nottingham. I don't think I've even made enough money to fill my fridge with food so to speak. But the that was never the point.

I actually was worried that one day I would die, sooner than later, and all the knowledge my parents (Pagan born) had passed down to me would be lost. I have been teaching my children what I could, but in order for them and I to 'feel' like I had left them something of worth, I wrote a book, my first book.
With my wifes mother and mine passng early in life from Cancer, that was one of my fears...so now, besides the many paintings, soapstone carvings and information I have passed on, they (my children) now have a book for them waiting for them to come of age to read it. That being said, not only as I have mentioned I did not have enough money for an ISBN code at the end of completion, but to this date I still have not even baught a copy of my own book - But it is out there, waiting.

[Linton Robinson]

One of the new ways of getting books sold to publishers, and retail sales to readers is by the use of online serializaions.

There are couple of interviews with guys who did exactly that on THIS SITE

[Launa McNeilly]

Those that I talk to in the world of authors are somewhat surprised that I emailed B&N and asked them to stock my book in their store closest to my town and they did. I'm not saying that they ordered in many but to see my book on the shelves under New Mystery along side some pretty well known authors was, need I say, thrilling at the very least. I will be forever grateful to Barnes and Noble for doing that. So far, that has been my biggest accomplishment in the world of marketing.

[John Kremer]

That's a great story. Too many authors don't even try. Or try once, get a no, and believe it.

Never believe a NO. Wait for the yes. Actively wait for the yes.

[Randy Hignight]

my book was self published Nov 08 and we just celebrated the one year it has been out. Many lives are being changed in a great positive way (testimonies are on my site). The first thing that happened is Chris Piper son of Don (Don wrote 90 minutes in heaven) . Chris read my book and I was able to use his endorsement right away. I called the newspaper near the Hastings books and got a review by the editor, it is now listed on my website. What I have done is got business card size advertisement (website printed) that mention the attention getter of the book. Next I have tri-fold brochures that are a fast breakdown of the subject matter. When I meet people I give out a business card and mention they can read Chapter One of my new book FREE on my website www.Godexpectsperfect.com. I have a continued book signs at Hastings books because they accept Local Authors. I got online and found radio stations that allow you to list an event so I list at several whenever Ii am going to do a book sign (its FREE) I am keeping a journal of how the BOOK PROJECT is unfolding, maybe I will write a book of how to book finally got out to the market. My lastest thing is I just cut a new music single and am giving the MP3 away on e-mails. One lady heard my new song ( at the end of the song it mentions my website) So the lady went to my website and read Chapter One free then, bought a book. My song has gone to a production company and they are suppose to do a video. I wrote of my facebook if anyone wants my new song e-mail me at [e-mail] (people are responding) I tell people if they read Chapter one for FREE and like it then they will LOVE the book.