How to market your book online

Something that is connected to all this (I believe, anyway) is SFF conventions. We are so lucky to have so many opportunities to connect with potential fans -- more than any other genres. I have my website and podcast info on my card that I hand out at conventions, and I've noticed that the week after the convention, my online hits goes up -- often times recording more unique visits then I gave out cards for. While getting listed high on Google is important, this type of marketing, directly getting people to know about your site, is also highly effective. Not only that, but it occurs to me now that those people who visit your website from a personal contact at a convention, already feel closer to you, the author, than if they had just stumbled upon the site via a search engine or such.
 
I said:
For books on marketing, the big author to look at is Seth Godin (The Purple Cow, the Big Moo, the Big Red Fez, etc) - also check out Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" for viral issues that can relate to marketing. A free book online is the Cluetrain Manifesto which predicted the shift to a new marketing economy for the web:
http://www.cluetrain.com/

The big daddy of all marketing books is Kotler's "Marketing Managament", but may be too detailed and comprehensive for smaller projects - but may still be worth it for a few chapters.

2c. :)
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I love Kotler, very smart guy. Especially his statistics and engineering quality books. I'll have to find the marketing managing one. Thanks Brian!
 
Excellent advice, Brian. And thanks to the rest of you for your tips. This is exactly that sort of information I need right now; I'm in the process of putting one of my books together to publish through Lulu.com, and I'll be re-designing my domain-named site to help market the book. (Robert Blevins, I'm glad to hear that you recommend Lulu.)
 
I recommend lulu.com only as a springboard until you have a minimum of ten titles under ISBN, then register with Lightning Source/Ingram. They require ten titles with your isbn, a legitimate account, and a business license. Then, you can start getting your books for about 3-4usd apiece.

Get that far and you can start approaching bookstores with your catalog. Bookstores require a big discount and the traditional 90-day sale or return policy. Good luck...
 
Stuart Jaffe said:
Something that is connected to all this (I believe, anyway) is SFF conventions. We are so lucky to have so many opportunities to connect with potential fans -- more than any other genres. I have my website and podcast info on my card that I hand out at conventions, and I've noticed that the week after the convention, my online hits goes up -- often times recording more unique visits then I gave out cards for. While getting listed high on Google is important, this type of marketing, directly getting people to know about your site, is also highly effective. Not only that, but it occurs to me now that those people who visit your website from a personal contact at a convention, already feel closer to you, the author, than if they had just stumbled upon the site via a search engine or such.
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Very much agreed, Stuart - Mark robson has especially made himself the paragon of offline promotions. :)
 
Some people I think just don't get the marketing message.

There's one self-published writer who was suspended for self-promoting his work on chronicles. Rather than email a "I'm sorry, won't do it again", he instead tells me it's an obvious error, tells me to buy the book, and also points out that he's putting profits to a certain "good cause" that any behaviour on his part is easily excusable.

Had three emails from him now insisting on his right to promo here, and I consider it aggressive and unwelcome.

If someone gives money to a good cause, that's great - but using it to promo your book and insist on advertising privileges because of it I consider emotional blackmail, and akin to using kids as human shields. Personally I find it very off-putting.

From what he says, he's had some advertising opportunities because of it - but he'll never get to advertise it here because of his sheer cocky arrogance and insistence that he can do what he wants.

Promotion should never be aggressive in that sense, IMO, and when promoting you should be willing to play withn the rules, rather than insist on the right to be outside of them.
 
Being cocky and arrogant seems to work well for some writers -- after they've already earned a certain measure of success, and people are willing to put it down to genius, and take them at their own valuation.

When you're just starting out, it simply comes across as pushy (and a little pathetic).
 
people just aren't realistic i guess. get a book out, they think that makes them famous and brilliant. and it doesn't. a lot of people have books out! there's a woman on lj, who im friends with, but she once made a post, has anyone ever heard of me? and no, was the answer! she writes young adult fantasy, which isn't my thing anyway, but sells a lot in ebooks. she was basically wondering how she can sell a lot of copies, yet still have no one know who she is. and i guess she forgot she sold copies worldwide, that the world is huge and we're not all going to be clumped together in one place

so i guess my point (somewhere) is, the guy's an idiot. he thinks selling a few books makes him special or clever or worth of special treatement and recognition and it doesn't, because lots of people have done it, or are doing it. it's fine to be confident in your work, and self promote, but not to be rude or think you deserve to be an exception to the rule.

besides, he'd probably not sell anything even if you did let him piost his advert. people online tend to buy books from epople that they've chatted to, that they know. at least, that's what i find. cos there are SO many books out there, why buy one strangers book, when you can buy one friends? :)
 
Does anyone know anything about a website called bookhitch.com that is supposed to promote authors and publishers for free? I received an email from them (or rather Madeline did) offering to list my book, and I'm wondering what the, um ... hitch ... might actually be.
 
Hello,

I actually sent you the e-mail about bookhitch (it is amazing how quickly google picks up forum comments these days). I will be more than happy to answer any questions you have. bookhitch is a good marketing alternative that does not have any hidden aspects. You can list your book for free and have it show up on the site immediately. We do have a premium listing, but there is no annoying ads to upgrade etc, just a choice between the two. The site was designed to give authors another means to reach their target market, it is simply a place for you list your book. I think of it as a mini search engine for the book industry as readers can search for any book listed, and visit a site (provided by each author/publisher/agent) to buy the book. It is a new site so many people have not heard of it, hence the effort to raise awareness.

As for other means of raising awareness of your books, I would try free press release services (found throughout the net...you can also send these releases directly to newspapers), discussion boards, and free online article services. Hope that helps a bit!
 
Although I agree with the aversion to joining a forum just to say "buy my book," joining a forum is still one of the best ways of finding out more about your target audience, and how to reach them. I've found that, just participating honestly (and intelligently) in a forum can be enough to get some notice for your work, though admittedly, not much. But that can lead to good word of mouth, so it's worth taking the time.

At any rate, if you look around, you can find some forums that give aspiring authors an acceptable place to advertise their work in a separate section... so others don't need to go there if they don't want to. This has garnered most of my e-book sales thus far.

And Stuart's suggestions about SFF conventions is something else I'm looking into... and which I learned of in a forum! In short, forums are always good ways to research, participate, indirectly promote, and sometimes to directly market yourself.
 
I didn't see this mentioned on here. Forgive me if I've missed it. What I have found that works is getting involved and giving back. My profile in the SF/F community is increasing because I give people something that they want. I run a blog and interview other authors. They're delighted to participate. I haven't been turned down once. And some of them have extensive publicity engines themselves, so when they blast about their new interview to their fan base, then I have more eyes on my blog. Over time some readers will notice my book for sale and be interested enough to buy it.

I go to SF conventions and sit on panels, I review sf books for Mostly Fiction. These are things where I'm giving something to the sf community, not saying hey, woohoo, look at me. I guest blog about writing. I also blog about writing and my own ups and downs as a writer because a lot of my readers are aspiring writers as well. Again, it's about giving, not getting.

Thanks, Brian for starting this thread and outlining the basics. I've been guilty of some of those things myself when I was a newbie. I'm still a newbie writer, but I'm getting this marketing thing down. For now. It always changes, and I could always do more. But then when would I write?

That's my considerably more than 2 cents.
 
A good place for a website that will look professional, contemporary and slick/flash with little or no website knowledge is Free Website With Flash Website Builder at Wix.com

not that I really wanna adverstise them, but I used to do my website myself using dreamwaver, FTP clients and all that, would take a while and be a pain, but this place is just drag and drop, my site is so much more professional looking (though it's an art portfolio) than it ever used to be and took a fraction of the time and I stumbled my way through it. easy to pick up and they have a great FAQ system.

You can do a general site for free - but if you wanted e-commerce and your own domain then you pay for it, but it's worth it I think. First impressions last!

anyway - have a look if you like the sound of it.
jez
 
Another tip - get a website up with your own domain name ASAP, whether or not your book is finished or even started. If you can't get your name/pseudonym as a domain name, make sure the name you write under is in the title of every page (the one that appears it the top of the web browser window) and in the body of at least the home page.

Then - and this is the important bit - link to your site wherever you can: include the homepage URL when you post on other people's blogs, include it in forum signatures wherever you can, etc. Why? Because Google rates sites by, among other things, the number of links leading to it. It's worked for me - anyone Googling my name will discover that several of the top hits on Google (including #1) are for my website and Twitter feed. OK so I've been online for a long time, but the sooner you start, the sooner you will see the benefits...
 
Great advice Brian.

I self published my novel on Amazon less than a month ago. Four months prior to the book launch while I was waiting for final edits and the cover I started my website. It now gets about a thousand visitors a week. I also started a twitter account. I wish I had started the website a lot earlier so if you've just started writing a novel that you intend to publish start the website in parallel.

Mostly I participate in online forums and, with the exception of threads that are specifically for book promotion NEVER promote my book or myself (it gets tiresome very quickly for me apart from anyone else). What I have found is that the forums are a great way to ... procrastinate. YES! Seriously, I have been privileged to meet great people (and a few idiots it has to be said, but only a tiny few), some of whom have become good online friends. And it has been fun.

The main way I built traffic was to invite other authors for interviews, write about their books and generally give my time to promoting others. I still do this and will continue to mainly because I get a kick out of getting an email from someone saying that their "traffic" increased or they sold some books as a result of a post of mine.

One thing that you have to bear in mind is that marketing is a marathon - not a sprint. I also have not figured out the UK market at all. My book is doing reasonably well in the US but sales in the UK are non-existent. (hence me diving into Brian's thread looking for clues :)).

If there are any UK authors here that have written a quality indie book, especially anything SF I'd be happy to give you an Indieview.
 
sgroyle said:
I also have not figured out the UK market at all. My book is doing reasonably well in the US but sales in the UK are non-existent. (hence me diving into Brian's thread looking for clues :)).
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I think ebooks are only just starting to take off over here - between the delays in getting the Kindle, iBooks, etc and the very annoying phenomenon of ebook regionalisation, it's not been easy to get hold of the books you want in electronic format. Until people in the UK start buying their favourite authors in ebook format as a matter of course, I don't think self-published writers are going to see much interest in their work over here.

P.S. Giving your own book a 5-star rating on Goodreads is an instant turn-off for me (not that I read techno-thrillers in any case).
 
Hi there Simon,

Could be the chap you need to talk to is Stephen Sweeney, authour of Honour of the Knights and sometime resident on these pages. He's flying on the UK kindle charts and has been pretty successful in getting printed copies into Waterstones too.
 
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