Articles on developing an Internet presence

I've developed this series of articles based on things I learned during my first year as a published author and have posted the first two on my website. You'll find them here:

The articles outline what an author should consider in order to gain an Internet presence.

I have a background in public relations and several years experience in project management and promotions in higher education. My experience has been in the area of campaign development, press releases, advertisement, graphic design, and event planning.

Marketing my book took me into unknown territory, but being one who loves a challenge and is something of a risk taker, I embraced the opportunity. But even I had to admit that as my debut novel SILENCED CRY was about to be released in April 2007, I was a bit apprehensive. My hope is that in sharing my experiences with you, you’ll find some useful solutions to your marketing questions. I look forward to your comments!

Best,
Marta

Here's the link to the articles. For some reason it didn't show up before:

Marta,

I don't see any links, but would love to check out your articles. I've put together a couple of pages on Marketing Your Writing Online that you may find useful.

Marta St wrote:

Here's the link to the articles. For some reason it didn't show up before:

Hi Marta,

I think you will probably have to join for the links to show up!

~Shelagh

There must be tons of material out there about how to promote one's e-book, print-on-demand book, and ultra-small-press book.

I see things changing faster with non-fiction than fiction, for readers tend to care less about name authors than subjects. There are a growing number of ways an author's nonfiction can be associated with web sites and blogs focused on the subject of the book.

Yet, I'm less sure about whether all of the tips and techniques are working well for fiction where readers expect name authors and buzz. When I read articles and weblog posts from some of the most successful promoters and then go out to amazon.com and see that there books are up over a million or so on the list, then I have to ask: what good is all that promotion really doing if at the end of six months or a year, nobody has ever heard of the book or the author and it's still only sold at best a thousand copies?

I await a technique or a tip that puts an unknown on a level playing field with authors from the mainstream houses.

Malcolm

Hi Malcolm,

I agree with everything you say! I posted this on the network site but it is worth posting again for anyone who may have missed it:

Quote :

In the world of self-publishing, authors tend to have unrealistic expectations so it comes as a refreshing change to read about the financial difficulties facing self-published authors written by someone with experience in banking.

I found this "Handling Your Finances – Lessons from an Author in Transition by Lynnette Khalfani" very informative and helpful:

http://reviews.aalbc.com/handling_your_finances.htm

If you ever thought that receiving an advance for a three book deal would solve all your financial problems -- think again!

~Shelagh

Okay, I just posted the first two articles in the series under Marketing Tips.

Still, I do want to lead you to my site so try this as well. Look forward to your comments.

www.martastephens-author.com Look to the links on the left side. The articles are under "Author to Author." :

It wasn’t long after my first book was released that I learned to step away from the Amazon ratings. Amazon may seem like a good yard stick to measure sales, but if a book is available through a variety of retail facilities, Amazon certainly isn’t an accurate indicator of overall sales.

The results of self-promotion won’t happen over night. I’m reminded of the old saying, “don’t put all your eggs I one basket.” It’s the same thing with self-promotion. One or two things that an author does won’t get him/her there. Yes, it’s hard work, but it’s the constant and consistent message he or she puts out there that will get them noticed.

Malcolm wrote:

I await a technique or a tip that puts an unknown on a level playing field with authors from the mainstream houses.

Malcolm

I don't think there is any single technique. The big houses have direct links to most of the major media players (in fact, in many cases they are part of the same parent conglomerate). The internet is one place that allows the indies to play on the same field as the big houses. Print media is a different story.

Yes, Amazon ratings are very misleading. As Marta noted, they are really only an indication of Amazon (and not even all of Amazon, only Amazon US - not Amazon UK, Amazon Canada, Amazon Japan, etc.). If your books is available via other avenues, then Amazon is not a very good base (i.e., most mass-markets are not sold via Amazon, but as POP items in stores - their rankings on Amazon are very poor in most cases).

However, beyond that, why would you NOT use the techniques for promotion? According to psychologists and advertising gurus, it takes anywhere from 3 to 7 times for a person to see an item before they actually purchase it. So, most marketing techniques may fail in resulting in a direct purchase, but if they get your book in front of someone, it all adds up.

Here's an example of what I'm talking bout:

One book-selling technique pushed quite strongly by those who write about promotion is that of linking your book to your business's website. For example, if you own a consulting company and write a book about consulting and link it to your site, the book might serve to validate your services, to provide prospects with additional information, as a free give-away, or whatever.

Fiction doesn't work this way, but for nonfiction, it's probably a reasonable technique.

-

A technique that might work for fiction is the so-called blogging tour. If you're not familiar with this, it usually involves a PR person (whom you pay) interviewing you and encouraging you to write numerous blurbs and experiences suitable for blogs. All this material is then posted on a series of blogs for, say, a few weeks or a month.

Unfortunately, these interviews, etc. do not show up on well-known blogs such as Buzz, Balls and Hype or The Elegant Variation. They tend to show up on blogs that have little or no traffic relatively speaking and that are chiefly read by other authors trying to get their books to sell.

While the technique is interesting, I don't think it's going to produce a lot of sales. Has anyone here had this work?

Malcolm

Hi Malcolm, I'm still exploring on line marketing. I've built up my own Internet presence over the last 4 years and my main web site is going to hit 6000 visitors this month and break the 500,000 hits barrier for the first time, again in a month. The site is doing very well and I'm using it to promote my book. It looks as if the Books page will have over 300 visitors this month and it's generating a few Amazon clicks. All my work has gone into this site and building the traffic up.

As to blogs? My first review turned up on a blog, funnily enough. No idea how many times that review was read there or if it generated any interest but it was nice to see!

I'll follow this thread with interest.

That's the challenge, George, getting that traffic up high enough so that you can expect a fair number of purchases out of the group--and others who may come back again and again.

Malcolm

Very valid points Malcolm. I guess I'm still unclear as to what you are looking for exactly. If you could be more specific - perhaps start a thread on each question/topic - that might help.

I have a fair amount of experience with the online marketing game (and am still learning everyday), but there are a lot of FREE techniques. I've never paid a person or company for any marketing - not for press releases, blogs, tours, traffic building, search engine optimization, etc. It is all fairly easy to do, and I would be happy to explain it. I've put together some information on the Marketing Your Writing Online page which may be of interest.

I do agree, however, that most of the people who are acting as book marketing gurus may have had some success - because they wrote a book about book marketing - but their techniques don't work for general fiction, nonfiction, poetry, children's books, etc. They work if your books is on marketing, publishing, self-publishing or the like (that is why they are on all of the book marketing and publishing forums - looking for clients), but I've had to figure a lot out myself since my books - and the one's we publish - are general fiction and nonfiction.

Lots of good thoughts and links on this thread. Thank you all for the brain fodder.

>>flashgordon: However, beyond that, why would you NOT use the techniques for promotion? <<

As more and more people focus on the author as the primary promoter of his/her book, I see a lot of people tilting at windmills.

There's a lot of talk out on the Internet, some good, some more hopeful than good. At the end of the day, though, which techniques or practises aimed primarily at POD fiction authors are moving self-promoted fiction onto the same playing field as mainstream-house fiction that is promoted reasonably by the publisher? If the answer is: none of the techniques, then they seem to be a waste of time/money, for the purpose here is NOT to spend more money selling each book than the book earns.

When somebody tells me, for example, that paying $300 to send my book on a "blogging tour" composed of sites that mostly feature other books on blogging tours, I think (with all due respect) that I'm seeing snake oil. Even if my book appears on two or three times the magic seven-exposures number of posts, doing this is not going to result in many sales. Why? Nobody except desperate authors has ever heard of any of the blogs on the tour. Each author awaits for all of the others to buy his book while he buys none of the other books promoted in this way.

So, I'm not looking for anything personally. I'm interested in techniques that work, and so far I'm seeing very few that are viable for fiction unless that fiction is already being promoted by the publisher in (at least) a modest way.

Malcolm

Coincidently, I just posted the following in one of the other marketing threads. I don't know if this will help answer some of the questions raised here or not, but ...

For me marketing is an on-going process, but I concentrate on Internet marketing/sales and connections. I consider anything I sell locally via bookstores sales or signings as icing on the cake. Our local B&N keeps it in stock but if I depended only on them and the other independent shops to stock my books, I'd go nuts trying.

I read an interesting--no, sobering statistic this week:

Of the 1.2 million titles tracked by Bookscan in 2006, only 2.1% sold more than 5,000 books, 16.6% sold fewer than 1,000, and a terrifying 79.6% sold fewer than 99 copies.

SILENCED CRY was released in late April 2007. I sold close to 100 books between May - December 2007, at 3 book signings and to local people who contacted me the week before Christmas to purchase copies as presents. Additionally, I've received a royalty check each quarter for online and other bookstore sales.

Within the first 6 months after the book's release, my sales were well within the 16.6%; my publisher agrees I'm having above average sales. My only reason for mentioning this is to point out that it is doable for an author to achieve a level of sucess in marketing his/her own book.
It's not a streak of luck, it's work and I focus 90% of my efforts on maintaining an Internet presence.

All six-parts to the series of articles on developing an Internet presence are completed and posted on my web. If you're interested, you'll find them and other articles on my website under the link titled, "Author to Author" at www.martastephens-author.com. One of these articles discusses virtual book tours and no, they don't all involve PR firms that charge an arm and a leg. And yes, they can be successful. I was reaping the benefits of it several months later.

The question remains, how do you balance the time spent between writing and marketing? Very carefully, but a great deal depends on where you're at on the writing. If the book is done. Then marketing/promoting efforts need to take center stage.