Category Archives: Book Marketing

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3 Book Design Keys for Greater Book Success

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Joel Friedlander

Joel Friedlander

Recently I had the pleasure of attending Dvorah Lansky’s 4th Annual Book Marketing Conference Online. This year’s theme was: “Digital Publishing Virtual Summit”.

Dvorah brought together authors, writers, publishers, speakers, coaches, VAs, entrepreneurs, and book marketing experts from all around the world & provided participants an opportunity to listen, learn and interact with the speakers.

The second expert speaker of the conference was Joel Friedlander. He talked about 3 keys that will guide your book design decisions, no matter what category or genre you’re publishing in or who actually does your book design work. By looking at the principles behind book design, you’ll discover the guidelines to sound book construction.

So If you missed Joel Friedlander’s presentation, here’s a brief synopsis:

Joel shared “Know These 3 Book Design Keys for Greater Book Succes“, they were:

  1. Design for readers
  2. Observe the conventions
  3. Be appropriate for your category or genre

You can read/learn more about this here:

http://www.bookmarketingalliance.com/know-these-3-book-design-keys-for-greater-book-success/

Not sure where to start? Joel suggests following his #1 Action Step here:

http://www.bookmarketingalliance.com/joel-friedlanders-1-action-step/

If you used any of these methods, feel free to share what you did by leaving your comments/reply below. What method did you use & was it effective?

It’s possible you may still be able to attend the free workshops by listening in live to the scheduled sessions. There are also replays of each session for up three hours. However, if you miss the sessions or cannot attend the summit/conference, you still have the opportunity to become a gold or platinum member which provides you with access to all session recordings, and more! To learn more about how you can get access to this “evergreen” resource, use the following link: http://tinyurl.com/Digital-Publishing-Conference

 

 

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How To Signup & Utilize Author Central Effectively

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Author CentralAmazon’s Author Central

Recently I answered a question related to signing up to AuthorCentral and if there could be a Step-by-Step process on how to use it.

I thought this was an excellent opportunity to also share it with you – my readers!

If you are an author and or publisher, you’ll realize this is another way to implement into your book marketing campaign. By utilizing all the tools within your Author Central account, you’ll have the ability to use additional methods to effectively market/promote your book/s.

Signing up & setting up Author Central is simple:

  1. Surf on over to http://www.authorcentral.com
  2. Sign up if you aren’t a member (I used the same login info as my Amazon Customer Account).

Once you’ve accessed your AuthorCentral Account, you can do a number of things to optimize your Author Page.

The following links/tools are available in your account profile:

  1. You can Add multimedia, blog feeds, a Twitter feed, events,etc. to your Author Central Profile:
  • You can edit your Biography.
  • You can create your own personal Amazon Author Page url.
  • You can add a Twitter feed.
  • You can add a Blog feed.
  • You can add an author photo.
  • You can share a video interview, book trailer, or book signing video.
  • You can share any upcoming speaking engagements, bookstore appearances, or whatever event you feel will help market and or promote you, your book and or your brand.
  1. You can View and Edit your list of books (click on the Author Title/Book Cover):
  • You can request to edit your editorial reviews.
  • You can Add a Review.
  • You can Add info for: ‘Product Description’.
  • You can add info for: ‘From the Author’
  • You can add info for: ‘From the Inside Flap’ (if you have a jacket cover).
  • You can add info for: ‘From the Back Cover’.
  • You can add info for: ‘About the Author’.
  1. Under the ‘Book Extras’ tab you can add additional info via Shelfari.com:
  • Characters/People.
  • Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis.
  • Summary.
  • Quotations.
  • Settings & Location.
  • Glossary.
  • Organizations.
  • Awards.
  • Themes & Symbolism.
  1. You can add a book to your bibliography:
  • In a pop-up search box you can search for books you’ve written by Title, Author or ISBN then add them to your bibliography.
  1. You can check sales of each of your books by geographic region (sales figures are an estimate from BookScan).
  2. You can view all the reviews of your books (and add comments to them if you wish).

Hope you find this helpful in your book marketing plan!

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Utilizing The Shortened Amazon Book Detail Page Url

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Amazon IconUsing a Shortened Amazon Book Detail Page Url

Many authors/publishers send potential customers to their books using lengthy Amazon Product/Book Detail Page urls/links.

Examples of lengthy Amazon urls:

  1. http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Niche-Marketing-Definitive-Competitive/dp/0977968421
  2. http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Poynters-Self-Publishing-Manual-Write/dp/1568601425/ref=pd_sim_b_39
  3. http://www.amazon.com/Well-Fed-Self-Publisher-Turn-Full-Time-Living/dp/0967059860/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327461633&sr=1-1
  4. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Yourself-Solid-Reliable-Marketing/dp/0470643471/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327461773&sr=1-1

You can actually use a shortened & simpler url/link that’ll ‘look’ better in your marketing and promotion.

You’ll also be able to access your Amazon.com page directly by typing in the following short url format:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/[YOUR_ISBN]/

Enter your ISBN where it says: [YOUR_ISBN]

For example: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0977968421/

The same books listed above as examples are also listed below but utilizing the shorter links (and substituting the book’s ISBN into the Amazon urls):

  1. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0977968421
  2. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568601425
  3. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0967059860
  4. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470643471

Much better, yes?

Or, shorter yet, create a short custom url for your Amazon link using Bitly:

  1. http://amzn.to/0977968421

The website Bitly will generate an amzn.to URL with a random suffix but you could also choose to “customize” your own suffix with something else (in the above example the ISBN of the book is used).

By using one or both of these methods, you’ll successfully shorter your Amazon Product/Book Detail Page url/link.

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World’s Top Authors Reveal Their Secrets

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Author101 - Eric V. Van Der HopeAuthor101 University is coming to Los Angeles on March 1 – 4.

–>> I’m going to be there . . . how about you??

So what’s special about it?

Imagine a gathering of some of world’s most sought after marketing and publishing experts ready to give you the “keys to the kingdom” to:

  • Getting your book published
  • Selling your book to a publisher
  • Promoting yourself using low-cost means online to catapult your sales & exposure
  • Make your book a bestseller
  • Transforming your business into a mega success

Listen and learn to some of the top book publishing and marketing experts in the book industry today. They’ll reveal tools and techniques that will get your book published and double or triple your income as an author or publisher.

But this program isn’t just for established or aspiring authors but for inspiring entrepreneurs, small business owners, speakers, and just about anyone else looking to meet and learn directly from some of the bestselling authors and experts of our time.

Some of the speakers will include . . .

  • RICK FRISHMAN – Public Relations Expert and Best Selling Author
  • BRENDON BURCHARD – Author of The Millionaire Messenger
  • ALEX CARROLL – Best Selling Author, Radio Interview Expert
  • TOM ANTION – Internet Marketing Expert
  • DAVID HANCOCK – Morgan James Publishing
  • CRAIG DUSWALT – Professional RockStar Speaker and Author
  • BRUCE BARBOUR – Literary Agent & Publishing Consultant
  • PETER HOPPENFELD – Attorney to best and brightest
  • GARY GOLDSTEIN – Celebrated Hollywood film producer
  • JIM KWIK – Memory Expert and Internet Marketing Strategist
  • URSULA MENJTES – Founder of Sales Coach Now
  • SCOTT HOFFMAN – Folio Literary Management
  • . . . and many more

There will also be many AGENTS, EDITORS, AND PUBLISHERS on special panels looking to meet you and willing to share their coveted industry secrets.

If you’d like to learn more about this exciting educational opportunity, read about it here:

http://www.Author101University.com

So make plans to attend this event . . . because you’ll learn very specific tactics, insights, advice and tools from some of the very best, who are very good at what they do!

I sincerely hope to see you there! 🙂

A Testimonial from an Attendee:

“I was incredibly impressed with the Author 101 Seminar. It was very well organized and the speakers were all exceptional, each with a unique insight into the world of marketing, a world in which I was nervous and a little shy to enter but which I am now eager to plunge head first! You yourself, Rick, were exceptionally warm, dynamic and inspiring. You convinced me (and I believe everyone else at the seminar) that with the right work ethic (which I have) and the right tools (which you and the other speakers presented us) we could get our stories, ideas and messages to the people who matter!

Brendon Burchard was also hugely inspiring. He blew the lid off the whole marketing box for me. The price and time spent at the seminar was worth it to hear Brendon speak alone (without taking anything away from the contributions of all the other great speakers). The next few days after the seminar I woke from vivid dreams about great marketing strategies for circus based projects using his basic structure. You don’t get much more inspiring than that!”

– Mike Brown