THE SELF PUBLISHERS GUIDE TO BOOK MARKETING STEP BY STEP GUIDE FOR FICTION AND NON -FICTION AUTHORS
JAMIE CAWLEY
Copyright Jamie Cawley The Self Publishers Guide to Book Marketing Step by step guide for fiction and non-fiction authors Š 2012, Jamie Cawley Alotta.Info ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system with express written permission from the author / publisher.
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Contents Introduction Getting Started 1.1 Why Are You Publishing? 1.2 Who Will Read Your Book? 1.3 How Will You Sell Your Book? 1.4 Essential Author Details 1.5 Creating a Book Cover 1.6 Writing a Book Description 1.7 Choosing Your Genre 1.8 Choosing Your Keywords Checklist - Getting Started Pre-Release Promotion 2.1 Writing Book Promo Text 2.2 Creating a Landing Page 2.3 Writing a Basic Press Release 2.4 Distributing a Press Release 2.5 Creating Social Media Buzz Checklist - Pre-Release Promo Publishing Tips 3.1 Kindle and KDP Select 3.2 Publishing Tips 3.3 Author Central 3.4 Pricing Tips 3.5 Pros of eBook with Paperback Promote Your Published Book 4.1 Goodreads 4
4.2 Shelfari 4.3 Book Giveaways 4.4 Updating the Landing Page 4.5 New Press Release 4.6 Contacting Book Reviewers 4.7 Approaching Book Bloggers 4.8 Creating a Book PDF Promo 4.9 Creating a Banner 4.10 Creating a Video Trailer 4.11 Donating Books Checklist - Published Book Promo Revisions 5.1 Handling Reviews 5.2 Revising Your Book Moving Forward Recommended Resources
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Introduction This book is for self-published authors that want to boost their sales and reputations. When first starting out self-publishing, it can be very confusing and expensive to promote your book. This guide will provide you with step by step instructions, templates and live examples so that you can quickly and easily apply these techniques to your own work. As a non-fiction author that started out writing how to guides, my personal philosophy is 'why use 1,000 words when 50 will do?' I am a strong advocate of using quick reference sheets, flowcharts and real life examples to quickly get information across and show how the theory relates to reality. Time is precious and finding ways to gain the most information you can in the fastest way possible is vital so that you can focus on writing more books. So without further ado let's get started!
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Getting Started Roughly one month before publishing start putting together some basics that can be used to decide how you will publish and get ready to prepromote your book. In this section we will cover: - Why are you publishing? - Who will read your book? - How will you sell your book? - Essential author details - Creating a book cover - Writing a book description - Choosing your genre - Choosing your keywords Keep in mind differences in promotion priority between fiction and non-fiction such as: Readers of fiction are more likely to browse through books. As a result, the book cover and title are the two most important factors to focus on. Non-fiction readers are more likely to use a search tool to find a book. This means that the use of keywords in the title, description and tags has great impact on getting your book found.
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1.1 Why Are You Publishing? One of the most common questions you ask yourself is why are you writing? The answers vary dramatically, however when it comes to the question why are you publishing? The answer is far easier. The primary motivations for publishing are to: - Share knowledge - Entertain - Become known as a giant in your industry - Earn money from your writing - Any combination of the above Your primary motivation influences how and where you should publish, how you will promote your work, and also what pricing point to set for your book. The highest percentage of book royalties comes from e-publishing on Kindle, PDF or other electronic mediums. If your priority is to build your brand or reputation then publishing in both paperback and digital formats will give you the broadest coverage. Alternately, if your goal is to have as many people as possible read and learn from your work you can publish across paperback, audio, Kindle, PDF and other electronic mediums. 8
Check out the Publishing section of this book for recommendations on which methods will be best suited for you.
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1.2 Who Will Read Your Book? Knowing basic information about your readers is key to successfully promoting your book. The most important information for you to research is: - What age range are your readers? - What gender are your readers? - Where are your readers located? - What websites, social media and offline media do they use? - What keywords or phrases are your readers looking for? You can quickly and easily get this information by identifying any popular website that you know your target readers frequent. You can then use the free sites below to gather what you need. Quantcast www.quantcast.com Quantcast is an excellent source to find the age range, gender and other topics that your audience is interested in.
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Google Trends trends.google.com Google Trends shows you where readers are located and other websites they visit. Alexa www.alexa.com Alexa is an excellent site to use to see what keywords and phrases your readers search for.
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