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This is a question that I’m asked quite often. As a busy author, you want to focus your promotional efforts where they count most. But it’s often difficult to determine what’s working and what’s not unless a very specific, isolated promotion generates a huge volume of sales. I love analyzing things and have a very detailed system for tracking my sales success. Here are some basic tips:
- Keep a detailed log of all your book promotion efforts. Track rticles published online, posts on your blog and other blogs, press releases, ezine promotions, and anything else you do to promote your books.
- Track your sales statistics. Amazon and B&N sales ranks, royalty statements from publishers, and your own sales data (if you’re self-published) are all important.
- Track your web statistics. Use the web analytics tool your web host provides or a third-party tool such as the free Google Analytics to see where your traffic is coming from and when.
Using these three pieces of information, you should be able to get a clear idea of which promotional efforts are paying off in terms of sales, web traffic, or both.
As an author, your main focus is most likely on your book. By developing additional income streams related to your book, however, you can increase your total revenue as well as increase your book sales with the publicity created through these income streams.
Using your book as the centerpiece of your platform, consider the following:
- Seek out lucrative public speaking assignments that are often available to published authors
- Create passive streams of revenue by selling related reports, CDs, DVDs, and other products
- Host a radio, podcast, or TV talk show
- Develop subscription websites or newsletters
- Become a spokesperson
- Host teleseminars related to your book
- Teach, coach, and consult–both online and offline
This list is just a small sampling of opportunities you can pursue as an author. Get creative and start generating both active and passive income streams that boost your bottom line and promote your book.
Learn more in my new special report, Multiple Streams of Author Income: 37 Easy, Low-Cost Ways to Profit from Your Expertise.
Last year Amazon introduced its new AmazonConnect program, which enabled authors to communicate directly with their readers and provide profile information and blog-like posts on their books’ detail page. If you’re like many other authors, you signed up and entered a few blog posts.
But if you haven’t participated much recently, you could be missing out on some good sales opportunities. I recently checked my web stats and discovered a new surge in traffic from Amazon to my site, all based on my AmazonConnect participation. So take a look at what’s on your Amazon detail pages and add some new content to maintain the spark of interest in your own books as well.
Not having enough time to promote is one of the most common complaints I hear from authors. Yes, book promotion takes time, but you won’t sell many books without it. Here’s a trio of tips to make the process easier:
- Focus your time on the publicity efforts that generate the best results. You’ll soon know whether a mention on a blog or published article results in a surge in book sales. In addition, track your web statistics to see where your traffic is coming from and when. Google Analytics is a good tool for this. Drop the publicity efforts that aren’t paying off in favor of those that are.
- Create a calendar of book promotion activities. For example, you may want to publish one article a month, create a press release every quarter, update your blog twice a week, and comment on other blogs and discussion boards weekly. Factor time in your schedule for the promotional efforts that are working and it starts to become a habit.
- Outsource the tasks you don’t have time for. If you can afford it, consider hiring a virtual assistant or intern to handle some of the more routine promotional tasks. If your budget is tight, try the family approach. Skilled teens, retirees, or stay-at-home moms may have the time to help out the author in their family.
I’m happy to announce the release of my latest special report: Multiple Streams of Author Income: 37 Easy, Low-Cost Ways to Profit From Your Expertise.
Multiple Streams of Author Income (2008 Edition) is a 36-page downloadable PDF available for $12.95, which offers shows you how to “think beyond the book” and develop lucrative income streams from your expertise.
It’s widely known that many of today’s most successful authors make most of their money from additional products and services—not from their book royalties. Isn’t it time you joined them?
Multiple Streams of Author Income will teach you how to:
- Focus on the income streams that best match your skills and expertise
- Generate passive income that enables you to profit even when you’re not working
- Create a funnel system to develop a loyal audience and higher profits
- Package your expertise in ways that earn the most money
- Easily set up an ecommerce system that requires little technical skill
- Position yourself for lucrative speaking, hosting, and spokesperson assignments
- Generate profitable income streams even if you hate public speaking and live in a remote area
- Save time and money by using proven resources and methods
Try one new publicity idea at a regular interval–either monthly or quarterly, depending on your available time. I know you’re busy, but unless your current promotions are resulting in thousands of new book sales, you need to keep trying new things to continue generating publicity, particularly for a book that’s been available for a while.
Some ideas could take considerable effort to implement, such as creating your own podcast, but others take only a few minutes of your time. This blog, my workbook, and special reports provide plenty of inspiration for new things to try.
One of the most important rules of online book promotion — or any form of promotion for that matter — is to focus on your audience. Here are three tips for developing a reader-focused online book promotion campaign:
- Develop an audience profile. Knowing who might potentially buy your book and the sites they visit on the web is your key to success. Naturally, this is easier if your book is on a tightly targeted topic. But even if you’ve written a general interest book or novel, you can still develop some form of profile.
- Once you have that profile, focus your promotional efforts on the sites your audience frequents and the type of content to which they would most likely respond. For example, let’s say you wrote a book about skiing. Your audience could potentially visit websites devoted to skiing or to travel areas frequented by skiers. They could also respond favorably to your own site full of skiing advice and short ski-related video clips.
- Remember to focus on the interests of your audience, not your own personal interests. Many authors focus on online promotion techniques that interest them rather than their audience. Cool new technologies like video book trailers, multimedia, and podcasts work great for some books, but not so great for others. Pick the tools and techniques that will make your audience respond.
The 2008 edition of The Web-Savvy Writer: Book Promotion with a High-Tech Twist has just arrived! Choices include an online workbook available for instant download and a spiral-bound printed workbook.
Called “brilliant … indispensable … and a must read” by publishing and PR insiders, this edition includes numerous revisions and additions to help you keep up with the fast-changing world of online book promotion.
If you’ve been waiting to order The Web-Savvy Writer, now’s the time. If you already own a previous edition and are looking for entirely new content, you may prefer one of my special reports or my new program, Online Book Promotion Blitz (more news on that in a couple weeks).
One of my articles on this site, Your Author Website: Five Tips That Generate Results, was recently reprinted in the anthology The New Writer’s Handbook 2007: A Practical Anthology of Best Advice for Your Craft and Career
