Just the FAQs Blog

Archive for the ‘Online Promotion’ Category

If you’re a new author just starting your marketing campaign, here’s a handy checklist of the things you will need to get started.

Target Audience
Defining your target audience affects every other aspect of your marketing plan. You will want to make all of your marketing material as appealing to that audience as is your book. Doing so will also bring a cohesive look and feel to your material. Keep your target audience in mind when creating the rest of the elements on this checklist. A great way to get ideas of what appeals to your audience is to research other Web sites in your genre.

Bio
You will need both a full bio and two short bios. Keep your full bio to less than a page, if possible. Include what credentials you to write the book from both your education and life experiences. The two short bios will be a condensed version of the long bio. Make one that is about a paragraph in length and an even shorter version that is about three sentences.

Many authors who do not already have a marketing mindset may find these very difficult to create. It’s likely that you will be more modest about your background, experience, and book content than a professional marketer would be. Since it’s hard to be objective about yourself, you may not easily be able to write your bio in a way that sells you to your target market.

It’s a good idea to seek outside help with this process. You can hire a professional author’s assistant to write it for you. Even if you write your own bio, have it edited by an author’s assistant or another marketing professional.

Headshot
You’ll want at least two nice portrait pictures of yourself. In different marketing venues you’ll find multiple uses for a “business” shot as well as a more “casual” shot. Make digital copies available in several sizes and formats, including both high resolution .tiff in CMYK format and compressed .jpg images in RGB format. Print media will require the higher resolution and special format. (If you are unfamiliar with these formats, have a professional photographer or graphics artist do the conversions for you. If you take the shots yourself, send them the original digital file from your camera.) You’ll also want to convert your photos into black and white images in at least two sizes.

Be aware that you cannot display .tiff images on a Web site. However, you can display a high resolution .png format. You can offer the .tiff version as a download or email option. Most of the graphics on a site are either the compressed .jpg version or an even lower resolution .gif.

Facts Sheet
This is a full description of your book on one page. The information is often provided by your publisher. It generally includes:

Title – the title of your book
Author – your author name
Category – the genre of your book
ISBN – include both the 10 and 13 digit ISBNs
Pub Date – the publish month and year
Price – the list price that is printed on the cover
Pages – a full page count, including all front and back material (index, appendixes, and such)
Type – if it’s a paperback, list as a “Trade Paper”
Publisher – the name of the book’s publisher
Language – the language in which the book is written
Dimensions – the length, width, and thickness of the book
Shipping Weight – list in pounds
Web site – the URL where more information can be found about the book
Media kit – the URL of your online media information or the email address to request it
Media Contact – who folks should contact about the book or the author
Color graphic of the book cover

Book Summary
Typically, this is the same information that will appear on the back cover of your book. You will also need a shortened version known as the “elevator speech”, which is a condensed summary of your book that could be stated during a typical elevator ride.

A summary of your book should be so appealing to your target audience that they would be compelled to purchase it. This could be another task for an author’s assistant who could help you “punch up” the summary in an exciting way.

Business Cards
Even if you can’t carry a copy of your book everywhere you go, you can certainly carry business cards. Be sure to include contact information and/or where folks can find more information on your book. You might also consider a design that can be expanded to the size of a bookmark or postcard, since these can include more information.

Web Site / Blog
This will be the landing page where folks come to find more information about you and your book. The very least online presence you need is a blog. Even if you have a Web site, establishing a blog is a great way to drive traffic to your book. You can either hire a profession designer, create the site yourself, or some combination of both. You’ll want a site that you can update and manage yourself, otherwise you’ll be paying someone to maintain it. This means that you will have to set aside a little bit of time to learn about Web sites.

Email Address
Creating a special email address just for book purposes will help keep you more organized. It will also help folks be aware that they are talking to an author, not their buddy across town, and it’s likely to have the same affect on you. In other words, it’s an “official” email address where you conduct your writing business communications. Once you have your book site set up, you will likely be able to create an associated email address with the same extension. For instance, if the URL of your site is www.mysite.com, you can create an address such as me@mysite.com

Just the FAQs offers full consultation services and books to dramatically reduce your learning curve, helping you create the right site, the first time, that works for both you and your product.

Download a printable copy of this checklist.

Most new authors are so consumed with perfecting the interior content of their book that they don’t devote enough time to creating a plan for presenting it to the world after publication. Everything about that process involves marketing.

The number one mistake new authors make is not obtaining a proper education on marketing a book. After all, marketing drives sales. The harsh reality is, most new authors only sell about 300 books and at least the first 50 of those are to friends, family, and close supporters. Those are the easy sales. After that, an author could easily spend $10,000+ with marketing that may or may not result in ROI, which is Return on Investment.

Authors write books for all sorts of reasons. Some publish their memoirs or family history. Some just want to see their name in print. Some authors feel passionately about their material and believe that the world would benefit from reading it. And, finally, some authors actually want to make a living from writing.

If you fall into the last two categories, you need to learn everything you can about the ever-evolving business of publishing and make friends with as many marketing gurus as you can.

Most of all, you need a marketing plan.

Successful authors start making this plan well before the book is ever published. Many start before a word of it is even written. What do they know that new authors don’t?

The 7 ways to avoid “new author” mistakes.

1. Learn everything you can about the business of writing and future trends.
2. Investigate the wide variety of publishing options now available.
3. Investigate what it will take to create an online presence that gets results.
4. Establish yourself as an expert and/or build buzz for the book through social network marketing.
5. Learn how to create outstanding marketing material such as press releases, blog posts, and media kits.
6. Find and follow marketing gurus online who have a proven track record and explain free or low-cost ways to promote.
7. Get a pro editor. Your Aunt Edna may teach grammar, but she probably doesn’t have a marketing degree. Pro book editors do a lot more than catch typos and dangling participles. They can help you create the front and back matter of your book, as well as the back cover blurb, which isessential to your marketing.

While all of that sounds like a lot, it only takes about 30 minutes or less a day, once you find the right folks to teach you. Here are a few that can help you get started on the right foot.

Dana Lynn Smith is The Savvy Book Marketer. She has a great post titled When Should You Begin Marketing Your Book? that will link you to even more resources. And she has a full line of books in The Savvy Book Marketer series to help you get started with a marketing plan on all fronts.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is deservedly known as the Queen of Frugal Tips and her books, The Frugal Book Promoter, as well as The Frugal Editor will provide you with countless resources and knowledge.

Karen Reddick is a professional book editor and author of Grammar Done Right! that is available in both print and searchable e-book versions. She also provides fantastic Virtual Assistant services to help you start writing copy that gets noticed.

Of course, books from Just the FAQs can dramatically reduce your learning curve of creating an online presence that works. If you’re on a DIY budget, as most new authors are, managing your own site is a great way to save money by doing it right the first time with great tools.

I’m delighted to have marketing expert, Dana Lynn Smith return for Part 2 of our series on How to Create a New Blog or Upgrade and Revitalize Your Existing Blog.

In this podcast we’ll focus on Creating Compelling Content and Adding Sidebar Features. We’ll also talk about why blogging is such an important promotional tool and how to do it effectively.

If you haven’t done so already, listen to Part 1 of this series, which covered Planning for a Successful Blog and Setting It Up.

This podcast will also include a link to a special resource page with
freebies and goodies mentioned during the show!

If you’re an author, artist, musician, wanting to share your passion with the world, or an entrepreneur or small business owner wanting to increase your Web presence, this is the show for you!

The podcast airs Thursday, Dec. 10th. Visit Just the FAQs Podcast for more.

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