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Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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kasteer
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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Kelstan,
Wow. Thanks! That's great advice. I dis plan to do a press release, but it's still on my to-do list. Buy the way, buy Astral now... :)

Thank you. I will be using your advice!
Author of two books:
Landslide: Poor Management and How to Avoid it
Astral
My author's page: http://www.amazon.com/Eric-Kasten/e/B00 ... 651&sr=8-1
adriellemartin
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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Promoting on your website, talking about it on social networking sites, making comparison to your book and to a best seller, having it reviewed by some good book critics or people who are avid readers, promoting on more than one selling platforms like Amazon etc. The best way is to promote it on your website and to show the amount of purchases per platform. Something like this:
Book:
Amazon: 162 downloads
EBay: 140 downloads
Zazzle: 47 downloads
Total: 349 downloads
Remember: Numbers follow numbers.
thwaters

Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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thekidd wrote:Do you have a website? You might try Twitter also. Also book giveaways help generate interest in your book. Try Goodreads and Library Thing they both have giveaways. In exchange for the books the recipient provides a review of the book. These are some of the things I've tried. It's not easy to get the word out, but persistence usually pays off. Good Luck.
Hello--I love the Goodreads website. It's more author-friendly than Library Thing, and I like it better overall. I did book giveaways on both sites & had roughly 60% of the Goodreads winners give me a review whereas the Library Thing review percentage was far less. I think some of those people (on both sites) may win the book for free and then sell it on-line without giving the author their fair review. It's a little frustrating. Another thing I really like about Goodreads is that after you do a giveaway and people post positive reviews of your book, their friends will mark your book as "To Read" and allow the author to track that statistic, which is really uplifting. I, myself, am still trying to find the magic key for generating more book sales and am hoping "The Kidd" is right and that persistence will pay off. All my best-- T.H. Waters, author of Ghellow Road Verefor Publishing
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Gary Val Tenuta
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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kasteer wrote:Hi all,
I have my first novel self published and available on Amazon, the kindle and the nook. I've reached out to a few local book stores, I've posted on Facebook and craigslist.

What do you find works best for you?

Thanks,
Eric K.
I already posted this in the other thread about successful promoting but I'll post it here, also.

For my first novel, The Ezekiel Code, I created a couple of 8.5x11 posters (printed on glossy stock) and put one on each of the side-back windows of my car. I also made an 18"x4" banner for the rear window. I have no idea whether they helped sell any books but, over a 4-year period, I know thousands of people saw them. :Eyes:

I also made business card sized promo cards with the cover pic, website, review blurbs, synopsis blurb, etc. I just dropped them off where ever I went. The local Half-Priced Book Store let me leave a stack of them at the check-out counter.

Other than that, I did all the typical internet promo, facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. For nearly three years I spent a minimum of 4 hours a day on the internet :bananen_smilies035: doing whatever I could to promote the book. Oh, and don't forget about book trailers. :)

It took about a year for sales to really amount to anything but it slowly gained momentum. Eventually it became a "bestseller" on amazon and bounced back and forth between the top 10 to the top 100 for over 57 weeks. It was an amazing run but I had a terrific advantage. The storyline of The Ezekiel Code revolves around the 2012-end-of-the-Mayan-calendar thing. The niche market for that particular pop-culture phenomenon was really big, not to mention the boost my book got from the blockbuster "2012" movie. :clap2:

I should also mention the importance of "tags" on your amazon page. The higher the number of clicks on your tags, the further up the list your book will appear when people are using tags to search for particular types of books. With the help of a lot of other author friends (on an amazon forum) my tag clicks were somewhere around 120 as I recall. Whatever the number was, it was enough to put my book at the top of the list of books that came up when anyone searched amazon using the tag "2012". So, try to get as many people as you can to go to your amazon page and click the little boxes next to your tags.

Right now, for my latest novel, ASH: Return Of The Beast, I'm experimenting with business-sized promo cards that have a QR matrix code on them. Scanning the code with a smart phone will take them to my website where they will see the book trailer and the "buy" button to purchase the book. Of course, I don't have any way of tracking how successful this little experiment will be, but I figured it can't hurt. Exposure is the name of the game. Can't have too much exposure. :)
ASH: Return Of The Beast
A fictional supernatural crime thriller, steeped in the occult and inspired by a real-life mystery.
http://www.ashreturnofthebeast.webs.com
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kasteer
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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Gary Val Tenuta wrote:
kasteer wrote:Hi all,
I have my first novel self published and available on Amazon, the kindle and the nook. I've reached out to a few local book stores, I've posted on Facebook and craigslist.

What do you find works best for you?

Thanks,
Eric K.
I already posted this in the other thread about successful promoting but I'll post it here, also.

For my first novel, The Ezekiel Code, I created a couple of 8.5x11 posters (printed on glossy stock) and put one on each of the side-back windows of my car. I also made an 18"x4" banner for the rear window. I have no idea whether they helped sell any books but, over a 4-year period, I know thousands of people saw them. :Eyes:

I also made business card sized promo cards with the cover pic, website, review blurbs, synopsis blurb, etc. I just dropped them off where ever I went. The local Half-Priced Book Store let me leave a stack of them at the check-out counter.

Other than that, I did all the typical internet promo, facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. For nearly three years I spent a minimum of 4 hours a day on the internet :bananen_smilies035: doing whatever I could to promote the book. Oh, and don't forget about book trailers. :)

It took about a year for sales to really amount to anything but it slowly gained momentum. Eventually it became a "bestseller" on amazon and bounced back and forth between the top 10 to the top 100 for over 57 weeks. It was an amazing run but I had a terrific advantage. The storyline of The Ezekiel Code revolves around the 2012-end-of-the-Mayan-calendar thing. The niche market for that particular pop-culture phenomenon was really big, not to mention the boost my book got from the blockbuster "2012" movie. :clap2:

I should also mention the importance of "tags" on your amazon page. The higher the number of clicks on your tags, the further up the list your book will appear when people are using tags to search for particular types of books. With the help of a lot of other author friends (on an amazon forum) my tag clicks were somewhere around 120 as I recall. Whatever the number was, it was enough to put my book at the top of the list of books that came up when anyone searched amazon using the tag "2012". So, try to get as many people as you can to go to your amazon page and click the little boxes next to your tags.

Right now, for my latest novel, ASH: Return Of The Beast, I'm experimenting with business-sized promo cards that have a QR matrix code on them. Scanning the code with a smart phone will take them to my website where they will see the book trailer and the "buy" button to purchase the book. Of course, I don't have any way of tracking how successful this little experiment will be, but I figured it can't hurt. Exposure is the name of the game. Can't have too much exposure. :)
Awesome post and Huge THANKS for the tips! I was trying to figure out how Amazon did their ranking. I thought it was related to what you view, as in "Other who viewed this book, also viewed these...". I'll get some people to click away on the tags.

I started business cards several times online, but haven't gone through with that yet. I should be getting a check form Lulu soon and I think I'll use that to reinvest in the book via business cards.

I've had a few sales and I think it takes a little while for Amazon to get the book thoroughly blended into its system... at least that was my thinking.

Good luck with ASH. It looks pretty cool. I'll send you ya signed copy of ASTRAL if you send a signed copy of ASH and we can post reviews/rating on Amazon for each other. Just a thought.

Thanks again!
Author of two books:
Landslide: Poor Management and How to Avoid it
Astral
My author's page: http://www.amazon.com/Eric-Kasten/e/B00 ... 651&sr=8-1
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Gary Val Tenuta
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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kasteer wrote:
Awesome post and Huge THANKS for the tips! I was trying to figure out how Amazon did their ranking. I thought it was related to what you view, as in "Other who viewed this book, also viewed these...". I'll get some people to click away on the tags.

I started business cards several times online, but haven't gone through with that yet. I should be getting a check form Lulu soon and I think I'll use that to reinvest in the book via business cards.

I've had a few sales and I think it takes a little while for Amazon to get the book thoroughly blended into its system... at least that was my thinking.

Good luck with ASH. It looks pretty cool. I'll send you ya signed copy of ASTRAL if you send a signed copy of ASH and we can post reviews/rating on Amazon for each other. Just a thought.

Thanks again!
I went to your amazon page for your book, Astral, so I could click your tags up a notch but noticed you hadn't added any tags yet. So I tagged it for you. You should add some more if you can think of any others that people might use as keywords (that's really what "tags" are) when searching amazon for a book like yours. You'll notice there's a little box right next to each tag and a little number beside the box. If you can get your friends, family, etc. to go to your page and click those boxes, you'll see the little number increases by 1. But each person can only click each tag once. If the same person clicks a tag more than once then it reduces the number by 1.

If you get a chance, I could use a click on my tags at amazon.com/Ash-Return-Beast-ebook/dp/B0 ... amp;sr=1-1 Thanks in advance! :D
ASH: Return Of The Beast
A fictional supernatural crime thriller, steeped in the occult and inspired by a real-life mystery.
http://www.ashreturnofthebeast.webs.com
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kasteer
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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Gary Val Tenuta wrote:
kasteer wrote:
Awesome post and Huge THANKS for the tips! I was trying to figure out how Amazon did their ranking. I thought it was related to what you view, as in "Other who viewed this book, also viewed these...". I'll get some people to click away on the tags.

I started business cards several times online, but haven't gone through with that yet. I should be getting a check form Lulu soon and I think I'll use that to reinvest in the book via business cards.

I've had a few sales and I think it takes a little while for Amazon to get the book thoroughly blended into its system... at least that was my thinking.

Good luck with ASH. It looks pretty cool. I'll send you ya signed copy of ASTRAL if you send a signed copy of ASH and we can post reviews/rating on Amazon for each other. Just a thought.

Thanks again!
I went to your amazon page for your book, Astral, so I could click your tags up a notch but noticed you hadn't added any tags yet. So I tagged it for you. You should add some more if you can think of any others that people might use as keywords (that's really what "tags" are) when searching amazon for a book like yours. You'll notice there's a little box right next to each tag and a little number beside the box. If you can get your friends, family, etc. to go to your page and click those boxes, you'll see the little number increases by 1. But each person can only click each tag once. If the same person clicks a tag more than once then it reduces the number by 1.

If you get a chance, I could use a click on my tags at amazon.com/Ash-Return-Beast-ebook/dp/B0 ... amp;sr=1-1 Thanks in advance! :D
I clicked on the 15 tags it allowed me to.

Thanks for the Tag on ASTRAL. I recall adding tags when I put the kindle version on there, but not the paperback. I understand now how that works and will add some tags.

Thank you for the knowledge! Feel free to visit my amazon page later today to click on more tags. :)
Author of two books:
Landslide: Poor Management and How to Avoid it
Astral
My author's page: http://www.amazon.com/Eric-Kasten/e/B00 ... 651&sr=8-1
kasteer
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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Gary Val Tenuta wrote:
kasteer wrote:
Awesome post and Huge THANKS for the tips! I was trying to figure out how Amazon did their ranking. I thought it was related to what you view, as in "Other who viewed this book, also viewed these...". I'll get some people to click away on the tags.

I started business cards several times online, but haven't gone through with that yet. I should be getting a check form Lulu soon and I think I'll use that to reinvest in the book via business cards.

I've had a few sales and I think it takes a little while for Amazon to get the book thoroughly blended into its system... at least that was my thinking.

Good luck with ASH. It looks pretty cool. I'll send you ya signed copy of ASTRAL if you send a signed copy of ASH and we can post reviews/rating on Amazon for each other. Just a thought.

Thanks again!
I went to your amazon page for your book, Astral, so I could click your tags up a notch but noticed you hadn't added any tags yet. So I tagged it for you. You should add some more if you can think of any others that people might use as keywords (that's really what "tags" are) when searching amazon for a book like yours. You'll notice there's a little box right next to each tag and a little number beside the box. If you can get your friends, family, etc. to go to your page and click those boxes, you'll see the little number increases by 1. But each person can only click each tag once. If the same person clicks a tag more than once then it reduces the number by 1.

If you get a chance, I could use a click on my tags at amazon.com/Ash-Return-Beast-ebook/dp/B0 ... amp;sr=1-1 Thanks in advance! :D
I purchased kindle version of ASH. Looks great. I can't wait to read it!
Author of two books:
Landslide: Poor Management and How to Avoid it
Astral
My author's page: http://www.amazon.com/Eric-Kasten/e/B00 ... 651&sr=8-1
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Lon Dee
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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I love writing, but I absolutely detest marketing. I had a small business years ago, and that's one of the reasons I got out of that—I couldn't stand marketing. But to be a successful author, you have to market yourself. It's not so tough if you've signed with a big publisher that will help do the marketing for you. But if you're an indie author, then you're in it alone. Most larger book review sites won't review indie-published works because there's just too many "Memoirs of My Big Fat Boring Life" out there. And if you've published ebooks and used a service like CreateSpace for the print book, then most bookstores won't let you do a signing because they're not making any money off of it.

I've seen a lot of authors lately doing school tours for MG/YA books, where you do a presentation in front of the students that is somehow education related, but put in a lot of plugs for your book at the same time. Those seem to work well, but you need a good marketing infrastructure in place before you start: website, passalong cards, bookmarks, posters, etc. And of course, you need to have good presentation and public speaking skills. I asked about how to do those and was told to contact school districts. They approve the book and your presentation, then let local schools know about it. They seem to be more geared toward established authors because many of the kids have already read their books and get excited about the presentation. I don't know how well this will work with new authors.
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viajesen1
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Re: Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

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To promote an upcoming book to bookstores, libraries, or readers, print an excerpt from your book in pamphlet or booklet form and mail it out to your major customers (or potential customers).

To promote Gloria Steinem's new book, Revolution from Within, Little, Brown reprinted Bibliotherapy, a chapter that describes the books the author found helpful in writing her book and living her life. They sent 50,000 copies of this pamphlet to 1,000 of their major bookstore accounts who, in turn, passed them out to customers.
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