Author: Elise L. Connors

Elise Speaks, Marketing Your Self-Published Book

3 Things that are Wrong with Your Book Marketing Plan

If you’re following the advice that you find on every site that talks about marketing a self-published book, you have already created a book marketing plan. From this, you may have tried to use various marketing methods (i.e. virtual book tours, book signings, etc.). However, your sales statistics aren’t showing any signs of improvement.

How could this be? You are following every piece of advice you have received to the letter. It may be that your book marketing plan’s structure is, in fact, costing you sales. This is actually a fairly common problem among self-publishing authors.

Here are a few ways that your book marketing plan is working against you:

  1. You haven’t clearly defined your target market. When you wrote your first book, you knew that everyone would love it. It would make you the talk of the town (or maybe even the talk of the nation or globe). It would be the “it” book that everyone would want to read. That’s a Book Marketing Planrather lofty goal. Even the most successful authors (Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, etc.) aren’t able to reach EVERYONE with their books. That’s fine for them, though. They have developed a very loyal audience of readers who are committed to them and their books. That’s the type of audience you want to seek out. Figure out who will love your books and focus on marketing to them. If you don’t, you may find yourself wasting quite a bit of effort attempting to turn someone who loves horror books into a romance novel lover.
  2. You don’t know what differentiates your book from the other books available to your target market. Can you tell me why your book is better than any other book on the market? Is there a lesson taught in your book? Are your characters easier to relate to? There has to be a reason why I want to read your story about vampires versus reading Twilight. Find out what makes your book special and use that as your unique value proposition.
  3. You don’t update your book marketing plan on a regular basis. The book marketing industry, like any other, is changing rapidly. If you don’t keep your plans up to date, you can easily become irrelevant. I recommend that authors review and update their book marketing plan at least once per year.

Have you been making any of these mistakes? How did you bounce back to have a book marketing plan that “sticks”?

Elise Connors ABOUT ELISE L. CONNORS:
Elise works as the Manager of Author Support of Outskirts Press.  She also contributes to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com. Elise and a group of talented book marketing experts assist not only published Outskirts Press authors, but also all authors and professionals who are interested in getting the best possible exposure for their book.
Blogging Tips for Authors, Elise Speaks

8 Ways for Authors to “Be” More Successful Bloggers

Many book marketing experts are advocates for blogging. I personally believe that having your own blog allows you to connect with your audience in ways that authors never experienced in the past. It is entirely possible to blog your way to more book sales. Quite a few authors, however, start blogging but give up early on. Why do they do this? More often than not – they are seeking instant gratification of some sort. While a blog has the potential to be a very effective book marketing tool, it can only be as successful as its writer.

So, how can writers market themselves using this sometimes inconspicuous tool?

  1. Be consistent. Many author blogs fail because the author never returns to update them (or does so on a very inconsistent schedule). You must choose a blogging schedule that works for you and stick with it. Even if you are only blogging once per week, stick to that and your visitors will know when to come back for more content.
  2. Be factual. Many times it’s necessary to conduct a bit of research to ensure the information you are posting to your blog is correct. Bloggers are not exempt from the rules of plagiarism, so you if are using someone else’s work, be sure to cite your sources.
  3. Be epic. You should begin every blog post with the goal of writing something that people will love. It should be something they want to share with their family and friends. To determine whether your content is “epic”, use the “Did you see that?” test. Summarize your blog post and try asking yourself (aloud): “Did you see that post about ____ (insert your summary here)?” If it doesn’t sound interesting to you, it’s not worthy of posting to your blog.
  4. Be interactive. When people comment on your blog, reply to them. You should aim to answer every blog comment. As your blog grows, this may not be feasible, but you should stay focused on doing this in the beginning.
  5. Be patient. This is perhaps the most important tip of all of these because the most successful bloggers (authors or otherwise), have to have a great deal of patience. Many times bloggers “talk to themselves” for months before they get even one comment on their blog. This is the time period that most blogs fail. In order to see any success from your blog, you must be able to stick with it.
  6. Be diligent. Make sure to proofread your posts before you publish them. Blatant grammatical/spelling errors can turn readers off of your blog. Keep the readers that take the time to visit your site by double checking your work for mistakes.
  7. Be savvy. Schedule your blog posts. If you know you won’t be available when you normally publish content, use the scheduling feature (if available) of your blogging platform to write the post in advance while sticking to your original schedule.
  8. Be friendly. Two ways you can increase your blog’s traffic are: linking to another blogger’s post within your content (they will likely get notification of this and visit your blog in return) and commenting on other blogger’s blog posts.

What other ways should you “be” to have a more successful blog?

Elise Connors ABOUT ELISE L. CONNORS:
Elise works as the Manager of Author Support of Outskirts Press.  She also contributes to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com. Elise and a group of talented book marketing experts assist not only published Outskirts Press authors, but also all authors and professionals who are interested in getting the best possible exposure for their book.
Uncategorized

How You Can Earn More Royalties By Publishing Your Book on the iPad/iPhone

You already know that eBook publishing is the wave of the future. You have already set your book up on Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s NOOK. You may have even gone the extra effort to publish to a few other eReaders along the way. You’ve seen a bit of success but maybe not enough to write home about. You’ve been following the advice of various book marketing gurus, but you still aren’t seeing the results you were hoping for. You’re not aiming to be the next Amanda Hocking, but you do want to at least earn enough to nicely supplement your income.

If you’ve stuck with publishing to eReaders, you may not be tapping your full potential. There’s actually an audience of eBook readers who don’t actually own an eReader – Apple iPad/iPhone owners. While there have been nearly 15 million iPads  (as of January 2011, according to Tablet PC Review) and 70 million iPhones (as of September 2010, according to OSX Daily) sold, this is a pretty exclusive group and a group that every self-publishing author should be “in the face” of.

So, why do you care about this market? I’ll tell you why…

  1. There are a lot of people in this “niche market”.
  2. Reading a book on an iPad/iPhone is much cooler than reading on any other device.
  3. Publishing on the iPad/iPhone is affordable. You can turn to sites like Smashwords to get your book out there at no cost to you. Or, if you’d prefer a more “hands off” approach, you can pay a professional to do it. Outskirts Press offers iPad/iPhone publishing at a very reasonable price.
Have you taken advantage of the opportunity to get your eBook in the hands of this exclusive market? What results have you seen?
Elise Connors ABOUT ELISE L. CONNORS:
Elise works as the Manager of Author Support of Outskirts Press.  She also contributes to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com. Elise and a group of talented book marketing experts assist not only published Outskirts Press authors, but also all authors and professionals who are interested in getting the best possible exposure for their book.
Marketing Your Self-Published Book

Does Offering An Online Preview of Your Book Devalue It?

Earlier today, I was reading through old emails, and I found one sentence from an author that intrigued me. She said, “Sharing too much minimizes the impact of my book.” This ignited many thoughts, but mainly I thought about content marketing and how effective it can be (and has been for many people). I also began to wonder why authors feel the need to hold out on “free” content to get book sales. The author’s book is available online only, and she was expressing concerns about her book’s availability on Amazon’s Search Inside the Book. I was trying to show her the value of that extra visibility, and she was fighting me tooth and nail on it.

Here a few key reasons why every author should consider making their book available for online preview:

  1. Your reader may not know you. Unless your book has been recommended to them, what reason do readers have to trust you? This is especially true if you are a new self-published author.
  2. The reader may know you but may not be too sure about the content of your book. In your eyes, your book is gold. You know you’ve created the perfect book that everyone should want to read. The question is, will everyone feel the same way? Or worse yet, how will they know what to think of your book if they can’t at least take a peek.
  3. The “real” bookstore experience is lost online. People can’t skim the pages of a book to see if they may enjoy its content – unless you have a preview for your book. Giving readers the option to glance over your book’s content first helps them get a feel for your work and can work to ease the pain of opening the pocketbook.

So, with all of these benefits, why was she so opposed to Search Inside? She was afraid that people wouldn’t buy her book because the preview would reveal too much. She felt her written word was as good as gold, and as such, people should pay a fair price for access. It’s good that she takes pride in her work, but this line of thinking can turn buyers away – especially in the case of nonfiction books.

Think of it this way – would you buy an item from a store that doesn’t have a return policy if their price was comparable to a store that does have a return policy? Possibly – but more often that not, most people will put more trust in the store that does offer a return policy. Consider offering a return policy for your book so that you can instill a little bit of faith. I assure you that unless you share the entire book online, people will still buy your book after reading the preview if they’re interested. Remember – you can’t go wrong with content marketing.

What are your thoughts on sharing your book with readers before they commit to buying it?

Elise Connors ABOUT ELISE L. CONNORS:
Elise works as the Manager of Author Support of Outskirts Press.  She also contributes to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com. Elise and a group of talented book marketing experts assist not only published Outskirts Press authors, but also all authors and professionals who are interested in getting the best possible exposure for their book.
Marketing Your Self-Published Book

3 Reasons Why Friday is the Best Day to Promote Your Book

Ok, maybe that was a bit of an overstatement…

However, there are some ways that Fridays can work to your advantage.

  • Friday is payday for many people. Payday means more money. More money means more buying power. With that new buying power, people will most likely be more inclined to purchase things they wouldn’t have before – one of those things could be a copy of your book.
  • Friday is at a crossroads that represents a red light for the workweek and a green light for the weekend. We’re ready to relax. What better way to relax than soaking up some sun on the beach or by the pool while reading a new book? Doesn’t your book deserve to reach this audience?
  • Friday is today! Have you ever heard the old saying “there is no time like the present”? Though it may be cliche’, it’s rather apropos when it comes to book marketing. If you haven’t started yet, make haste.
How will you be using your Friday?
Elise Connors ABOUT ELISE CONNORS:
Elise Connors works as the Manager of Author Support of Outskirts Press.  She also contributes to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com. Elise and a group of talented book marketing experts assist not only published Outskirts Press authors, but also all authors and professionals who are interested in getting the best possible exposure for their book.