Author: Kelly Schuknecht

Kelly Schuknecht is a marketer with a background in the publishing industry. She is passionate about all things related to books and loves helping authors navigate the world of social media for book promotion. She recently launched the course Marketing Your Book on TikTok.
Book Marketing, Kelly Speaks

5 Ways to Promote Your Book in April

Today’s post is by book marketing industry expert, Kelly Schuknecht.

Book marketing is an ongoing effort.  Here are five ways to promote your book in April:

  1. April is National Poetry Month.  If you have published a book of poetry, this is an excellent opportunity to take advantage of National Poetry Month events.  Visit Poetry.org to find a full list of Poetry Month events.
  2. April 2nd is International Children’s Book Day.  If you are a Children’s book author, call your local library and elementary school(s).  Volunteer to read your book during storytime.
  3. Speaking of libraries, National Library Week is April 10-16.  Contact your local library, offer to donate a free copy of your book.
  4. The London Book Fair takes place April 11-13.  If you have not already made arrangements for your book to be represented this year, consider this opportunity for next year.
  5. April 22nd is Earth Day. If your book is about environment issues (or even if it’s not), contact your local schools and environmental agencies and ask about Earth Day events you can get involved with.  Even if you are not directly promoting your book, you will be doing something to help the environment and networking with individuals who have similar interests.

DISCUSSION: How are you planning to promote YOUR book this month?

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT:
Kelly Schuknecht works as the Director of Author Support for Outskirts Press.  In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog at http://kellyschuknecht.com.
Book Marketing, Kelly Speaks

What Does Your Online Presence Tell Your Potential Readers?

Today’s post is by book marketing industry expert, Kelly Schuknecht.

When it comes to publishing a book, no matter what goals you have, as an author your online presence is important and should be thoroughly reviewed and perfected.  Your personal website or blog, your profile on Amazon and any other social networking sites may be viewed by potential customers and should accurately reflect who you are and help sell your book.

If you have a website or blog, you will most likely want to list information about your book.  This can include:

  • About the book
  • About the author
  • Testimonials/reviews
  • Link to purchase the book on Amazon or other retail sites

Have you ever visited a website with so much “stuff” on it that it made it hard to figure out what you were looking at or where you should go?  The ability to navigate a website easily is very important for getting the attention of your viewers.  Be sure they can find what they want easily and that all links work properly.  If you use other social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or any others, your website should include links to those locations.  Also, your “behavior” on those sites should be professional and appropriate for your target audience.

DISCUSSION: Do you consider your target audience when you post something on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT:
Kelly Schuknecht works as the Director of Author Support for Outskirts Press.  In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog at http://kellyschuknecht.com.
Book Marketing, Kelly Speaks

Improving Your Book’s Presence on Amazon

Today’s post is by book marketing industry expert, Kelly Schuknecht.

After you self publish a book, assuming your book is listed on Amazon.com, you should thoroughly review and perfect the listing for your book and your Amazon profile.  Remember, this is your opportunity to sell your book to potential customers, so your presentation online, including on Amazon.com, is important.

3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Listing on Amazon:

  1. Get Reviews -Reviews tell potential readers why they should buy your book.  They will look at how many reviews your book has in each star category (1-5) and may glance through a few of them to find out what other readers are saying about your book.  If you don’t have any reviews, get some.  If you have some, get more.  Ask everyone you know who has read your book to post a review (preferably 5-star).  Actively seek reviews by contacting potential reviewers and sending out review copies.
  2. Add a Kindle Edition – Additional formats provide more opportunities for people to find (and buy) your book.  I suggest you price your Kindle Edition low to encourage sales.  These sales may turn into reviews, recommendations and even more purchases of the hard copy format(s).  I have my own Kindle and often find that if I like a book I’m reading, I want to buy the hard copy (particularly with non-fiction books).
  3. Utilize the Search Inside Feature -Amazon offers Search Inside the Book to allow viewers to virtually flip through the book.  Utilizing this feature is a good way to enhance your listing and make it easy for viewers to get a sneak peek.

Of course there are many other things you should do to improve your listing (and sales) on Amazon.  Brent Sampson, CEO of Outskirts Press has written an entire book on the subject, which you can find on Amazon here. 

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT:
Kelly Schuknecht works as the Director of Author Support for Outskirts Press.  In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog at http://kellyschuknecht.com.
Book Promotion, Kelly Speaks

Don’t Always Listen to the Experts When It Comes to Marketing

Today’s post is by book marketing industry expert, Kelly Schuknecht.

There is a lot of advice out there about how to promote your book.  Of course you should read everything you can get your hands on, try new things and challenge yourself.  However, as the author of your book, ONLY you know best what your book is about, who your target audience is and how to reach them.  Take all of the tips and advice you read from the marketing experts and tailor them for your own book marketing plan.

Marketing experts will often provide general marketing ideas – these are not meant to be “one size fits all.”  Don’t waste time on one marketing effort just because a marketing expert said it is effective.  Take it as a general suggestion and think about whether or not it is a good fit for your book and your target audience.  If you aren’t sure, try it and then evaluate whether it worked or not.  If not, move on to another tactic.  If it did produce results, do more of it.  Take what works and make it work MORE.

Book marketing is an ongoing effort.  If you want to increase your books sales, you should constantly be evaluating what you are doing, what is working and what is not.

What is your best marketing tip?
Share it with us in the comment section below and include the title and genre of your book.

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT:
Kelly Schuknecht works as the Director of Author Support for Outskirts Press.  In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog at http://kellyschuknecht.com.
Book Promotion, Kelly Speaks

Using Amazon Tags to Promote Your Book

Today’s post is by book marketing industry expert, Kelly Schuknecht.

A Tag on Amazon is a keyword or category label that customers can add. Tags can help customers find similar items on Amazon.  For example, adding Tags to the listing for your book on Amazon can help customers find your book when they are searching the Tags for similar books.

You can find the Tag section within a listing on Amazon towards the bottom of the page.  Here’s an example of the Tags associated with the book 33 Million People in the Room:

As a customer, you can click the existing Tags and add your own Tags, up to 15 per item.  As you can see, customers have Tagged this book as “facebook,” “internet marketing,” “social media marketing,” “twitter,” and several other things.  The first Tag, “facebook,” shows that this book has been Tagged “facebook” by 46 customers on Amazon.

After reading this book, a customer might be interested in reading more books about Facebook.  Clicking on the “facebook” Tag will open up a new page of all products that have been Tagged “facebook” (currently 585 products).

On the left side the customer can narrow the search results by other popular Tags.  For example, if the customer wanted to read more about marketing on Facebook, they could select “internet marketing” and narrow the results to 101 products.  The results might give the customer a few ideas of books they might want to read, such as:

#1 – Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue by Jim F. Kukral

#5 – Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media by Liana Evans

# 11 – Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series) by C.C. Chapman

As an author, make sure your book is Tagged on Amazon with a number of keywords that will help potential readers locate your book. Look at the Tags for similar books to be sure you are using the same Tags, when appropriate.

Post a comment below and tell me about the Tags you’ve added for your book.

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT:
Kelly Schuknecht works as the Director of Author Support for Outskirts Press.  In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog at http://kellyschuknecht.com.