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Do you have fun promoting your book? When we talk about book promotion, we refer to it as work—hard work. But, really, don’t you find it kind of fun, too? If not, perhaps you’re not approaching it right.

Try some of these activities and see if you can lighten up a bit and actually enjoy the process of book promotion:

1: Have a book launch party in a spacious room or patio. Invite all of your friends, acquaintances, relatives, neighbors—in fact, the whole town. Order a huge cake and a vat of lemonade for refreshments. If you have the event at a business, they might provide some of the goodies and even order balloons or flowers to make the event even more festive.

2: Plan a few speaking engagements every month. Now don’t you enjoy getting out of the office and mingling with other people who are interested in your book? I usually have a good time when I am the center of attention and I am allowed to talk about my book.

3: Sign up for three or four book festivals, flea markets and other such events every year. Here’s another opportunity to be out in the public where there’s a lot going on and share stories related to your book with people who are all in a good mood.

4: Talk some of your friends into having home parties where you can create an entertaining afternoon or evening around the theme of your book. Bring costumes and ask guests to help you act out a scene from your novel. Or bring aprons and invite them to share in making something from your recipe book.

5: Have signings in fun places that are conducive to the theme of your book, such as a small airport, a toy store, a golf course, gift shop, hobby shop, animal shelter, etc. I attended a book signing at a cupcake bakery a few weeks ago. I’ve done book signings in an upscale pet store, outdoor bookstore and museums.

Book promotion is serious business. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun while selling books. If you are already doing these things only you aren’t enjoying the process, try changing your outlook—your perspective. Once you’ve made the arrangements for an event, forget about selling books. Think only about creating an enjoyable evening or afternoon for the people in attendance. Leave your business hat at home, lighten up and just enjoy yourself.

Let me know how it works out for you.
http://www.patriciafry.com
http://www.matilijapress.com

By the way, these are just a few of the over 250 book promotion ideas in my new book, Promote Your Book. http://amzn.to/oe56Ia

It has been a good few days as far as publicity for my new book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. And that’s pretty much because I have been constantly putting myself out there. I’ve had two professionals with followings recommend my blog in their interviews this week and a few articles published (with bios mentioning the new book), including one accepted by Jim Barnes at Independent Publishers. It will go live before the weekend: http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1471

Tomorrow my guest blog for Christina Hollis goes live at http://www.christinahollis.com

Also, the publicist from the publishing house says that we’ll have something in The Writer about my book very soon.

Now if only they would get the Kindle and other digital versions up and running… I have customers waiting to purchase the book on Kindle.

I’ve been watching my book’s ranking at Amazon. This seems to be a fickle system. Not quite sure how much validity or clout it holds. Last week, we were in the 800,000’s. Yesterday we were at 200,000-something. This morning we rank 453,166.

While some other books in my category are lower, some others by known professionals are higher. In case you’re wondering, lower is better.

Some authors organize mass buying sprees for their books in order to generate a higher rankings. They ask everyone who plans to purchase a copy of their book to do so on a certain day at a certain time so the blast of orders will make the book rank really high. I’m not sure what the point of this is. Isn’t this sort of an artificial way of getting that ranking? And how long will it last? Also, who cares? I don’t think I’ve ever bought a book based on the way it ranked at Amazon, have you?

It is an interesting system, though, and one that publishers and authors seem to pay close attention to, even if no one else does.

Did you know that the ranking figures might change by the hour—not the day or the week—but the hour! Well, this is true of those with very high rankings. Books within the typical ranking range (10,000 on up into the millions) are calculated once a day. And, according to some analysts of this ranking system, a large jump up the ranking scale does not necessarily indicate huge sales. Depending on what is happening with other books within the range, a big jump could mean only one or two sales.

You can actually track your own book sales at Amazon through a handful of sites. But most offer a disclaimer indicating that the results are only minimally accurate. Here’s one such site:
http://www.ranktracer.com

I see that Aaron Shepard’s Sales Rank Express has closed down.

Do you try to keep track of your book’s ranking at Amazon? What have you learned about this process? About your book sales?

Of course, if you are the publisher/distributor, and Amazon is ordering books from you, you have a pretty clear idea of Amazon sales. They are going to order more books when they have sold most of those in stock. But when you have a publisher, they get the orders and you don’t know anything about your sales figures until you get your royalty check.

For more information about my new book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author, visit the book’s Amazon page. Order the book and watch the ranking figures change. Now there’s a fun way to spend your afternoon.
http://amzn.to/oe56Ia

Most authors strive to get book reviews. Book reviews sell books. But it is irritating when your book is misrepresented by the reviewer. Yet, it happens more often than one would think.

You see your book in one light—you wrote it with a certain audience in mind and you believe that you spoke to that audience throughout the book, for example. But a reviewer might see the book in a different light. The reviewer’s assessment of your book might not jive with yours. He may focus on an aspect that you feel is insignificant to your purpose for the book. A reviewer might even pick apart what you feel is the best quality of your book.

The thing is, you never know how your book will affect a reviewer or what they are will say about it. And when they reveal what they believe is a flaw or criticize an element of your book, it can be quite painful for the author. Some authors are so sensitive that they won’t even put their books out there for review. It’s not easy to have your work criticized, especially if you feel you’ve been criticized unfairly.

You’re all familiar with my new book, Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. This book has collected around two dozen reviews—18 of them appear at the book page on Amazon.com. I’ve been a tad put off by a couple of comments that a handful of reviewers have made.

One is that the book title says the tips are low-cost, yet I mention hiring a publicist and I suggest advertising. Yes, I do include one 6-page chapter featuring a couple of more pricey things you can do to promote your book. It’s a viable option, don’t you think? I also talk about creating a book trailer. And I say that, for those who can’t do this on their own, they may want to hire a friend or a company to do the work for them. I added these things in an attempt to be thorough—to include every option. You’ll still find over 250 low-cost tips, techniques and resources PLUS a few that might cost you some money.

The criticism that makes me really crazy, however, is when reviewers (or readers) say, “This book is for those who write nonfiction.” Say what? Have you read the book? I purposefully mention how some of the tips, techniques, etc. can be used by authors of fiction books and children’s books at least 120 times throughout the book. I did this because authors of fiction have a difficult time relating book promotion ideas to their projects. So at least 120 times, I said, basically, “If you have a book of fiction or a children’s book, use this idea in this way.”

I expected authors of fiction, children’s books, poetry books, etc., to take it from there. I thought that with my explicit suggestions, they’d begin to understand that, yes, they can also implement this idea and that one and many of the others. And, certainly, some novelists do.

For others, it takes exposure and training and practice to adopt the marketing mindset. If you are writing a novel or a children’s book or you are compiling a book of poetry, for example, I suggest that you order my book today and start studying it. Get used to the concept of book promotion because, without it, you won’t sell many books. Adopt at least 5 activities that you can and will engage in—some that you can pursue before your book is a book and some that come after publication.

After you’ve been using these promotional activities for a while, add to your marketing plan. And remember, your book will sell only for as long as you are willing to put in the effort toward promoting it.

There is very little difference in the way you promote a nonfiction or a fiction book. In fact, you could use many of the ideas in Promote Your Book for an ebook, as well. But you must be able to look at the world of publishing and book promotion with a realistic marketing eye in order to see the possibilities. Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author is your marketing education. Order your copy now at http://amzn.to/oe56Ia

“A daily blog? How in the world do you come up with something to write every single day?” People—even writers—often ask this question. The workshops audience I spoke to on Saturday, were curious about this, as well.

I think it is easier for those of us who do consulting, speaking and writing on our topics. Also, my background in article-writing for so many years and having to come up with so many different articles on such a variety of topics is useful in my ability to create new blog posts so regularly. I’m up to over 1,240 posts now on topics ranging from freelance writing, blogging and editing tips to publishing, book promotion and public speaking. I use this blog to announce new books, the start of an online course I’m teaching and my latest upcoming presentation. I post to share details of interesting encounters with clients or students or to share something of interest I learned at a conference or during a consultation.

Occasionally, I dig into my gigantic file of documents to locate articles on topics I think you would be interested in. I write tip sheets, share excerpts, post reviews of my recently published books and respond to questions and concerns I’ve received from other authors.

There are many things throughout your daily life that you can turn into a blog post. For me, it might be a comment from someone I meet in the post office that day. This encounter might result in a post about new shipping regulations or tips for packing books so they don’t skid around and get scratched while in transit. I might see something in one of the many newsletters I receive that sparks an idea for a blog—a question someone asks about whether it’s worth creating an ebook or not or an editorial related to an issue within the bookselling industry. I might read an article that prompts a blog post. No, I do not copy the article. In fact, I might have an opposing view and share that with my blog followers. I also get many of my ideas for blog posts while researching for the SPAWN Market Update which I compile each month.

Recently, one of my online course students was struggling with an aspect of the course. After helping her through the situation, I wrote a blog post about how to avoid this particular pitfall. And sure, I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas for posts—sometimes a whole week’s worth. I generate a lot of ideas while I am working on a book or a speech and I make note of them as they occur to me.

I generally have more blog ideas than I can manage. So I jot them on post-its for eventual reference.

I think that my ideas are more relevant for nonfiction authors. But I know fiction authors who carry on meaningful weekly blogs beautifully. You just need imagination, creativity and outside-the-box thinking. It might help you to jumpstart your imagination with regard to establishing and maintaining your active blog in the following ways:

• Visit websites and blog sites on topics related to the theme/topic of your book. Glean ideas from these sites.

• Use the Table of Contents—and even the Index—from your book to generate new ideas.

• Hang out at forums devoted to the theme/genre of your book.

• Once you get a list of topics for your blog, dissect each one and create many sub-topics.

It takes discipline and practice. But if you start now by using some of the methods I’ve described in this post, you’ll find that discovering and recognizing ideas for your blog will soon become second nature.

If you are planning a book or you have a book to promote, be sure to order my latest book: Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. http://amzn.to/oe56Ia