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Last week we talked about the importance of getting book reviews, so I thought you might be interested in reading Dana Lynn Smith’s article that I found on Maggie Lyons Blog http://www.maggie-lyons.blogspot.com/. Maggie is always on the lookout for writing information to share. I think Dana’s information will really help you promote your books.

Six Common Myths about Book Reviews

by Dana Lynn Smith, the Savvy Book Marketer

Book reviews are a powerful promotional tool, but many authors have some misconceptions about reviews and how to obtain them. Here are some common myths about getting book reviews.

Myth #1 – Book reviews are just for new books.

It’s true that book review journals read by librarians and booksellers review books at or soon after publication. It’s best to focus your review efforts during the first year of a book’s life, but some venues will review older books.

Myth #2 – No one will review a self-published book.

It is more challenging for self-published authors and small presses to get reviews in certain venues, but it’s certainly not impossible. Self-published books are far more likely to be reviewed if they are produced to industry standards (well written, edited and designed). A number of book review websites welcome self-published books or even focus specifically on them, and there are several book journals like Midwest Book Review that are friendly to independent and small presses.

Myth #3 – Book reviews are just for books being sold to bookstores and libraries.

Trade journals like Publishers Weekly and Library Journal are designed to meet the needs of booksellers and librarians, so they focus on books that are available through major distributors and wholesalers at standard discounts. But there are plenty of other places to get book reviews, including book blogs, topical blogs, online bookstores, specialty publications, literary magazines, and reader networks.

Myth #4 – You can’t get reviews for ebooks.

It takes some extra research to identify revenue venues that will review books that are available only in ebook format. Many reviewers accept only printed books, although that is slowly changing as the use of ebook readers becomes more widespread. There are several websites, such as Kindle Obsessed, that focus on ebooks.

Myth #5 – No one pays attention to the reviews in online bookstores.

It’s true that some shoppers view online reviews with skepticism, but I do believe that reviews (or the lack of them) influences shoppers in online bookstores. In my book, How to Get Your Book Reviewed, I cite a research study by the Yale School of Management that backs this up. With so many books to choose from, shoppers are often looking for some factor to help them decide between several books.

Having very few or no reviews on an Amazon sales page can give the impression that the book isn’t very popular. Reviews can also give the shopper more insight into the book, beyond the product description.

Be sure to encourage customers and book reviewers to post their review or recommendation on Amazon.

Myth #6 – It’s not worth the effort of pursing reviews.

Book reviews serve two basic purposes: they bring your book to the attention of people who might not have learned about it otherwise, and they help potential customers decide if your book is a good fit for them. The more reviews you have, and the more places those reviews appear, the greater your reach and your selling power.

All book marketing plans should include a strategy for maximizing the value of reviews, endorsements and testimonials.

About the Author

Dana Lynn Smith, The Savvy Book Marketer, helps authors and indie publishers learn how to sell more books through her how-to guides, blog, newsletter, and private coaching.

Learn how to use reviews to sell more books in her comprehensive guide, How to Get Your Book Reviewed, and get more book marketing tips at TheSavvyBookMarketer.com.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Filed under: Advice, article, demystify, Marketing a book, Uncategorized Tagged: book reviews, Dana Lynn Smith, Finding and settiing up book reviews, Maggie Lyons, The Savvy Book Marketer

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Book Publicity — How to Create an Online Media Kit

By Dana Lynn Smith

In your author and book publicity efforts, it's critical to make it easy for journalists, talk show producers and other influencers to quickly find everything they need to know about you and your book. One of the best ways to do that is to create a page for the media on your website and blog.

Online author and book publicity pages are called by several names, including media room, media kit, press room or press kit, or they are simply labeled as Media or Press on the site's navigation menu. On some sites, the media page is accessed through a link from the About page of the site. Whatever you call your book publicity page, just make sure it's clearly marked and easy to find from any page on your site.

Remember, your media page isn't just for the media – it's a great place to showcase your credentials and biographic information for a variety of author and book publicity purposes. For example, you can link to your media page when introducing yourself to bloggers, potential clients and potential partners.

Here are some of the most important elements to include on your book publicity page:

•   About the Author – You might create two bios, a short one of about three sentences (imagine a radio announcer introducing you) and another bio about half a page long.

•   About the Book – Summary of your book, written in a news style without marketing hype.

•   Praise/Endorsements/Reviews – Feature any celebrity quotes prominently.

•   Awards – Book awards and awards received by the author.

•   Author Photos – High resolution version for print and low resolution for online use. Include a caption beneath your photo listing your credentials or author tagline. See this article for tips about creating your author photo.

•   Book Covers – High resolution for print and low resolution for online use.

•   Contact Information – Make this easy to find, include email address, phone number, and address if applicable. See these tips (link didn't work) for protecting your email address online.

Other elements commonly found on author and book publicity pages include:

•   Complete Press Kit – One page or document containing all of your media information in one place.

•   In the Media – Provide links to previous media coverage that you've received. If you have appeared in any major print or broadcast media, include their logos prominently on your media page.

•   Audio and/or Video Clips – Short audio or video clips of you (preferably being interviewed) allow potential interviewers to hear or see you in action.

•   Interview Topics – A list of topics you can speak about.

•   Sample Q & A – Radio stations, in particular, will appreciate using questions you provide for an interview

•   Article Topics – A list of topics you can write about and/or suggested angles for feature stories about you. You might even provide pre-written stories or tips for the media to use.

•   Fact Sheet – One-page document with pertinent facts about your industry or book topic.

•   Pre

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Today's guest article is about creating domain names for specific landing pages on your websites or blogsites, and it's by Dana Lynn Smith. This is something I'm still working on.

Off we go:

How to Choose and Use Multiple Domain Names for Your Author Website or Blog 
By Dana Lynn Smith

A domain name is the address that's used to direct others to your author website, and it's usually preceded by www. For example, my main website and blog is at http://TheSavvyBookMarketer.com.

One of the first decisions authors must make in setting up an author website or blog is what to call the site and what website domain name to use for marketing purposes. But it may be a good idea to purchase several domains and point them to your home page or to different areas of your website. Below are some examples of domains commonly used by authors.

Choose a domain that matches your book title and point it to your book sales page. For example, SavvyBookMarketer.com points to the sales page for my Savvy Book Marketer Guides.

If your book is not yet published, you may want to make sure the domain name (or an easy variation of it) is available before you decide on the final title. Depending on your business strategy, you may also want register a domain to match your publishing company name.

For branding purposes, get a domain that matches your author name and point it to the "about" page or media page on your site. If you have written several books, you can use your author domain name for your main website. You may have to be creative to register your own name – try using a middle name or initials, adding another word such as “author,” or using an alternate extension such as .net instead of .com.

If you have multiple websites, you can create a personal website using your author domain name and link from that site to your other sites. For example, DanaLynnSmith.com points to a website that contains links to all of my other sites.

If you’re a fiction author planning to publish multiple books, consider using a domain name related to your genre for your author website, such as RomanceAuthorJulieJones.com

For search engine optimization, buy a topical, keyword-rich domain to point to your home page or book sales page. Look for domains that contain keywords people are most likely to search for when looking up information about your topic. For example, SellingtoLibraries.com points to my sales page for my book, The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Selling Your Book to Libraries.

According to Search Engine News, a domain name that exactly matches the keywords entered into a search engine tends to give that domain an advantage in the search results. Having keywords in the domain name also increases the chance of the searcher clicking on your link when they see it on the results page. The Google Keyword Tool is a good place to research the best keywords.

When choosing a domain name for your author website, watch out for potential pitfalls such as words or letters that look or sound bad when strung together. In your marketing materials, capitalize the first letter of each word in your domain name – it makes it much more readable. Here are some other tips:

•  Try to get the .com version of the domain name if possible
•  Don’t use hy

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I have a valuable guest article from marketing expert Dana Lynn Smith for you social networking authors.


The 7 Deadly Sins of Online Networking
 By Dana Lynn Smith

Online networking is a wonderful way to meet people who share your interests, develop relationships with peers and potential customers, and ultimately increase book sales.

But there's sometimes a fine line between letting your contacts know about your book and being overly promotional. If you're too passive, you may not get much benefit from networking, but if you're too agressive you may turn people off.

Here are seven common mistakes that authors make in online networking, along with tips on how to avoid them:

1. No book information or website links on social network profiles.

I'm amazed at how many authors don't even mention their books on their social profiles, or make it easy for people to find information about the book.

On your Facebook profile, include the name of your book and a link to your book sales page in the little information box located just beneath your photo. You also include a link to your website in the web links section below that, and add more details in the "Bio" section on the "Info" tab of your profile.

On Twitter, be sure to mention your book in the description on your profile page. You only have 160 characters to work with, so if you have several books you could say something like "author of four romantic suspense novels."

On LinkedIn, take full advantage of the "title" field.  This space is designed for job titles, but you can use it to showcase your expertise and status as an author. For example: "Parenting expert and author of "Raising Happy Kids in a Crazy World."  Your title will appear along with your photo any place that you interact on LinkedIn. Be sure to include a link to your book's sales page and your website in the web links section of your profile.

See this article for tips on choosing the best photo to use on your social networks.

2. Not mentioning your book in your status updates.

It's fine to talk about your book in the status updates that you post on social networks, as long as that's not your main focus and you're not too pushy. Be sure to intersperse your book messages with other types of messages (personal notes, tips, links to helpful resources, thoughts on a new book you just read, etc.)

I recommend that no more than 10% to 20% of your status updates be promotional or self-serving. No one wants to read a constant stream of "buy my book" messages. 

One way to talk about your book without seeming too promotional is to discuss your marketing activities. Here are some examples:

•    I just received the preliminary cover designs for my new book – what do you think of these?
•    Today I'm contacting bookstores about setting up signings for my new novel, BOOKTITLE. It's available at www.booktitle.com.
•    I'm so excited! Just received word that my book, BOOKTITLE, has received an award . . .
•    I just scheduled a radio interview on KWTX to discuss tips from my book, BOOKTITLE. www.booktitle.com
•    Today I launched the redesign of my website for BOOKTITLE – what do you think? www.booktitle.com
And you can always mention events and special promotions:
•    If you're in the Seattle area, please join me at 3:0

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For the summer, I'll be posting informative guest articles. I hope you find them helpful in your writing and marketing endeavors.

8 Ways to Use Blogging as an Interactive Marketing Tool  
by Dana Lynn Smith

Here are some ideas for using blogging in social and interactive ways:

1. Encourage your readers to share your content with others.
Make it easy for readers to share your content by adding "share" buttons from Share This or Add This. Then ask readers to share by including text at the end of your best posts such as: "Do you know someone who might benefit from these tips? Just click the Share This button below to send a link by email or recommend this post on your favorite social site."

2. Actively solicit comments.
Get readers engaged by including a sentence at the end of some posts inviting comments. You can even write a post designed to elicit comments. Thank each commenter and make a further comment based on what they said.

3. Make comments on other blogs.
Making insightful comments on related blogs is a terrific way to boost your visibility and create links and traffic to your site. Subscribe to the top blogs related to your book's topic or audience and watch for posts that you can comment on. Comments should be helpful and relevant, not self-promotional.

4. Write guest posts for other blogs.
Contact other bloggers that cater to your audience and offer to write a guest article. Include a brief bio and a low-resolution photo. Google Blog Search is a good place to search for relevant blogs.

5. Create a feed for your blog.
RSS feeds allow your blog posts to be automatically delivered to your subscribers by email or through a feed reader. Receiving your blog posts regularly engages readers more. To create a feed for your blog, go to Feedburner.

6. Do a virtual book tour.
Make guest appearances on blogs, e-zines, podcasts or other forums to promote your book. Provide unique content to each host on your tour. Content can include interviews, how-to articles, book excerpts, videos, book reviews, or an article about how you developed the plot or characters for a novel.

7. Join a blog carnival.
Blog carnivals are a collection of links pointing to blog posts on a particular topic, or topics of interest to a particular group of people. Learn more and search for relevant carnivals Blog Carnival.

8. Hold a contest or drawing on your blog.
Use the blog comment feature to hold contests. For example, post a question and award a prize to the first person who leaves a comment with the correct answer. Or, write a blog post stating that everyone who leaves a comment on the post by a specific date (allow five to seven days) will be entered in a drawing to win a free copy of your book. Promote the contest on your social networks.

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Excerpted from The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing by book marketing coach Dana Lynn Smith. For free book marketing tips, follow @BookMarketer on Twitter.  For book promotion tips, visit The Savvy Book Marketer blog. Get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips e-book when you register for her free book marketing newsletter. For more book marketing tips, follow Dana on Twitter or visit TheSavvyBookMarketer.com .

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Other articles you may find of interest:

7 Steps to Writing for Article Directories

What is Blogging Commenting Etiquette?

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Great Writing Tools and Programs:

Writing,

3 Comments on Bogging and Marketing with Dana Lynn Smith, last added: 7/9/2010

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