Bryan Heathman's Blog, page 7

Building Social Proof in Social Media Circles – Personal Branding Tips

Since the taming of fire, people have aligned themselves with various clubs, clans, groups, movements, organizations and sports franchises. The obvious illustration of this is rooting for your home team. Where were you last Super Bowl Sunday? The odds are high that you remember where you were, and that you weren’t watching the big game alone.

This fact about association presents a great chance for anyone promoting anything, not just advertisers with over the top TV ads, but individuals too. In your case, this collective behavior offers a ripe opportunity to promote your book.

I live in Seattle, a city where football team spirit is high. No, wait – high is an understatement. Football here is a mania, after the local team took a couple trips to the Super Bowl. Walk down any street on a Sunday afternoon, and you may feel like Charlton Heston in a scene from The Omega Man or Will Smith in I Am Legend. It’s that quiet; everyone is inside, watching the game.

Fans don’t cheer feverishly only on game day here. Head out some Friday night to any pub, tavern or bistro. You’ll find that nearly 50% of the folks are dressed up in team jerseys and logoed sports caps. They’ve joined the tribe, and they live it. These fans give new meaning to the term “die-hard fan”.

Imagine if just one-tenth of them were wearing the logo from your book cover too. What would your career as an author look like then? What if your book could revolutionize the culture and galvanize people together the way a sports team unites beer drinkers, even on a team’s night off? Using social media, this idea may not be as far-fetched as it seems.

Social Proof Can “Show You The Money”

Social proof is a concept that plays to the deep-seated human need to be socially accepted. We assume that if other people are doing it, it must be the right thing to do. We don’t take into account what they know – just borrow their actions, believing the research has already been done for us. We don’t do it because we’re mentally lazy. We do it because we want to fit in and be accepted.

This desire is so deep-rooted that we will even do things that are contrary to our best interests – financial or otherwise – in order to stay consistent with what we assume about other people’s decisions. Most people leaving a theater will go through the same door everyone else is using, even if there is an unused door right next to it. We subconsciously assume it’s the right thing to do. We do it on autopilot.

The principle of social proof means we will convince ourselves of the correctness of other people’s decisions and make choices that conform to them. To speed up the decision-making process, we choose the path more traveled in the blink of an eye. Flying on autopilot is a fundamental aspect of human nature, and it helps us process the bombardment of messages we get all day long.

Leading the Pack

According to a 2014 study by Edison Research, 67% of Americans are active on some kind of social media. More than 75 million Americans check their social media accounts several times a day. About 58% of us use Facebook.

With two-thirds of the country checking in with their friends, family and neighbors at breakfast, lunch and dinner, there’s a whole lot of opportunity for you to promote your book – just by showing up.

5 Tips to Build Reputation on Social Media

Testimonials & Reviews: Using testimonials on social media are a great way to access the phenomenon of social proof. Using social media, you can publish testimonials and reviews from people who fit the demographic or psychographic profile of your target audience. The idea is to show that there’s support for your book from people who look “just like me”.

To do this, ask your biggest fans for real testimonials (yes, this can include your mother). You will be surprised by what people have to say, and you just may learn a thing or two about your book. The more you can demonstrate that many people support your work, the more others will perceive your book as something worth reading.

Join Groups: Another tactic you can use is to join groups within your social network. Find congregations of people who most closely match your book’s natural demographic. Groups make for a ready-made audience, and often they are hungry to associate with published authors. You can find groups that are indirectly related to your topic as well, populated by your ideal audience. The key is to become a regular and active voice in the groups. LinkedIn is a great place to get started.

Start a Group: Consider creating your own group, either within your social network or on your own membership site. You can promote your group to your network of like-minded friends of colleagues, and watch your engagement numbers skyrocket.

Solve a Problem: Communicate a compelling promise or purpose that speaks to an intense pain or pleasure for your group. Offer a newsletter or ecourse so you can stay in touch with them, and show them how to overcome the pain or increase the pleasure.

Street Team: Finally, you can create a tribe with the groups you affiliate with. Use these contacts to build a street team, a small collective of three to twenty people who are avid fans of yours. If you put them to work to promote your books in social media channels, you could well find yourself at the hub of a jersey-wearing crowd – one with your number on it.

When it comes to measuring your influence in social media, many professionals turn to services like Klout.com to measure their effectiveness. Setting up a profile takes a few minutes, and the ongoing reports will help keep you on-track with your effectiveness in social media channels.

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with best-selling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

Social Media, Book Promotion and the Sweet Smell of Success

Ah, the sweet smell of success: your book is finally a household name, the topic of conversation in coffee houses and the subject of toasts in fine dining establishments. Just yesterday, you turned down a media interview due to your busy schedule. Tomorrow you’re off to Barbados for a quick dip in the salty surf, then a date with a rum-laced umbrella drink under a palm tree. Lucky you!

Or was it luck? Maybe it was all that time you put in on social media, carefully cultivating relationships with your fans and followers. You lost track of how many late nights you spent loading up your Buffer account, cheese popcorn crumbs littering the front of your PJ’s like so much dandruff.

“Oh, if they could see me now,” you mutter, catching a sideways glimpse in the mirror. Whatever happened to that polished look you cultivated so carefully for your book jacket? Gone is the mohair suit and the carefully waxed hairstyle. “Uff, it’s a good thing I’m not on my web cam…” you say under your breath.

But in reality, checking in with your fans doesn’t have to mean looking polished all the time. Unlike days gone by, you don’t necessarily have to show your face to sell a lot of books.

The thing about promoting yourself (and your book) on social media is that you can literally do the work anywhere you choose to be. The magic combination of a solid manuscript, the right book cover and a good social media promotion campaign can put your readership over the top. It just takes a little planning and a couple of good tools, then you’re off to the races! Or the sands of the Caribbean. Whatever.

Social media sites are the most efficient and cost effective way to get your message in front of potentially millions of people. Google’s $1.6 billion purchase of YouTube and Facebook’s multi-billion dollar IPO shouted a wake-up call to anyone who’d been hitting that marketing snooze button. There’s good reason for these high price tags; social networks offer a pool teaming with commercial opportunity for major players and individuals alike. As a published author, this opportunity now includes you. The playing field is about as level as it gets.

As an author you can leverage the ready-made audiences on social media. This means you can get involved with groups that either are tailored to your audience or dovetail nicely with your topic. Take a look at how big publishing companies are using social media to promote their top authors, then borrow a page from their playbook.

Using Social Media to Generate Social Proof

Social media helps you generate what marketers call “social proof”. Publishing your carefully cultivated testimonials from your readers can build the bond of trust for your would-be fans and their immediate social circles. The psychology of word-of-mouth testimonials is a powerful ally for authors who don’t yet have huge brand awareness. According to a survey by eMarketer, an overwhelming 99% of people surveyed believe that testimonials are credible and influence their buying decisions.

To leverage social proof online, follow these 3 steps:

1. Clearly understand your target audience – both their demographics and psychographics. Who are they? Get clear about their age, income, location, family life, interests and peeves. Find out what makes them hurt and what gives them pleasure.

2. Create messaging and imagery that is consistent with your target audience. For instance, if you are targeting empty nesters who are between 50 and 63 years old, you would use inspirational messages and images consistent with their outlook. In this case, you might use imagery of happy grandchildren, RV travel to national parks, beach vacations, spas or wine tasting.

3. Pick your “call to action” campaign strategies from options that are consistent with your target audience’s lifestyle. Then consider which techniques will influence their buying behavior. Do you want them to take a survey? Tell their friends? Watch a video and comment on it? Get creative, and keep your audience involved.

Keep Your Message In Front of Your Fans with a Book Marketing Timeline

You can increase your sales and your free time by creating a social media campaign timeline. Timelines are essential, and all successful authors use them to organize social media campaigns. Some authors even use their timelines to set and track their campaign goals.

Come up with your present and future goals, along with action plans for today, tomorrow and next month. Have a method for tracking sales so you can see what’s working for you. Pick a few social media networks to focus your activity, and post to them 2 to 3 times a day. Increase this frequency for the 3 weeks on either side of your book launch, and stay interested in how people are responding to you and your message.

It may seem like a bit of work to pack in, but there are plenty of automation tools such as Buffer.com or HootSuite that can help you manage the workload. You can pre-write an inventory of Facebook posts or Twitter tweets in advance and load-up your free Buffer account to stimulate engagement with your readers.

That means you can be active on social media even when you’re sipping an umbrella drink on the beach on a remote tropical island. Just don’t eat popcorn while you’re there on the sand, lying in the sun…the crumbs can make for a spotty tan. Cheers!

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with best-selling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

Online Business Promotion

Join serial author Liv Montgomery for a fun and fanciful look at the world of Online Business Promotion including “how to” tips for social media and YouTube videos.

Get Swept Up In the Adventure – It Was a Dark and Stormy Night In November…

In the spirit of National Novel Writing Month, take an escape into the unknown as you explore the art of writing…

He passed a well-manicured hand across his balding pate. It was an absent minded gesture, an insecure idiosyncrasy that had evolved over the course of many years, despite his elevated rank. Renard gladly would have traded some of his hard-won wisdom for the boundless vigor of his youth – along with a few traces of that glorious head of hair he once had. Now his retirement was staring him square in the face. Yet somehow he wasn’t quite ready to be “mothballed”.

What occupied his full attention at the moment was the glossy tablet in his hand. He’d found it on his desk when he arrived in his ready room. He pressed the screen, and an image came to life – his assistant’s daily video briefing with his proven “6-up daily priority” system. “Captain, here is the piece you wanted to look at. I still have a few bugs to work out, but with luck it will transport you to another time and place. I hope you’ll go easy on me, since I had only a short amount of time to…”

As the bland female voice droned on, Renard opened the file she referenced. It only took a moment for his assistant’s voice to fade into the background as a strange glow filled his peripheral vision. He looked up to see lush green tropical vines now taking the place of furniture in his ready room and the humid scent of jungle loam clung to his nose and mouth. “What the…?”

Startled, Renard stood up so briskly he was sure he’d knocked over his chair. But when he turned around to look, the chair was gone. In its place was a small rowboat, its oars still dripping from the mighty river behind it. A creature yowled in the trees above him, an unearthly sound that penetrated his spine. Suddenly he heard footsteps in the bushes beyond the boat. He heard a pair of muffled voices speak, too low to be discernible. “Is someone there?” Renard called, but there was only silence.

What happened next he never could have imagined, even if he lived to be three hundred. A buccaneer came crashing out of the brush, flying through the air backward and landing prostrate on the sand next to the rowboat! A moment later, a black jaguar came bounding after him with a scathing shriek and leapt upon his chest. “Get off me, you she-devil!” he shouted, flinging the creature back into the brush. “You’ve crossed me for the last time!”

The pirate scrambled to his feet and hurried for the boat, sweeping up Renard en route. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. I tell you, she’ll tear us to pieces.” Renard stood dumbly for a moment, the words sounding like a foreign language to his addled brain. But the sight of the jaguar running at full speed directly toward him shook him back to his senses. “Dammit, man, get in and get down!” Renard obeyed just as the boat left the shore and caught the swift current of the river.

Stealing himself to peek over the side, Renard watched in amazement as the jaguar stood upon her hind legs and transformed into a buxom raven-haired beauty. She shook her fist and called after the sinewy rowboat, “I hope you found what you were looking for!”

Suddenly there was a rapping sound, and Renard shook off the trance. He was back in his office, standing behind his desk. The jungle, the buccaneer and the jaguar woman had all gone. There was only his mild assistant, standing in the doorway, looking expectantly. She tucked a raven lock behind her ear. “Captain Renard? I said I hope you found what you were looking for. Have you had a chance to read the draft of my novel yet? I appreciate your taking the time to indulge in my hobby with me, and I hope I haven’t…”

Renard stared for a moment, taking in the scene, shaken but unscathed by the encounter. “Hm? Oh… yes. Yes, it was quite engaging. You could say it really swept me away. I all but felt that I was really there. You say this is your first attempt at writing…? Yes, there’s something to this.”

Where Will NaNoWriMo Take You In November?

November is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo. All around the world, more than 300,000 people are boldly attempting the impossible – to pound out a 50,000-word book manuscript in a single month. NaNoWriMo lends a spirit of community and support to what is normally a solitary effort.

People from all walks of life are throwing off the bonds of self-consciousness, casting aside the conventions of quality and grammar, and launching the books they’ve always dreamed of writing. Waitresses and mechanics, executives and ship captains alike have all taken the challenge. Not all will finish, but many will – enough. Some books will go on to be published, and a few will even be best sellers. Will yours be among them?

December 1st will come and go, whether or not you participate in this worldwide writing event with the kooky name. Will you be counted among the adventurous who leave the sandy shores of complacency and sail the uncharted waters of a world of your own making? There’s only one person who knows for sure, and that is the writer within you.

To learn more about National Novel Writing Month, trek on over to their website at NaNoWriMo.org. And to find out what you can do with your manuscript, check out the publishing tools and book marketing services at MadeForSuccessPublishing.com. I promise, you won’t get eaten – and you’ll be in good company!

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with best-selling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

No Way….Write a Book in a Month?

November is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo. Around the world, more than 300,000 authors will attempt the impossible: to write an entire book in a single month.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, here’s a little background.

NaNoWriMo is not really a writing contest, but an event. You might say it’s a contest… with yourself. The object is to write a fresh 50,000-word book in the month of November and have a completed first draft by 11:59 p.m. on November 30th.

Most people think this is impossible; and for most people, it is impossible, purely because they defeat themselves. In reality, there are two obstacles that confront every author:

1) Getting started

2) Sticking with it

The hardest part about any long-term goal is staying the course. A lot of authors begin with a lot of enthusiasm but put their cherished manuscript aside when they become bored with it, stumble across a writing hurdle or simply have other priorities. It’s easy to become self-critical, get overwhelmed or simply lose heart.

NaNoWriMo’s approach is to encourage writers’ enthusiasm, determination and creativity by giving the project a hard deadline.

The question is, if writing 50,000 words in a month is so impossible, why has this event been going on for 15 years? Clearly someone is getting somewhere with it. Maybe it’s just the caffeine buzz that keeps this thing going. Maybe it’s the camaraderie. Maybe it’s momentum.

In reality, more than 250 novels written during NaNoWriMo have been published by traditional publishers, including Harper Collins. A lot more than that have been self-published, turning skilled executives and high achievers into motivational speakers.

Business Books, Screenplays and Comics – Oh My!

This brings us to another salient point: novels aren’t the only form that writers are pursuing in this month-long verbal slog. Poetry, prose, non-fiction, screenplays and even graphic novels have been harvested as the fruit of this annual rite.

Some would-be authors get stalled because they’re afraid that others will judge their first attempts harshly. Others get stymied because the material they want to write goes against the grain of their personal or professional reputation. For instance, can you imagine an economist writing about his imaginary life on the pro tennis circuit? Or an out-of-work hospital administrator writing about starting a vineyard in southern Oregon? It could happen.

This kind of self-consciousness has kept untold books from seeing the light of day.

While NaNoWriMo’s brutal schedule can help to keep your writing on track, the venue itself is completely private – as private as you want it to be. It’s like Facebook for word nerds. No one has to see the material you’ve written. All you need to do is check in from time to time and report on your progress for the benefit of your writing friends within the platform.

Completing your first draft is all that counts. Grammar, punctuation and quality are all immaterial at this point. The whole point is camaraderie for a very loner kind of activity.

Even with this level of acceptance, if you’re a bit squeamish about writing your book, try using a pen name. Having a nom de plume has come in handy for established writers and newbies alike. Just ask J.K. Rowling or Stephen King.

Most people with busy lives balk at the idea of knocking out a book manuscript in a month. However a lot of the authors I publish have the capacity to produce a quality first draft in just one week, with the bulk of the writing accomplished in a 3-week period. How does that break down? Well, if you are writing 50,000 words in 21 days, that equates to 2,500 words/day. That is about the equivalent of writing 4 long emails…something that many of us do many times a day already!

Are there a few cheats involved? Well… maybe. We in the publishing business prefer to call them shortcuts. If you’re short on time and want to compress your success, author Liv Montgomery offers at least a dozen unique strategies in her audio program “Draft Your Book In A Day.” I’ve used some of these techniques myself, and they’re surprisingly easy to apply.

Of Post-It Notes, Corporate Pensions and Ellis Island

Maybe you’re the kind of person who has scraps of paper lying around, Post-It notes jotted with plot ideas or character developments. Maybe you’ve got a self-help book outlined but you never quite got it off the ground. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to tell the story of how your ancestors arrived in this country. Whatever it is, the odds are high that you have a book inside you – something that the world needs to read.

If you’ve always wanted to start or finish a book, try capitalizing on the spirit of National Novel Writing Month. Who knows? The book you write could be just the one the world has been waiting for.

If you do take the challenge, your December just might look a whole lot different. Are you ready?

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with best-selling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

Sample Campaign – The Tried & True Book Selling Technique

So you want to promote your new book. You’ve witnessed other authors racing to the top of the best seller charts, and you wonder what they’re doing to build mega success. If you’re like most authors, you’re not sure how to go about reaping this kind of success for yourself.

Want to know a secret? You don’t have to be original to be good.

In fact, the less original you are in some cases, the better off you’ll be. As they say, success leaves tracks. Follow the tracks, and you’ll find success.

Take for example the traditional author’s boring, stalwart best friend, the Sample Campaign. Sending samples of your book to retail buyers, bloggers, reviewers and other influencers will boost awareness with the people who matter most, gaining exposure for your book and for you as an author. Using giveaways to create buzz while you are in pre-launch can be an inexpensive and effective way to generate publicity.

The Sample Campaign involves sending either physical copies of your book to reviewers or distributing e-copies to qualified centers of influence. Both tactics involve an investment of time, research, risk and reward.

Launching a Sample Campaign may sound expensive – and it is expensive if you try to get creative with this approach, but there are ways you can be both unoriginal and highly successful.

Copycat Book Marketing and Other Cheats

If you’re going to model the best, start by looking at the Amazon best seller list within your book’s category. Find the best-selling books that are most like yours and model their marketing tactics. What do you see? Would you buy these best sellers?

The odds are high that all of these books have received the royal treatment from a staff of pros, yet the approach is kept focused and simple.

What best-selling authors know is that the goal is to get attention from centers of influence. People who have a megaphone and a crowd who are always glad to lend an opinion.

If you want to get lots of good reviews from your Sample Campaign, you’ve got to make your book buzzworthy. Make sure it’s not just a scintillating read, but engaging from the first moment readers encounter it.

First Impressions: the title, book cover and description are the most influential elements when it comes to helping people determine whether or not they will buy your book – or review it for their audience.

Professional Design: your book cover is the most important feature of your book, and it should be intriguing. Make sure your cover is a match for your genre. If you’ve written a mystery, don’t use romance imagery – the kind with windswept lovers embracing on a naked rock above a storm-wracked cove. You might raise an eyebrow or two, but where’s the mystery? A poor cover will make it harder to sell your book.

Enticing Description: Your description needs to pull people in as well. Start your description with something provocative, and use your chosen keywords right up front. Make buyers and reviewers ravenous for more. Would you buy your book if you read your own description?

How Can You Distribute Sample Copies of Your Book?

Review copies are given away free, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t come at a price for the reviewer. Select only reviewers who are the most likely to come through with their promised action. Because you will be investing your time, resources and energy in distributing your samples, be choosy about who gets to have them.

Here is a 3-step formula to generate heat in your Sample Campaign, used by marketing pros who are “in the know” about how to sell books.

Step 1: GOODREADS Set-up

You may already know about Goodreads.com, but many authors use an ineffective approach. Start by creating a reader account using your author name. Before you do anything else, get familiar with the venue (this is called “lurking”), then review several books. After you’ve become a trusted member of the community, you can add your book or have someone add it for you.

Once your book has been added, you can change your status to “author”. You’ll have to submit an application to Goodreads’ staff for review, and this takes a couple of days. Be sure to add your social media links to your Goodreads account and website.

Once you’re established on Goodreads.com, click the link to “Create A Giveaway”. These are physical books you’re giving away, so you’ll need to buy copies of your book and send them to the reviewers who request it. Be sure you conduct only one giveaway at a time or this can get expensive and confusing.

Step 2: BLOG TOURS

Capitalizing on blog tours is an excellent cog in the wheel of your Sample Campaign. To do this, take a title from your Kindle best seller list and Google it with the search term “blog tour.” This search will yield bloggers who customarily review books and need something to blog about.

Your next step is to contact the bloggers and ask them if they would be interested in reviewing your book. Give them plenty of advance notice, typically about 2 months. Popular reviewers are often booked well in advance, and these are the ones you want to reach.

When you contact them, include a link to your Goodreads page so they can see your alluring cover and intriguing book description. Ask for their review to be published within the first 5 days of your release, preferably on your actual release date.

Step 3: BRICK AND MORTAR

Indie bookstores love authors, and many would welcome you for an author book signing. When you run your giveaway campaign, contact the store manager first before you seed the marketplace with copies of your book. Make it your goal to send out only copies that will actually yield results. Track where each one goes and follow up until you get solid results.

If you work with a publisher, ask them for a list of buyers from their Rolodex to send samples.

Book reviewers are real people with busy lives. When you request a review, don’t make the mistake of pitching your book like a used car salesman. A brief personal introduction followed by a simple paragraph describing your book should do the trick. Ask for permission to send them a review copy, and then be sure to follow up. Stay on track until you achieve the success you’re looking for.

With this kind of focused activity, perhaps someday you will find your work on the best seller list… and start reaping the success your literary endeavor deserves!

 

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with best-selling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

 

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Book Awards – Resting On Your Laurels and Other Thoughts on Winning Book Writing Competitions

Competing for a writing award is an often-overlooked tactic in the book marketing list of “To-Dos”. But is it worth it? Let’s take a look.

Back in the day – I mean way back – citizens of the Greek Empire knew they had made it big when they were crowned with a wreath made from bay laurel leaves. You know the kind: the pungent herb you use to season your holiday bird.

The ancient Greeks used laurel wreaths as awards for accomplishments in sports as well as poetry. Later on the Romans copied the Greek custom and awarded laurels to victorious conquering generals. Judging from the size of the Roman Empire, they must have gone through a lot of leaves. Eventually the generals got lazy, a lot of internal squabbling happened, and the empire declined. So too did the custom of awarding laurels.

Laurel wreaths are still used today as the symbol of academic success, and they’re sometimes used in graduation ceremonies for master’s degrees. A poet laureate is someone who’s been given this distinction.

After the ceremony, there’s a lot of feasting and often a sad good-bye to days of scholarly endeavors – no more burning the midnight oil or striving for literary perfection. This is where the phrase “resting on your laurels” comes from. It means relying on your past successes and not pursuing new challenges or paths to glory. Well, at least for some….not for authors!

Popularity vs. Profitability

Why does this matter today? As a matter of habit, or maybe just human nature, we are obsessed with competition. As soon as something is invented, right on its heels comes a new kind of award. We just can’t seem to stop comparing one thing to another and crowning the moment with a token of our esteem. Ask any Nobel laureate.

And it’s fitting, isn’t it? What better way to memorialize the moment or benchmark the best? A stroke of genius deserves recognition, whether it’s a gold medal in the international Olympic games or a regional award for a new work of fiction. Usually with this recognition comes some kind of remuneration and some amazing publicity opportunities.

We just love to recognize the best, hold it up for example, and challenge anyone to do better. It makes for forward progress in the most wonderful way.

This brings us to the topic of book awards and the enormous boost they can give to your reputation – and your book sales.

Bryan Heathman’s Top 7 Book Awards for Authors

Winning an award for your book may seem unlikely at first blush. After all, the competition and requirements for submission are usually thought to be pretty stiff. But in reality, the fee for submitting your magnum opus for Pulitzer Prize consideration is only $50. Some authors spend that weekly at their friendly neighborhood Starbucks.

Imagine carrying around the title of “Award-Winning Author” on your business card. You just might get past some velvet ropes a little easier with that kind of clout (hey, it could happen).

Besides Pulitzer and Nobel, the list of prominent book awards reads like a “Who’s Who” at an acronym convention: PEN, NBA, NBCC and Booker to name a few. But there are lesser-known, more accessible challenges to meet, such as Benjamin Franklin, Independent Publishers Guild and Writer’s Digest. Besides bucking the competition for the major brass rings, you are much more likely to win the Sophomore Cup and be the proverbial big fish in a small pond.

Besides lots of celebratory perks and a cash prize, winners are announced to major trade journals, news outlets, public libraries, social media and blogs. Consider your entry for the following awards when you publish your next manuscript:

The Benjamin Franklin Awards: the Independent Book Publishers Association is a non-profit organization that offers advocacy and education. Their Benjamin Franklin Award honors independent publishers and self-published authors for excellent book editorial and design.

Independent Publishers Guild Award: the IPGs Independent Publishing Awards celebrate the achievements and successes of IPG members. Frankly it’s a great way for them to drive membership, and it’s a great way for you, the author, to connect and network with other serious professionals.

Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards: WD offers a grand prize of $5,000 and a paid trip to their convention. There are several category prizes of $1,000 each, as well as a free subscription to their magazine.

IPPYS – Independent Publishers Book Awards: the Independent Publisher Book Awards (the IPPYs) shine a light on excellent independent, university, and self-published books each year. The independent spirit comes from all corners, and books are judged on merit, not necessarily polish.

Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Awards: Foreword Reviews is dedicated to discovering new indie books. The INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards help showcase the best indie books for readers eager to discover new stories by unknown authors.

Dan Poynter Global Book Awards: winners of this ebook award get the customary hoopla that accompanies book awards – stickers, social media buzz and press releases. As a winner you’ll also be considered for a one-year scholarship award for Dan Poynterís Para Promotion Program.

eLit Awards: the eLit Awards are committed to illuminating and honoring the best of English language entertainment. The eLit Awards include digital publishing in a wide variety of reader formats with submissions from around the world.

Do you have any favorite literary awards? If so, send me a message via www.MadeForSuccessPublishing.com/blog or LinkedIn Messaging and I’ll update this list periodically for the benefit of the writing community.

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with bestselling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

Noisetrade – A Hidden Gem for Book Marketing

The Author’s Dream

There you are, sipping coffee and cognac by the stone fireplace at a lodge near Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Your muscles are warm and loose from a day of skiing, and your mind is on the fine meal planned for the evening.

Recent sales of your best seller have funded this little getaway, and you can’t believe how easily – how quickly – it all came together. It was all so sudden.

You lean back, gazing out the window at the gently falling snow, and smile. Yes, you can trace it all back to that one pivotal moment, the one when you decided to give away copies of your book on Noisetrade. After all, doesn’t everyone?

“If only they knew it was this easy,” you muse, “then everyone really would be doing it.” The sweet aroma of the steam fills your senses while the down-stuffed armchair cradles you in comfort. The thought whispers at the edge of your mind, “Yes, it is truly a good life…”

CLANK!

You’re startled awake with a clatter. The spoon you used to stir your powdered instant Swiss mocha mix has fallen to the kitchen floor, jostling you back to the reality of the moment: the onerous task of writing your book marketing plan.

If you don’t figure out some way to build your readership, your dreams of Swiss-inspired success are hosed. You might as well use those overstock copies of your ebook to fuel the virtual fireplace app on your smartphone. Not glamorous. Not at all.

Using Noisetrade to Build Your Best Seller Dream

Using Noisetrade can be one great step on the journey to market your book. Noisetrade is an author-driven marketplace for ebooks and audiobooks. Rather than direct commerce, contributors are rewarded through donations that readers make on the honor system.

For example, a reader downloads a juicy sci-fi novel and has the option to pay for it after the aliens have been summarily dealt with. Score one for the author.

Authors can build an audience by giving away full-length ebooks or audiobooks, or alternatively authors offer sample chapters. Readers can find fiction, non-fiction, study guides, graphic novels and audiobooks galore. It’s the utopian version of Amazon.com without the coffee makers, winter coats and toy ads.

And it’s true: Noisetrade can be cool. When I work with authors to develop and execute their marketing plans, we do use NoiseTrade, but not for its idealistic original intent. Putting partial ebooks and audiobooks on this site has generated hundreds to thousands of new subscribers to email lists for many of my authors. Here’s how it works.

When a reader selects a book to download, they are prompted to make a choice from the pop-up window. They can either log in with Facebook credentials, use their free Noisetrade account, or download anonymously as a guest.

Those who log in are prompted to join the author’s mailing list and agree to receive email from them. After that, the author is free to build a relationship and market to them as often as they wish.

The Reality

This is a great email list-building tactic, but a horrible tactic for generating revenue when you post your entire book.

Noisetrade is not a good platform for making pots of money and retiring to the slopes of Neuchâtel. For one thing, the appeal for consumers is that the downloads are free. This attracts freebie-seekers.

Even though the Noisetrade site advises users to leave a tip (and they recommend an amount), the timing of their recommendation sucks. The pop-up asks for the money before the meal – before the reader has a chance to be inspired, amused, educated or tickled by the enormity of the author’s wit. Who’s going to pay for a sci-fi novel when they aliens haven’t been vanquished yet? Most authors don’t include a payment link at the end of their book, so the sale is lost.

If you can keep this in perspective, you can capitalize on Noisetrade’s innate sexiness as a marketing tool. Our best success has come from this model, or recipe, for using Noisetrade to promote books:

Give away book 1, and publish links to purchase books 2 & 3
Get email addresses when people download your ebook/audiobook
Add these emails to your email database and wow your subscribers with your clever words

Noisetrade is great for getting your creative works into the hands of consumers, building your mailing list and staying in touch with them. If you keep this in mind as you use Noisetrade to market yourself, you can maximize its potential and start adding a little VSOP to your afternoon coffee. Santé!

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with bestselling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

Big Exposure for Authors – Trade Publication Reviews

Of all the tactics an author can use to become noteworthy, getting your book reviewed by the New York Times is right up there.

A thumbs up from the likes of Publishers Weekly or the Library Journal is not just some stroke for the author’s ego. It can translate to big bucks in terms of buy-in for your book. The right recommendation can open doors for an author where before there only seemed to be a brick wall.

Once you’ve finished writing your book, getting wide distribution in the marketplace should naturally become your focus. Book buyers hesitate to engage with an author they’ve never heard of. I mean, even you and I hover briefly over the 1-Click Order button on Amazon before committing to an unknown author. Book buyers and readers alike look for a source of information they can trust before making a buying decision on a book in a sea of millions of book titles.

Reviews provide that confirmation, whether the comments come from consumers or professional critics. So, let’s explore how to get your book reviewed by major trade publications. Every successful author has been unknown at some point, and reviews help to bridge that gap between obscurity and celebrity. Finding reviewers who are willing make your name known is a simpler process than you might expect.

Why Book-Trade Reviews?

Reviews have a permanence that time-based media just doesn’t have. TV and radio shows can offer a wide audience. However, their time-based quality means a lot less leverage for you, the author, in getting your name in front of your chosen audience. The shows typically air just once, and then they’re gone.

Written reviews in trade journals, libraries, magazines and websites will last for years. Any time your book-buying public is looking for information about you or your topic, they’re going to stumble across those reviews. In fact, you can even excerpt these reviews and use them in your marketing materials.

So how do you do it? What’s the secret to getting the guys at the top to notice you? Is there some kind of mojo that only hired publicists have the license to practice? Let’s look at a two-pronged effort to do just that.

Freedom of the Press and Other Juicy Tactics

One method you can use to publicize your book is writing press releases and getting distribution. Sometimes press releases are picked up by major publications, which can provide amazing support for a book release.

In addition to reprints from major media outlets, your press release can end up being indexed by Google for your main keywords. This puts your announcement in front of all kinds of book reviewers, online bloggers and the buying public.

To request a book review from one of the major trade publications, the process is not that complicated. In fact, it involves only one step: ask.

Start by sending a personalized e-mail with details about your book, then wait for a response. Make your query tailored to the publication you’re submitting it to, and use the editor’s name in your greeting. Don’t make your submission about you; make it about them. Be direct about how your material will interest and benefit their audience.

This method may yield a certain amount of failures, but that’s part of the process. The best baseball player hits the ball only 3 out of 10 times. You can make up for what you lack in skill with a large number of review submissions. And over time, you’ll get better.

With that in mind, here is a list of contacts for Media & Trade Review Submissions:

New York Times

Publishers Weekly (retail trade buyers)

Library Journal (library buyers)

Kirkus

Foreword

Shelf Awareness (retail trade buyers)

The hardest part of putting your book in front of the professionals on this list is getting started. It can be overwhelming. Contacting any publication you respect or admire can be intimidating. So muster-up your courage and dive in. Get organized, and keep moving.

Remember that reviewers would be out of business if it weren’t for authors like you. You have an obligation to give them something to talk about. Who knows? The next review you read may be your own!

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with bestselling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

Check out the Bryan Heathman’s book

Conversion Marketing: Convert Website Visitors into Buyers

In today’s business climate, transacting eCommerce on the Internet represents the fastest growing marketplace in the world – but few people really understand how to make it sing! Harness the online money making potential of your business with trade secrets from this acclaimed industry insider, veteran of more than 150 marketing campaigns in the corporate Big Leagues. From creating hefty mailing lists to launching powerful viral marketing campaigns, you’ll learn the tricks of turning the noise of the digital realm into a chorus of eCommerce for your business. Let this eBook show you how to make money while you sleep!

Book Publicity Media Kits – The 5 Essential Elements Journalists Need

Successfully marketing your book basically means letting people know that it exists. After all, you wrote down your best ideas so that others would read and enjoy them. Getting more book sales translates to more people sharing your best ideas – fact or fiction— and benefitting from them.

As the person who’s primarily responsible for promoting your book, one smart move you can make is to leverage the huge media potential available to authors. Doing this will mean you won’t be the only person touting your book. You’ll have massive media outlets helping you out.

The problem with using traditional publicity is that the process can be intimidating. Buyers for book distributors and retail book stores decide how many copies to order per outlet based on publicity and demand. Getting regional or national exposure helps drive that demand. But how can you get publicity for your book when there’s so much competition for face time in the media?

The answer lies in preparation. Having a complete media kit prepared ahead of time for all your publicity contacts will ensure that they have access to everything they need to decide to put you in front of their audience. In fact, a media kit will stack the odds in your favor, and getting mass exposure becomes a matter of making yourself available to media outlets.

Time starved magazine editors, radio personalities and TV talk show hosts are all looking for completeness and professional presentation. They need to see a total package that will help them out with their stories. If you can present them with the material they need ahead of time, you are much more likely to land that interview, book review or feature. This preparation comes in the form of the media kit.

The 5 Essentials of a Book Media Kit

There is a wide assortment of materials that authors include in their media kit, but many of them are overkill for a journalist in a hurry. Sometimes less really is more. Your complete media kit should include the following elements:

1) Your Author Biographies – Yes, you need more than one bio. Depending on the length, these may include your professional background, your experience as an author, and even information about your lifestyle such as where you live.

Your bios should be offered in the following lengths:

2 lines (120 characters)
Short bio (50 words)
Medium bio (100 words)
Long bio (400 to 600 words)

2) Your Press Release – This should include meaty useful content, citing you as an authority on the topic with a reference to your book. It should not be an announcement that you’ve written a book. There’s no quicker way to bore a journalist, and these are the people you want to excite.

Besides meaty and content and sound bites, your press release should include the following often omitted data:

Headline up to 20 words
Subheading (optional)
Dateline (City, State, Date)
Call to action at the bottom of the release
Your contact information – don’t make people work hard to find you

Click here for tips on writing a Press Release for your book launch.

3) A Book Synopsis and Sample Chapter — Pull your most important information onto one sheet. Include a cover image, the title & sub-title, table of contents and key selling points. Include reviews and endorsements if you have them. If you don’t have them, then set aside time to get them. Include book review excerpts if you have them, such as, “This book is a thrill ride! I couldn’t put it down.”

4) Publicity Photos — Offer more than one type of publicity photo. Make sure these images are professionally done with nicely balanced contrast and clear, sharp focus.

Image of your book cover created by a professional book graphic designer
Head shot of just you with even lighting and an approachable facial expression
A candid shot of you in a relevant context, showing you in an environment that relates to your topic

5) Sample Interview Questions, Tips, Quotes and Sound Bites — People in the media may not have the time to read your book, so make it easy for them to understand your work. Include sample interview questions in your media kit. Radio and TV personalities especially love these. Journalists love to see list of tips that they can reprint in connection with your book. All media people love to use quotes and sound bites, so feed them what they want.

The thing to remember about your media kit is that it’s a work in progress. It will constantly need to be updated. If you set it and forget it, in time it will forget you. Stay active in the life of your book’s publicity. With proper care and feeding, and it will provide you with fat royalty checks for a long time to come.

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with bestselling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.

Traditional Media Exposure = Rocket Fuel for Your Book Launch

There are several thousand ways to successfully publicize a book that I’m aware of, and some are more effective than others. For example, you can promote your book by selling it back-of-room during speaking engagements, and you may actually make thousands of sales this way. The problem with this approach is that your own involvement limits the number of sales you can make, as the opportunities to speak are scarce… as is your time. This “scarcity principle” applies other marketing tactics I’ve seen authors use – not just public speaking engagements.

Imagine how much more effective your marketing efforts will be when you invest your time instead of spending it. Think of the activities you can do that will offer you leverage. Using traditional media such as radio, TV and print can give you massive leverage.

By putting your book in the hands of other people who can reach a large audience for you, you are leveraging their audience. Imagine sitting down for an interview with a radio talk show host. How many people can you reach in one 10-minute chat? What would audiences for your book look like if a dozen radio shows picked up a press release you distributed? How might your book launch change if your interview became syndicated? What would a stint on Good Morning America do for your sales?

Traditional Publicity Doesn’t Have To Mean Boring

Using traditional media such as radio, television, newsprint and magazine exposure for your book can make or break your sales numbers. This is anything but boring. By distributing your book through channels that will automatically publicize your work to large groups of people, you are investing your time and resources wisely. Let’s take a look at how you can apply this kind of leverage to your Book Marketing Plan.

Whether you’re looking for a burst of heat from your initial book launch, or your topic is evergreen and you’ve got your eye on long tail sales, publicity can give you the leverage you need to put your book into the hands of readers. Social media and other interactive types of publicity are great for this.

Yet for most authors who take the time to draft a Book Marketing Plan, somehow traditional publicity keeps getting lost in the mix. Despite the prevalence of social media in our daily lives, traditional media is still not only an effective publicity generator, it’s often the most effective way to sell pallets of your published book.

The three months surrounding your book launch are a time of intense activity. With the right chemical mix of traditional publicity and social media, you can be sure that your book continues to make sales long after the launch is over.

A Media Kit Is Rocket Fuel for Your Book Launch

A media kit helps establish your credibility and enhances your reputation before you even start your marketing campaign. This means buying resistance to your books will be much lower. People will be more inclined to believe in you when you have a solid reputation.

A media kit is a branded set of marketing materials that’s rich with content, not hype. It includes collateral material for journalists, book reviewers, talk show hosts, bloggers and consumers. Frequently a time-starved journalist won’t take a minute to look into the media kit to make their decision about whether to cover you. They’ll rely on the summary you provide. If your information is complete and looks professional, they will simply use the material you have given them.

People in the media don’t have time to read your book, so make it easy for them to understand your work. If you are considerate of their needs, they are more inclined to cover the story of you and your book.

Include sample interview questions in your media kit. Radio and TV personalities especially love these. Journalists love to see list of tips that they can reprint in connection with your book. All media people love to use quotes and sound bites, so feed them what they want.

Above all, make sure you provide your contact information right up front. In fact it should be on every part of your media kit and every page of your website. No one should ever have to guess how to reach you.

Do you have questions about what to include in your book media kit? Click here for the 5 essential elements of a book media kit.

By leveraging traditional media, you can launch your book to stellar status join – maybe even join the galaxy of published superstars. The only question that remains is, how high do you want to go?

Bryan Heathman is the President of Made for Success Publishing. Bryan works with bestselling authors in the role of publisher and marketer, including the late Zig Ziglar, Chris Widener and John C. Maxwell. Bryan is the author of Conversion Marketing, a marketing book that condenses knowledge on website conversion from 7-years running an online ad agency. Bryan’s Fortune 500 experience includes running high impact marketing campaigns for Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Xerox.