It is no secret that traditional publishers are leaving more and more of the publicity for a book to the author.  If you go with self-published or print on demand books, all of the publicity burden falls on your shoulders.  Trying to publicize a book while writing your next one can seem overwhelming.  It doesn’t have to be that way.

With just a little initial effort, every post on your blog can travel to multiple places where your readers congregate, leaving you more time to write.  The secret to this is to harness your RSS feed to syndicate your blog.  RSS stands for different things depending on who you ask, but I remember it as Really Simple Syndication.

That orange button with the white wavy lines on it you see on most blogs is the RSS feed.  You click it and are able to sign up to receive the blog posts in a reader, or by email, or both, depending on the way it is configured.  You can essentially “sign-up” several places to receive and display your blog posts so they reach more people than your blog alone will.

The top five sites for authors to interact with fans seem, from requests for help I receive, to be the author pages on GoodReads.com and Amazon.com, the Kindle blog publishing program, Facebook, and Twitter.

If you have a book with an ISBN number on the cover (usually the back cover), you are eligible to request an author page from GoodReads.com.  The people there are avid readers who are looking for new books to read.  They enjoy interacting with their favorite authors and reading excerpts, blog posts, and other things posted there by them.  You can also give away copies of your book through GoodReads.com and most of the time, the winners will post a review when they are finished reading the book.

Amazon.com also allows authors who have a book that is available through them to have an author’s page.  The advantage of this is that most people are looking to buy something to read when they encounter your page.  The content you leave there can further prime them to buy your book.

Many people have put their backlist on Kindle and other eReaders.  It is also possible to put your blog onto Kindle.  Readers pay a nominal subscription fee each month to get every post as you write it.  Since they are using their Kindle to read your words, they may become interested enough to purchase your eBooks as well.

Establishing a fan page on Facebook has become more important than ever as studies show many young adults and twenty somethings use it to the exclusion of other sites.  It can, however, seem like a huge time sink to some of us.  You can feed your blog postings onto the wall of your fan page and interact with your fans over the comments to what you have written.  Having the blog feed there also keeps your page from looking abandoned.

Finally, Twitter is used to communicate and market by an ever increasing crowd.  In 140 characters or less, you can put out the title and a teaser for each blog post to draw people to your website.  There, they can read the entire post and hopefully be exposed to your entire catalog of books.

To feed your blog to Facebook and Twitter, it is easiest to use a program such as Twitterfeed.com.  This automatically picks up the information and posts it for you.  You can have it check as often as every 30 minutes for new posts and transfer them where you direct.

Technology has made the author’s job at once easier and harder.  Use your RSS feed to expand your platform while leaving you time to write.

Bloggers can be a really picky bunch who don’t respond well to pitches from people they don’t know. They’ve spent so much time cultivating their readers, they aren’t likely to share that influence lightly. But I have found that once you have a relationship with a blogger, they’ll do just about anything in reason to help you.

Authors, don’t think about using bloggers to promote your book. Think about building long term relationships with bloggers to help sell a lifetime of books.  Here are the steps that work well for us:

• Find them on Twitter first – use Twitter search to find bloggers that are tweeting and blogging about topics in your genre. Start RT’ing their tweets and give them a bit of sass. Most bloggers enjoy a snarky sense of humor so find ones with whom you can build rapport.
• Don’t just focus on traffic – many bloggers have huge influence with their readers despite lower traffic numbers.  Read the comments on the blog to see how engaged the blogger is with their readers, and how many readers are commenting on a regular basis.
• RSS feed the blogs you are interested in – this will give you an easy way to keep up with what they’re blogging about.
• Promote the blog on your own social media accounts – we do a ton of PR for bloggers by tweeting their posts, mentioning their posts in our own blog, suggesting them to traditional media…the blog world is the most collaborative environment I’ve seen. Scratch their back and they will usually scratch yours.
• Don’t aim too high – try to find bloggers on the up and up, ones that have a fair amount of readers but aren’t overwhelmed by their fans. You can try for months to get a mention in Copyblogger and never get anywhere. Getting 15 mentions in lower traffic blogs with good influence may be just as good.
• Install the Alexa toolbar – Alexa will tell you not only the traffic stats, but give you some incredible demographics on the blogs’ readers as well. Find a blogger on Twitter that seems to match your demo, and then check them out on Alexa. This will also tell you whether the blog is on the rise or if the blogger is losing interest and readership/traffic is waning.
• Ask the blogger if you can pitch them and do it EARLY – don’t pitch bloggers after you’ve pitched all the traditional media, it’s offensive. And give the bloggers galleys  if you can.

If you’re a new author, bloggers might be the most important media for your campaign. They may be the ones that flag you to the traditional media as well. Treat bloggers with as much respect as you do an editor from the New York Times. They can have tremendous influence with readers, agents, media and bookstores.

Bonnie Harris is the founder of Wax Marketing, an integrated marketing and public relations firm. Read her blog here and follow her on Twitter for more tips on promoting books, products and services in the new media world.

Bloggers have influence and major players are reaching out to influence them.

Consider these events at BlogWorld:

• General David Patraeus took time out from defending our country to welcome people to BlogWorld and to thank bloggers for supporting the troops and their families. BlogWorld held a separate track for military blogs. Other tracks were for business, travel, food and sports.
• Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor, The Appren tice and other reality shows, used BlogWorld for the world premier viewing of a trailer for his latest show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.”
• Political consultants Mark Penn and Karen Hughes, veterans of two White House staffs, spoke about social media and politics.
• Borders announced software program to turn a blog into a book and have it sold via their bookstores – for $85, which includes the cost of an ISBN number. The head of the program told me that an ISBN number alone usually costs more than $85.
• SONY showed a prototype television with Internet capabilities. Tech pundit Jim Louderback said it was not ready for prime time, but that it did herald the beginning of a new era of convergence of the two media.
• FORD let people test drive their new car.

Meanwhile a room full of 100 food bloggers anxiously took notes from PR people who showed them how to curry favor with reporters and with brands – and learn a bit about journalistic ethics in the process.

In another room, several hundred corporate employees talked about how to measure ROI on social media and new media tools. Wrapped in numbers, metrics, formulas and algorithms, the session was not for the faint of heart, but for B-school wonks.

Still in another room, newbie bloggers were learning the ins and outs of creating content, creating community and creating income.

As panelists made their points, many in the audience tweeted and re-tweeted key points and sound bytes. Some presenters paused in their talks to point out they just said something that was tweetable.

Still others checked their messages on Facebook and Twitter (using HootSuite for the most part).

If one message came through loud and clear it was the social media was about creating conversations, not broadcasting messages. Case in point, two bloggers took to the microphones during Q&A to blast Penn and Hughes for talking in talking points, but not engaging the audience. The politicos answered the bloggers with more talking points but never once asked the questioners for their ideas.

Old habits are hard to break.

My audience is mostly speakers, authors, consultants and coaches. Most of whom think social media is a giant time waster. I can see why: Most messages I get from them are promotions for their webinars, teleseminars and thinly-veiled commercials for their books, consulting clients and other self-serving and self-promoting ventures. Of course no one engages in conversations with them. There’s no meat. People can see through an ad, even when it isn’t labeled an ad.

If you want to be successful with social media (and this conference showed me that many big companies really are getting ROI from their efforts), then it is key to engage so you can build visibility, trust and then sales.

So, what do you think?

Follow me on twitter @prleads, http://www.facebook.com/danjanal and Linked In and my Linked In group, “PR LEADS.”

Dan Janal is a very successful entrepreneur, professional speaker and marketing coach who helps clients build their businesses by improving their strategy for using publicity, marketing, Internet marketing, e-commerce and sales. To see how you can improve your business, go to http://www.prleadsplus.com

Consultants and coaches spend countless hours thinking of new ideas to write for their newsletters and blogs. They all want to create a new idea and hop on a new trend. After all, we all want to be thought of as smart and helpful.

But did you know that the best way to bond with your readers is to show them that you are human?

It’s true.

I’ve been writing on the web for nearly 15 years and the times I get a flood of emails is when I reveal something personal about myself, not when I write a great article or explain a new tactic.

Relax, I’m not talking about baring your soul, opening your emotional closet or revealing your deepest fantasies. I’m talking about when you do no rmal things.

From my own experience and those of others, I’ve found the greatest feedback when writing about:
- my cats
- my vacations
- my gardening
- my attempts at playing the guitar
- my training for a 5K race

I also get a lot of comments if a link doesn’t work or if there’s an extra space between words or if there’s a typo. I’m sure that’s because people want to help.

If you put more personality into your writing, people will want to know more about you and will bond with you.

I know one guy who writes about his skydiving. Another person gives the play by play details of his upcoming wedding planning. Another person prints jokes about dogs. Another person writes abou t his horrible experiences at restaurants.

Let’s face it. Most of the information we write about can be written by anyone. There are only so many ways to say “to lose weight, eat less and exercise more.” Or the equivalents for getting a job, overcoming procrastination, asking for a raise, leading your employees or making money on the Internet. The thing that’s going to help you stand out is your personality.

When you show personality, you bond with your readers and you’ll have a better chance to build trust so you can make a sale.

Dan Janal is a very successful entrepreneur, professional speaker and marketing coach who helps clients build their businesses by improving their strategy for using publicity, marketing, Internet marketing, e-commerce and sales. For more information, go to http://www.prleadsplus.com.

A recent survey reveals that authors and publishers are anxious to leverage the benefits of social media marketing as they promote their books in the coming months.

According to Dana Lynn Smith of The Savvy Book Marketer, nearly all – 94 percent of the respondents – said they plan to promote their books with social networking and other social media this year.

“Online book promotion through social media is clearly a popular strategy,” says Smith, a book marketing consultant. “But, it’s important that authors and publishers learn to use these new book promotion tools effectively.”

According to the survey, here are the top 10 book promotion methods that authors and publishers plan to use this year:

1. Social networking and social media: 94 percent

2. Blogging: 84 percent

3. Seeking book reviews: 75 percent

4. Seeking testimonials and endorsements: 73 percent

5. Press releases: 68 percent

6. Ezines or email marketing: 62 percent

7. Radio and television talk shows: 62 percent

8. Speaking or teleseminars: 60 percent

9. Article marketing: 57 percent

10. Book signings: 56 percent

“Despite the emphasis on online book promotion in 2010, more traditional activities like book reviews and radio interviews are still important,” notes Smith. “An effective book promotion plan should use a variety of online and offline tactics for the widest reach.”

Of the 136 people responding to the book promotion strategies survey, 42 percent are independently or self-published authors, 25 percent are authors published by a traditional publishing house, 12 percent are aspiring authors, and 21 percent are publishers or others in the industry.

Dana Smith, who develops marketing plans for nonfiction books, is the author of The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing and several other book promotion guides.

For book promotion tips, visit The Savvy Book Marketer blog at www.TheSavvyBookMarketer.com. Subscribers to Smith’s complimentary newsletter, The Savvy Book Marketer, get a copy of the Top Book Marketing Tips e-book when they register for the newsletter at www.BookMarketingNewsletter.com. For more book marketing tips, follow Smith on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BookMarketer.

Sometimes, you just give in to peer pressure. I have always had the writing bug. However, I never pursued this endeavor until many family and friends said it is time to write a book. But, never really explored this “art” until October of 2008. That is when I started writing my novel, “Diary: Alone on Earth.” Now, many people have asked me over the months, “David, why did you write this as a blog?” My answer is…I simply don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But, once I started, I felt obliged to continue in this particular format. Plus, I wanted to see what kind of feedback I would get by writing this novel online.

To put it bluntly, I was stunned by the reaction to my blog-novel. I had some people who commented (at the end of each entry there is a comment section in the blog) they were simply “dying” in anticipation of my next entry. At first, I thought they were being sarcastic. I just didn’t assume the story would have that kind of draw or impact. But, it did and the followers soon begin to follow faithfully each week. At first, there were only about five people who followed my weekly entries. Soon, that number increased exponentially. I felt inspired by the comments, the people who felt the story was something that they looked forward to each week. In fact, I received comments and email that they looked at my blog-novel as some sort of “cyberspace TV weekly mini-series.” I was flattered beyond my ability to comprehend. I decided that my thoughtless inclination to write in blog format was a lucky “shot in the dark.” Maybe some publisher or agent will think likewise someday!

However, despite all this glowing commentary on my blog-novel, it is not without its critics. The one agent who read my manuscript felt the story was unique and interesting. However, she felt the story would not transcend itself into book format simply because it is written in the form of a diary. She suggested that I rewrite the story into the traditional chapters and with dialogue. But, I suspect she missed the entire of idea of this story. “Alone on earth” is just that; alone. I explore the overwhelming loneliness the central character faces throughout the book. It is written in diary form so the reader can really experience his thoughts, his fears and his anger. As I told her, this isn’t the first book written in diary format. “Robinson Crusoe” did fairly well in this manner, as I recall. I simply will not change the format from the diary form. I just feel changing this story to the traditional chapter form would ruin it. The message would not be as powerful in my opinion. I also had people saying I had committed “blasphemy” in email when my story developed religious overtones midway though the story. I expected that, but not nearly the vociferous reaction I got from some people. It comes with the territory, I suspect.

Writing in the blog format has been enlightening. I would not have had the impetus to continue if I had not decided to create a blog to write my novel. Like many people, I need to be cajoled, prodded and complimented to continue (some outright threats from friends doesn’t hurt either). In short, the blog format worked for me.

Would I do it again in my next novel? Maybe. That depends on how well things go for Diary insofar as getting published. But, I will say I enjoyed this experience. I had interaction with readers that you couldn’t get just plugging away at your computer in Word. I enjoyed writing the story. I enjoyed reading comments from readers. Hopefully, my hard work will be rewarded in the way of a publishing contract. I am under no illusions that I will become the next Stephen King at age 58 or become rich. But, someday, on some dusty bookshelf somewhere a copy of Diary is picked up by a man or woman with personal problems, some kid looking for entertainment other than computer games, or some elderly person facing the heartache of loneliness, and my book takes them away for a few minutes each day…then I’ve done my job.

James Weldy: Born and raised in Mobile, AL, I’ve always had a penchant for the art of writing. Finally succumbed to years of pressure and wrote my first novel at age 57. I am the author of “Diary: Alone on Earth (aloneonearth.blogspot.com),” a yet to be published novel first written in blog format.

If there is one thing I know, that’s book marketing, and from time to time I learn about a neat new tool that makes selling books online just a little bit easier.

I would like to introduce you to Skirbit. Skirbit.com allows an author to easily add a small widget to their blog which gives readers a chance to communicate directly with the author. At the end of the blog, this small widget asks one simple question “What should I write about?” What a perfect question. This allows an author to customize blogs based on reader suggestions.

If you want to be one of those authors who are really in touch with your audience, Skribit allows you to do just that. Learning how to sell books on the Internet is a meticulous process but if you can get feedback, not only from customers, but potential customers, it will make the process much easier.

Once you create an account with Skirbit, you are presented with an easy to use dashboard to easily create your widget. Simply code the code given to you in your blog and you’re done.

Remember, the marketing calendar is finally available, and for only $5.95/month. You will get daily emails of exactly what you need to do to market a book online. I realized how hard it was to sell my books once they were published, but after years of experience, I am brining my knowledge to your email box on a daily basis. Even if you want to write a book, this will be a great preparation tool for you.

Michael Volkin is the author of the new book Social Networking for Authors-Untapped Possibilities for Wealth. Check out his book and book marketing services at www.SellaTonofBooks.com.

Does your heroine have a Twitter account? Why not? Posting to social media sites in the voice of your characters gives you another way to interact with readers and get them involved in your story. This works especially well for series characters, where the character’s relationship with the audience builds with each book. Social media can speed the process along.

Here are some tips for making the most of your character’s presence in social media:

Use a drawing or photo of the character as an avatar if you can. Otherwise, use the book cover or other image to represent them. (Note: Be careful if using a photo of a real person as your character. Make sure you have permission. Take a photo of a friend or model, and get a signed release.)

Make it clear that the account belongs to a fictional character. The purpose is not to deceive anyone, but just to do something interesting to readers and have fun with the characters.

Here are a few places to put your characters:

Although fictional characters can not have Facebook profiles, they can have fan pages. Set up a fan page for your character and let your followers know about it. Use the fan page to keep readers up to date on new books, events, etc., and also about what is happening in the life of your character between books (or after the book in which they appeared ended).

Anyone can have a Twitter account, even if they only exist in your imagination. Drop clues about the latest case your amateur sleuth is involved in, or tweet about the romantic evening your romance heroine enjoyed. Of course, your characters can also mention your upcoming book signings and other events.

Set up a Ning.com network around your books, where your characters can interact with readers.

If you really want to go all out, set up a blog for the character. Or create a blog for all of the characters in your latest book and let them take turns posting. You may find that too much to maintain (along with your own blog, oh, and writing books!) so instead just have a character do an occasional guest post on your blog. Be sure to announce the post via Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

Have your characters guest post on other people’s blogs. This could be part of a blog tour, where your character appears instead of you, or be done on its own. To find blogs where you and your characters can guest post, join http://BloggerLinkUp.com/ (free) and submit your offer of guest posts.

Don’t go overboard with this. You probably do not want to do all of these things. Choose one or two and have fun with them. This can be a new way to engage your current readers and attract new fans.

Cathy Stucker writes about marketing, blogging, publishing and more at IdeaLady.com and CathyStucker.com. Sign up for her free IdeaLady Insider newsletter at http://IdeaLady.com/article/newsletter.

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 http://sharethis.com or http://www.addthis.com. 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. 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. Search for blogs at http://blogsearch.google.com/.

5. Create a feed for your blog.

RSS feeds allow your blog posts to be automatically delivered to your visitors and to other websites. To create a feed, go http://www.FeedBurner.com.

6. Do a virtual book tour

Make guest appearances on blogs, ezines, 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 at http://blogcarnival.com/bc/faq.html.

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.

Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing, www.SavvyBookMarketer.com. For free book marketing tips visit www.BookMarketingMaven.com.