When it comes to marketing your book, self marketing can be confusing and a lot of work. But the truth is that you really need to do self marketing because no one else is likely to do it for you. I have done some research into self marketing techniques, and I was surprised at how many of them can be done at no cost to the author except for their time. I compiled them into this list of free self marketing tips for authors.

Use Social Media

Social media is the most obvious marketing avenue for authors. It is one of the most popular marketing tools today, and you can get lots of exposure will relatively little effort. The trick is to know how to use these tools effectively when marketing your book.

Create a Facebook Author page first. This will help to keep your personal Facebook page and your book marketing activities separated. This is also helpful if you have multiple books you are trying to market.

Google+ is another must use social media site. It may not have as many users as Facebook but it is gaining in popularity and is a great marketing tool.

Twitter is great for driving traffic to your web site and social media pages. You can also build buzz by creating a hashtag for your book or characters.

LinkedIn is important as well. Create a professional profile that displays your published works, awards, experience, and education.

Now that you have all your social media sites set up, you need to know how to use them to create interest and encourage participation. Here are a few strategies that I have found effective.

• Ask questions. Asking questions gets your fans involved and lets them talk about themselves, which most people love to do. This creates interaction and discussions which in interesting content for fans to read. Make sure you stay involved in the conversation, you do not have to reply to every comment, but engage with your fans about your book, and you will be rewarded.

• Take polls. Again, interaction is key here. Fans will enjoy getting to weigh in with their opinion. If you give fans a say in how your next book unfolds, even if it is some trivial plot point or character trait, they will feel more connected to the story you are telling.

• Do a giveaway contest. People love the chance to win something. Offer signed advance copies of your book, a signed photo of a location in your book, or some other item specific to your story that fans will enjoy. This will help drive excitement and get people talking.

Make a Web Page

Creating a web page for your book is an important marketing strategy as well. Most web hosting companies will give you a domain for fairly cheap, but if you want to stay in the free arena, you can create a Google site as well. Your site does not have to be a masterpiece, just a picture of yourself, the cover of your book, a short bio, a synopsis, and links to your social media sites.

Send Out Advance Copies

Sending advance copies to popular bloggers is a great way to drum up buzz about your book. The right people can really get the word out before your book is released. Bloggers will be flattered that you chose them to read it first and if they like it they will sing its praises to their built in audience. Target blogs and bloggers wisely and it can do wonders for your marketing efforts.

Write a Press Release

Writing a press release about your upcoming book is also a great way to get the word out about it. You can send it out to news agencies and post a copy on your web site. Press releases are a more traditional form of marketing but they are important all the same, and it only takes a bit of effort to write on. Search online for a press release template and to learn press release conventions.

Author Bio: +Brian Burton is a children’s book enthusiast and online publisher for childrensbookstore.com .

Blogging is one of the most popular strategies for marketing books today. But blogs must engage your readers if they are to be effective. Here are some simple strategies to make your blog connect with readers so you can sell more books.

I’ve heard many people in the publishing industry say, “Every author must have a blog,” but is blogging really effective? Every author must decide for him or herself, but first, it’s important to understand what a blog is and how to use it effectively.

A blog is a shortened version of the term “web log.” It’s basically a journal or diary that is online for the public to read. Businesses use blogs to share information about their products, new items in their markets, and other information relevant to their industry. Blogging is similar for authors who want to connect with readers, books being the product and readers being the customers who want the product—at least they should after reading your blog.

Blogging is an excellent marketing strategy for authors because it’s a way for them to tell their stories, to talk about their books, to share information, items of common interest to readers, and ultimately, to get people to buy their books. Whether writing fiction or non-fiction, most authors are telling a story, and a blog is just another way to tell a story—the story about you the author—in a more personal way that will get readers to like you and want to hear more of what you have to say.

Having a blog does not mean just posting whatever and whenever. As an author, you want to have a strategy for your blog posts. Ultimately, your goal is to sell your books to your potential readers. Make sure your posts reflect that strategy. If you’re writing romance novels, it doesn’t make sense to post about your gardening interests—unless you can tie those into your book—for example, if your heroine’s name is Cecilia and she is a gardener in your book, then you could be creative and present Cecilia’s gardening tips.

Following are some key tips to make your blog effective so it will engage your readers:

• Have an attention grabbing headline.
• Keep the content relatively short—just a few paragraphs—a chapter a day from your book may be too long, so spread it out over a few posts—remember people online have short attention spans.
• Post selections from your books.
• Write about why you wrote your book—tell the background story.
• Give sneak peeks of future books or ideas you’re working on.
• Review products of interest to your readers—if you write historical fiction, review other historical novels or historical films. If you write about nature, the outdoors, activities like rock-climbing, then write reviews of nature hiking trails, the best kayaking places, or the newest in climbing equipment.
• Share information about your industry or genre—a lot of readers want to be writers, so talk about writing, publishing, and book marketing—be helpful to everyone who asks for help (within reason).
• Offer viewpoints that may be a little controversial.
• Ask your readers for their opinions on what you post. Solicit comments from them. Asking for feedback tells your readers that you want to know what they have to say, and that you’re interested in understanding your customers. Respond to the comments people write. Remember, many people view authors as celebrities. They will be pleased that you took the time to write them back. The more comments you get, the more people will want to leave comments. Don’t worry about negative comments—you can control what comments appear on your site, but a little controversy can also help.
• Ask your readers what topics they would like you to post about. Ask them for ideas for future books, or put up a piece of writing and ask for feedback.
• Link to other sites and exchange links. Find authors who write on similar topics or in similar genres. Interview them, or review each other’s books. Links will help your search engine optimization and you’ll have more links back to your site to attract readers.
• Advertise your blog. Just putting up a blog on your website won’t get people to your blog. Advertise it through your email lists. Be involved in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter where you can promote your blog.
• Avoid trying to sell directly. No one likes a pushy salesperson. Share information and make people curious about your thoughts, opinions, and writing. People like to do business with people they know and like. As they get to know and like you, they’ll become more curious to buy your book.
• Go beyond the written word. Include photographs in your blog to attract people who are more visual. You can also include audio and video to your blog. Take turns playing with or switching up different types of blog posts.
• Automate your blog so everything you post goes to your social networking sites. Ping.fm is one good site that allows you to cross-post.
• Be listed on blog directories so people looking for information or the topics you’re writing about can find you.
• Follow other authors and people in the publishing industry’s blogs and post comments on those blogs—your website will be included so people will follow you back to your website.
• Post on average three or more blogs a week so you always have new content and readers stay interested.

Blogging can be a fun and fulfilling way to promote your books, to have conversations with readers, to try out ideas for future books, and to learn a great deal about how to market your books to attract readers. Ultimately, you won’t know if blogging is effective for you unless you try it.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

Everyone wants to be a successful author – even people who’ve never written a book. Mention television and movie deals and people even start salivating. But those of us who have actually published know there is a vast distance between getting an ISBN number and actually selling books. For most of us the numbers, at least in the early days, are so few and far between that we start cursing our cousins that they haven’t bought enough copies to give to their friends.

The lack of sales leads to depression. Perhaps feeling desperation, we mention our books on Facebook. One friend, most likely somebody living in Bahrain, asks how to get a copy. Fighting back the impulse of gratitude that would take us to the nearest UPS store, we go to our Amazon pages, copy the links, send them. Of course living in Bahrain, our friend doesn’t have an Amazon account anyway, but we have started our careers marketing. Social media becomes our new home. We trudge electronic highways and byways like the old time Bible salesmen, going door to door and offering to personally sign each copy.

I’ve been trudging for a while now and I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned along the way.

1) You can’t sell if you don’t get in the door. Those two thousand friends on Facebook, those fourteen hundred and thirty-two followers on Tweeter: they all have to think of you as a friend. Let’s face it, you aren’t the Fuller Brush man, you don’t have a product they want. They have to want to buy something from you. That means you have to be friendly before you pitch.

2) People start to sing to themselves when you repeat too often. You know – like the little kid going la-la-la when you’re lecturing him. They heard you the first time. You wrote a book. (They immediately thought they could write one too, assuming they haven’t done just that.) Now tell them something they don’t know. I follow an 80-10-10 rule. Eighty percent of my posting is about non-writing stuff. Ten percent is about writing, but not necessarily mine. I mention my friends, I mention something I’ve read. Heck, I’ll mention the Gutenberg Bible if I find something interesting to say, and I know none of my friends are buying that one. The last ten percent is for my writing. Some of that is about my novels, but some is about everything else I manage to get out there. For example, I’ll post about this blog.

Which brings us to a real problem, while people may know your name and that you wrote a book, they need to see your name and that title a lot of times before they actually act, before they go to Amazon and click that link.

3) Marketing is not a one time effort. I loved your website, but you’re still going to have to convince me that I want your book. Your book, who are you? Do I know your name? Round and round the prospective reader goes. This is a game of blind man’s bluff, and you are it. Come up with more ways to get those social network friends and followers to think about you until the sheer weight of your presence snowballs them right back to that Amazon page.

I hope this has helped you. Now, go buy one of my books. Think about it. You enjoy my style and my ideas. What more can you ask?

Life itches and torments Kenneth Weene like pesky flies. Annoyed, he picks up a pile of paper to slap at the buzzing and often whacks himself on the head. Each whack is another story. At least having half-blinded himself, he has learned to not wave the pencil about. Ken will, however, write on until the last gray cell has retreated and there are no longer these strange ideas demanding his feeble efforts. So many poems, stories, novels; and more to come.

Check out Ken’s website at: http://www.authorkenweene.com
For Widow’s Walk visit: http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=wbgzb2yk
For Memoirs From the Asylum visit: http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=nqm74a8k
To hear Ken read a chapter from his upcoming book, Tales From the Dew Drop Inne: Because there’s one in every town visit: http://soundcloud.com/kenneth-weene/in-the-army

When members of the media hear about books and authors, one of their first moves is to find out more about them on the Internet. It’s become standard procedure. Since journalists and producers are always looking for stories, they want to learn about authors: who they are, what they’ve accomplished, what others have said about them, whether they’re interesting and unique, and how they present themselves.

So, reporters, editors, and producers search the authors’ names and their book titles using their favorite search engine and on the sites of online booksellers. They read everything that’s posted about them and visit their websites. From that, they start forming impressions. Usually, they’re trying to determine if this author or book would be of interest to their readers, listeners, or viewers.

In today’s media world, you must have a great website; it’s the sign that you are a professional, someone who should be taken seriously. Like it or not, your website can play a major role in how you’re initially perceived. For many, the fact that you don’t have a website will raise questions that you must overcome. So, do both the media and yourself a big favor and put up a great website.

Your Mission

A website is a tool, and its main purpose is to support your mission. Some sites can be dazzling; they can have all the new and most exciting technology, all the bells and whistles, but most visitors—especially the media—won’t go there again if the sites don’t provide the information they want. Visitors won’t waste time with sites that are all style and no substance, are not clear about their purpose, and don’t deliver what visitors need.

Before you even consider creating a website, clarify its purpose—what you want it to achieve. Know exactly what you want your site to do. If it has several purposes, prioritize them and then apply your efforts and resources to those that matter most.

Authors often have multiple objectives: they may want their websites to help build or maintain their careers, promote their books, and sell their products or business services. Experienced website designers know how to build sites that will accomplish all of your objectives. They know and can advise you on all of the elements that should be included and how they should be structured and work.

Think of your website as a storehouse of information about you, a one-stop place where the media can go to find out about you and your book: who you are, your background, your platform, what you’ve written, and what has been written about you. In this chapter, we will discuss the specific elements that your website should contain.

Author 101 Advice

Your website can also shape the direction of your writing career and move you into new areas. For example, you may wish to fill it with content that presents you as a historian, a novelist, a biographer, a journalist, a copywriter, a technical writer, a speechwriter, an editor, an indexer, or a writing coach.

Your site also reflects how you have decided to present yourself, what you wish to feature, highlight, and stress. If you wish to appear academic, technical, sophisticated, artistic, trendy, classic, or irreverent, you easily can. It’s up to you.

Remember

When the media hears about books and authors, it checks them out the Internet. So, it’s essential for authors to establish a strong Internet presence. Make sure that your site supports your mission, which can be to publicize your book. Find a great domain name that is easy to remember, and register that name with all the major search engines. Create a site that looks great and is easy and intuitive to use and understand.

Reprinted from “Rick Frishman‘s Author101 Newsletter”
Subscribe at http://www.rickfrishman.com and receive Rick’s “Million Dollar Rolodex”

Here are 10 simple Internet Marketing Rules to Live by. Print them. Post them to your desk. Use them everyday.

1. Invest Small When Starting Anything New.

Always invest small when starting out. It’s possible any ad you run may lose money. Always keep your risks and investment small whenever you’re starting a new type of advertising. Even if you had that top level copywriter write your ad, not everything they write will be a home run. It may need a few changes to produce the results you want. The market you’re advertising to may not be perfect. There is no such thing as a “Sure Thing.”

2. Test Everything.

Only one expert is right, and it’s not me. It’s your own personal test results. Test headlines. Test the length of your ad copy. Test audio and video on your sales page. Test a squeeze page before visitors get to the sales site. Constantly run 2 ads on Adwords for every ad group. Test a “try before you buy” offer. Test telephone follow-up. Quit blindly following gurus and test everything!

3. Be Unique.

Don’t ever be a me-too business. Take a look at everyone in your marketplace. What is different about you from them? Here’s a quick exercise. Write down all the benefits someone gets from your product or service. Now cross off all the benefits they can also get from other people’s products and services. What’s left? If nothing is left, you may need to rethink or modify what you offer to provide something unique in your marketplace.

4. Target Your Ads Only to Buyers.

You’ve chosen your niche, but do you write your ads to all your visitors. No. You will never achieve a 100% buying rate. Much more common is 1%…and 10% is extremely high (possible at times with strong follow-up). This means at least 90% of your website visitors are NOT your target audience even though they came to your site. You’re not writing to them. It doesn’t matter if those people like what you write at all. You’re writing only to the BUYERS…that 1 to 10% of your unique visitors who will take action.

5. Develop a Backend From the Beginning.

You should already have a basic idea or outline for your next offer before your first one is done. If your first product is an ebook or CD, what will you offer next? You may start your backend by offering joint venture deals and affiliate offers from others. The money is any business comes from repeat purchases and backend sales. In fact, I’d never want to be in any business where I HAD to make money from one product. It destroys your marketing ability. If your competitor can break even or even lose money on their advertising, how can you compete if you have to make a living off the same offer?

6. Your Network Determines Your Net Worth.

First heard that expression from Mark Victor Hansen. Strategic Alliances, social networking, referrals, viral marketing, etc. are the key to building your business online. Going it alone is a recipe for failure. In most businesses, affiliates make up 50% to 75% of sales. Incoming links from other sites is the key to search engine optimization. Find ways to serve the other top players in your niche. Network. Mastermind. Grow together…even with competitors.

7. Don’t Restrict Your Business to Internet Only.

You’re not an Internet business. You’re an Internet based business. Develop your business model with both Internet and offline strategies. Follow-up on customer by phone. Here’s a quick tip – call people who just purchased from you to thank them for their order and also offer them something else at a discount price right now (I’ve seen people increase profits by 40% from that alone). Send direct mail to your customers. Rent a targeted mailing list and send postcards to drive people to sign-up for your list. Use offline publicity and networking to generate leads.

8. Build your Relationship with Your Lists.

Yes, I said “lists,” not “list.” Concentrate on educating your list members…both with good content and about your products/services. Use online follow-up methods such as email and be willing to use direct mail. Send thank you cards to JV partners and customers. Run a teleconference where you meet with your customers or prospects. Create a blog. Put a face on your company and let them get to know you as a person.

9. Focus on Your Gifts.

Focus your time and attention on what you’re best at. There’s dozens of ways to market your site. Concentrate on the ones that most fit with your style and skillset. If you hate writing, then don’t use writing as your primary advertising method. Or hire out the writing. Figure out what skills you have…and focus on those. Outsource the rest to others. If you try to force yourself to be just like “Guru #1,” it’s simply going to be an exercise in frustration. You’re unique. Build a unique business suited to you.

10. Plan for the Long Haul.

I’m sure you’ve been told about instant riches overnight. Quit trying for that. And quit trying to jump on the “new thing.” Pick a business and work on it. Yes, I said work…that dirty four letter word so many people hate. Things might no go right when you first start. You might have to modify a few elements of your presentation. You might have to change your product. To be successful in this business requires you have a backbone and stick to it even when things don’t go your way! Develop at least a one year plan with daily actions to push you to success. You’ll make modifications along the way, but at least you have a basic roadmap of where you’re going.

Terry Dean helps business owners Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life. Receive his Special report, “10 Key Strategies for Any Business Owner to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life” along with “Live the Internet Lifestyle…Retire Young and Wealthy” here: http://www.theterrydean.com

1. Study copywriting. Become a student of copywriting and persuasion. It’s a part of everything you do in your online business from writing PPC ads to writing sales letters.

2. Offer basic and deluxe options to your offers. While this may or may not increase your conversion, it will increase your income per visitor. Some will choose the basic. The ones who choose the deluxe boost your profits.

3. Use bullets whenever possible to describe your offer benefits. Very few people “read” online sales letters. They skim them so use bullets, sub-heads, graphics, etc. to keep pulling them back in.

4. Test deleting your first few paragraphs or even your first few pages of copy. Even experienced copywriters sometimes do a little warming up. Get the point as quickly as possible.

5. Make the checkout process simple with as few clicks as possible. The more pages you add in between the sales page and checkout, the more dangerous your sales process becomes.

6. Give proof for anything you say. Your visitors don’t believe you. Give them facts, samples, videos, and demos. Show checks, charts, endorsements, etc. If you can’t back it up, they don’t believe it.

7. Check your page load speed. On long sales copy sites, you may want to break up your tables with one table up top with a page or so of your text, and the rest in a second table. The top table will load up first.

8. Collect opt-in email leads and follow-up. This one should be no surprise to you if you regularly read this blog, but it’s vital to increasing your conversion rates. At least get their email address. Get their physical address and phone number for even higher response.

9. Keep the navigation very simple on your page. The more options or confusing your page is, the worse your conversion rate will be. That’s why you see many sales pages with almost no navigation at all.

10. Restate the offer and guarantee on the order forms. Shopping cart abandonment is always an issue. Do your best to curb this by making the offer again on the order form.

11. Have a potential customer go through the site for you. Is there any parts you’ve missed? How can you better explain it? Is there anything they don’t understand?

12. Have a second opinion from another copywriter. It’s very easy to miss something on your own sites. That’s why you should always have another copywriter take a look.

13. Offer outstanding guarantees. Many companies offer full money-back guarantees. You can offer double your money back guarantees, keep all the bonuses guarantees, etc. Offer a guarantee that’s unusual!

14. Add more testimonials. The closer those testimonials are to your target audience, the better they are. Your visitors want to see testimonial from people just like them.

15. Include phone number and address along with other company information. People buy from those they know, like and trust. Giving them this type of information increases the trust factor.

16. Test headlines, intro paragraphs, graphics, pricing, etc. Even top copywriters often have headlines produce two or three times the results of their original.

17. Make sure the unique selling position of your offer is easily noticed on your website. Why should someone buy from you instead of every other option out there?

18. Tell a story. Find a sales hook in a story about the business owner, product, or service you’re offering. The easiest way to grab and hold your visitor’s attention is through a true story.

19. Use teleconferences, webinars, direct mail, and the phone. Increase conversions using multiple contact methods instead of just website and email.

20. Offer different payment options such as three payments or even a try before you buy offer (have them pay shipping upfront and the rest in 30 days).

21. Display safe shopping logos such as Hackersafe and Better Business Bureau.

22. If your product is high ticket enough to pay for live support, run a live support button on the website…and have your operators actively contact the visitors.

23. Add audio to your website…an introduction, recorded teleconference call, or interview.

24. Use video to demonstrate use of your product. This has to be tested, but well done video demos of the product will often improve response.

25. Use multi-variant testing software such as Google Optimizer (built into Google Adwords).

Terry Dean helps business owners Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life. Receive his Special report, “10 Key Strategies for Any Business Owner to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life” along with “Live the Internet Lifestyle…Retire Young and Wealthy” here: http://www.theterrydean.com

The internet has revolutionized reading and publishing. Some, still caught in the old way of doing things, find themselves unable to compete in a market where there is so much new information and, perhaps more importantly, new competition. However, there are many ways that an author can use these changes to their advantage.

There are several online resources and techniques that allow authors to market their books more quickly and easily than ever. In this brief article, you’ll learn a few of the most effective techniques.

A lot of success in online selling and publishing comes from first building a name for yourself as an expert or leader in your niche or genre. This can be easily accomplished by building your own website to get your content to a wider audience. By building a reader base for your website, you will naturally increase the number of readers interested in purchasing the book you’ve written.

Once you’ve built a website with plenty of high-quality content, you’ll begin to appear in the search results of the top search engines and gain traffic. You can also manually submit your site to these search engines, but beware of promoting your site before its truly ready to be seen and enjoyed by your target audience, as this could cause readers to be averted from your material. As was mentioned above, there’s a lot of competition out there. Your goal should be to stand out in a positive way to entice potential readers to purchase your work.

Participating in others’ websites and forums is another way to draw attention to your writing. For instance, if you are a fantasy writer and you become actively involved in an online forum related to fantasy novels, many who read your posts and interact with you will be interested in reading the book you’ve written. Quality and authenticity is just as important here as it is when developing your own website. Simply spamming forums and other related websites will drive more readers away than it attracts.

Online advertising is another good way to attract potential readers. Often times, advertising can be cheaper and easier than one might think. You can get the word out about your book through ad services such as Google Adwords, or you could purchase advertising space in a more traditional way by contacting the authors of your favorite relevant websites. While ad services such as Google will get your ad to a wider audience, purchasing ad space manually will allow you to have more control over the placement and the specific audience you reach. Either option can be effective; its mostly a matter of preference and financial resources.

Once you get the word out about your book, it may be helpful to increase the books appeal. This can be accomplished by soliciting reviews from readers. If you happen to know any popular author in your genre, this is even better, but a positive review from a common reader can be very valuable as well. You may also try to get reviews written by authors of your favorite relevant website.

Hopefully, these tips will help you to begin promoting your book. Remember that the principals underlying the specific tips are more important that the tips themselves. Get creative with what you’ve learned here in order to draw as many readers as possible.

Nicole Rodgers has been blogging 3 years; she currently blogs about how companies can use their savings to help them with their budgets.

Face it, times are tough! The economy blah, blah, blah. Tell me something new. The key is:

Everyone loves a bargain, especially today. And, bargains drive sales. Here’s a great way you can explode your sales:

Call a bargain what you want: a discount, coupon, sale, bonus package, gift with purchase, etc. The point is, people love it. Several weeks ago, we tried an experiment. We decided to bundle my latest title: Red Hot Internet Publicity, with an older book called Book Promotion Made Easy. By older I don’t mean outdated, I mean that it was an evergreen title, older to the list so the author had moved on from aggressively promoting it. The match was perfect and on the first launch our sales of Red Hot Internet Publicity quadrupled. I was stunned.

For many publishers, a backlist is either gold or stagnant. In either case, there’s likely a title that you can pair up with a newer one you are promoting. In the case of the bundle mentioned above, I didn’t even write Book Promotion Made Easy. So if you’re looking for pairing options and you don’t have a suitable book in-house to pair it with, consider co-promoting the titles with another author. Not only will you get a quality bundle, but if they have a list they can promote it to you can participate in their promotion as well.

The breakdown was easy, here’s how we did it. We bundled together my new book Red Hot Internet Publicity with Book Promotion Made Easy. Total value: $30.95.

Red Hot is $18.95 and Book Promotion Made Easy is $12.00.

Book Marketing Experts offered the bundle that offered both books for $20. That’s a 35% savings or $10.95.

Want to know how we did it? I’ll tell you and here’s how you can create your own special website promotions to double or triples sales from your site:

-Analyze your book and its cost.

- Look to raise the price of the bundle “a bit” to cover the cost of the add-on or bonus item. – Offer great value to your customer.

-Look for bonuses you can add in. Successful examples include a booklet, book, eBook, checklist, article or special report. An MP3 audio program or CD.

The key to success is to offer a bonus or package that is Valuable to your customers. That [value] drives sales.

-If you’re going to partner with someone to do this (and what a great idea!) then contact the author/seller. Most vendors, inside and outside publishing, love to make bulk sales at a steep discount. Often 70-80% off retail.

-Don’t want to spend money or pair up? No worries. As an author or publisher you can write your own special report, booklet, eBook, etc. Just make sure it has a significant value.

-Assign a value to your new publication. Some eBooks have a price of $9.97, $17, $17.95, $19.95, $24.50 and in some cases even higher. Set the price based on your market’s perceived value of the product.

-Round up the price. Make it easy to make a purchase and the dollars and cents clear.

We rounded up the price of Red Hot Internet Publicity from $18.95 to $20 and gave away Book Promotion Made Easy for $0.00.

It’s important, however to explain the savings clearly so the customer sees the great value you’re offering.

-Add a special landing page to your website that promotes your special offer.

For an example, here’s ours: http://www.amarketingexpert.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=104

-Link the landing page (offer) to your shopping cart, PayPal, etc.

-Fill the orders asap. Buyers are a very impatient group these days.

-Promote your package to your mailing list and if you’re partnering with someone, make sure they promote it to their list as well.

Book bundling is a fun and easy way to increase sales of virtually any book. I have found that when I pair up Book Promotion Made Easy with mine at speaking events, I quadruple the sales there as well. Two books for $20? You bet that’s a great offer and not only that, it moves books and moves them quickly.

The key is to feed into the bargain mentality that seems to permeate society. You can play the bargain game and win and the best part? As you’re selling all these books you’re also growing your mailing list, yes? As a bonus, we offered a free Twitter class to everyone who bought the bundle. We didn’t advertise it though, we told them after their purchase. It adds that special “thank you” to our message and builds customer loyalty.

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. She is the author of five books, including Book to Bestseller which has been called the “road map to publishing success.” AME is the first marketing and publicity firm to use Internet promotion to its full impact through The Virtual Author Tour™, which strategically works with social networking sites, blogs, micro-blogs, ezines, video sites, and relevant sites to push an authors message into the virtual community and connect with sites related to the book’s topic, positioning the author in his or her market. To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at http://www.amarketingexpert.com. To subscribe to her free ezine, send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@amarketingexpert.com Copyright 2010 Penny C. Sansevieri

Twitter is a great tool for building an author platform and promoting books. Here are some of the top ways authors can benefit from Twittering:

1. Help others by sharing information, while you gain a reputation as an expert. You can post links to helpful articles, recommend resources, and teach mini-lessons.

2. Meet potential customers and stay in touch with existing customers. Promote your Twitter URL everywhere you’re listed online, and include keywords in your tweets to attract followers who are interested in your topic or genre.

3. Stay on top of news and trends in your field and get ideas for your articles and blog by reading the tweets of the people you follow.

4. Promote live and virtual events such as book signings, podcasts, virtual book tours, teleseminars, and book launches.

5. Gain visibility and new followers by hosting a Twitter contest where you give away a prize to a randomly chosen winner, or give a free gift to everyone who follows you and re-tweets your contest message.

6. Ask for help and get instant responses. When you request product recommendations, referrals to experts, or help with a technical issue, it’s amazing how helpful folks are.

7. Spread good will by helping your peers. Introduce other people in your field or genre, or recommend other related books or products.  Re-tweet interesting posts from people that you follow.

8. Promote your book and other products and services. The key is to be subtle and make promotional tweets a small percentage of your overall communications, so people feel like they gain value from following you, not just a stream of sales pitches.

9. Meet other authors, experts, publishers, marketers, and vendors. Twitter is ideal for networking and it’s a great place to meet potential joint venture partners.

10. Keep in touch when you’re on the road. There are a number of applications that facilitate twittering from mobile devices.

Have fun! It’s fascinating to meet people from all over the world, gain a glimpse into their lives, and develop a cyber-relationship.

Excerpted from the Twitter Guide for Authors by Dana Lynn Smith. For more book marketing tips, follow BookMarketer on Twitter and attend the Boost Your Book Sales With Twitter teleseminar.

“What?  It’s not enough that I spent three years writing this book  — now I have to promote it?”  That’s how many of us react when faced with the realities of the marketplace.

These days, it’s not “publish or perish,” it’s “promote or perish.”

Bad news for those of us who became writers so we wouldn’t have to deal with all those pesky people out there.  But there is some good news, too.  You can still plug your book even if you’re a shrinking violet.

You just need a little attitude adjustment about promotion.

Attitude Adjustment:

Self-promotion is not a dirty word.  These days, every author has to do it — even bestsellers.  Even unpublished authors.  All it takes is getting used to blowing your own horn and having a dash of self-love.

And as Oscar Wilde said, “To love yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

Believe your work is worth promoting, and promote it for the sake of your story and your readers.  Because the truth is, if you don’t blow your own horn, nobody will.

Can you promote yourself without becoming an obnoxious jerk?

Yes.  In fact, your promotional efforts will be more successful if you just be yourself rather than your idea of a hustling salesperson — but you do have to step outside of your comfort zone to get started.  Here’s a quick overview of where to put your efforts…

Types of promotion:

1. Online — Terminally shy?  You can promote your work without leaving home. Create a website or blog and offer useful information to your readers and/or their gatekeepers (teachers, parents, and librarians).  Network via social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace.  Join a children’s literature listserve and chime in on the discussions.

And in all these avenues, don’t just promote your book.  Build relationships, exchange information, help others.  That’s the key to online success.

2. Print — Old-fashioned, but it works.  Send press releases announcing your book to local newspapers and magazines, alumni journals, and newsletters of organizations you belong to.  Send postcards (with your book cover on the front) to teachers, librarians, friends and acquaintances.

3. School Visits — You don’t have to be a performer to speak to students (but it does help).  All you need is a willingness to connect and to learn from mistakes.  Start out gradually by visiting single classrooms for free.  Develop half-hour and hour-long presentations with lots of visual and tactile aids to grab the kids’ attention.

Then, start charging as you gain confidence in the value of your presentation.  Don’t worry if you can’t charge much.  The bottom line is: Connect kids with your books.

4. Conference Visits — A whole array of conferences with alphabet-soup acronyms is out there waiting for you.  ALA (American Library Association), IRA (International Reading Association), BEA (Book Expo America), and on and on.  Some are local, some are national.  And most of these conferences are looking for authors to present useful or inspiring talks to their membership.  Ask your publisher for details.

Some Promo Tips:

• Assume a public persona.  If you find yourself feeling self-conscious, take on a “character” — a public version of yourself.  Wear colorful clothes or hats, call yourself the Bird Lady, do whatever it takes to feel comfortable and stand out.

• Don’t take yourself too seriously. Most people are too wrapped up in their own concerns to care very much about you making a fool of yourself.  So have some fun; loosen up.

• Do a little every day.  Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, the authors behind the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, vowed to do five promotional actions a day until their book reached #1 on the bestseller list.  You don’t have to do five things a day, but even if you do just one, it’ll help sell your book.

• Remember: It’s not about you, it’s about them.  At the end of the day, you’re writing your books for others to read and enjoy.  So when you promote the books, you’re not being entirely self-serving — you’re doing something positive for others.

With that in mind, you’ll find it easier to remember that self-promotion isn’t really a dirty word after all.

Bruce Hale is the author-illustrator of over 25 books for young readers, including the Edgar-nominated Chet Gecko Mysteries and Snoring Beauty, one of Oprah’s Recommended Reads for Kids.  He is a popular speaker and storyteller, having presented at conferences, schools and libraries across North America.  Subscribe to his free e-newsletter of writing tips at: www.brucehalewritingtips.com.  Or check out Bruce’s books at www.brucehale.com.