Podcast Covers Tips on Blogging to Sell Your Book
I enjoy listening to podcasts, since it makes me feel my dog-walking time is more productive. Exercise for myself and Goblin is all well and good, but why not learn something at the same time? For many of you, the same probably goes for that time you’re commuting in the car. Think of how much more enjoyable sitting at red lights can be when you can listen to information on internet marketing. Ok, maybe “enjoyable” isn’t a word you associate with studying marketing, but I bet you’ll be interested in the topic this podcast covers:
Blogging Can Help Sell Your Books
The interview is with Yaro Starak, who is one of the bloggers I’ve watched come into his own over the last couple years. He’s studied internet marketing in depth and now makes a good living from blogging, and he’s recently started a subscription site that teaches people how to make money with their blogs.
I listened to the interview yesterday, and I definitely recommend it, especially if you’re struggling to get traffic to your blog and folks to buy your book through your blog/website. If you haven’t started a blog yet for book promotion purposes, then the interview will also help you see why a blog can be such a boon for book sales.
Giving Away Your Best Information to Sell Your Book
Many author websites consist of little more than a couple of pages offering information about them and about the book. Maybe there’s a blog, but it’s as likely to be full of personal information as the sort of juicy advice that convinces a reader to buy the book (see my post on Using Your Blog to Establish Yourself as an Authority).
Here’s the problem with that style:
There’s nothing there to convince me that you have anything I want.
There’s a wealth of information available for free on the Internet these days. Why should I pay $20 for your book on dog training when there are hundreds of sites out there giving away information on the same subject for free?
You can send out copies of your book for various people to review offline and online, but even if you get positive reviews, the problem still remains. To many it may seem that there’s no reason to buy a book on a subject where there is so much information available for free online.
So, what’s the way to convince readers to buy your book instead of surfing endless websites for what is probably lesser information than you have to offer?
Give away information on your website and/or your blog.
And don’t just give away paltry tips, hoping to “tease” the reader into buying. Give away some of your best information. Give away your biggest secrets. What’s the one huge secret that will allow me to see huge success training my dog?
If there’s one message you want readers of your book to take away, post it in your blog.
I know, it seems crazy. Why give away all the good stuff?
You know that your information is valuable, and the natural human tendency is to want to horde it or at least to put a price on it. You spend a ton of time researching and writing your book. Why give away the biggest secrets for free?
Here’s the reasoning:
If I come along to your website and I see this awesome information you’re just giving away, I’m going to think, “Wow… if this lady is putting stuff that good up on her blog, imagine what kind of great information is in the book.”
On the other hand, if you give me the same kinds of dog training tips I can find anywhere on the Internet, I’m not going to be convinced you offer anything that’s worth paying for.
One of the perks of the give-away-your-best-secrets strategy is that you can often get away with charging more for the book, since you’ve won the reader over with the great information you’ve offered.
For those of you working with publishers, changing price may not be an option, but if you’re self-published, it’s something worth tinkering with.
Don’t assume your book has to sell for $12.95 or whatever the POD publisher suggests setting your book at for a certain page count. If you’re able to convince the reader that you have incredible information in your book, you can get away with charging more.
Why You Should Be Writing & Syndicating Articles to Promote Your Book
This is a pretty basic tip in the world of search engine optimization and website promotion, but not everybody lives and breathes this stuff (as amazing as it is to me, not everybody finds internet marketing news scintillating bedtime reading), so I think it’s worth mentioning in this blog.
Let’s assume you’ve created a website and/or blog to promote your book. Part of marketing your book online is realizing you need to promote your site at least as much as you promote your book. Bring visitors to your site, and they’ll buy your book.
One way to promote your site is to write articles related to your niche (AKA what you wrote your book about) in order to get links to your site and to establish yourself as an authority in your field.
These articles should be in the 500-word range, though there are no hard and fast rules. Make sure they are helpful, as someone may read your article on another site and, based on it, decide whether or not to click through to your sites.
To ensure those readers find you, you’ll include a resource box/author blurb at the end of each article. This should include one or more links to your site.
Submitting Articles
Once you have a couple articles, you’re ready to submit them to article directories and well-known content sites that allow visitor-submitted information.
The article directories act as sort of a backwards bank. You make a deposit (your article) and someone else collects (a copy of your article).
People take your article, and they can use it on their site or in their newsletter. In exchange (it’d be a crummy bank if you didn’t get at least something out of the deal), they are supposed to keep your resource box with your links intact (enough people do to make this exercise worth it).
The well-known content sites don’t allow people to take the articles, but they receive a lot of visitors, so your article will get exposure. If you write a helpful article, some of those readers will doubtlessly click through to check out your site, and maybe even buy your book.
Article Directories Worth Submitting to
- http://www.ezinearticles.com
- http://www.goarticles.com
- http://www.articlecity.com
- http://www.articledashboard.com
There are a lot (and I do mean *lot*) more article directories out there you can submit to, but in my experience it quickly becomes a game of diminishing returns. The less well-known directories get very little traffic, and it’s less likely your articles will be picked up and used. Also, there’s always the possibility Google and other search engines will frown upon your identical content showing up in 200 different places with identical links back to your site. At best, a lot of it will be ignored.
So use the article directories I listed and maybe a couple more if you like, but don’t go overboard.
Content Sites Worth Submitting to
- http://www.buzzle.com
- http://www.associatedcontent.com
- Any authority site in your niche that invites user-submitted articles and will keep your links intact
Parting Tip: Not all of the links in your resource boxes need to go to the front page of your site. In addition, consider linking to your blog, good articles on your site, etc. Most article directories allow three links in the resource box.
How to Get Paid Twice for Selling Your Book
This is a pretty simple tip that will take you about 15 minutes to implement, and–if you’re not already doing it–it will nearly double what you’re making from each book sale. It’s so simple that I’m always shocked to visit author web sites and find out how few folks are doing it.
Ok, now that I’ve sufficiently built up your anticipation (go ahead and wipe the saliva from the corner of your mouth), I’ll spill it:
Sign up to be an affiliate of an online bookstore that sells your book.
What the heck is an affiliate?
It’s a bit like working on commission for your favorite bookstore, only all the “work” is done online. Affiliate programs work like this:
You place a special link (it’s special because it’s coded with your affiliate ID) on your web site. That link goes to a certain page on the merchant’s site (such as the page where your book is for sale). If a visitor to your site clicks on the affiliate link and then buys the item from the merchant, you earn a percentage of the sales price. If that visitor wanders away and buys something else on the site (something you didn’t link to), you’ll still get a cut. If they buy several things, you’ll actually make a few dollars.
The percent you earn varies from merchant to merchant, but expect at least 5%, and some programs will pay as much as 8%. Add this to your royalty, and you can nearly double what you’re earning from the sale of each book you personally promote and sell through your website or blog.
How do you get started as an affiliate?
First you need to decide which affiliate program you’re going to join. Though many booksellers offer programs, I recommend Amazon. There are a couple of reasons:
1. Amazon is huge and just about everyone who shops online has an account there (which means their credit card information is already stored so it’s quick and painless for them to buy your book).
2. They sell a lot (and I do mean LOT) of other stuff, too, so you might rack up additional earnings. (I’ve been an Amazon affiliate for a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of unrelated items in my earnings reports. Their free-shipping-for-purchases-over-$25 deal does a good job prompting people to buy more than just one book.)
Now that I’ve sold you on Amazon (alas, I don’t get a commission for signing up affiliates), it’ll be pretty easy for you to get started. If you’re comfortable adding links to your site yourself, it’ll probably take less than 15 minutes to get signed up and get that first link on there. You can get started at:
If you’re set on going with Barnes & Noble or another bookseller, just head over to the company’s site and look for a link (often in the footer) to their affiliate program. Alternately, do a search for Merchant Name + affiliate program on Google. Not all merchants have affiliate programs, but the major booksellers do.
Once you’re signed up, sprinkle those links lucratively throughout your site. My experience tells me that text links added right into the content of the site earn the most clicks (and ultimately the most sales), but you’re certainly welcome to try some of the picture links as well.
How to Use Your Blog to Establish Yourself as an Authority
I always enjoy checking out author blogs. You never quite know what you’re going to find. Day-in-the-life kinds of posts are frequent, with entries along the lines of “I wrote this many words today, I just got back from this book signing, and the cat won’t get off the keyboard.” That sort of thing is pretty standard. Of course, there are some more memorable blogs out there from the fiction authors. Actually, they’re written by the authors’ main characters (who knew that a band of unlikely heroes hell-bent on thwarting the evil sorcerer’s plans has time to whip out the laptop and find a wi-fi connection?).
I’m not going to pass judgment on the character blogs. They’re probably fun to write, and while I doubt they’re going to bring in hordes looking to buy books, they’re a nice way to give potential book buyers a preview of your characters and writing style.
On the other hand journal-style blogs don’t really serve any purpose insofar as marketing your book goes, especially for non-fiction authors. (I’m not saying you can’t keep a journal-style blog, but you might want to make that one for friends and family and create another one for selling your book.)
Once you’re a celebrity, people may very well want to know what you had for breakfast and what kind of progress you made on your current project today. Someone who isn’t’ a reader (yet!) and just came to your site… probably doesn’t care.
So, what does that potential reader want to see?
If I’m looking to buy a book–and it doesn’t matter whether it’s fiction or non-fiction–I want some hint that the author knows his or her stuff. I’m buying this book for one of two reasons: I want to learn something or I want to be entertained (maybe I’m really greedy and want both).
Before I plunk down my money, I want to believe you can deliver.
Yes, I’ll probably read reviews at Amazon to help me decide, but what happens if you’re a new author and you don’t have many reviews yet? (And the ones that are there are blatantly written by friends of the author.) How else can you sell me on your book?
Yup, it’s your blog.
Your website is where you tell me what your book can do for me. Your blog is where you make me believe that.
A blog is a wonderful opportunity to establish yourself as an authority in your field. Whatever niche you wrote your book on, you should be blogging about.
If your book is on dieting, your blog is a great place to tell me about quick but healthy snacks, recipes I can try, inspirational stories of folks you’ve helped, etc. etc. etc.
Does your book focus on business and explain how I can retire a millionaire? Then in your blog, tell me about how you made your millions, make up a survey that has me measure my financial progress, offer tips on investing.
Include information that can genuinely help readers before they even buy the book. And don’t be afraid to give away the good stuff either! (See my post on Giving Away Your Best Information to Sell Your Book). This is away to build a potential reader’s confidence in you. Your blog is your chance to make everyone believe you are an authority on that subject and your book has information people need.
Fiction authors, I haven’t forgotten about you.
Your blog is also your chance to establish yourself as an authority in your area. Keep the day-in-the-life-of-my-main-character blog, but create an author blog too–one that convinces people you know your stuff and your book is sure to entertain.
Let’s say you’re a mystery writer. There are a number of ways you could convince me that you know what you’re talking about (and therefore probably write a decent tale). Consider any or all of the following:
- Give tips for budding mystery writers on the fundamentals of the genre.
- Review other mystery authors’ novels.
- Give tips on getting published or writing a first novel (lots of readers are amateur writers who dream of being published too!).
- Debunk myths and offer interesting facts that are in some way related to your story (Can you really kill someone with a well-placed bash to the nose? What is the oldest known poison? How long does it take for rigor mortis to set in?).
These are just a few ideas. I’m sure you can brainstorm more. Just remember that the idea is to establish yourself as an authority on the topic. Whether you’re selling information or entertainment, people want to buy from the best!