Business End

When authors think about book marketing, they often begin with a groan. It seems like an endless trudge from one social media site to another, trying to spark interest in readers who have hundreds of offers, ads, and other promotions coming at them every day.

That’s not a pretty picture.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, and authors who find ways to stand out from the crowd get a lot more eyeballs on their books than those who sink without a trace.

One of the easiest ways to generate some interest and enthusiasm is by making your promotion more fun, and more rewarding for people who participate.

That’s where contests, giveaways, and freebies can boost your marketing to a whole new level. Let’s take a look at some ways you can use these reader-engagement and promotion tools to gain more attention for your books.

Contests Engage Readers

Like most of these promotions, contests are mostly used around the time authors are launching a new book and trying to get some attention while it’s new.

But you don’t have to be limited to just running contests during your launch. You can also tie them to holidays, special events, and any other time when there’s some link to the subject matter of your book, or just for fun.

And who doesn’t want to win something? What you give away is up to you, but you might be surprised how many people will enter your contest even if the prize is something modest like a $25 Starbucks gift card.

Contests bring traffic to your site, put names on your email list, and help spread your brand.

Tips for using contests: 

• Choose a prize or prizes for your contest carefully. Most authors want to give away a copy of their book, but you have to ask yourself whether that’s going to motivate people to enter. Consider giving an e-copy of your book to everyone who enters your contest and you might get a head start on your word of mouth marketing by putting your book into the hands of a lot of people over a short period of time.
   
• Keep the entry time limited, since our attention spans seem to be shrinking all the time. A contest that goes on for a month will likely lose steam.
   
• The bigger the prize, the more interest and attention your contest will generate. If your budget is very limited, get some other authors together and run the contest jointly, with everyone contributing to the prize and sharing in the excitement on their own blogs. You can amass a lot of books in the same genre from different authors, for instance, for a more impressive prize, or chip in and give away a more expensive gift than you could manage on your own.
   
• Clearly state the rules and deadlines for the contest when you ask for entries. Make sure your rules and deadlines are simple to understand.
   
• Entries can take any form you like. For instance, if you want more comments on your blog, make commenting the way people enter. If you want links back to your blog, make the entry a blog post on the entrant’s own site that links to yours.
   
• Be careful what you ask for. Don’t make posting a review a condition for entering your contest, as e-retailers have to be careful about authors trying to “game” their ranking system. You don’t want to run a contest and end up getting banned or demoted.
   
• When the contest is over, get those prizes out right away. Follow up to deliver the goods, and make sure you post an article telling everyone who the lucky winner was.

Freebies and Giveaways

Besides being declared the “winner,” the next best thing is to get something for nothing. Giving stuff away is one of the most common marketing techniques, and it’s easy to see why.

If I offer to give you something of value in exchange for a few minutes of your time, or your email address, or for taking a survey, you’ll balance what the cost is against your own perceived value of the “freebie.”

Most authors want to use their book as what they’re giving away but, again, think about whether your new, and therefore mostly unknown book, is really the best thing to motivate people to take part in your promotion.

More on Contests and Giveaways

There’s a whole science to running contests that focuses on social media sites. If you have a good-sized following on Facebook or Twitter, a contest can be a great way to engage with your readers, spread the word about your books, and make a lot of new fans.

For instance, you might run an entire contest on Twitter and gain a lot of new Twitter followers at the same time.

If you decide to use Twitter for your contest, you’ll want to create a unique “hashtag” so people can follow your contest. This is a way to tag tweets so they can be filtered out of the stream of all tweets, and it will allow people following the contest to stay up to date with developments.

On Facebook, the most common request is to ask readers to “like” your fan page in order to enter. That’s a very low barrier and, depending on what the prizes are in your contest, you may want to raise the bar and ask for a comment, a suggestion for topics for your next book, or for results they’ve achieved using your ideas or your program.

These forms of feedback can be very helpful to your other promotions down the road, since you are soliciting testimonials at the same time that you’re running your contest.

The best guides for authors who want to incorporate contests and giveaways into their book promotion is to see what other authors are doing, and to approach it as if you were going to enter the contest yourself. Is it worthwhile? Will the prize motivate you? Is it fun?

Be creative, and use these proven promotional tools in your book launch. Your readers will thank you.

What results have you seen from contests or giveaways? Were you happy with the result? Got any tips for us?

Originally published by CreateSpace in a slightly different form as Promote Your Book with Contests & Giveaways.

This is a reprint from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Do you want to know something that makes me feel old?

Facebook has been around for eight years.

I was a sophomore in college back in 2004 when Mark Zuckerberg first launched the social media site that changed the world. Back then, only college students could have profiles on the site — making it easier for us to stalk meet new friends.

Now everyone (including your grandma) is on Facebook and happy to overshare every detail of his/her life.

But with the launch of the new timeline feature and the addition of in-page apps, Facebook has also become an essential, powerful tool for business owners (including us career-minded indie authors) to connect with fans.

Best of all? It’s FREE.

If you’re not harnessing the power of Facebook to promote yourself, find new readers and chat with fans, you’re missing out!

There are a MILLION ways to build your fanbase with Facebook fan pages and, to get you started, I’ve nailed down 30 tips you can start using today (15 here and 15 more I’ll tell you about later).

First, a few pointers!

As much time as I’ve spent on Facebook (read: a lot) there are still a lot of terms and such that I stumble over when making changes to my fan page especially.

Just to be sure we’re all clear on the lingo, here’s a quick look at the main components of your Facebook fan page:

Your Facebook fan page is broken up into a few different key sections — the cover photo, profile photo, apps/tabs and your about area (the ad pictured above is just to give you an idea of how big they are and where they appear on the website).

A couple of quick bonus tips on the Facebook basics:

• Cover Photos: Update yours often (once a month, at least) but don’t ever include your website address in your cover photo (Facebook doesn’t like that, and can ban you for doing it — yikes!)
   
• Profile Photo: This should always be a picture of you, so that when your updates appear in someone’s news feed they’ll see your smiling face right beside it! You can update it periodically, but it’s not as crucial to update your profile photo as it is your cover photo.
   
• Bio Area: Make sure you DO list your website address in your about section.
   
• Apps/Tabs: This the major area where you can get the most out of your Facebook page. Your photos tab always has to go first, but you have 11 other spots to add tabs with custom images, links, contests, etc. (See below for more!)

If you’re unsure about the difference between Facebook fan pages and personal profiles, shoot me an email and I’ll help you out with that one (took me a while to get it straight, too!).

1. Maximize your reach with Agora Pulse

Sign up for a free Agora Pulse trial to find out when most of your fans are online so you can maximize the views of your post (ours is Thursday morning between 7 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.!).

2. Grow your likes with WooBox

Use an app like WooBox to create a custom page with content hidden behind a “fan-gate.” That means it requires someone to be your fan before they can access the content, which then gives them that extra incentive to like your page! You can also choose a “friend-gate” option where someone has to get a certain number of their friends (you choose between 1 and 100) to like your page before they can see your special content.

3. Promote Facebook in your e-mail signature

Add your Facebook page link to your email signature, encouraging anyone you interact with via email to visit your Facebook page!

4. Host a contest on your Facebook page

Run a fan-only contest like a photo competition, trivia, giveaway, etc. with an app like SweptIn or WildFire. (Note: Facebook does NOT like users to have contests using only Facebook’s functionality — you MUST use a third party app to run a contest!)

5. Share a video

Upload video directly to Facebook to share with your fans. You could:

• Answer some frequently asked questions
• Share insight into how you developed your latest novel
• Dish about what you’re working on now
• Read a sample chapter of your book

Also consider sharing a book trailer or other promotional video for your book release!

6. Create an event on Facebook

Create a Facebook event for an appearance, book signing, Q&A or any other upcoming event and share it on your fan page!

7. Direct traffic to your page with a QR Code

Have you ever used your smartphone to scan a QR code? It’s a fun, easy way for people to go straight to your website on their smartphone, and you can get one for free!

Use your code in your paperback, media kit and any other print materials (like flyers and bookmarks) you use to promote your book. You can send people to your Facebook page or straight to your website!

8. Join a Facebook Group

Back in the day it was all about joining groups like “I *heart* Josh Groban” and “I’m addicted to Sims 2,” but now Facebook actually has groups that can help you network. Check out Authors Helping Authors, Authors, Agents and Aspiring Writers, and Authors & Writers Co-Op. (Note: Those are all open groups that anyone can join, but there are some closed groups which require an invitation to join.)

9. Announce your fan page to your mailing list

Use the power of your mailing list to drive traffic to your Facebook page by promoting it in your next newsletter or e-mail. Don’t just relegate it to the sidebar either — make an announcement, promote Facebook-only content, or advertise a Facebook contest.

10. Take advantage of a captive audience via SMS

Next time you have the attention of a group of fans at a signing event, appearance or speaking engagement, encourage them to pull out their smart phones and text “fan [yourusername]” or “like [yourusername]” (without the quotes, obviously) to 32665. This will automatically make them like your page – abracadabra!

11. Use your Facebok link to leave blog comments

When you’re commenting on another blog, instead of using your website link in the URL space, why not leave your Facebook fan page URL instead? Other commenters will be able to connect with you immediately via Facebook, instead of going to your website where they might have to search for a way to contact you!

12. Install a “Like” Button for your posts

WordPress has several plug-ins (like this one or Digg Digg, which we use) that will let your readers “like” a specific post directly from your website. Using a feature like this (to cut out the extra step of your fans going to Facebook to share your post) is a win-win!

13. Connect your Facebook fan page to Twitter

Cross-promotion between your social media networks is a must! WooBox has a free app you can use to add your Twitter account to your Facebook page. It brings your Twitter profile and latest tweets right into Facebook, so fans can easily check for updates, follow you and see your newest activity without leaving Facebook.

14. Connect your Facebook fan page to Pinterest

Ditto the above for Pinterest — this is an awesome way to showcase your boards on your Facebook fan page and again, WooBox has a free app to make that happen.

15. Connect your Facebook fan page to GoodReads

Do you see a pattern? This one is little different than Twitter and Pinterest, however. GoodReads has its own app you can add to your personal profile to share your latest activity on that social network, but I wasn’t able to find one specifically for fan pages. BUT, you can use WooBox’s regular HTML page and drop in the link for your GoodReads account. We’ll even help you out with this GoodReads tab image that you can download and use for the custom image!

But wait…there’s more!

We have 15 more tips for using Facebook, but we hid them — guess where?

On our Facebook page, of course!

Do us a favor and go like our Facebook page (if you haven’t already) and you’ll see the full list of 30 Facebook tips for authors!

Have you had success with other Facebook fan page add-ons, tips or tricks?

Share with the class, please!

Facebook is developing so quickly that it’s hard to keep up with everything that goes on there! If you have some ideas or insight into other apps, strategies or tools for getting the most out of your Facebook fan page, share them in the comments.

This is a reprint from Duolit.

I think one of the things I’ve tried to express (often unwell) is that blogs, twitter, facebook, goodreads, etc. have started to cause problems for the author/reader relationship. Before the Internet, there was distance. I think probably on both sides (authors and readers) we didn’t realize the value of that distance until we stopped having it.

Ideally I should read a book and have my own private experience with that book. If I want to talk to some friends about it, that’s totally normal. But traditionally the author and the reader have stayed in their separate corners. (Aside from things like fan mail, but you know what I’m saying… I hope.) Books are magic. Nothing kills magic faster than TMI.

Unfortunately… most authors do NOT get special training in this. We do trial and error until we figure it out. Some authors are able to maintain a sort of social closeness with their readers with no problem because they are never controversial or highly opinionated. (Though how that is possible for a writer, I have no idea. We write because we feel COMPELLED to write. There are some pretty strong emotions fueling that IMO.) It’s not natural for me to not have strong opinions. So, in truth, I’d rather keep a professional distance than be inauthentic. It’s also too much energy to be inauthentic but too much drama and cost to be authentic. At least with strangers on the Internet. Friends both IRL and online are a different matter.

For a long time I’ve largely avoided following anybody whose fiction I read mainly because I want to be able to read and enjoy their fiction untainted by their personal views about anything. I come to them for a story. I don’t care about their politics or their religion or their hobbies or any opinion they have about anything really. I know that sounds mean but I don’t mean it that way. (And by the same token, probably no reader of my fiction cares about my thoughts/views on any of that.)

Our culture has a fascination with celebrity and TMI. So we break down all these sane barriers and instead of just wanting a book, we want a book and to know what our favorite author’s favorite color is. Even while holding this opinion I’ve still been the author who overshares. I don’t know why.

Now I feel like it’s my responsibility to protect the reader experience by not ranting and raving about every subject under the sun because I want a reader to be able to read my work untainted by something they may disagree with me on that has nothing to do with my fiction. Or… who may not like my “tone”. Personality clashes are real. Why should it harm someone’s experience of fiction?

I’ve always been better about this on my other pen name. It’s easier to start out with the right habits or break bad habits early on than it is to live in a pattern for several years and then try to break it. Nevertheless I HAVE succeeded for over a year at not running around to other people’s blogs and commenting/getting into debates. I do lurk on a lot of blogs, but I never comment anymore. If I can do that, I can do this. I think it’s important, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with my opinions on anything. What matters is the fiction. I want you to be able to read it without ambivalence because one time I stepped on a hot button topic of yours.

I feel I owe the reader a good story, but I also owe the reader the space to be able to read that story without extra crap layered on top of the experience. In the past I believed that if I didn’t “go to them” and bother them in their own spaces that that was enough. But we all have natural curiosity, so people are going to come to my blog or my twitter or my facebook. When they do, it’s still my job to not do anything to interfere with their experience of story.

Zoe Winters is a business and a brand. It’s not “me”. Projecting too much of me into it can only be bad for everyone.

This is a reprint from The Weblog of Zoe Winters.

It’s just over a year since I gave up my job as an IT contractor and became a full-time author-entrepreneur. I initially gave myself six months to meet some specific financial targets and after making those, I didn’t return to the day job.

I am seriously happy in my new life, but there have been some real challenges and lessons I’ve learned along the way that I wanted to share, as well as some action points if you’re considering making a similar move.

Joanna Penn making videos at the British Museum, London – just part of the job!

As ever, I just try to share honestly with you guys so I hope this helps you on your journey. I’d love to hear from you so please leave a comment at the end of the post with your thoughts and ideas.

How do I currently make a living as an author-entrepreneur?

I’m not going to share figures but suffice to say, I earn around the average wage for a UK female. It’s a good start for Year 1 of business, but it is a lot less than I am used to earning, so I have some aggressive goals for Year 2. Here’s the rough percentage split of my income.

50% Ebook sales and 95% of this is fiction, skewed towards the second half of the year when Prophecy came out and I had 2 books at $2.99. Ideally I want to be at 80% book sales for my income, so clearly writing more books is the main goal.

25% Speaking. I do full day and half day courses where I teach digital publishing and marketing as well as online entrepreneurial skills. I’ve also done multi-day events as the main speaker and I’ve spoken in Australia, Bali and London – and next month, in Zurich, Switzerland. Yes, I’m available for hire!

25% Courses and Consulting. From this site, I sell multi-media courses on writing, publishing and book marketing, and I also offer 1:1 consulting sessions for more targeted help.

So you can see why I describe myself as an author-entrepreneur. I could not have given up the day job based on my fiction sales alone, but with an established platform (3 years blogging, podcasting & social networking) I was able to make the jump. I share a lot more about the challenges of being an entrepreneur in my non-fiction book, How to love your job or find a new one, which is focused on career change.

Lesson 1: It’s much easier to have a day job

I have to say up-front that it was easier to work for a company than it is to work full-time for myself. I was a contractor so I worked for a daily rate but I had a steady employer for years so there was little risk.

This may be the dirty little secret of being an author and an online entrepreneur!

Because the money was better, the social life was pretty fun and I was well regarded in my field. Back in Jan 2011, I wrote about the mixed blessings of the day job and how it meant I didn’t have to worry about cashflow and I still stand by those words.

However, I have wanted to change my career for over 10 years because of a nagging sense inside that what I did was pointless and didn’t benefit the world, let alone satisfying my creative soul. I am also aware that it takes the average company 3-5 years to make a profit, and I am in this for the long term.

I just wanted to be clear that this is not an easy option and I still have some wobbly days where I look at the contract market and think about what could be. Then I remember the stress headaches, the anger and the frustration and I smile and recommit to this path. On my wall is this quote from Steven Pressfield’s ‘The War of Art‘

“On the field of the self stands a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon. The battle must be fought anew every day.”

Action Point 1: Understand the why behind what you are doing. Weigh up the pros and cons of leaving the day job and write them down. Do a lot of research about your chosen path and get educated.

Action Point 2: Save at least 6 months income, preferably a year. Do a financial plan for the first 3 years and aim to hit specific targets every month. Both of these were important for convincing my husband that this could be a good idea, and that over time, with more books, my income should grow.

If you want to know more about the money side of being a professional writer, check out Secrets of a Pro Writer with me and NY Times bestselling author CJ Lyons who seriously knows what she’s talking about in terms of making a very successful living at this.

Lesson 2: Defining your own life is a huge adjustment

I was amazed how the change affected me emotionally, and I have renewed appreciation for people who are retiring after a life of work, or women putting their careers on hold for children. When you give up a structured job, the routine you have lived your life around is suddenly broken and you have emotional adjustments as well as the practical aspects that go along with this.

My self-esteem plummeted.

I went from a high status, highly paid  job where I was near the top of my field after 13 years as a financials IT contractor to being the bottom of the ladder in an entirely new career. Yes, I had spent over 3 years building an audience online but that doesn’t mean much to family and friends. It also doesn’t pay the bills.

How I write at the London Library

I also found it hard at first to sort out a working routine that produced enough material and focused on writing first, then marketing as well as creating new products. This took me ages to get sorted but I am pretty happy with how I’m working now. I rarely have a full day off though, but that’s normal for new businesses and this is my passion as well as my job!

 Action Point 1: Treat it like a job and set some daily routines. I diarize days when I work on fiction and others that I work on courses, consulting, blogging etc. I set deadlines for producing specific pieces of work. I have a routine around my email, twitter etc. I make sure that I have new income streams coming in at regular intervals, whether it’s a book, a new course or a speaking appearance. The little trickles of income will expand over time but only if there is more product 

Action Point 2: Find somewhere to work that is not your home. I find that getting out of the house and doing a form of commute into the city really helps me as I can separate from the house, leave the chores and be productive. I also get the benefit of a commute, so I can feel part of the city vibe, I can buy myself a coffee or meet writer friends. I am a paid member of the London Library which is excellent and I try to spend 1-3 days a week there in order to write in a different environment.

Lesson 3: You need support through a physical network

I love my online friends and I could not have made this change without all of you who I have never met in person. But when you have a job that is basically all virtual, you can get quite lonely so you need physical support.

My husband is my primary #1 fan/support along with my Mum but I also have a network of writer and entrepreneur friends that I meet in London for coffee and brainstorming around our challenges. It’s a like a pro-author-entrepreneur-circle.

I met most of these people originally online or at networking events and cultivated friendships in the real world as I moved back to London in June 2011 after 11 years in New Zealand and Australia.

I make sure I schedule coffee/lunch at least once a week in order to break up the time spent writing and being virtual. I also go to various networking meetings to expand my circle of friends. This is crucial to my sanity!

Action Point: Make an effort to go to networking events, writing groups and conventions where you can meet people physically and build a network of like-minded supportive people. Actively aim to meet people who are going places in their career.

Lesson 4: It’s absolutely worth it!

I love my new life, now I have settled into it and I can see how things will (hopefully) change in the coming years. I know from past experiences that the beginning time is often the hardest and that every year things will be different but my skills will grow and so will my number of books & products and so will my audience. When I started this site, I had nothing and a lot has changed in the last 4 years so making a start is critical.

Most of the authors making the big money have been doing this for many years, and most indies making $5000 – $10,000 a month have at least 5 books. Success in any field takes some time to achieve, as does learning the craft and the business of writing. So don’t expect to make it with novel #1, but keep at it.

On the entrepreneurial side, the mega blogs making a lot of money from online products generally started on the internet back when blogging didn’t exist and when geeks were not cool. Nowadays they rule the (online) world  but it has taken many of them a lot of years to make it. I particular like this video by Chris Brogan, who is an A list blogger, speaker and business author (it’s at the bottom of the post). Overnight success gets up at 5am after getting to bed at midnight. Overnight success doesn’t watch a lot of TV. Overnight success is gained inch by inch when no one is watching.

Action Point 1: Look at the writing careers of people you admire and see how hard it was for them at the start as well. Read Stephen King’s On Writing – he was working nights in a laundry when he finally sold Carrie after trying for many years. It’s not easy to make this change so go easy on yourself at the beginning.

Action Point 2: Keep writing, keep producing, keep learning – and do it for the rest of your life 

My plans for Author-Entrepreneur Year 2

Often, life doesn’t quite turn out the way we plan it, but it’s certain that nothing happens unless you have some written goals! I also believe in stretch goals and not aiming too low.

So, in Year 2:

• I want to move into the hybrid model of publishing – with my agent helping me to get a traditional book deal for my thrillers. I will also continue to self-publish but possibly under a different brand and do some work for hire to pay the bills. This will bring in income monthly from Amazon sales but also in spikes from traditional book deals.

• I want to double my income and move my % split to be 60% fiction, with 20% digital courses and 20% speaking & consulting. My aim is to be at 80% scalable income, which means you create once and sell multiple times. So books are scalable as are online products but speaking and consulting actually take time every time you do them so they are not scalable. But I enjoy them so I do want them as part of the business – I don’t think I ever want to be 100% author only because I love the business/entrepreneurial side of things and I love helping people.

OK, that’s a bit of a mammoth post but this is my life nowadays and I do think sharing the journey with you honestly is important. I always want to save you time, heartache and money so lessons learned are critical!

What do you think? Any questions or lessons you have learned?

Please do leave your comments [section of the original post] as I’m really keen to hear what you think about this.

Images: my own, iStockphoto and Big Stock Coffee Cup 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

This post, by Gwen Fitzgerald, originally appeared on Publishing Geek.

I recently published an article for Red Sofa Literary, the agency where I intern. I’m pretty proud of the information, so I’m including it here:

Every author wants to put him/herself out there, and it’s important to build an online base. But it’s hard to get noticed on a website crowded with people doing the same thing. Twitter is a powerful tool that allows one to give updates consistently, meaning that connections are made and maintained.

For an author, this makes it easier to build a platform while writing a book.  In the long run, this effort and attention will help with promotion and networking. Yes, it can be intimidating and confusing to begin building a Twitter “empire.” The end result is a marketable writing presence before finishing one’s book.

1. Work Your Profile:

Fill out your bio with interesting information. Make it just a few lines long, but include your genre, your book’s title (or working title,) your passions, and profession. Including this information allows other Twitterers to find and add you.

Link your Facebook and website.  It’s quite normal for people to not use their real names on Twitter, so your Facebook friends might not think to look for you unless this link is established.

Use a relevant photo. Even if you don’t put in a self-portrait, it’s better to put in something that will catch your followers’ eyes. Use your book cover, or find some interesting focus of your writing a la vintage Penguin covers. It can seem tempting to use a photo of your dog in a Santa suit, but when people are browsing their home page, the picture is the main thing drawing their eye. The photo only adds to the recognition.

2.  Follow the Right People:

The best way to get followers is to follow people who will follow you back. While they’re interesting to read, celebrities probably won’t return the favor. Instead, imagine you’re at a networking event, and think about who you’d interact with. Try adding local writing clubs and bookstores; then look through their followers and find other writers, readers, agents, editors or publishers to follow (and interact with them).

If you’re writing non-fiction, find people who are experts in your subject, as well as people who share the same interest. You can find them by searching via hashtags and profiles. At that level, most people will follow you back. Twitter is a better use of time when interacting with people who are helpful vs. falling into the trap of playing the numbers game. 

Read the rest of the post, which includes two more Twitter tips and a special note, on Publishing Geek.