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About Book Marketing Essentials

Tara Kachaturoff is a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach, Certified Personal Brand Strategist, Certified Online ID Strategist, and the creator, producer, and host of Michigan Entrepreneur TV. She loves books, writing, and the arts.

Author Archive

I’m so excited about being a contributing author to Donna Kozik’s mega book project for 2010 — Celebrating 365 Days of Gratitude.

This amazing book started with her asking us one question: What are you grateful for? We had 200 words or less to respond.  The result was 365 days of inspiration.

I really enjoyed doing this. It made me think long and hard about what I was really grateful for.  I wrote about Time as that is what I’m most thankful for.  I haven’t received my copy of the book yet, but I’m excited to see it in print soon! It should be arriving in the next couple of days.

I love everything about this book project. Donna’s idea was brilliant. Through her leadership, she brought together hundreds of people from all over the world to share their hopes and dreams, their challenges and breakthroughs

Donna Kozik, a two-time award winning author, is both the visionary and editor of this amazing book. She is the creator and leader of the Write a Book in a Weekend(TM) virtual online events. Donna and members of her San Diego-based company show other how to write and publish a book to use as a big business card or simply share their stories with the world.

P.S. I’m really excited that I’ll be taking the Write a Book in a Weekend(TM) live course in January.  She also offers the course as a self-study.

The Gratitude Book Project: Celebrating 365 Days of Gratitude gathers together more than 300 coauthors who answered the question “What are you grateful for?” The project is now a book found on Amazon.com . [Your Name] of [your website or business] is a co‐author in the book. Find out more at http://amzn.to/fbXLpN

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In a prior post, I wrote about the importance of using video to spread the word about your book.  What types of videos can you make?  My advice – make videos that you want and like to make! Why? Because those will be the ones that you’ll be most comfortable doing – and your passion and enthusiasm will show thru.

If you start making certain types of videos that don’t resonate with who you are, that’s also going to come thru loud and clear.  Align your passion with your presence to get the best result.

Here are some ideas about different types of videos you can make – all which can be helpful in promoting your book:

Interviews: Create short interviews of you being interviewed about your book.  You can have a friend, colleague or even another author interview you.

Testimonials: Interview others about their thoughts on your book.  If you’re some place local, take along a Flip video and conduct interviews on the spot.  Also, ask readers to send you a link to any video testimonials they might create on their own.

Bookstore videos: Take short videos of you speaking about your book and perhaps even walking up to where you find a copy on the shelf. Get permission from the bookstore prior to shooting video and ensure other people are not in the video unless you have their express permission.

Request videos from others: Besides testimonials, you can request that others send in videos about how they applied the information in your book, what they learned and so on. These would differ from a traditional testimonial about the book in general.

Videos from classes, presentations, or TV appearances : Don’t forget to include video snippets of prime moments from classes, seminars or other live events.  Make sure you only use clips that include you unless you have written permission from others.

There are many other types of videos you can make.  Prior to creating a video, inquire and receive the proper permissions or releases as you may not have republishing rights to the material although you’re the one in the video.

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Video is probably one of the top strategies you can use to build buzz for your business and your book.  Whether you’re posting them to YouTube, directly to your blog or to other popular video-sharing sites, you’ll find they’ll earn you great search engine popularity.

More important than that, videos add dimensionality to who you are. You become more real.  Words on a page can reveal only so much about who you are. Audio engages another sense which adds a second dimension.  Much can be revealed through your voice – your overall sentiment, your attitude and your energy level.

With video, you can take it a step further. Viewers can complete the picture. They can “read” your body language and put the whole picture together so to speak.  A video is just a step removed from meeting you in person – and much more convenient especially if there are geographic differences. Since it’s impossible to meet everyone, videos are a convenient way to share yourself with the masses.

If you happen to be camera shy, no worries. You can still create videos by interviewing others, adding audio narration to PowerPoints and using other creative techniques.  Still you can reap great rewards from using this particular medium and it’s worth a consideration as you assess all the different ways you can market your book.

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The best way to sell more books is by letting others do the selling for you.  Testimonials and word of mouth can play a significant role in building more buzz for your book.  Pick any book off your shelf, or even your own. Now turn it over. What do you see on the back of the book?  Most likely you’ll see a couple of testimonials praising the work.  And nowadays, you’ll often find several pages of testimonials included in the first few pages as well.

Social proof is very important to us. We don’t like to belong to any group that is not “endorsed” by others.  We like to buy products and services that other people buy. Take a look at some of the things you own – especially books. Often you’ve purchased books because your friends, colleagues, or others who you know, like and trust have evangelized them.

Make it a habit to ask people for testimonials.  Use them on your blog and website.  Include them in your autoresponder messages. Add them to other marketing collateral that you publish. Always make sure you receive written permission to use them just in case.

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I was reading a great blog post by Chris Brogan about ways to market your book and came across a wonderful way to put a copy of your book into the hands of your target market.  Brogan mentions making a list of every place where people can purchase your book.  Brilliant!  While Amazon.com might be the obvious place to start for me, that might not be the case with other people.

Here is an example of the blog post that Chris Brogan made for his book Trust Agents which was written with Julien Smith. If you don’t have a blog, make sure to add a similar page on your website.

I’d like to extend this idea with some more helpful tips of my own.

  • Include a nice graphic of your book. I especially like the ones that show the actual book so you can see that it has thickness to it – implies value and content to visitors.
  • If possible, place the book with local private booksellers in your area. While it’s nice to support internet businesses, support your local retailers, too! They’ll appreciate it!  Include a link to a map and also include their address and telephone number.
  • Include tidbits about your book like the publisher, number of pages, and some other detail. You might also want to include the table of contents so people can familiarize themselves with the content.
  • Add links to all the various online booksellers who offer your book. If you’re using an affiliate link, make sure you’ve disclosed this fact in your required disclosure policy.

Don’t forget to actively link back to this post or page that you create because it includes such valuable information – namely where to find your book!  Make sure to post it once per month on your Facebook profile and or fan page and also tweet it out with the same frequency.

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