The 5-Minute Guide to Promoting Your Book with Article Marketing

The 5-Minute Guide to Promoting Your Book with Article Marketing

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Created on: 09-jun-2011 9:17 by CreateSpaceResources - Last Modified:  09-jun-2011 10:08 by CreateSpaceResources

The following article was written exclusively for CreateSpace by Joel Friedlander. Joel is the proprietor of Marin Bookworks in San Rafael, California, a publishing services company where he's helped launch many self-published authors. He blogs about book design, writing and self-publishing at www.TheBookDesigner.com. Joel is also the author of the newly-published A Self-Publisher's Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish.

Authors with new books are constantly on the lookout for new ways to market those books. They know there are a lot of people who might be interested in their subject, but the question that always comes up is, "How do I reach them?"

Most authors don't make use of one of the oldest online marketing techniques. It's one that can still produce a great effect, especially for nonfiction authors. This technique is called article marketing, which is a way of creating awareness for your brand and traffic for your website by writing articles and posting them on online article directories. Authors can leverage the power of article marketing by writing about the subject of their book as an expert in the field.

What can you expect if you decide to dive into an article marketing campaign for your book? Let's look at the steps to take first.

3 Steps to Article Marketing for your Book

1. Identify the keywords people are using to search for information on your topic.

The power of article marketing relies on attracting readers who are looking for information on a particular topic through online searches. The specific words and phrases people use for these searches form keywords. By including these keywords in your articles, people have a greater chance of naturally finding them in their searches.

You need to be very specific about this. A good way to get started is to set aside some time and sit down with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Start off with any words or short three- or four-word phrases that people might use when researching your topic.

This step is absolutely critical to the rest of this campaign, so take your time. Your aim here is to come up with three or four long-tail keywords that give your content a chance to compete in search engines and ultimately bring traffic to your site. For instance, if I was looking for search phrases for my new book, A Self-Publisher's Companion, I might try:

publish a book

self-publishing your book

self-publish a book

2. Write articles that feature those keywords.

Here are some guidelines for the articles you want to write for your article marketing campaign:

• Keep them to about 500 words
• Numbered lists ("6 Ways to ...") and bullet lists are very effective
• Write to an "easy" reading level
• Avoid long paragraphs (2 or 3 sentences maximum)
• Use subheads for navigation and to break up copy
• At the end of your article include a "bio box" or a "resource box." This is where you get to say something about yourself, and put a link that points back to your site.

When it comes to the keywords you found in step 1, use them in your article's headline, in the first paragraph and once or twice more in the body to give your article a greater search relevance.

You can include other links in the body of your article, but make sure they relate directly to the subject. Links should provide the reader with additional resources on that topic, or help to explain an aspect of what you're writing about.

3. Finalize and submit your articles.

This strategy will work best if you can write at least 10 - preferably more - articles. Each should be related to some aspect of your subject and explore only one idea per article.

Spend as much time as possible on the headline. Your article will live or die depending on whether the headline draws people to it. Bad or boring or dull or lifeless headlines simply won't pull readers to your article, no matter how good it is. Also, avoid tricky headlines or those that play on a subject in the news. In this case, fewer people will read and re-post your articles, which is counterproductive to the primary goal of article marketing.

If you need help with headlines, probably the best free resource online to help is Brian Clark's How to Write Great Headlines tutorial series at Copyblogger.com.

Submit to Ezine Articles. There are many other article directories and listing sites, but Ezine Articles is the largest. Since you're just starting out, you can use this service until you're ready to branch out. Later, you can use some of your articles to build pages on Squidoo.com or Hubpages.com, or submit them to other high-ranking article directories like Articlesbase.com or Buzzle.com.

Benefits of the Article Marketing Strategy

There are several ways you benefit from article marketing:

• Your article is posted at Ezine Articles with links back to your site.
• Other people will pick up and publish the articles on their own sites, sending you more links.
• You'll get traffic from people clicking through the links in the article.
• You'll get pushed higher in search engine rankings due to the steadily increasing number of links from articles pointing to your site.
• You may be contacted as an expert in your industry, with requests to reprint articles off-line or to contribute content to sites or publications.
• You will quickly enhance your reputation as an authority in your field.

This is one of the fastest and easiest strategies you can use, and it's basically free. It won't take you long to figure out the format for your articles. After you've posted a few, you can take the long-term approach by only submitting one article per week. In a year, you'll have more than 50 keyword-targeted articles sending traffic your way.

In closing, here are a few more tips for article marketing:

• Keep a list of possible topics and add to it when you think of one.
• Don't use your blog posts unless you substantially re-write them.
• If you have articles written for other purposes like guest posts, answers to email queries, or posts you make in forums in response to questions, turn them into articles and submit them!

The great thing about article marketing is that it takes so little time to get started, but generally offers a high return on investment. Good luck!

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The Hub & Outpost Method to Organize Your Social Media Marketing

The Hub & Outpost Method to Organize Your Social Media Marketing

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Created on: 03-feb-2011 11:15 by CreateSpaceResources - Last Modified:  03-feb-2011 11:54 by CreateSpaceResources

The following article was written by Joel Friedlander, a self-published author and book designer. He blogs about book design, self-publishing and the indie publishing life at www.TheBookDesigner.com. Joel is also the proprietor of Marin Bookworks, where he helps authors who decide to publish get to market on time and on budget with books that are both properly constructed and beautiful to read.

Most authors, filmmakers and musicians have gotten the message: you have to be marketing on social media sites if you want to make an impact and, eventually, sell your content.

Social media is indispensable to today's self-published artists, but it's good to remember that social media by itself is one tactic in your overall marketing strategy. Just using social media is not a strategy in itself; it's a way to implement your basic marketing thrust.

Set Up Your Hub

This method of organizing your social media activity requires that you set up a Hub that will be your "home base." It could be a blog or a website. What's important here is that you own it. You own the domain name, it doesn't belong to another entity the way that blogs on blogspot.com or wordpress.com are part of a larger company. You need a place over which you exert ownership, which you can control without worrying about other people's "terms of service."

Here are a few good reasons to use your blog as the hub of your social media strategy:

• Your blog is frequently updated - This is the place it's easiest to post new material relating to your book or your subject area, and consequently is the most up to date and flexible site you have.
• Your blog has your list opt-in - One of the reasons you want visitors to stop at your blog is to find the people who are interested enough in what you're doing that they want to stay in touch and want to find out more. Your newsletter or mailing list opt-in form should be prominent on your blog, and you also should offer subscriptions to your blog via email or RSS, another way to keep in touch.
• Your blog is the best place to release news - Blog software allows you to easily post updates or breaking news items, which then go onto your subscribers through the email or RSS feed. It's the best way to stay in touch with your fans and followers.
• At your blog you have the best tools for interacting with readers in a robust way over a long term.

Explore to Find Outposts

Outposts depend on your own subject matter and preferences for working, but they have to be places where people interested in your subject congregate.

You might find effective outposts in:

• Facebook fan page
• Twitter accounts
• Forums that deal with your topic
• Photo sharing sites like your stream on Flickr.com
• Video sites like your channel on YouTube.com
• Bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon.com
• Networking sites like LinkedIn.com
• Specialized niche sites like those run on Ning.com

Really, there's no limit to the number or type of outposts you create.

At your outposts you might post links to content you've published at your hub. But you'll also contribute content to the outpost sites, too. Outposts are used for:

• listening to what others in your niche are doing
• building authority by contributing expert tips and answers to questions
• testing ideas for marketing or for your next projects
• networking with other people and influencers in your niche
• growing your online profile
• creating links back to your hub

Remember to link to your hub at every outpost. These links create the connections that people will use to travel back to your hub. On Twitter, for instance, the link will show up in your bio, and that will be the first place people click on to find out more about you when they've been intrigued by one of your postings.

Go Forth and Multiply

It's likely that new social media sites with different approaches to connecting people will continue to sprout online. With the hub and outpost model for your social media strategy, it's easy to integrate new locations.

You might decide, for instance, to start building a series of Squidoo lenses about your topic or your book, film or music. Linking back to your blog is a natural way for people who come across your sites on Squidoo to find out more about you.

When they travel back to your blog they'll find links to your other sites, like the site you've set up for your individual projects, your content's Facebook fan page, your Twitter account, and you'll be able to supply links and "follow" buttons for all of them.

From this central location, you will rule your (social) media empire. So go forth, creator, and multiply your voice and your influence, confident that you can make use of all that traffic you generate with your insightful comments and spectacular status updates.

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10 Steps for Authors Who Want to Get Started on Twitter

10 Steps for Authors Who Want to Get Started on Twitter

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Created on: 12-ago-2010 11:19 by CreateSpaceResources - Last Modified:  26-oct-2010 5:28 by CreateSpaceBlogger

The following article is by Joel Friedlander, a self-published author and a book designer. It originally appeared on www.TheBookDesigner.com, where Joel blogs about book design, self-publishing and the indie publishing life. Joel is also the proprietor of Marin Bookworks, where he helps authors who decide to publish get to market on time and on budget with books that are both properly constructed and beautiful to read. You can learn more about Joel by visiting his website.

10 Steps for Authors Who Want to Get Started on Twitter

Do you have a fear of Twitter engagement? Do you have an account on the service but don't know quite what to do with it? Are you getting ready to publish a book and realize you have to "get up to speed" with your social media marketing?

A lot of authors I talk to want to learn social media and how it's going to help them sell thousands of books by "going viral." But they hesitate, baffled by how the whole thing works. They know they need to be building their author platforms, but don't know how Twitter fits in.

I don't think you need to buy a book like "Secrets to Twitter Success" because it's really a pretty simple platform. There are only a few things you can actually do on Twitter. Everything else that flows from your involvement with it comes from the network of people you connect with.

And in order to connect with the people you want to tell about your work, you have to forget the whole idea of "how Twitter will sell thousands of books" entirely. Because it won't. Not directly, anyway.

Twitter is powerful, but its power is in connecting to other people, in growing a community around the value of the content and ideas you share. I'm confident you can use it to your benefit if you can only get started.

These are simple things you can do to get going with Twitter, and to learn about what goes on there and how it works.

10 Steps to Getting Started on Twitter:

1. Get a Twitter account. Make sure your username name isn't too long, 10 or 12 characters should do. Remember that your username on Twitter, if you're going to use it for promoting your book, is part of your branding strategy.


2. Get some software. There's great free software that makes Twitter a lot more fun and efficient to use than the official website. I like Hoot Suite on my Mac, Twitterific on the iPad and the iPhone, although there are many others. Get one that appeals to you and fool around with it to see how it works. Being able to schedule Tweets in advance is a big advantage.


3. Seek out your people. Do some searches to find the thought leaders and people with the biggest followings in your niche. By finding just one you can start looking through the list of who they are following to find more people to follow.


4. Find friendly lists. Twitter lists allow you to create categories of people to follow all at once. For instance, I have a list called "Self-Publishing" with 55 Twitter users self publishers could follow for great information on the field. Try to find lists created by someone in your field. These are a great place to find people to follow too.


5. Follow the tweets. You should now be following many important people in your niche, and you're likely adding followers too. Keep your focus pretty tight at first so you don't overwhelm yourself with input. Read the tweets from these thought leaders and the people with lots of followers. Click through anything that looks interesting to see what they are linking to. Watch especially for links that get re-tweeted - or passed along - by more than one of the people you're following. Make sure you check out those links.


6. Keep reading until you get it. There's no rush. I read tweets for two or three months before I sent out any tweets of my own. Be patient and keep watching and soon you'll see why some people are popular and lots of people want to follow them - because they consistently provide links and ideas that are valuable. Or because they make an effort to connect with people individually. You want to be one of those people, so keep reading until you understand what makes them popular to their followers.


7. Tweet some value. By this time you've seen what's considered valuable in the niche you're following. It's time to become a participant. Do a little web surfing and see if you can find resources that haven't been mentioned recently. Create a short tweet alerting people to this resource, put in a shortened link and tweet it.


8. Follow the golden ratio. Tweet something of value, or re-Tweet someone else's content or message once or twice for every Tweet you do that promotes your own book, website or other content. This is all about sharing discoveries, sharing content - not about selling. You are building trust and a community of followers at the same time you are receiving value from the people you are following.


9. Be trustworthy. I think this is done most simply by giving value, and by not tweeting anything you have not personally verified for yourself. Trust is the most important element in the community you are building.
   
   
10. Be generous. Give as much value as you can. Pass along things of interest from others. Create content that has something of value to other people, something that makes their life better in some way. This will be content you're happy to share with your growing Twitter tribe.

Twitter is an amazing phenomenon, considering that it only consists of 140 characters of basic text. The creativity, the energy and vitality on Twitter are astonishing. It can be a great place to connect to people who are interested in your work, and who in turn will send your message out into their own networks of followers.

Make sure you have something for visitors to look at, to download or to sign up for on your website or blog when they get there. And keep an eye on your analytics. You'll find Twitter is a growing source of traffic and potential book buyers if you follow these simple rules.

I think this quote from Zig Ziglar really illustrates how to use Twitter to best advantage:

"You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want."

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