AtlasBooks Distribution Blog

Information excerpted from:
Skodzinksi, Noelle. “36 Twitter Tips for Book Publishers”. Book Business Magazine. 2009 December.

“If you are a good Twitterer, people will trust you, even if you are a brand, and will trust your recommendations. And word-of-mouth is the best marketing tool,” says Malle Vallik, director of digital content and social media at Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.”

Following these basic steps will help you effectively market to your target audience.

Tips from: Jesse McDougall Co-Owner, Catalyst Webworks (social media consultancy) Twitter.com/jsmcdougall:
·“After signing up for Twitter, create several Twitter accounts based on the niches in which you publish.”
·“You can try and sell your book by adding substantive information from your books and authors to the conversation.”
·“Remember to keep the conversation fun, to get your readers intrigued to come back for more!”

Tips from: Brett Cohen, Vice President, Quirk Books Twitter.com/irreference:

·“Tweet in a away that is aligned with your brand identity” (entertain and inform)
·“Make the tweet compelling enough that others will want to pass it along. Providing interesting information from the book, events, or even to promote an article is an effective way to promote to your audience.”
·“Keep in mind to keep your tweets on a timely, appropriate manner.”
·“Think of tweets the same way you would think about publicity hits. You are endorsing your book! Share your “followers” endorsement by re-tweeting their post! This will open the originator’s message up to your followers who may now follow that person and/or retweet the message!”

Tips from: Amy Wilkins, Assistant Manager, Digital Content & Social Media, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks:
·“Ask questions.”
·“Use lists and contests.”
·“Make a sale sound unique.”

*BookMasters/AtlasBooks does not formally endorse these guidelines. These tips do not guarantee your books will sell, they will only guide in the right direction.

Excerpted from: Circle, Alison. Library Journal. Marketing Trends to Watch.

1. Twitter. 

• You can speak directly to your customers
• Twitter allows you to create a following of people that are interested in what you have to say

2. Online Reputation Management. Many organizations spend a majority of their time managing their online brands created for their company as much as they do their physical brands. MonitorThis and Google Alerts, are helpful tools to alert you on what people are saying about your organization and products.

3. Video Marketing. If your company has cut back on advertising costs, Youtube is a free advertising outlet to reach your customers in an entirely different way.

4. Mobile Marketing or marketing through a mobile channel. This new phenomena is another new way to reach your customers. “Phones are the one-stop shop for combination, digital services, email, photos, and navigation.”

5. A Deeper Shade of Green. “Aberdeen Group, a market research company, reports that even the modest green initiatives drive customer loyalty by 36 percent. But when companies operate at the best of class levels, customer loyalty increases to 69 percent.” Saying your company is going green is not enough. Your company needs to offer environmentally friendly products and act environmentally conscious as well.

6. Speed. Marketing is about understanding the needs of your customers. Organizations should evaluate the customers view on how service delivery can be made easier for them.

“Excerpted with permission from Brian Jud’s Book Marketing Matters newsletter”.

Savvy Self-Promotion
Penny Sansevieri, author of From Book to Bestseller,

As any search engine optimization expert will tell you, keyword research is a funny animal. The type of keyword research you do will vary depending on what you’re using the keywords for. Article research for example will be much different than keyword searches done for Web sites mostly because people are searching for different types of words depending on what they’re going after. Regardless of the type of search you’re doing though, there are some hard and fast rules when it comes to good keyword searches. Here is a tip that should help you understand, define, and implement your own keyword searches:

If you’re stumped for how to research keywords, and the marketing materials and press releases you’ve gathered aren’t helping, consider going onto some blogs in your particular market and see what you can dig up there. Look for phrases that are used over and over again. For example when women’s literature added a spicy, fun new genre, the term “chick lit” was used over and over and became not just the adopted name for the genre, but a keyword term as well.

Facebook is not only an effective tool to communicate with family, friends, and co-workers it is also an effective marketing tool to promote your title and its FREE.  Having your own Facebook page is very easy to navigate.  As a “Facebooker” it is very simple to upload photos, belong to groups, RSVP to upcoming events, and connect to people who share the same interests as you do.

Company figures:

• More than 350 million active users
• 50% of the Facebook users log on to Facebook in a given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• More than 55 million status updates posted each day
• More than 2.5 million photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 3.5 billion pieces of content shared each week
• More than 3.5 million events created each  month
• More than 1.6 million active pages on Facebook
• More than 700,000 local businesses have active pages on Facebook
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

Information excerpted from: Company Figures.  http://www.Facebook.com

Create your own Facebook page today, by going to: www.Facebook.com.   Once you are on the Facebook site, signing up is easy! Fill out this basic information and you are ready to go:

1. Last Name
2. Email address
3. New password for the site
4. Select male or female
5. Birthday information

Online Book Promotion –  Dana Lynn Smith
(Book marketing coach Dana Lynn Smith is the author of The Savvy Book Marketer’s Guide to Successful Social Marketing, http://www.SavvyBookMarketer.com. For more book marketing tips, visit http://www.BookMarketingMaven.com.)

Twitter is a great way to develop relationships and promote yourself and your book. But it’s important to avoid being seen as someone who just promotes themselves. Most of your tweets should be about helping others, but you also need to inject some personality to help people get to know you. Here are some ideas for tweeting:

1. Link to helpful or entertaining articles, Web sites, and blog posts and recommend products and services you find useful.
2. Offer an incentive to subscribe to your ezine or blog, or offer a free eBook or sample book chapter with no strings attached.
3. Announce your live and virtual events such as book tours and teleseminars.
4. Teach a mini-lesson in 140 characters.

Ask for advice or ask questions that encourage responses.