Have you considered going on tour with your book? If so, you have no doubt noticed how quickly expenses can add up. There are travel costs, hotel costs, extra food costs, etc. Before you know it, you will have spent several thousand dollars funding your book tour expenses. What if you could tour the country (or even the world) for less than the cost of a round-trip plane ticket? You can do just that with the Virtual Book Tour option from Outskirts Press.
A virtual book tour is similar to an actual book tour, although instead of physically traveling from bookstore to bookstore, or radio show to radio show, you and/or your book are making “appearances” in the blogosphere and on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This saves time and money because it is much more efficient and cost-effective to “appear” on a blog, a website, or an internet radio talk show, than it is to load up the mini-van and drive from state to state.
Imagine that – you and your book can make several appearances around the globe without you leaving the comfort of your home. Easy!
While on your Outskirts Press Virtual Book Tour, you will also receive a Spotlight Appearance on our blog, which receives its own announcements on Twitter and our Facebook Page.
That’s not all! Your virtual book tour will be blasted to our entire social network, which means you and your book will receive exposure on:
MySpace
Linked In
Britekite
Blogger
Jaiku
Bebo
Facebook
Twitter
our iPhone app
And many more, including our popular YouTube channel where your very own Tour Video will be uploaded for viewing.
The best part is – this month authors can save up to 15% on this option through the rest of the month using the promotion code VBT15PCT.
What are you waiting for? Start your Virtual Book Tour today!
To keep you productive, we’ve compiled a list of 31 book marketing tips that you should find valuable… and with the new a la carte marketing options available through Outskirts Press, no matter where you may have published, you can start your book marketing efforts the right way.
Mar 1 – Make a goal to set up your author platform. The first start can be with social media. If you aren’t familiar (or comfortable) with social media and need a bit of assistance, our Author Platform Set-up Through Social Media Option is a good way to start.
Mar 2 – Contact other independent published authors in your area (through local associations you may belong to) and combine your resources to fully exploit the opportunities during this month. There’s a lot to do, and four hands are better than two. With the advent of social networking sites, this is easier than ever. In fact your publisher may already have a group on such sites as MySpace or FaceBook or a following on Twitter to help you connect with other writers. Here is the Outskirts Press Facebook community.
Mar 3 – Contact your local bookstores and suggest they offer discounts on Small Press books this month (since March is Small Press Month). Bring in yours and offer it to them at a discount to get them started. Show them the rest of this calendar as a way of indicating your commitment to making their event successful. Offer to leave a free copy with them along with a sales sheet. Here’s a link to the ABA Bookseller directory.
Mar 4 – Make a 60 second book video trailer and distribute it to video and social networking sites like YouTube and Facebook. Don’t know the first thing about how you would do that? Outskirts Press can do it for you, affordably and professionally – just click here.
Mar 6 – Follow-up on your press release from yesterday with the local media via telephone. Reiterate Small Press Month, your planned events in the community, and your Small Press book. Send them a review of your book that they can use as a foundation. (Less work for them). Outskirts Press can perform a PR Publicist Campaign for your custom press release which includes additional distribution, phone-call follow-up, and more.
Mar 7 – Consider taking your book on a Virtual Book Tour. You can save 15% on this option through the rest of March when you check out using the promotion code VBT15PCT.
Mar 8 – Contact your local libraries and suggest they feature Small Press titles, including yours. Offer to leave a free copy with them, along with a sales sheet. If you’re an Outskirts Press author, you can generate a sales sheet automatically in your Publishing Center here. You can even change it and update it first through your Author Toolkit by modifying and updating your author webpage.
Mar 9 – If you haven’t yet sent out review copies for book, now is the time. For published Outskirts Press authors, your Book Review Starter Kit has many book reviewers listed, and you also have the option of the Book Review Submission service.
Mar 10 – Contact local schools in your area and tell them about Small Press Month. Mention that you are a local published author and offer to speak to their assembly about the topic of your book; or, even, on how to accomplish their dreams of being published. This is particularly effective if you have a children’s book you can then sell after the assembly. Plus, you can earn affiliate commissions by recommending our full-color Pearl publishing package. In addition to cookbooks or art books, the Pearl package is perfect for children’s books (since over 30 different artistic illustration packages are available – click here to view them).
Watch the Pearl Package video…
Mar 11 – Contact local universities and colleges. Same concept as yesterday — promote yourself and your book by sharing your knowledge of how to write a book and get it published. Sell copies of your book in the back of the room, and earn 10% referral commissions by referring other authors to our Publishing Services.
Mar 12 – Schedule a seminar or tele-seminar on “How to Write and Publish a Book” and offer a “Small Press Month” discount on the registration fee. Send out a local news release about your class. GoToMeeting.com offers a free 30 day trial to create your own webinar. Give it a try!
Mar 13 – March 13th will be lucky for you when you hire a professional marketing assistant to help you complete these 31 ideas (along with other marketing tactics you may not even know about). 5 hours of personal marketing assistance is available by clicking here.
Mar 14 – Some authors put themselves into their books. Now you can do it literally, by ordering a custom t-shirt featuring your book cover on the front and back. It’s available no matter where you published. Click here to order.
Mar 15 – Advertising independently can be expensive. A single full-page ad in the New York Times costs over $40,000! But, thankfully, Outskirts Press offers its family of published authors co-op advertising opportunities in ForeWord Reviews, Spirituality & Health, Publisher’s Weekly, and theNew York Times.
Mar 16 – Contact all the local radio producers in your area and pitch them on Small Press Month. The Radio Locator website makes it easy to find a radio station’s contact information.
Mar 17 – Think St. Patrick’s Day thoughts and then “go green” by making sure you have published your book with a book publisher like Outskirts Press, who offers 30% post-consumer recycled materials in the most popular paper choices.
Mar 18 – Make sure your book is available in all formats. We offer Kindle, iPad, and NOOK formatting options to all authors.
Mar 19 – According to Amazon, books that participate in their Search Inside the Book feature sell many more copies than those that don’t, so be sure YOUR book is a part of “Search Inside.” Outskirts Press offers Search Inside Submissions for authors published with Outskirts Press and elsewhere. Order by clicking here.
Mar 20 – This may be the month to switch publishers if you have published elsewhere. Look at the publisher you chose and ask yourself: Is your retail price too high? Is your profit too low? Is your author’s copy price too high? Are your marketing options too costly? (Read this 2009 blog posting about one of our options that costs $99 for our authors and costs over one THOUSAND dollars through one of our competitors). Compare and save potentially thousands of dollars.
Mar 21 – Small Press Month is just one month out of 12. Prepare for other months by showcasing your book at international book fairs like the London Book Fair, Book Expo of America, Beijing, and Frankfurt. Or make it easy on yourself with the Global Book Tour marketing package: 4 events in 4 countries in 4 months.
Mar 22 – Get your book reviewed by Amazon reviewers. You can find a list of the most popular and prolific Amazon reviewers by clicking here.
Mar 23 – Contact the Learning Annex (or similarly themed Adult Education Program) in your area and offer to teach a class on the subject of your book. As a published author, you are qualified to teach on your subject since you are an expert. Your book may even be required reading for each student! Cha-ching! If you’re published through Outskirts Press, send them to our bookstore so they receive a 10% discount off other online retailers (and you still earn your full 100% profit royalty). Cha-ching, again!
Mar 24 – Create a social networking account on Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Follow us on Twitter for book marketing suggestions and news in 140 characters or less.
Mar 25 – Contact the public libraries in each state and mention your involvement with Small Press Month. Send them information about your book. Here’s a link that will get you started: http://www.publiclibraries.com/
Mar 26 – Start preparing for April (National Poetry Month), especially if you have a book of poetry. We publish high-quality, award-winning volumes of poetry all the time. In fact, Outskirts Press authors swept the Poetry Category in the 2009 Reader’s Views Literary Awards. See how we do this year when all the finalists are announced on this blog tomorrow.
Mar 27 – Help other writers you know get published and earn a 10% commission for the referral after their book is published. Register for the exciting Outskirts Press affiliate program by clicking here.
Mar 28 – Start a blog and keep it active and up-to-date. Register it with blog directories so others start reading it and participating. There are many blog programs to help you get started. Conduct a search on Google for the one that works for you. We use WordPress.
Mar 29 – Submit your published book to the Google Base listings. It’s free. http://base.google.com
Mar 30 – Publish a “Large Print” edition of your book. With the world’s demographics growing older, “large print” editions are becoming more and more popular. Featuring 14 or 16 point fonts, these editions appeal to the aging community because they are easier to read. You’ve already written the book, now re-publish a new “Large Print” edition to increase your revenue and double the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives. It’s easy to get published here.
Mar 31 – Relax! It’s been a busy, productive month. Fortunately, Outskirts Press makes publishing and marketing a book easy. Check out our most popular Diamond publishing service by kicking-back and watching the video below:
Social media represents a huge opportunity for professionals.
People are using social media to connect with people, clients, and customers around the world; and businesses are using social media to improve their relationships with current customers and new potential customers. For self-publishing authors, social media offers a chance to level the playing field with traditionally published writers.
Outskirts Press recently introduced a new Author Platform Set-up through Social Media option. Here are three reasons authors should consider this new option when establishing their own expertise and building their author platform:
1) Marketing Power – According to Knowledge Networks, more than 38 million people between the ages of 13 and 80 in the US are influenced to make purchase decisions based on what they’ve seen on social media sites.
2) Build Relationships – Social media is a powerful tool for marketing, but it is different than traditional marketing avenues. Social media allows authors to communicate with readers and build relationships. With social media, marketing is no longer a one way conversation. Words can influence readers to buy your book, but more importantly, readers can influence authors.
3) Join the Competition – Social media is growing, and authors are recognizing the potential to connect with readers and improve sales. Don’t let your competition reap all the benefit. Authors can join the game and improve sales.
“Authors often struggle with implementing social media campaigns,” says Outskirts Press Manager of Author Support Elise Connors. “With our Author Platform Set-up through Social Media option, authors no longer have to worry about creating their author platform through social media because we do all the set-up for them. Instead, they can focus on other forms of promotion or spend time doing what they do best — writing books!”
When authors purchase the Author Platform Set-up through Social Media option, Outskirts Press will set-up a profile on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and WordPress. In addition to setting up each account on these social media sites,
Outskirts Press will connect authors with relevant people, brands, and communities on each network through “likes,” “tweets,” “followers,” subscriptions, and groups. It’s the complete solution to cracking into successful social media for writers.
ForeWord Reviews is delivered to librarians, booksellers, agents, and other industry professionals. Additionally, ForeWord is sent directly to small press buyers at the chains (Barnes&Noble, Borders, Chapters, Books-A-Million, etc). ABA’s Booksense also requests 500 copies of each issue for delivery direct to their members. ForeWord also is placed in the hands of agents and editors at larger houses, who may be looking for leads to bring into their fold from the small press sector. All told, the ForeWord circulation is approx 85% librarians, 12% bookstores, and 3% publishing professionals.
Now you can reach this influential readership
with a Co-Op advertisement.
Co-Op Advertising allows you to secure premium, full-color exposure for your book in a high-quality trade publication for a minimal amount of money. Your book will occupy a 2″ x 2″ space along with other Outskirts Press titles within a full-color ad. Your ad space will include a full color cover image, an abbreviated synopsis, the ISBN, and retail price of the book. All books will include retail and wholesale ordering information.
Here’s the full-color author co-op ad appearing in the March/April/May issue of the ForeWord Reviews:
HOW TO ORDER:
Our ForeWord Co-op Ad option is now available for ALL authors – regardless of where they published their books. Shared advertising costs can help you reach your book promotion goals quickly and without all the high costs that independent/self-publishing authors normally pay.
Attending international book fairs personally is often cost-prohibitive for self-publishing writers when you factor in expenses such as airfare, hotel, food, and transportation. And those are just the costs of going international. Then there are the costs of the exhibit itself, like the exhibition fees, the exhibition stand, and the “giveaways” (often called “freebies” or “schwag.”)
Advantages:
But book fairs are also the place where self-published authors can “be discovered.” Outskirts Press helps its authors place their books at 5 international book fairs for a reasonable cost.
The Bologna Children’s Book Fair is the world’s leading book fair focusing solely on children’s publishing with a focus on the sale of rights and international co-productions. To increase your chances for success, your book must have full color illustrations inside the book to participate. Therefore, only our Pearl Full Color books are eligible.
The Bologna Children’s Book Fair occurs in March in Italy and hosts over 1400 international exhibitors and may be instrumental in forging industry connections or negotiating agreements or licenses for your work.
When you order the Bologna Children’s Book Fair from the Marketing Options Screen of your Author’s Center your book will receive valuable, face-out exposure on an exclusive shelf with 4 other Outskirts Press titles and a representative will be on-hand to personally answer questions about your book. Outskirts Press will provide the necessary copies of the book and all the necessary contact information for both the author and publisher, so interested parties can make further contact, during or after the fair. All inquiries Outskirts Press receives about your book will be forwarded directly to you for personal follow-up.
If you are a published Children’s book author with Outskirts Press and interested in exhibiting your book with the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, you can register for this event conveniently from your author’s center Marketing Options screen. Space is limited and filled on a first-come, first served basis. Due to the specific requirements of Bologna, this event is not a part of our Global Book Tour package and must be registered for separately if you are interested.
The deadline for submitting your book to the book fair is Friday, January, 27, 2012.
I can tell you that from idea to implementation, publishing a book can be an expensive venture, especially if you are not careful. You are not just parting away with your precious time, but also with your hard-earned money. So it becomes important to side with self-publishing options that make this whole process affordable for you.
Self-publishing is entrepreneurship, and should not cost a lot of money to start-up. As a matter of fact, writing a book will weigh down on your time. But marketing, designing and selling your book requires some capital, which if you are not careful, could leave a big hole in your pocket.
So what can you do to control this cost and make the process affordable, yet highly professional?
Hire services from a self-publishing company.
It really is as simple as that. For example, if you invest in any of the affordable self-publishing packages offered by Outskirts Press, you could save a ton of money on creating a professional book.
Wouldn’t that be nice? I, for one, would like to finish a book without a huge debt on my shoulders. This way, all the money I earn from selling my work will go straight into my pocket, rather than in the pockets of different publishing houses.
Moreover, there’s an icing on the cake!
When it comes to self-publishing, using more than one self-publishing services can reduce the quality of the final product, while increasing your liability towards different publishing houses. So stick with one package that can cater for all your self-publishing needs.
So do you want to self-publish at an affordable price?
I have a story to tell, and if I put my mind to it, I can write a book about my story.
The fact is, so can you!
But does that make me or you capable of publishing?
Maybe so.
But simply writing a book is not enough. Most of us with a traditional typewriter or computer and persistence could do that. Drafting and editing aside, there are other aspects of publishing that are important to consider.
Interestingly, self-publishing makes these ‘other’ aspects much easier than the traditional route.
The biggest stumbling block for many self-publishers is the pricing, marketing and publicity of their finished work. How do you price a book?
Many authors do it differently – they price their book based on the number of potential sales, the time they put into the product and often the demand on their work. Whatever price you go with, you have to keep the target market in mind, can they afford the book? Self-publishing help such as that offered by Outskirts Press can really help you drill down on a price.
What about the marketing and publicity?
As writers, most of us cannot handle the marketing and promotion of our finished book by ourselves. After all, writers are not really marketers. So what can you do?
Get expert help. Outskirts Press offers professional (and often promotional) marketing packages that can give your book a useful marketing facelift. By adding these modules to your self-publishing package, you will have an awesome final product.
Please join us in welcoming in the new year with some sneak peeks at what Outskirts Press has in store for its growing community of new and successfully published authors in 2012:
Win a free Barnes & Noble NOOK! Didn’t win the free Amazon Kindle in our 25 Days of Christmas drawing? No worries! We’re still going to hold a drawing for a free Barnes & Noble NOOK once we reach 5000 “likes” on our Facebook page. Need a NOOK edition of your book? Click here.
Free publication in our exclusive Facebook Fandemonium Volume II Our 2nd annual Facebook Fandemonium anthology is coming. In January we will solicit submissions from our Facebook friends. This is your chance to be published for free in our next collection of fiction and poetry, and help a good cause at the same time (royalties benefit the American Red Cross). Check out Fandemonium Volume I by clicking here.
Receive over $300 of free Amazon marketing options Historically, publishing a book is the #2 New Year’s Resolution among all people (losing weight is #1). You’re on your own with #1, but we’ve helped thousands upon thousands of writers fulfill that #2 New Year’s Resolution. Are you ready to fulfill yours? We can help you, too. And if you start publishing right now, you can get a head start on marketing with over $300 of Amazon book marketing options. Click here for all the details.
Free 2012 Book Marketing Calendar for our published authors When is the deadline for participating in the Book Expo of America? When is the deadline for submitting your book to the Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards? What should you do to promote your book during Small Press Month? (When IS Small Press Month)? These questions, and others, are answered in the 2012 Book Marketing Calendar, available for all published Outskirts Press authors. And you can get it free in January! Stay tuned for details.
Win a free Apple iPad 2! Yes, you read that right. We’ll be announcing the exciting details of our Share the Love promotion in February. In the meantime, if you want to start off 2012 with a premium edition of your book on the iPad and available in the iBooks bookstore, click here. It couldn’t be simpler.
And that’s just in the first two months! Stay tuned to this blog or our Facebook page for further details on all these opportunities as we help our new and existing clients fulfill their New Year’s Resolutions for this exciting New Year.
Outskirts Press is an industry leader in providing post-publication support, products, and services to its growing family of published authors. Because we know how confusing it can be to pick the right marketing solution for your book, we publish our list of Top 10 Book Marketing Options each month to help you prioritize your book marketing efforts.
The top-ranking options are determined by how many self-published authors sign up for them. Many of these products and services are even available to authors who did not publish with Outskirts Press. Visit our Marketing Solutions page to view the growing list of available book marketing options.
These are the marketing products and services determined to be most popular by our authors for November 2011 — listed below in alphabetical order:
Amazon-branded featured book-of-the-weekThis option helps you to get your book featured in an email sent directly to over 6,000 of our published writers. The book is also featured exclusively in a posting on our Outskirts Press blog as the featured Book-of-the-Week with an call-to-action Amazon order page.
Amazon Extreme Package This is a package deal that lets you save 25% on three amazing marketing tactics centered around Amazon: The Amazon Kindle Edition, Search Inside the Book, and the Keyword Search Submission Service. Plus a free copy of the Amazon best selling book, Sell Your Book on Amazon.
Amazon Kindle Edition The Amazon Kindle is a revolutionary wireless reading device that allows its owners to instantly download books and newspapers. This is the new way that people are buying books. However, only books that have been submitted to the Amazon Kindle via the required process and in the required format are available for Kindle readers to purchase and enjoy.
Amazon Search Inside the Book This service allows your potential buyer to browse your book online just as they would in a “traditional” bookstore. This alleviates a lot of the the anxiety associated with purchasing books online.
Barnes & Noble NOOK EditionThis option will allow you to join 2 MILLION other books at Barnes & Noble NOOK store, showcasing your books in an untapped, and growing market of readers.
Barnes & Noble See InsideThis option will allow you to turn Barnes&Noble browsers into buyers by allowing online shoppers to view select pages of your book digitally from the BN.com website.
Custom Press ReleaseHave our professional press release writer compose an original, unique press release for your book, submitted to you for your review/approval, and then distributed to our news wire service on your behalf.
Personal Marketing AssistantWith this option, you can get help on developing a marketing plan, establishing your author platform, book signings as well as assistance with marketing campaigns lead follow-up.
Readers Views Literary AwardBy ordering this marketing package, you get a chance to become eligible to enter and win a Literary Award. As part of this package, you will also receive expert marketing assistance from renowned marketing experts.
Outskirts Press authors who are interested in any of these options can find further details and ordering information by clicking on the name (or image) of the option above. Information about either of these solutions can be found on the Marketing Options page of your Publishing Center. Authors who published elsewhere can visit our Marketing Solutions page to get more information about any of the marketing options available to order.
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Is it time to get published and start receiving book marketing services like this?
How would you like your book to featured on this blog, on our Outskirts Press social networking channels, and even on our iPhone/iPad app? Wouldn’t it be even better if your book’s Amazon purchase information could be sent directly to our entire list of over 6,000 opted-in email subscribers – which includes both authors and readers from a variety of backgrounds?
Your book will receive it’s own permanent blog post here at http://blog.outskirtspress.com. We also send out an email blast with your book’s information and a link to purchase your book directly from Amazon.
There are only 52 weeks each year. Since only one author will be featured each week, only 52 authors can be featured in a year’s time. More specifically, there are only 7 more weeks before Christmas! Therefore, only 7 more authors will be featured during this critical time in the world of book promotion.
We schedule book features in order of payment received. This is a very limited promotional opportunity, so don’t wait!
Want to learn more about this new option?Ready to reserve your spot?
Free 2012 Book Marketing Calendar for our published authors
