Book Reviews – Can Self-Published Authors Get Them?

Can self-published authors get reviewers to seriously consider their work like their traditionally published author cousins? Getting a book reviewed is an important step for marketing your book, especially for a first time author.

Getting a book reviewed is not as difficult as it might seem if you are creative in how you approach the project. There are some reviewers who will never accept an unsolicited or self-published book to review. Big fat hairy deal! Remember, Chicken Soup for the Soul was once a self-published book that is now multi-million dollar best seller. If you are diligent in your search you will find there are many non-traditional reviewers out there just waiting for a copy of your book.

One of the easiest ways to find who is doing reviews is to go out and conduct an internet research on your genre and book reviewers. For example, if you are a romance writer whose latest book is historically based consider research parameters like: “book reviews” and “historical romance”. It make take a few tries to get the correct combination but you should be able to locate a credible reviewer who would love to read your book.

Keep an open mind and an open eye for potential reviewers. Book reviews are an incredibly visible passive marketing tool that is inexpensive (cost of a book and postage) and often pays off with high sales dividends. 

Writing a Book – Formulating a Strategy to Write a Market Ready Best Seller

How do you know that the book you want to write has a market? Do you plan to just write and see what happens? Some books were made to be written to satisfy our souls, others are written to be marketed in such a way that they support other work we are doing. So how do you create a strategy for your book?

• Define your goals
• Identify your target audience
• Explore and thoroughly research your topic/background
• Write with clarity of purpose
• Carefully and brutally edit

While your book is with an editor begin formulating your softsell marketing efforts:

• Create a blog or forum on your book’s topic and begin creating a ready made audience
• Write articles about your book’s topics and post them in article directories
• Pre-write press releases for your book’s launch
• Begin direct marketing efforts for your pre-sales
• Generate a mailing list to support an E-Newsletter for your potential audience

Effective marketing tactics begin with the crafting of the content. Create a winning strategy and you will have a best seller on your hands.

Why Authors Should Write Articles for Article Directories

Niche marketing is the current catch phrase for audience building.  Why do you want to submit articles to article directories about your niche (your book)? The simple answer is to create back links to your book sales sites or to your author promotion page.

Article writing is a great way to promote your site and your book in a most cost effective way.  Sharing your knowledge and your expertise makes you recognized and trusted by new and ever growing audiences. If readers are impressed with what you have to say they will follow your backlinks to your site and join your community.

Not only does article writing increase your audience it also pushes you up in search engine rankings. Through careful research and consideration you can find directories that are appropriate for your writing and that mesh well with your needs. Avoid the “get rich quick” sites and the one that do not require author registration or provide no readership/viewing metrics.

A well written article will keep your readers coming back for more. Provide them with material that they will want to read and then share with others. You want your readers to feel so good about what you are doing that they recommend your site to others.  As more people begin to know you and you become a recognized author in the field you will gain their trust and their buying dollars.  Article submissions are a great author marketing tool for book promotion.

Promote Your Book with Internet Article Writing

Have you ever thought of using internet article writing as a way to promote your book? Online article writing is a great way to create more traffic back to your website to promote your book.  While you can not submit articles to reputable article directories if you include a hard sell message, you can leave a link that backtracks to your book site.

The more times your name appears on the web (in a positive manner!) the more times the little SEO spiders will pick up your name and associate it with your book. How do you get that all important backlink in your article without being too obvious or brazen?

Most sites have what are called ‘give’ and ‘take’ boxes for information. The ‘give’ box is where the content of your well written informative article is posted. Your ‘take’ box is where you craft a highly informative paragraph or two (at most) about you and your book. This is where you embed the links to your website, your blog, or your forum on your book.

If you have a well written article that is related to the topic of your book, websites and ezine directories will happily include a link back to where your book is sold. Make sure your article content is useful, relevant, and original and you can’t go wrong.

Promoting your book through internet articles is not only cheap (free except for the cost of your writing time) but is highly profitable in terms of the traffic it generates back to your book. Put your writing skills to work for you to promote your book. It can pay off big in the end!

On-line Press Kits, Media Kits and Public Relations for Your Book

As an author of a recently or not so recently birthed book, you need a press kit to market you and your book. Your website needs to host a PR page that is easy to access and full of rich information. Here are the basic items your press kit should contain on your website:

• Press Release File – a page that lists links to either the actual page on the publisher’s site or a link to a pdf housed on your site of the actual clipping or press release.
• Author Bio – This page should have two versions of your bio. One should be highly detailed and in-depth. The other should be short, 1-2 paragraphs, and easy to read as a “sound bite”.
• Fact Sheet – Title, publisher, price, ISBN, page count, publication date, etc.
• Interview Questions – 12-15 sample questions for an interviewer to use
• Graphics page – jpg and gif version attachments of your book cover and your professional head shot
• Schedule – list of up-coming appearances, book signings, and events
• Sell Sheet – down loadable and faxable version of your book’s features and benefits
• Sample Book Excerpt – pdf copy of a part of a core chapter of your book

This on-line version can not take the place of sending out review copies of your book to media sources. It does give potential audiences a good source of information on you, your book, and an incite into your personal message.

Plagiarism…The Complicated Path to Writing

Many people plagiarize the work of others out of ignorance of the process of appropriate citation and attribution.  This is totally unintentional with no attempt at cheating or deception. 

•  They forget to write down the source, forget the quotation marks, or paraphrase the work.
•  They assume (wrongly) that this is “what you do when you write a paper.”

A good general practice is to recognize that if one writes three words in a row from a source it must be quoted and cited. Many writers feel that the use of quotation marks is indicative of academic attribution.  Quotes should only serve to support or illustrate the writers point and not make the point for the reader.

Another source of consternation is the internet itself. Touted as the information highway cruising through the public domain, this ubiquitous resource is the bane of educators everywhere.  How does a writer determine what is public domain, what is copyrighted, and what is common knowledge? Web addresses are like a moving target. Urls change, style guides are inconsistent in citation documentation, and the web is advertised as “the public domain.”  

With patience, writers can learn how to avoid the pitfalls of plagiarism.

Creating Time to Write

Making time to write is really difficult in our intrusive modern world. The siren song of email beckons us to respond to its ‘in your face’ immediacy. Blackberries chirp and ding in public places like a chorus of obnoxious magpies in discordant harmony. Telephone, email, and people clamor for my attention all day long. If only I could find some peaceful downtime I might be able to make time to write.

The easiest way to create more time for writing is merely a function of the earliest technological breakthrough of the Industrial Revolution: The ON-OFF switch.So simple but so hard to use… but you owe it to yourself to develop the discipline to disconnect and start writing. Turn off the phone, turn off the email, turn off the instant messenger, and make the time to write.

• Your time is incredibly valuable
• Commit in writing to write
• Put your writing schedule in your calendar…in ink!
• Get organized before sitting down to write – time spent researching is not writing time

You have to schedule down-time for writing much like you schedule time at the gym and doctor appointments. Let people who matter know that you are not available at that time daily. Block out at least 90-120 minutes per day to dedicate to your writing craft.

Make a contract with yourself to write X hours per week or X number of pages per week. Create a viable plan that produces a measurable output. Start small and build more goals for time and output as you become more disciplined in your writing schedule.

Get a wall calendar and a day planner and schedule time for your writing. You and your writing are important. Make the time to write articles, blog entries, or your next chapter.

Writing with discipline and purpose can be hard at first but over time it becomes an ingrained personal routine. But beware! Writing regularly can become as addictive as email, IM, and texting. 

Writing the Introduction – How to Hook Your Audience and Keep them Reading

Can you write and opening that hooks the reader and keep them coming back for more? Sure you can!

Make your opening an introduction that hooks the reader with the content and makes then want to stay.

• Begin with a question or a challenge to your reader.
• Follow this with a good thesis statement that identifies the objective of the work, makes a point with making, provides structure for the complete work and is easy to identify.
• The remainder of the work should be filled with stories and solutions that the reader can connect to as they continue to read.
• Make sure that all of the remaining sections of the work are compelling, well organized and easily read.

In order to draw your reader in you have to cast out your hook with bait that makes them bite…then you reel them in with the rest of your “story.”

Blogs – Publish or Perish

Publicizing your blog is not as hard as you might think. Compelling content is not enough to create a dedicated large following. It takes a little work and exposure on other sites and blogs to build your readership.

 You can self-promote to other blogs by writing a brief post on other blogs that have a similar topic. Send a brief introduction of yourself to 2-3 bloggers who you would like to trade links.

Another way to publicize your blog is to ping major weblog tracking sites. Once you are blogging regularly and have a month’s worth of entries submit your blog to a blog directory and to weblog tracking sites.

You have to include your permanent main blog URL to these directories. If you don’t you may point them to a URL for an old entry and not anchor the complete blog site. Don’t overlook listing your blog with social bookmarking sites:

•         Digg.com
•         StumbleUpon
•         Reddit
•         Del.icio.us 

Writing for Your Audience

Have you ever read an introduction or summary of a book or article and wondered, what the heck did the author just say? There is plenty of bad writing out there. There is even a Best of Bad Writing contest held every year. You don’t want to enter that contest and add to the collection!  

In a nutshell, l bad writing happens when the writer forgets or ignores the audience. Bad writing comes across to the reader similar to an ill-mannered guest. The rude guest is the one who stays too long, tells big lies, talks only about themselves and sucks the air out of the room.  

As you prepare to write think about what the audience wants to hear and then say it in language they can understand. The ever-famous example of verbosity from “The Dilbert Principle” from Scott Adams says it all: 

“I utilized a multi-tined tool to process a starch resource.” 

TRANSLATION: “I used my fork to eat a potato.”  

Make sure your writing has a strong purpose. Bad writing is either directionless or has too many paths to follow. The best rule of thumb is to pretend that you are at the local coffee shop with your friends and telling them your message.  If you were to discuss one’s uniqueness and said this as all were enjoying a latte and a muffin: 

“The geometric point in the center of the sphere is nature’s symbol of the immeasurable uniqueness within its measurable effect. A center is always unique; otherwise it would not be a center.”   

Would your friends still listen to you afterwards or would they move their chairs as far from you as possible? Would they still include you in their circle of friends or would they tell you that you were “full of yourself”?   

Write to be read. Good writing shows the reader you know what you are talking about and lets them concentrate on what you actually have to say.