How do I get internet sales exposure for upcoming book (help).

The best advice I can give you is to check out the self-publishing forum on here, and ask any questions you have. Many members in that area have vast experience self-publishing and could possibly point you in the right direction(s).

Is this an ebook, POD or offset?
What is the genre and target readership?

I'm going to port this to the self-publishing forum for a wider audience.

Happy Writing, Marguerite

yellowpepper321 said:

. . . My publishing company . . . .

Click to expand...

Who? Might affect the answers. (I am assuming you do not mean your own independent publishing business, owning its own ISBNs, with its own business location, etc., but rather a company that provided publishing services -- a Tate or Trafford or whatever; please correct me if I am wrong.)

--Ken

Also, are you willing to send out review copies to bloggers? Hosting a virtual tour might be something that might get you some exposure with little work. Bloggers are on a variety of different networks and can be picked up by search engines.

Quick thoughts:

1 - make sure the book is edited. If it contains the same sort of mistakes as this post, you're in trouble.

2 - you said "self-published", but then said you used a company. Do you mean a printer or a vanity press? What company did you use? Because depending on the press' reputation and their level of effort, that will affect how easily people get your book.

3 - Yahoo isn't a site or a book seller. Ditto Google.

4 - Do you realize how expensive a self-pubbed hardback is going to be?

5 - My Space is sort of old news. Youtube is good for trailers, but if no one knows the trailer exists, then how do you expect them to know to watch it? Do you at least have blog? If not, start one and update it often.


ALL self-pubbed authors have to deal with the difficulty of getting anyone to realize their book exists, much less to want to buy it. You're throwing your book into a HUGE slushpile with hundreds of thousands of competing titles who are all trying to do the same thing you're doing. You have to find a way to stand out. Even if your book is good, that's no guarantee it will sell.

You don't need global exposure. You're an American writer who's written an English-language book. That's enough for now, and will probably be enough for all time.

If your book is up on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and available through Ingram, you have the bases covered. You're not going to be shelved in bookstores, but I suspect that's inherent in your publishing model.

Don't try to get your book onto Google. It will get there on its own.

You don't understand what Yahoo is or how it works. Don't feel bad; Yahoo's management doesn't understand it either.

The first thing you should do, before you start messing with any of these sites, is to read up on spam: what it is, how it works, and why everyone hates it. Learning about it will help you avoid inadvertent spamming.

Don't even think about doing foreign language editions. Even a mediocre translation, into just one other language, would cost you thousands of dollars.

There's a huge amount of misinformation online about book promotion. If you weren't already on AW, this is where I'd send you for more reliable information.

Good luck.

Somehow, I am guessing that the publisher is PublishAmerica. If so, I'd recommend (albeit it comes too late) that the original poster read the PA threads here.

--Ken

I am waiting for signs that the author is coming back to this thread....

If the OP does ever return, do some searches on here for the following.

Twitter
Goodreads
Facebook
Blog Tours

It would also be worth getting a blog of your own under your author name. Maybe your own website too. Just trawl through the promotion and self-pub forums. There's loads of resources and info to read through.

I've been lurking around this thread also hoping for any advice I can get.

So far, my self-published ebook's out there on Kindle and I'm looking to try to e-market it. It seems like a great deal of e-marketing is to keep networking online (not my strong suit, sadly). I've also advertised on goodreads (which I'm quickly learning wasn't the best way to proceed with that site) and Facebook.

Are blog tours a possible next step?

Just looking for ways to try to reach a reader base, specifically for fantasy and post-apocalyptic ebooks. At present, no one knows my book exists, a sizable problem.

Writer'sNotes - the advice from the brighter lights in self-pub (of which I am DEFINITELY not one) comes down to "write another book."

That's the thing that the successful ones have in common, not marketing. It (each new book) increases your footprint, it improves the odds of people finding you, it widens the options for Amazon's marvelous cross-referencing system ("people who bought X also bought Y" - what you're hoping for is a situation where X is crazy popular and you are Y), and it shows people you're serious.

I've been lurking and reading at a lot of self-pub sites and threads, and there is no other pattern. I see people killing themselves with social networking, writing thousands of words that could otherwise have been fiction, and not doing a hell of a lot better (if at all) than people who do nothing.

Okay, that said, the self-pubbed thing I have up is starting to move, and I haven't done "nothing." Here's what I did:

- Got reviews. My pitch letter makes it clear I paid for professional editing. No one wants to review some asshat's first draft, which is what most self-published stuff is. You gotta get past that with reviewers, and you need reviews that weren't written by your friends and loved ones. ETA: If you didn't pay for editing, include a sample cut and pasted below your sig and show 'em it's good.

- I asked reviewers to cross post, if they didn't already, to Goodreads and Amazon, not just their own sites. So far I've only got one review each on GR, Am, and AM.uk, but it's made a big difference for sales. As in, now I have some. The cross posting also jacked up the Google results for me and the book.

- I didn't send review requests all at once. When a whole horde of reviews hits Amazon at once, I think it looks fake/scares people off. So I'm just sending one request every couple of days. There is never any need to hurry - the book will not go bad

- I tagged my stuff with keywords, not just in the DTP area, but out on the public facing book page. I also got my husband to tag, and I asked readers to tag. The tags seem to really, really matter w/r/t Amazon's cross referencing.

Writer'sNotes said:

I've been lurking around this thread also hoping for any advice I can get.. . . .

Click to expand...

Consider checking out Stephanie Chandler's book on Internet/Web promotion for authors. Publisher renamed her book to something I can never remember, but you'll see it on her page.

--Ken

I finally wised up to the HUGE market for my stuff that I've been ignoring - military personnel, active and retired plus the entire retired community.
So, I've spent days searching for appropriate blogs to follow and join plus similar discussion forums.
We'll see how that works out.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try putting it to use and see how it goes. Thanks again.

KathleenD said:

When a whole horde of reviews hits Amazon at once, I think it looks fake/scares people off.

Click to expand...

There was a PA book which had about a hundred reviews on B&N's website, which made me curious. But they were posted more or less together (one review per day, in a regular lockstep pattern), and they all said much the same thing ("this book would make a great film", etc).

Cyia said:

Quick thoughts:

1 - make sure the book is edited. If it contains the same sort of mistakes as this post, you're in trouble.

Click to expand...

I second this. It is disturbing to note that the post was edited for mistakes and corrections, yet is still full of errors. It's nice to have confidence, but the impression one gets from this post is that the writer may have unrealistic expectations for their manuscript. I hope I am wrong.