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"10 Ways to Use the Internet to Support Your Book"
by Roger C. Parker
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A great deal of your book's success depends on your ability to
promote it yourself. Publishers are likely to be too busy to be
able to devote sufficient resources to your book's promotion.
But help is at hand. If you've written a book, you can easily and
inexpensively use e-mail and your web site to promote it. Here
are 10 proven ways you can successfully promote your book on
the Internet.
1. Create a separate web site for your book
Books tend to get "lost" when grafted onto existing web sites.
For best results, create a web site specifically intended to
promote and support your book. This permits you to focus all of
the site's resources on promoting your book and leveraging off
of its success.
Choose a web site address based on your book's title, rather
than your name. If you have done a good job of choosing your
title, your title will be easier to remember than your name. You
can easily cross-link your existing web site to your book's
highly-focused web site.
2. Distribute sample chapters
One of the best ways you can promote your book is by allowing
readers to download a table of contents plus one, or more,
sample chapters from your web site. Sample chapters "tease"
readers into wanting more. To the extent that your sample
chapter communicates competence and easy reading style, readers
will be motivated to buy your book.
Remember that uncertainty is the biggest obstacle you must
overcome when making a sale to a stranger. In a bookstore,
prospective buyers can thumb through your book. Online, readers
can't thumb-through your book, so they must depend on sample
chapters. Use a desktop publishing software program to format
your sample chapters for easy reading. Use Adobe Acrobat to
create PDF files that will be sent to readers as e-mail
attachments.
3. Build your web site address into your book
When writing your book, include as many reasons as possible for
visitors to visit your web site. Success requires more than
simply listing your web site address in your biography or on the
last page of the book.
Give readers valid reasons to visit your web site. Offer
downloadable versions of reader engagement tools like checklists
and worksheets. Promise updated content and new information,
such as ideas and topics that occurred to you after you
completed your book. If your book is in black and white, but
includes photographs or charts, post color versions of the
visuals on your web site.
Don't view your web site as a strictly promotional tool.
Instead, view it as a "service" or resource intended to help
readers make the most of your book.
4. Encourage reader comments and questions
Use your web site to create an interactive relationship with
your readers. Solicit their comments and questions. Offer a
prize for the best question of the month and answer the question
on your web site's home page. Respond to reader e-mail as
quickly as possible. If their comments are critical, create a
dialog and try to understand the criticism from your reader's
point of view. You'll likely gain new information and ideas that
you would otherwise never encounter.
5. Include testimonials and reader reviews
Whenever a reader writes a particularly favorable comment,
immediately ask them for permission to quote the comment and
either their name, or their initials and their city. Many
readers will welcome the opportunity to share their enthusiasm
for your book with others. Most people like seeing their words
and their names in print.
6. Offer media resources
Create a "press room" where members of the media can download
files containing scanned images of you as well as the front
cover of your book. Scanned images which can be immediately
downloaded make your book more attractive to reviewers and other
writers.
Include a "backgrounder" describing you and your firm's
background as well as your personal side. Include information
that emphasizes the timeliness of your book and its importance
to your readers. Provide answers to frequently asked questions.
7. Offer products and services based on your book
E-mail and your web site permit you to offer readers personalized
assistance that offers opportunities for on-going relationships.
These relationships represent win-win situations for both of
you. Readers get access to your knowledge and expertise, while
you get to develop additional sources of profit. Opportunities
include telecoaching -- where you offer one-to-one assistance
based on weekly one-on-one telephone calls.
You could also develop four, eight of 12-week training
programs based on your book delivered via e-mail and weekly
telephone calls. Ech week, participants call a single number,
called a "bridge," and discuss the reading and assignments which
you sent out as e-mail attachments. A list serve permits
participants in a telecourse to send e-mail to all other
participants, exchanging ideas and promoting a sense of
community.
You can also use the web to serve your readers by developing
e-books, short electronic books, that you sell directly from
your web site. These can consist of in-depth treatment of
specialized topics that are appropriate for book-length
treatment.
8. Use Premium Content to obtain reader e-mail addresses
Premium Content is limited-distribution, high-octane information
that you send readers in exchange for providing their e-mail
address and permission to contact them again in the future.
Examples of Premium Content include articles that focus on
particular problems that have been brought to your attention
since your book appeared or in-depth treatment of topics too
specialized to be included in your book. Premium Content can
also consist of your "reflections" on your book in the light of
current economic and social trends.
9. Publish an e-mail newsletter
You can do your readers a favor, as well as maintain your
awareness and pre-sell your next book, by publishing an e-mail
newsletter. Make your e-mail newsletter as genuinely helpful as
possible. Instead of a long, infrequently-published newsletter,
offer a short nuggets of information that appear at a regular
basis. Readers are busy and will respond favorably to concise,
easily-digested information.
When soliciting reader e-mail addresses, always include your
privacy statement, which should state that you will never rent,
sell or share your readers' e-mail addresses. And make sure
you live up to your promise!
10. Promote your book's URL in your e-mail signature
Give your e-mail recipients a reason to visit your book's web
site. Don't just list its address, but provide an incentive for
them to visit. Arouse their curiosity or offer them a valuable
information premium they can download when they visit. This is
especially true when you participate in online discussion groups
or contribute a comment to an article that invites reader
response.
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Roger C. Parker is the author of more than 30 books that have
generated more than $32,000,000 in sales -- and have been
translated into 37 languages. We recommend his new book, "How
to Profit from the Author Inside You."
Click here for immediate access:
The step-by-step guide
that tells you how you can easily publish a
book, and multiply your profits.
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