Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors, Book Publicity through Social Networking [Paperback]

Steve Weber (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 1, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0977240614 | ISBN-13: 978-0977240616

• Get massive exposure for your book, no special computer skills needed -- trade published or self published, fiction or nonfiction.
• Discover why authors fail with paid advertising, pay-per-click, fee-based reviews, and "bestseller" campaigns.
• Blog to connect with readers, driving them to Amazon and bookstores.
• Boost your visibility with Google, ignite word-of-mouth with social networks for viral marketing.
• Capitalize on peer content and "amateur" book reviews.

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Praise for PLUG YOUR BOOK!

    "I don't care if you're writing a computer book, a science fiction novel or the next great self-help guide, you need to get your hands on a copy of Steve Weber's Plug Your Book! ... I highly recommend this one to every author out there."
-- Joe Wikert, executive publisher, John Wiley & Sons Inc., professional/trade division

"An amazingly rich collection of cutting-edge promotional tactics and strategies. Makes most other books about online publicity look sickly."
-- Aaron Shepard, author: Aiming at Amazon

"In-depth information about using Amazon as a marketing platform."
-- Christine McNeil Montano, Amazon Top Reviewer

"...I have launched online campaigns for more than 1,000 books. I've worked with most of America's largest book publishers, helping many of them build online marketing departments. The book you're holding now is the new training manual."
-- Steve O'Keefe, author: Publicity on the Internet

"Practical, pragmatic, low-cost ideas for promoting the heck out of your own book, whether it's fiction, nonfiction, technical, business or anything else."
-- Dave Taylor, author: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Growing Your Business with Google

"The first comprehensive guide to Internet book publicity."
-- Morris Rosenthal, publisher, Foner Books

"A wealth of ideas for making your book stand out, including many techniques for Internet buzz you won't find elsewhere."
-- Jane Corn, Amazon Top Reviewer

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CONTENTS:

Taking control of your book sales
One big caveat
How to use this book
Staying current

Electric word of mouth
Riding the big river
Amazon's 'long tail'
Getting recommended
Personalized bookstores

Amazon Bestseller Campaigns
Making the list
How Bestseller Campaigns work
... and this is success?
Haywired recommendations
Is it worth it?

Amateur book reviews
Credibility through peers
Getting more Amazon reviews
Amazon Top Reviewers
Contacting Top Reviewers
Etiquette in approaching reviewers
Finding more Amazon reviewers
More ways to get reviews

Building your author Web site
Getting involved
Your domain
Building blocks of your site
A survey of author Web sites
Your online press kit
Multimedia for books

Advanced Amazon tools
Buy X, Get Y
Weaknesses of BXGY
Free paired placement
Single New Product e-mails
Amazon Connect
Listmania

Google, Amazon, digital contentGoogle Book Search
Accidental book discovery
Instant Online Access
Ad-Supported Access
Google Print on Demand

Pay-per-click advertising
Google AdWords
Yahoo Search Marketing

Power tools
Amazon Sales Rank
TitleZ
Affiliate partnerships
Analyzing your traffic
Linking strategy
Search engine optimization
Keyword density
Length of your lease
Publishers Portal
Privacy policies
Web site cardinal sins

Selling on Amazon, beyond
Print on demand
Amazon Advantage
Amazon Marketplace
Catalog accuracy
Handling sales on your site
Google Checkout

Other major online retailers
Barnes & Noble
BookSense

Ethics of online marketing
Shill reviews
Spam

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

> Get massive exposure for your book, no special computer skills needed -- trade published or self published, fiction or nonfiction

> Discover why authors fail with paid advertising, pay-per-click, fee-based reviews, and "bestseller" campaigns

> Blog to connect with readers, driving them to Amazon and bookstores

> Boost your visibility with Google, use MySpace for viral marketing

> Ignite word of mouth with Web social networks

> Capitalize on peer content and "amateur" book reviews

Here's what the experts say about this book:

"A wealth of ideas for making your book stand out, including many techniques for Internet buzz you won't find elsewhere."

-- Jane Corn, Amazon.com Top Reviewer

"I spent two years building up skills to market my books Earthcore and Ancestor online, and I can tell you right now that Plug Your Book would have saved me MONTHS of time. I bought this book just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, but it blew me away."

-- Scott Sigler, # 1 bestselling author

"An amazingly rich collection of cutting-edge promotional tactics and strategies. Makes most other books about online publicity look sickly."

-- Aaron Shepard, author: Aiming at Amazon

"...The one book every author needs to read. I don't care if you're writing a computer book, a science fiction novel or the next great self-help guide, you need to get copy of Steve Weber's Plug Your Book!"

- Joe Wikert, executive publisher, John Wiley & Sons "Practical, pragmatic, low-cost ideas for promoting the heck out of your own book, whether it's fiction, nonfiction, technical, business or anything else."

-- Dave Taylor, author: 'Growing Your Business with Google'

"I've worked with most of America's largest book publishers, helping many of them build online marketing departments. I've worked for authors too. Plug Your Book is the new training manual."

-- Steve O'Keefe, author: 'Publicity on the Internet'

"...Plug Your Book reveals the most effective and least expensive tools to promote your titles and to increase your exposure. It's the best book on online marketing I have ever read, and I read quite a few in the course of my consulting practice with small presses."

-- Marion Gropen, president, Gropen Associates

Here's what's inside the book:

... Taking control of your book sales; Electric word of mouth; Amazon's `long tail;' Personalized bookstores; Book recommendation effectiveness

... Amazon Bestseller Campaigns; How Bestseller Campaigns work; Haywired recommendations

... Amateur book reviews; Credibility through peers; Amazon Top Reviewers; Negative reviews; Posting trade reviews on Amazon; Fee-based book reviews

... Building your author Web site; A survey of author Web sites; Your online press kit; Multimedia for books; Podcasting for publicity; When to launch your site

... Blogging for authors; Connecting with readers; Blog comments: pros and cons; Blogging categories; Over the long haul; Blog-to-e-mail service

... Social networking; MySpace: Not just for kids; Facebook; Create your own group; Other places on MySpace; More social-networking sites

... Tag - You're it!; Personal book tagging; Amazon tags; Amazon Media Library; LibraryThing; Tag-based marketing

... Advanced Amazon tools; Buy X, Get Y; Free paired placement; Single New Product e-mails; Amazon Connect; Listmania; So You'd Like to . . . guides; Search Inside the Book; Statistically Improbable Phrases; Writing book reviews; Amapedia; Customer discussions; BookSurge; Your Amazon profile

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Weber Books (February 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977240614
• ISBN-13: 978-0977240616
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (202 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #375,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > Education & Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Publishing & Books > Book Industry

More About the Author

Hey, thanks for visiting my page.

I'm Steve Weber, publisher of Kindle Buffet, which is a free website, newsletter, and app that displays Kindle books offered free during temporary promotions. I also have a book called "Kindle Buffet" (Guess what? It's free!). It's one of my several nonfiction tomes about bookselling and collecting, publishing, authorship, book marketing, and social media. You can check out all of my books right here on this page.

I'm from Charleston, West Virginia, and currently live in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

In college I studied Journalism -- BS, 1987, West Virginia University (Let's Goooo, Mountaineers!) I was pretty green back then, and I figured a career in newspapers was just the ticket for a guy such as myself who enjoyed writing but had no ideas of his own.

After working several years as a reporter and editor, I started a home-based business selling used and collectible books online (mainly on Amazon). Five years later, I wrote my first book based on that experience: "The Home-Based Bookstore." It's a short book but it took me a long time to write it. I'd never written anything longer than 25 paragraphs or so, and had never used an outline since grade school. I still don't know how to use one. Maybe that's why it takes me so long to write, and all my books read like an upside-down pyramid ;-)

Recently I've been fascinated with publishing my books on the Kindle, and all the other great books available. I'm especially keen on checking out each day's free Kindle books, of course. They're irresistable, like candy or free beer. Or, as one Kindle Buffet reader put it, "They're like potato chips. Nobody can download just one."

I started Kindle Buffet in the summer of 2012, and it draws on my experiences in book-picking, interviewing, writing and publishing. I feel like I have a knack for recognizing what other people might want to read, and talking them into doing it. I figured it would take just 20 minutes a day to update the site and, for a while, it did. Just as with everything else I do, it ended up taking about 25 times longer than I'd figured. So these days I've got about 20 minutes left in my day after I've finished with Kindle Buffet.

A lot of people ask me how I manage to do it all. "Steve," they say, "how can you possibly read 60, 70, 80 books a day, seven days a week?"

My reply is always the same: "Doesn't everybody? I mean, c'mon, they're FREE! There's no excuse not to!"

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 87 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Outdated with a Focus on Amazon August 14, 2009

By C. Jackson

Format:Paperback

I was excited to get this book since I wanted new ways to "plug" my book. Currently I have an ebook and the subtitle of "Online Book Marketing for Authors" got me to take a look at Weber's book.

The copyright date is 2007 and since then a lot has changed. In fact he has a section on social marketing. It is all about MySpace. There is no mention of Facebook. To Steve's credit he has set up a site (blog) with updates and there he does have posts about Facebook and social marketing. This book, however needs an updated edition.

This isn't necessarily a bad book if you want to focus on marketing your book through Amazon, which is what most of the book is focused on. If that's your goal then this is a good book to get. The writing and layout of the book is good and makes it easy to read.

Bottom line is that the subtitle should be "Online Book Marketing Through Amazon and MySpace", and it is in need of a serious update/revision.

78 of 86 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The hard part of writing a book March 18, 2007

By wiredweird HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

One rule of thumb among independent consultants is that they should spend about half their time not just doing the job they do, but schmoozing and hustling the next job. Weber proposes something similar for writers. The craft of writing the book itself is dealt with elsewhere, at length. Weber deals with writing about your book, and about all the other hustling that it takes to get people to pick it up in the first place. He identifies two big parts to this job: selling the book, and selling the writer.

An unknown writer is in the odd position of proving he has something to say before anyone will listen. A solid third of the book, plus a pervasive atmosphere throughout the rest, talks about creating an internet presence: blogging, social networking, and generally putting yourself where your potential customers will see you. If you want their eyes on your writing, you have to put a lot of it out there, with new content all the time to keep them coming back. (The motto of the internet may be "Yeah, but what about lately?") Building a following takes time, maybe years, and the day the book hits the streets is way too late. The ongoing effort may seem daunting. If you're really a writer, though, you would have been writing anyway. Weber's advice is about putting it where it will do the most good.

Then when your book is on the electronic shelves of the internet booksellers, a whole new job begins. (A new writer's share of brick'n'mortar shelf space is just about zero - your choices are the internet or the trunk of your car.) Weber discusses dozens of techniques for directing buyers to your book, centered largely on Amazon. He discusses lists, links, tags, and especially reader reviews like this one.... Positive reader reviews may be the biggest thing that sells a reader, once they've found your book's page. Free review copies, like the one I'm reviewing, are one great way to get the first few reviews written.

Weber is well aware of the line between intense promotion and unethical shilling, including embarrassing cases where writers were outed as authors of glowing reviews for their own books. There are cases, though, where the line is subjective - the difference between eagerness and aggressiveness is sometimes in the eye of the beholder.

There are reams of useful tips here. One interested me in particular: writing your book so as to make the most of the internet sales venue. When I first opened this book, its dense and detailed table of contents took me by surprise - it lists two or three entries for some individual pages. That made sense after Weber pointed out that booksellers sometimes display the TOC or index on the product page. A detailed TOC or index lets the author make as much use as possible of this feature. Well, it's a new kind of world out there. Weber offers a useful guide to navigating your book through it.

//wiredweird, reviewing a complimentary copy Read more ›

58 of 66 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Author's Marketing How-To March 16, 2007

By Patrick Shepherd VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

You've got your novel all written, proofread, and have even found someone to read it and give a good critique of it, and his suggestions were all carefully considered and where appropriate implemented. Now what?

For most new authors, what's next is an excruciating travail of trying to find someone interested in actually publishing it. The process can take years. But then you find a small publisher willing to take a flyer on your book, and you finally hold an actual printed copy in your hands. Your job as the author is done now, right? Surely your publisher will do everything possible to make this book sell, and sell...

Well, maybe. More likely is that their `marketing' department will only put out a few announcements, try and set up a few speaking/book signing events for you, and have it on the shelves for a few months only. If you really want to make your book sell, you need to do something about it yourself. How?

Read this book. Follow its suggestions. Doing so is not a small amount of work, but you've already invested a huge amount of effort in writing your book, so a little additional effort is probably more than justified.

This book has as its main focus spreading the word about your book through various on-line sites and tools. Weber makes the telling point that the network is your friend, that one mention at one place leads to another connection at another site - and readers of these sites, seeing your book mentioned more than once, are far more likely to buy your book.

The main tool he recommends is this site. For better or worse, Amazon is the 800 lb gorilla of on-line book marketing. Weber details many, many features of this site that can help you sell your book and precisely how you can take advantage of them.... Prime is garnering reviews of your book, and Weber does an excellent job of explaining which reviewers to contact and how to get those reviews without coming across as a spammer. To some degree, this review feels a little incestuous, as I'm one of the resources he lists as useful. He also explains the various `tie-in' tools available to authors and publishers, the Amazon sales ranking system, the benefits and downsides of contracting to get your book pushed up in the Amazon rank system, linking possibilities, and what to do about reviews that appear that you might consider inappropriate or factually in error, along with many other things.

Other, more traditional methods of promoting your book, and other on-line retailers are not ignored, but they receive a much less detailed delineation, along with comments about how hard most of these methods are for an individual author to actually use.

The second main tool he recommends is the blog/web site. Once again, the main idea is to get your book noticed by those who care about your subject matter. He details where and how to set up a blog, and gives solid recommendations about what content it should contain, from press-release type material to audio/visual author interviews (and also gives some pretty good estimates of the cost factors of producing such materials). Google page-ranking, click-ads, and other such items relating to how easily searches for your book's subject material will actually return your book's title are also covered.

Third is something he identifies as `social networking' on places like MySpace. Once again, he offers very specific suggestions on how to go about this without irritating those you are communicating with, a highly important point on today's net where anything even remotely looking like spam is going to be immediately ignored.

Now the real question is, do Weber's recommended actions actually work? The answer to this is a qualified `yes': in general, it won't make your book a best-seller, but can get it into the mid-list sales numbers, assuming your book is of general interest and is well written - a point Weber emphasizes, as no amount of marketing will help a bad book. Weber gives several examples of authors who have been successful in this manner, and I know from tracking a couple of authors that I like that things like a well-written blog and good reviews can do a lot to get a book noticed and bought.

Throughout this book, Weber gives specific web addresses, contact information, and setup instructions. As such things can change with lightning speed on the web, he also maintains a on-line site that has updates to such information.

About the only thing missing from this was an overall estimate of just how much effort doing all the things he recommends would take. While this is certainly not a minor number, it's also true that few people would actually try and do everything specified here. A person planning on trying his suggestions should carefully read this once, then go back a second time and determine which particular portions of it are both applicable to his book and are something he thinks he can actually do.

In all, a very solid, practical book that should be of great value, especially to new or lesser-known writers.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat) Read more ›

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great checklist; what did you, the author FORGET to do? June 16, 2007

By Joanna Daneman #1 HALL OF FAMETOP 10 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

While not exhaustive,this book is a GREAT checklist of things to do to promote your book. Yes, the publisher promised. No, you have to do stuff yourself. Did you forget MySpace? A blog? This book has ideas you may have forgotten, or at least it serves as a gentle reminder and organizer. Recommended.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for nonfiction authors, consultants, and coaches who want to learn how to better utilize the Net to promote their books. March 11, 2007

By Jeff Lippincott VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I really liked this book a lot. It was jam packed with content and great information. I've been using the Amazon site for a little over a year now to help me with my SCORE counseling. And I've written a number of book reviews on books I recommend during my SCORE counseling. As a result, I have become quite familiar with the inner workings of the Amazon site. In my humble opinion, this book does a great job of demystifying Amazon so an author, consultant, or coach can use the site to maximize exposure for their book or publications. The marketing system this book includes will work well for nonfiction writings. Fiction writers probably won't get much benefit from this book, but maybe authors of children's books could benefit?

The book includes material on the following six topics:

1. Amazon Online Retailer

2. Other Major Online Retailers

3. Ethics of Online Marketing

4. Web Sites

5. Blogs (A Special Kind of Web Site)

6. Networking Online

Topics 1 and 4 through 6 were covered in some depth as follows:

Amazon Online Retailer

>>Amazon Bestseller Campaigns

>>Google, Amazon, Digital Content

>>Selling on Amazon, Beyond

>>Amateur Book Reviews

>>Tag - You're It!...

>>Advanced Amazon Tools

Web Sites

>>Building Your Author Web Site

>>Book Promotion with e-Books

>>Pay Per Click Advertising

>>Revenue from Your Web Site

>>Power Tools

Blogs (A Special Kind of Web Site)

>>Blogging for Authors

>>Author Blog Platforms Up Close

>>Blog Tours

>>Syndicating Your Content

Networking Online

>>Beyond the Blogosphere

>>Electric Word of Mouth

>>Social Networking

>>Social Search

My favorite topic covered was Amazon Online Retailer. That topic definitely dominates the text. The topics on Web sites didn't do a whole lot for me since I'm pretty well versed on that subject. Recently I have read a few books on blogging, and the coverage on that topic was good. And I enjoyed reading what the author had to say about Networking Online (NO). I may want to try some of the suggestions on NO to help market a business I'm starting?

Although I gave this book a "5 star" rating, I came very close to giving it just 4 stars. The outline of a book and its flow are VERY important to me. The topics I list above were the chapter titles in the book. But they are not organized here the way they were in the book. Thus, the book did not really flow for me. Just the same... 5 stars! Read more ›