ARC's and Galleys a How to Guide

While I generally enjoy working with Michael's publisher the one disappointment I have is their lack of utilizing ARC's and Galleys. While unconventional, my plan is to take this on myself and for Michael's third book: Nyphron Rising. The mere fact that I'm willing to do this "on my own" as it were should be a testament to their importance.

WHAT IS AN ARC AND GALLEY?
A galley looks like and is the same size as the final book but has a plain cover. The cover may be white or colored. If you are using a colored cover, be sure the black printing is easy to see on it. (Red or dark colors are not a good idea. Use white, yellow, buff, light blue). The cover doesn’t indicate what the final book will look like instead it contains important information about the book to help the reviewer (genre, page count, release date, etc - more on this momentarily).

ARC stands for "Advanced Reading Copy" it looks almost identical to the finished book (i.e. full color cover etc) except that the first page of the book has all the information that would normally be found on the galley cover.

In both cases the book is usually "still in editing" and the reviewers are aware that there will be mistakes and typos here and there. That's not to say that you can put out complete trash - after all you want to garner a good review, but they do realize that there is still some work to do on the book.

WHY DO I NEED THEM
The ARC/Galley has really one purpose only - to get your book reviewed before publication. All of the major reviewers: BookList, Foreword, Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus, etc have zero interest in hearing about your book on release date. They need that information 5 - 6 months so they have time to review and print their opinions. If you send them a "completed" book they won't bother - they really need the additional information that only an ARC or Galley can provide.

INFORMATION TO INCLUDE
Whether the galley cover or first page of the ARC, the information to provide is the same. The format is very straightforward - don't make it pretty - just make it easy to see the facts. The Front (or first page in the case of ARC should include:

• Name of book
• Author name
• Category (e.g. Fiction—Mystery; Nonfiction—Memoir)
• Size specifications (e.g. Trade paperback 6 x 9, # pages)
• Price
• ISBN
• Publisher (name/mailing address/website address)
• Primary Contact
• First print run (number of copies)
• Promotional plan
• Promotional budget
• Available from
• Statement: “Uncorrected Proof—Not for Sale” (Make this bold and easily seen)

A few of the above need further attention:

• First print run: many large pre-pub reviewers will only review books of 5000+ copies on the first run.
• Promotional plan: (i.e. direct mailings, book tours, bookstore displays, book release party, etc.) The competition for reviews is fierce and those with a more comprehensive looking plan will get more attention than those without one.
• Promotional budget: again this helps to make them decide whether to "spend the ink" on reviewing your book. If you have little or no budget just omit this line
• Available from: (i.e. a distributor such as Baker & Taylor or Ingram)
• Primary Contact (publicist, consultant, author—name, address, email address)

The back cover should have:

• Blurb (The hook—same as on the book)
• Author Bio

The spine should have:Name of book Name of author Publisher

SUPPORTING MATERIAL
When sending a copy for review you should put your absolute best foot forward. Again the competition is tough (Foreword Magazine receives 3,000 books for review for each issue and publishes only 85 reviews!) Your "packet" should contain a media folder, press releases, author bio, book data sheet at a minimum. That being said it is common for these materials to get separated from the book itself so make sure ALL the important data is on the Galley or ARC information page.

HOW TO GET ONE
There are many organizations online that provide Galleys...But they are costly ($40 - $60 a piece). The good news is that POD is again your friend - use CreateSpace or LightningSource (see multiple posts on this forum about them) and get them done for $4 - $5.

WRAPPING IT ALL UP
A positive review by a major publication is HUGE for authors, especially new and starting out authors. To use this medium effectively takes a dedication to prior planning to ensure you have something readily available 4 - 6 months before the release date.

Maximizing Your Exposure on Amazon

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to get this post out - Todd was kind enough to offer to be a guest blogger for me and I just haven't had the cycles to post it.

Anyway, Todd Fonseca has a blog that I found so useful I added it to my Useful websites links "see the right panel". It is called Tag My Book on Amazon and while I did a little intro on Tagging on this blog - he is the real expert on the subject. So without further delay. Here is Todd's guest blog on tagging.

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Did you know there is a free way to have your book featured on some of the most heavily visited sites on Amazon? Sound too good to be true? It’s not, and you’re about to find out how easy it is.

Amazon’s customer communities are massively visited pages. For example, with the success of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books, the “Vampire” customer community on Amazon is huge-over 12,000 customers, 80 discussion threads, and almost 5000 products listed! As you would expect, the top listed books on this community page are Meyer’s novels. But it might surprise you that it is not sales that put Meyer’s books in the top spot. Rather, it is the number of times these books were tagged with the word “Vampire”.

Tags are the only factor that define placement on customer community pages.

What does this mean? If you had your book tagged more often than Meyer’s, your book would be #1 in this community!

The issue – you’d need a lot of “Vampire” tags. Also, each Amazon customer can only tag a word once for a particular book. This means, you would need a lot of friends to tag your book to get to the top spot.

The answer – joining a “tag team”. A “tag team” is a group of authors who work together to tag each others’ books to help them achieve the top spot in their chosen customer communities. “Tag My Book on Amazon” is a blog which currently has approximately 200 authors that are all working together to tag each others’ books. Most of these authors are close to or are already at the top spot in their customer communities.

For more information on tagging, how to tag, how to choose the best tags, read reviews of “tag team” books, and achieve maximum exposure on Amazon, join us at:

http://tagmybookonamazon.wordpress.com/what-is-tagging/

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Thank you Todd! I highly recommend Todd's site for any published author. It is an important marketing tool that really deserves attention.

Putting your best foot forward

I'm a pretty avid reader, and participate a lot on GoodReads. (NOTE: If you are not on this site - you need to be - at least make an author profile and add your books to it - again I'll make a whole post on this someday.) In any case, many groups allow authors a section where they can tell members about their books - the so called "Shameless self-promotion post". This is an invitiation to advertise your book - so use it wisely. I developed a "kind of template" for Michael's books. Recently when reading someone else's post I was amused to find that they copied my format exactly - GOOD FOR THEM!! It made me realize a few things

1. I'm appalled at how some authors squander this opportunity
2. I put a lot of thought into what and how I structure posting
3. I've never explained my thought processess

So in today's post I thought I would discuss this in more detail.

A TYPICAL POST
The following is “pretty standard” – a brief description with a link to the author’s site:
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Nurse Geri Lanham would rather be anywhere than helping the doctor take her favorite patient off life support. Something goes terribly wrong and she wakes up in 1888! Trying to find her way back to her time Geri learns once a promise is made from the heart it can transcend time to be Forever Promised. check it out at http://www.foreverpromised.com/
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CRITIQUE
What is wrong with this. Well I can think of several things:

1. No GoodReads links
2. No buy link
3. No reviews
4. No headline
5. No sample chapters
6. No publishing data
7. No cover graphic

Let me cover in detail the format I've come up with and some of the thinking behind it.

FORMAT
I have a method to almost all my madness and for creating the self-promotion post I divide it into the following sections:

1. Information Dump - Just the facts mame
2. Book Overview - headline and blurb
3. Awards (optional)
4. Reviews
5. Other
6. Book Cover

I usually use "all caps" as headers before certain sections like REVIEWS and AWARDS.

INFORMATION DUMP
This is the place with all the "facts" and lots and lots of links. It puts everything at the fingertips of the reader so they don't have to go "searching" for something. It is designed to make it as easy as possible for the reader to get at anything related to the book.

First line: Title, Author, and Genre
Make sure that the title is a link to the GoodReads Book Page. These are denoted by [book:The Crown Conspiracy4345290] where the number is unique to the title. If you don't have a GoodReads link to your book - Get one, they are easy to come by and important. Likewise the author should be a link to the GoodReads Author Page designated by [author:Michael J. Sullivan2063919]. Again if you only have a profile and not an author page you MUST get one - otherwise you are missing some excellent marketing opportunities. If you don't know the "numbers" use the "add book/author" link when editing the post and search for it.

As for genre, yes your book must fall into one - if you don't then you are already in trouble. If you can't think of a genre you are probably in "Literary Fiction" so put that. Narrow your focus as much as possible - be very specfic: Don't just say "Fantasy" try to further classify it such as : Epic Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Fanasy Adventure, Erotic Fantasy...you get the picture. This lets the reader know immediately whether they will be interested or not. It gives a context and will act as a way to filter and tarket your audience.

Second line - Publication info (ISBN, Publisher, Publication Date)
The most important piece of information is the ISBN (both 10 digit and 13). Armed with this, readers can search to find your book on the Internet and comparison shop and so fourth. Very savy book buyers will appreciate you putting this information where they can get at it easily.

Listing the publisher serves one purpose and one purpose only - to give credibility. If you are self-published by an easily recognized name (iUniverse, LuLu, CreateSpace etc) LEAVE IT OFF. It works against you. Just don't say anything. If you are published by someone else (even an unknown small press) you will get some credit by listing it here. And of course if you are published by someone really big then you get even more brownie points. Use the "biggest" name you can - If you are published by a imprint of a larger house use the main house as the publisher. If you are self-published through your own company then use it. Sure they won't know who this publisher is but they won't immediately think you are self-published. But of course if you named your publishing company "Michael Sullivan's Books" and you are author Michael Sullivan then again leave it off.

Publication Date - this should be listed if you are within 3 years of publication i.e. 2006 and above when the date is 2009. If your book is "older" than that it is showing its age and you should not not expose this - just leave it off.

Third line - Previews
If you have book trailers - put links to them here. A book trailer will never "make a sale" but again it establishes creditability. I never recommend spending money on a trailer but if you have the skills to make them yourself (or you can get someone to do them for $75 or so - go ahead and get yourself one) people like to see them.

The most important part of the Preview is the Sample chapter. It is so important I wrote a whole post on this and you can find it here. It is important to give the users a "try before you buy" option and the best way of doing this is a good sample chapter.

Fourth line - Links
This contains links to "other places" to find out more - this is where you have links to the author's website, a books website (if seperate from authors), blogs, and also your GoodRead pages (author & book). I know we already have links to them on the first line but it is worth repeating them in this list. I seperate the links by a pipe

There are two other opportunities that GoodReads provides that are worth taking advantage of and having links to: Groups and Giveaways

GoodReads Group - You should make yourself a fan group on GoodReads. This is a place where people can ask you questions, you can post information about upcoming signings, and is basically a forum between the author and their fan base - Don't worry if you don't have a lot of people in the group to begin with - we'll work on that as part of another post but having a link to it will help get other peopel to join.

Giveaway - GoodReads offers the ability for authors and publishsers to give away free books - I spoke about it in this post. In general, even an unknown book will get hundreds of people signing up (Michael's first book had 682 and the second is currently at 802 people and there is still a month until it is awarded). Again this will help give "credibility" to your book. Leave this link up even if the contest is over. If the contest is "on" they can sign up. If it is over they see the large number of people who had signed up and go wow look at all the people interested in this book!

Last line - Buy Links
Usually a book will fall into one of two categories: General Availability (able to buy from Amazon and Retail Stores) or limited availability (able to buy from author and publisher's sites only). Regardless of the category your book falls into you should have links where they can buy. If your book has wide distribution I would list Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble (Amazon first). You don't have to list every store in existance such as Powells and Albris - the big three should be enough. BUT make sure that you link to YOUR SPECFIC BOOK not just the "site" - You can't believe how many times I click on a link like this and find myself on www.amazon.com . I then spend many minutes doing searches with the book name and author name trying to find the right one. Remember you are trying to make it as easy as possible...don't put up a roadbloack to a sale. If you don't know how to find "your specfic link" - do a search on the site with your ISBN then just cut/paste from the address line of the browser and use this as the link address.

Also if you are in "general availability" then provide a comparison shop link that searches across multiple sites. I use DealOz - again use the ISBN and do a search and get "the specfic" page for your site. Doing this on Michael's book I get 20 - 30 sites some from all over the world.

If you are not in general availability it is even more important to have links to buy pages. There have been several times I've tried to "checkout" a new GoodRead's Author and couldn't find anywhere to buy the book - if that is the case why are you even promoting it? It is even more important for a book not in general availability to post a "buy link".

Last, but not least - you should always have a link where people can buy direct from you. Throw in signing and offer a discount. Even with credit card processing charges and a reduced price you'll still make more on a direct sale then through any retail chain. Remember that the distribution channel gnerally takes 40% - 55% off the top. To learn more about selling direct use this link.

BOOK INTRO
After all the links section you need to tell them about your book. This is simple it should consist of your headline and blurb. Period. Remember your headline needs to be short and your blurb should be one paragraph. This has been posted in the past to learn more use this link.

AWARDS
This of course is optional but if your book has won awards then list them here. Put one per line and indicate the date of the award and - here is the important part - put a link to the actual award page where you are listed so that they can "verify" that you indeed won the award listed.

REVIEWS
Pick up to 5 of your best "1 sentences" from reviews. Think carefully about the "order" of the reviews based on the "source" not the "content". For instance I put Fantasy Book Debut first for Michael but then put in a "general review" before listing "Fantasy Book Critic" so that I didn't top load all the "Fantasy site reviews". Use quotation marks and italics for the actual quote then use a long dash (em dash) and then list the "source" as a link. That way they can click on the source to read the "full review".

If you have a lot of reviews (The Crown Conspiracy has more than 100) provide a link to the page on your website where you list "all the reviews")

OTHER
This is of course optional. Since Michael's book is part of a series I usually post a bit about the series as a whole to put the book in context.

BOOKCOVER
Close the post with a picture of the cover. I use a 100 x 145 resolution file as this is big enough to provide good detail but not to big to be austinatious. Of course it should also be "linked" to a relavant page - eithe the GoodReads Book Page or the Author's Page.

TEMPLATE EXMPLE
Whew - that's a lot but by using good formatting it fits nicely. I'm reproducing the post I use for Michael's book "The Crown Conspiracy" to use as an example.
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The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan (Fantasy Adventure)
ISBN: 978-0980003437/0980003431 (Aspirations Media Inc, Oct 2008)
Previews: Author's Book Trailer Publisher's Book Trailer Sample Chapter
Links: Website Blog GoodReads Group Author Profile Book Page Giveaway
Buy: Amazon Borders Barnes & Noble Comparison Shop Signed Copy

They killed the king. They pinned it on two men. They chose poorly.
Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater make a profitable living carrying out dangerous assignments for conspiring nobles until they become the unwitting scapegoats in a plot to murder the king. Sentenced to death, they have only one way out…and so begins this epic tale of treachery and adventure, sword fighting and magic, myth and legend. The writing style focuses on characters and plot rather than verbose world building. This first book of the Riyria Revelations is a heroic adventure written for adult readers yet suitable for those 13 and older.

AWARDS
2008 ReaderViews Literary Award Finalist
2008 Fantasy Book Critic Notable Indie
2008 Adventure Writers Competition, 5th place
2007 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Finalist for Fantasy

SAMPLE REVIEWS (All Reviews)
"The Crown Conspiracy is right up my alley, traditional fantasy, "good" bad guys, a large dose of humor, lots of character development and plenty of surprises." — Fantasy Debut

"Michael J. Sullivan has written a book I will read over and over again and it most definitely will always reside on my favorite’s shelf." — ReaderViews

"There is so many layers to this story that to explain it in a few words is nigh impossible." — Front Street Reviews

"The Crown Conspiracy is great fun and a romp end to end...Highly recommended and another positive surprise for 2008." — Fantasy Book Critic

"A fast paced and riveting fantasy, "The Crown Conspiracy" is well worth reading." — Midwest Book Review

ABOUT THE SERIES
Instead of a string of sequels, The Riyria Revelations is a six-book fantasy series conceived as a single epic tale divided into individual episodes. All were written before the first was released so that plot elements are intertwined, yet each is self-contained and can be read independently from each other. With this series you will not be held hostage to read the next one--you will simply want to. Coming in April 2009, the second book entitled Avempartha is available for pre-order now from Amazon.com.

Marketing #4: Sample Chapters

I was having a discussion with an author on-line on GoodReads. He was a bit upset because no one was buying his books. I decided to "checkout his books". In just a short time it became completely clear to me a big part of his problem - I could not (even with a lot of searching on my part) find any sample chapters.

Sample chapters are essential, especially for new authors. People would like to "try before they buy" as it were and if you don't give them a place to investigate your work you'll be fighting an uphill battle.

WHERE TO PLACE SAMPLES
You should not just think about one way for people to get at sample chapters. You should use a series of weapons in your arsenal including:

• Amazon Search Inside the Book
• Google Book Search
• Authors Den Book Excerpts
• GoodReads Excerpts
• Author's Website
• All-in-one Book Page

AMAZON'S SEARCH INSIDE THE BOOK
We discussed this a bit in another post I'll refer you there rather than repeat myself. But one thing I should point out about this source of getting a "sample out" - You have no control over "what" is posted. They are going to do a few pages from the front of the book and where it stops may not be at the best place for your book. For "The Crown Conspiracy" the first chapter is a red herring, because the people you are first introduced to are not the "main characters" but bit players. Many people reading about it on Amazon might get the wrong impression so for the chapters I have control over I actually post an excerpt from chapter 2 which does have the main characters in it.

GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH

This is very similar to Amazon's Search Inside the Book Program. An example of Michael's Book which is in the program is shown above. It also indexes the entire book but shows a few pages. Again you have no control over what pages are shown in fact in Michael's version it starts (for some inexplicable reason) on page 2 instead of page 1. One of these days I have to fix this.

AUTHORS DEN
One of these days I have to do an entire post about this site as it offers a ton of great opportunities for authors and is highly ranked in the search engines so it is a good way to get your books high up on Search Engine Optimizations. But one thing I'll bring up for today's post is that they you can post your books and in that posting is a place for putting an excerpt of your book. I HIGHLY recommend that you take the time to pay attention to the formatting when putting into this format. When I cut/pasted from Word there were line and paragraph breaks that were not ideal. So I took the time to put it into notepad, make all the paragraphs on individual lines then pasted it into AuthorsDen. This made a much more attractive and easier to read post. (This is where I eventually found the author's excerpt that I stated above and he did not do this - the overall effect was on of "unprofessionalism"). Remember anything worth doing is worth doing properly so take a few minutes to put your best foot forward.

GOODREADS
If you don't have an author profile on GoodReads you really need to. Like AuthorsDen this deserves a post of its own but suffice to say they have an area where authors can showcase their writings as well. Here are some tips for when you post your samples chapters on this venue:

• Description is 2048 characters and will allow for html formatting so use for bolding and for italics. I suggest you put the "blurb" from your back of the book and then select a few "choice" reviews and put them here.
• Make sure you set the genre drop down to the most appropriate category for your book if you can't find one that makes sense use "Literary & Fiction" for novels and "Non fiction" as your best "generic" categories
• Tags: On this site tags MUST be single words so take this into account when making your tags
• Don't forget to add your ISBN for the book that the chapter relates to - this ensures a picture of the cover is included and provides a quick link to the Goodreads page for that book

AUTHOR'S WEBSITE
Again I've already covered the importance of an author's website elsewhere on this blog. But it bears repeating that having a books page with a sample chapter with each book is essential. I always recommend having a page where you have the "Blurb" from the back of the book and THEN a button for the sample chapter - so many people drop the readers right into the sample chapter and without context they are lost. Give them the same information that a reader in a store would have.

ALL-IN-ONE-BOOK PAGE
This is something that not many people have - but I think it is essential. This is a page that is "independent" of your website (i.e. you would not land on it as a part of your website but it contains everything you would ever want to know about your book in one spot. Again I'll go over this page in more details in a future post but suffice to say that the ability to access the sample chapter must be on this page.

FORMAT FOR POSTED SAMPLE
For the pages that you have control over I highly recommend you post them in a .pdf format on 8 1/2" x 11" with ample spacing such that it looks like what it would look like if it were in book form but "blown up" to the larger page size. In other words make it look as much as possible like a real book but allow it to print nicely on their printer. Make sure that on every page you have the following: page number, author name, book title, URL to "All-in-one Book Page". They just might give it to a friend and then they will have all the information required to order their own copy.

PICKING THE RIGHT SAMPLE
When posting a "sample" it is not always necessary to choose the first chapter of the book. Although in most cases this will be the logical choice. When I first posted a sample chapter for "The Crown Conspiracy" I started getting some interesting feedback - people didn't like the characters and were being "turned off". As I mentioned these were not the "real characters" and so it was giving the book a wrong impression. So for that sample chapter I choose a lively piece near the beginning of the book that shows the main characters and the rapport between them.

PICKING THE ENDING
While I'm not a huge Twilight fan I will admit that I was impressed with the sample chapter that Stephanie Meyers put in the first book. The reason is where she ended it. It definitely ended in a place where someone would want to rush right out to get the book to see what will happen next. Now it turns out that her Chapter 2 was a huge let down from the build up but the technique worked. So choose carefully where you end your sample even if you don't publish the whole thing. In Avempartha there are three sections in the first chapter. The first two are compelling and end with the main characters going off to find someone. The third section is really just them "finding" the person - not much really going on there so I ended the sample chapter for that book after the first two.

WRAPPING IT UP
When posting sample chapters make it easy that anyone can find them no matter where they "find" your book. Use every avenue at your disposal. The disadvantages of Amazon and Google (can't select which pages you wish to showcase) is a sever limitation so be sure to use the other venues so you can pick "the perfect" pages for showcasing each book.

Amazon: Making the 800 lb gorilla work for you

I love Amazon! They really know how to do things right. What they have done for book buying is in short amazing. Today's post will be an "overview" of some great things to take advantage of through Amazon. Each of these will take a "deeper" dive but I wanted a top level summary first.

YOUR BOOK MUST BE AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
If you are published traditionally, this should not be a problem. I know of know legitimate publisher that doesn't use this channel so it will be automatic. If you are not-self published and you are not available through Amazon this is a huge red flag - make sure your publisher rectifies this immediately.

When selling through Amazon there are two different ways: Directly through them, or through one of the "marketplaces". Marketplaces are "mini-stores" (you can even make one yourself it is really easy) If you are only being sold through a marketplace - that also is a problem you need to be listed on "Amazon" otherwise you risk not looking legitimate.

SELF PUBLISHERS
If you are self-published, you need to make sure you are in this channel. You have two choices: CreateSpace and Amazon Advantage. I highly recommend CreateSpace because there is just a 40% discount rate whereas Amazon Advantage has a whopping 55%. Even if you have a few thousand books printed up and stored I would send your same print file to CreateSpace so you can get the 15% savings in "Amazon's take". You can find more about CreateSpace in my post about publishing 101.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
It goes without saying, but I've seen enough without them to make it a point here...make sure your book has a product description. A product on Amazon without a description is practically useless. How can you buy a book when you don't know what it is about? Using the blurb from the back of the book is usually fine. But feel free to augment it with information such as age appropriateness or whether the book is part of a series. The description is controlled by the publisher so work through them if you don't like what you see. For instance if there is too much "given away" of the plot you might want to negotiate with them changing it.

SITB - SEARCH INSIDE THE BOOK

This is one you can do yourself (if your publisher has not). Notice the two product pictures to the left - The Crown Conspiracy has SITB enabled Avempartha does not (it will as soon as it is released). This allows the reader to get a "sneak peak" inside the book and read the first few pages. Sample chapters are an invaluable selling took (arg....another future post - I should make a list ;-)) people will read a bit and if they like what they see they are more willing to buy.

I'll go in full details later as to how you do this but in a nutshell you submit your whole book to Amazon and they make sure that only a few pages are exposed. Once you have enabled this feature they can see the cover, table of contents, copyright page, and 6 - 10 pages of the book.

BLOGGING ONTO YOUR AMAZON PAGES
Getting "your" message on your product page is a huge advantage and Amazon provides a mechanism for writers to talk directly to their audience through Amazon Connect. To use this feature you will have to verify you are the author. An online form provides you a way to specify the publisher contact information and then once they have verified you are who you say you are you can post information in the form of blog posts directly to any products you are the author of. Here is an example on Michael's "The Crown Conspiracy" product page.

TAGGING
This is an area that deserves its own separate post and I will go in more detail in the future. But for now let's just point out that tagging is very important. It gives you (and others) a way of classifying a product into various categories so that when they search within Amazon for a particular subject your book shows up. In order to tag you need an Amazon account associated with a credit card, but you don't have to buy the product (or any product for that matter) to make a tag. You have up to 15 words or phrases that you can identify with your book. For instance Michael's books has tags such as: fantasy, fantasy series, wizards, magic, etc. If enough people have tagged your book you will get a ranking (the top 100 books in each category are designated as shown here)

There is a great blog on tagging that I highly recommend click here if you want to learn more about tagging before I can post in more detail.

REVIEWS
The number one thing that sells books is good reviews and thankfully Amazon makes it easy for your readers to tell others what they thought of your book. I bump into people all the time both in person and online that say how they loved Michael's book. EVERY TIME I hear that I remind them to go post a review on Amazon. Even with all my nagging there are only a fraction of the people who actually go do it. Why? I have no idea. The most interesting thing is that even those closest to us rarely post and it is the single biggest thing someone can do (besides buying a book) to help support you. At the time of this blog we have 27 Amazon reviews (21 5-star, 6 4-star) and only 4 of them are from people we actually know (and none of them are family)!

Personally, I say the author should avoid reviewing their own book. Sure you can vote for yourself if you run for public office but that is private and many people take offense at writers "blowing their own horn". It is particularly problematic if there are only 1 - 3 reviews. Bottom line about reviews...ask everyone you meet and you'll get a small fraction of those actually posting.

AUTHOR STORE
This is a new initiative for Amazon and it is still in beta. It allows for an area dedicated to a single author where their books can be grouped and it offers: a bibliography, and can include a biography, author photo, and discussion board. I only recently discovered this capability and after I learn more I'll make another post.

KINDLE VERSION
Another item that deserves its own post but for those not familiar...a Kindle is a small electronic device that stores hundreds of books and allows Amazon customers to buy books formatted in a special electronic format usually for a significantly less than the standard cover price. Making a "Kindle version" of your book is easy (again I'll take you through it step by step in the future). It is important because Kindle users generally have "given up" on printed books. If you don't have a Kindle version it is unlikely they will buy the print version so if you don't have one for them to download you'll loose a particular market segment.

Marketing #1: Author Websites

In today's post I thought I would cover your website. I've already blogged on the #2 Marketing tool -- bookmarks so today I thought I should do #1 - Websites.

I was giving a seminar a few months back and one of the authors in the audience said ... you don't really need a website you needs a web presence. I'm afraid I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. Every author needs a website. Period.

THE COST
The cost of websites is minimal. There are generally two aspects to the cost

• Registering a URL (required) - the name of your site
• Hosting (optional)

I use GoDaddy.com and to register a name it is $9.99 a year. And with that you can get free hosting. The hosting costs $4.74 for 12 months ($56.88 for the year). The only difference between free hosting and paying the $57 is that you will have a few adds at the top of your screen when you have a free account.

Here is an example of a website with ads (i.e. free hosting). Everything above the dark bar is put on automatically by GoDaddy. If you pay the $57/year that disappears. I personally think it is worth that small fee to be free of ads.

YOUR URL
I personally recommend that you pick a URL based on your name not your book's name. Even if you have only one book now you might have more books in the future. If you really want to you can buy 2 URL's (your one for you and one for your book). I wouldn't recommend doing up separate pages for both - just have one website and "redirect" to the other. That way you have only one site to pay hosting on and only one site to maintain. To do the redirection make a file called .htaccess and place a line like the following in it:
Redirect /path-of-file-to-be-redirected URL-of-page-to-go-to
So if your names is Johnathan Strange the best URL I would recommend is www.JohnathanStrange.com. Unfortunately there are several authors with Michael's name so we were not able to get that URL because it was already taken - we opted for http://www.michaelsullivan-author.com/. When picking your URL remember that only letters, numbers, and hyphens are allowed.

WHAT TO PUT ON YOUR WEBSITE
In general I recommend you have pages for at least the following:

• Books
• Reviews
• News
• Author Bio
• Contact

THE BOOKS PAGE

Above is a portion of the books page for Michael's website. The books page should have the following:

• The cover of the book
• Back of the book "blurb"
• Reviews or testimonials
• A link to buy the book (either direct from you or Amazon)
• A sample chapter
• Book Trailer (optional)
• Your ISBN #'s

Of the list above - the most important (IMO) are your sample chapter, the "buy link" and your ISBN's. Having a place where people can "try before they buy" is important. When you meet a "resistant" buyer telling them to go read a sample chapter on-line is a great way to convert them to a sale. The reason you want your ISBN listed prominently is that only the most successful authors have their books sitting on the bookstore shelves. For most they will have to be special ordered and coming in armed with the ISBN will make that process easy.

THE REVIEWS PAGE
Reviews sell...period. One of the things you need to do as an author is encourage those you talk to that enjoy your book to post reviews on-line. Then you need to repeat these testimonials on your website. After about 3 months after release Michael's site had 49 reviews (24 from Amazon, 19 from GoodReads, 6 from Shelfari). I made a table on the review page with the date of the review, its source (including a link so people could go to it) what the ranking was (5 star, 4 star etc) and either all or some of the posting. If the person made a long post - I took the "best paragraph" and posted a link to it so they could read the whole thing if they wanted.

NEWS PAGE
This is an important page to show how active you are. If you are not currently doing press releases....start it is a way to generate some 'buzz' about your book and there are a lot of free sites to post your press releases to (again more in another post). Here use the table format like for reviews and list things such as:

• Awards you were nominated for or won
• Author interviews you did (with links to then of course)
• Book Bloggers who reviewed your book (with links of course)
• Upcoming Events - including Conventions, book clubs, and book signings
• Recent News - A summary of all your press releases - did you expand your website, post a free chapter online, make a trailer, go to a conference - these are all things to highlight in your news area.
• Previous Events - Especially important if you don't have any recent book events - this way people can see where you have been in the past and it helps to establish "legitimacy" to your book.

One thing to note - if you use BookTours (Again more on this in the future) - you can put a "widget" on your news page that will automatically list any book signings you have entered on that site. I have one running along the left side of Michael's News Page.

CONTACT PAGE
Always leave a way for readers, reviewers, or others to contact you. This can be as simple as listing your e-mail address or having a form where people can sign in and leave their information and notes. Encourage people to tell you how they liked (or didn't like) your book, or post typos etc. If filling out a form - make sure you store their email address and send them a personal thank you afterwards.

So that's about it for Websites - I encourage you to go out and look at Michael's Site to see how I did his - be sure to "steal" as necessary. I'll talk more in another post about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but this should be a good amount to get you started.

Gain strength in small successes

Trying to get momentum in word of mouth about a new author from a small press is as about as daunting a task as any I can think of. While much easier now than it was was before the days of the Internet, still you never quite know if your efforts are worth it or not. A small success can fan the flames of hope and lighten your heart enough to make all your efforts worth while. When you are feeling down take stock of your successes...a good review by a reader, a web blogger asking you for a review copy (instead of the other way around), or seeing a forum discussion where someone other than yourself is talking about your book. I'd like to share a recent success we had that emphasizes the importance of another topic (which I'll blog on shortly) bookmarks.

I was at a signing yesterday with my husband for his book The Crown Conspiracy at a Borders about 30 minutes drive from our house. We had a signing with them in October that went well enough that they rescheduled a second one. I was in the area between the outside doors and the store's true entrance (where shelves of "discounted books are") and passing out bookmarks to people as they came in letting them know my husband was in the store signing his book. The books were moving slowly but the traffic in the store was brisk so I was happy just making sure that a number of people now knew it existed.As one shopper was leaving they stopped by to chat with me. This is essentially what she said..."What a nice guy the author is...I was here awhile ago, but didn't buy a book. I was clothes shopping with my daughter and I found the bookmark you gave me and after reading a description of the book I thought - man this looks great! We came back and bought the book and when we saw he was coming back to the store again we just had to come down and tell him how much we (my daughter and I both read it) enjoyed the book. "

Ah...music to my ears. You see it really does make a difference. It makes the hours standing in that unheated alcove passing out those bookmarks seem worthwhile. So thank you...whoever you anonymous reader you certainly "made" both mine and my husband's day today.