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Book
marketing is an essential part of the life of every writer. While we’d
like to spend hours hunched over a notebook or laptop writing to our
hearts’ content, the truth is that marketing our work requires time and
attention in order to build a writing career.
In
my several years of online marketing experience, I have come up with a
set of book marketing tools that I absolutely cannot live without. They
might take some time to master, but the benefits of making these part of
your daily book marketing tool belt will consistently pay off over
time.
Wordpress
If
you’re wondering whether or not you should have a website, the answer
is, “A thousand times, YES.” A website is the foundation of your book
marketing efforts. You own that digital space, which means that nobody
can take it from you; contrast this with social media - you don’t own
any of that space, so they can take down anything of yours at any time.
There are many ways to build a website, but Wordpress is
my favorite. It’s easy to use and fairly intuitive, especially if the
idea of building or maintaining a website is particularly scary. Choose a
domain name that fits your business – mine, for example, is “Wilson
Writes” – and follow the directions for set up. Choose a theme that you
can customize and tinker around. It’s worth the time!
Photoshop
Besides content, the most essential element of a website is a wide range of photos. Photoshop,
while it takes some time to learn, offers a ton of options to
manipulate photos and work on website design. Complete basic photo
editing or create something unique using the limitless tools contained
in the software. I like to use it to make funny memes and then post them
on my website, because sometimes life is too funny NOT to take a photo
of it and then make a meme.
Mailchimp and/or Feedburner
When
your website is finished, don’t wait for people to visit you. Make sure
to put an email capture program on the site to get the addresses of
those who visit your site, and then post regular blog articles to keep
readers engaged. I like to use both Feedburner and Mailchimp.
Feedburner
sends out a daily digest of articles posted to your blog, while
Mailchimp allows you to send customized newsletters out to readers. Both
are useful, and the list captured via Feedburner can be downloaded into
Mailchimp for easy use.
Bookbuzzr
BookBuzzr is
a valuable book marketing site that allows authors to set up profile
pages that highlights their books. These pages are easy to set up and
create more of an online presence for you and your books. There’s a lot
more to what BookBuzzr offers based on what you are able to pay, but two
of my favorite free options are the BookBuzzr book widgets and the Book Tweeter function.
Hootsuite
Social
media can feel overwhelming. You may start with updating Twitter, end
up on Facebook via Instagram and pretty soon, an hour of your writing
time has gone by. Hootsuite makes it possible to save time and effort by consolidating your social media profiles all on one platform.
Use
Hootsuite to keep track of your mentions and retweets so that you can
connect with those readers. Schedule out Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
status updates throughout the day, spending 20 minutes at the beginning
of the day so your writing time is still all about writing…and not
social media.
There
are, of course, additional valuable tools for book marketing, but these
are my favorites on my professional tool belt. What book marketing
tools would you add that you can’t live without?
Bio:
Kelly Wilson is a Portland, Oregon author and comedian who loves a
bargain and likes to do as much online book marketing as possible for
free. She is the author of Live Cheap & Free, Don’t Punch People in the Junk, and Caskets From Costco,
along with numerous articles and short stories for children and adults.
Kelly Wilson currently writes for a living and lives with her Magically
Delicious husband, junk-punching children, dog, and cat, with a
stereotypical minivan in the garage. Read more about her at www.wilsonwrites.com.
For
twenty years, Kelly Wilson thought that she had been marching through
the stages of grief in a straight line. She had been following the
formula, crossing each processed grief experience off her list.
Except that Kelly was totally deluded. And she didn’t discover that until Jim, her beloved father-in-law, died. She found herself drying off from her shower the morning after his death, really hoping that he couldn’t see her naked. Or, if he could, that he was averting his eyes.
From that moment, Kelly's path through grief resembled a roller coaster, spiraling and twisting and turning, circling back around. Echoes of past trauma, including childhood abuse and cheating death, would no longer be ignored. She somehow needed to get from the beginning to the end of this grief adventure, and she doesn't have a good sense of direction.
But what is always present during a journey through grief, regardless of the path chosen?
Hope.
Caskets From Costco is a funny book about grief that demonstrates the certainty of hope and healing in an uncertain and painful world.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Except that Kelly was totally deluded. And she didn’t discover that until Jim, her beloved father-in-law, died. She found herself drying off from her shower the morning after his death, really hoping that he couldn’t see her naked. Or, if he could, that he was averting his eyes.
From that moment, Kelly's path through grief resembled a roller coaster, spiraling and twisting and turning, circling back around. Echoes of past trauma, including childhood abuse and cheating death, would no longer be ignored. She somehow needed to get from the beginning to the end of this grief adventure, and she doesn't have a good sense of direction.
But what is always present during a journey through grief, regardless of the path chosen?
Hope.
Caskets From Costco is a funny book about grief that demonstrates the certainty of hope and healing in an uncertain and painful world.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre - Memoir, Humor
Rating – PG-13
More details about the author
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