Free online book marketing for authors complements print book marketing and places your name, books, products and services in front of millions of customers, clients and web browsers to increase your income and save you money.
Millions of people browse the web and shop online to make purchases. Why not create web content promotion and purchasing links that point to you, your books, services and products? Changes in the publishing industry, like digital formats and reading devices, have caused publishers to scramble for survival in the digital age, leaving authors the responsibility of book marketing–print and eBooks.
A solid publisher’s book marketing campaign may only consist of traditional methods–newspapers, magazines, book reviews, trade articles, literary journal excerpts, publishing industry listings, library recommendations, book signings, public speaking engagements, television and radio interviews, and personal appearances. Although your publisher may also sell your book online, it may be a good idea for you to encourage your publisher to create Internet buzz that will increase your book sales, literary credibility and income opportunities.
However, publishers’ book promotion budgets are so tight and getting tighter that you can bet you will not be able to ask for and receive a more extensive marketing program than the one your publisher offers other authors. With this in mind, investigate the idea of doing your own Internet book marketing to augment your publisher’s efforts. There are several ways to make and save money using free web resources to create web presence, Internet buzz and a free book marketing campaign.
Web Content as a Way to Increase Book Sales
To increase your Internet visibility, arrange a free web presence campaign to complement the book marketing campaign that your publisher conducts or an independent book marketing campaign if you are self-published. Write and distribute free online press releases and articles to increase interest in you and your book. In these web distributions, include links to:
- Reviews of Your Book
- Excerpts from Your Book
- Your Author Biography
- Book Ordering Information
- Literary Contributions
- Publication List
- News Coverage
- Speeches You Have Made
- Public Service
To entice web news services to pick up your story for their target audience, keep your web content newsworthy and lively, and not reading like promotional material. Following news guidelines, you may be quoted by news services. Being quoted increases your chances for subscriptions or syndication.By keeping the writing fresh–meaning not copied directly or duplications of other writing you have already placed on the web in previous articles or press releases–your stories will continue to receive search engine attention.
When you recycle web content from articles and press releases you have written for submission in locations around the web, be sure to thoroughly re-write and edit the copy, adding new text, links, videos and photographs (if the service allows images and videos). By the way, before you chose a submission service, free or paid, note what features they have available for you to upload images and video, and add URL links.
If you are not an author, but intend to use your web presence campaign to secure public speaking engagements to increase product sales or promote your business, your Internet press releases and articles can cover new product descriptions, announce personnel promotions or publicize where you have spoken in public or will be speaking in the future. Be sure to include in your promotional materials as many live links to your relevant websites, blogs, contact page, ordering information and catalogues as the free press release and article submission service will allow. And explore several services to maximize your reach.
Compile a list of free internet press release and article submission services that you can regularly use on a periodic basis to file items. Then, use the same Internet promotion tools to market yourself, not only as an author, but also as a public speaker, editor, editorial consultant, ghostwriter, professional writing coach, scriptwriter, speech writer, producer or whatever your specialty may be.
Another method to make browsing searches easier for prospective customers to purchase your book and clients to contract your services is to build free websites, free blogs, free video channels and social media networks. Cross promote all of the Internet media for your web presence campaign by using URL and blog directories, social network bookmarking, Internet conversational groups, free search engine submissions, forums, virtual communities and the cloud. For example, write search engine optimized Internet press releases, articles, blog text, website copy and comments on blogs, in which you may include active links that point to contact and ordering information for your books and digital products.
A Pocketful of Internet Savings Coupons
Free web content to establish and manage your online presence are like savings coupons and they are all over the web. Using free resources, you can literally turn the contents of your computer, bookshelves, forgotten boxes under beds, file drawers and storage units into cash! There are great ideas hidden under that junk! Don’t let these writing ideas turn into dust! You can use them to market your books and products. Re-write and sell yourself with what was once useless stuff taking up precious space in your house and expensive space in commercial storage lockers.
Being a writer may mean that producing copy is easy for you. However, simply being able to produce copy is not enough. Even copy considered good for print media may not be such good copy for the Internet. One must either learn to search engine optimize Internet copy to take full advantage of technology or hire a reputable professional to write credible copy and provide search engine optimization (SEO) for maximum free internet exposure. But remember, you can’t fool the search engines, which are being updated constantly to catch your clever tricks.
The only way to win the search engine optimization game is to provide lots and lots of original, well-written copy on a regular basis that appeals to a wide audience. Many website masters and designers are learning the hard way that they still must also appeal to the human reader. The copy must satisfy two audiences–search engines and people–each of which has a different set of needs. The only trick in the search engine optimization game is to strike a balance between technology and humanity. And the balance is weighed by the use of appropriate words for each in the same copy, without overuse or under-use of words for human readers or keywords that lead a human reader to a search engine result.
Creating Web Content & Free Internet Buzz
Internet press releases, social media networking, Internet articles, blogs, websites, forums, virtual communities and the cloud, not only can create free web presence, but also can enhance brand equity and sell books, public speaking engagements, writing proposals, consulting contracts, editorial services, products and digital media. Free web tools can be useful in today’s competitive market, but one of the first places to concentrate is your website. To produce a free website:
- Find attractive free hosting service
- Write website copy
- Edit website pictures
- Format web pages
- Produce & upload videos
- Publish the website
- Promote the website
Hundreds of services host free websites and blogs on which to create web content. Many professionals are chosing to use the blog to publicize and promote their products and services. Blogs are proving to be more effective in getting search engine attention because they are updated regularly–some on a daily basis–with fresh web content for search engines to crawl. However, blogs require constant upkeep and will be forgotten by browsers if they are not updated in a timely manner with fresh text.
Traditional websites can lose their appeal when copy is static. Increasingly, free website hosts are offering free blogs as part of the package. In these packages, you have a website with a built-in blog that you can update periodically to keep the website fresh for search engines. Think about an information or news blog to add value to the needs of your readers, customers and clients.
Don’t just use your free web space to try to sell things to your target audience. If all you do is try hard to sell, people won’t like it and will not return to your website or share your link with their friends and connections on social media networking sites. It is a good idea to give them something in return for their loyalty. Give away information they can use and, as a side offer, tell them about something you have to sell that may be useful to them or help them in their businesses or creative endeavors.
Key free blog hosting service into your search engine. Hundreds of services will appear. Be careful when you chose a free service. Like free press release and article submission services discussed above, some free blog and web hosting services offer limited tools for free. Once you have signed up to join the service, you find out they want payment for additional services that are required to make your efforts worthwhile.
In addition, some free hosting services are not built to upload images and video. Some free hosting services can only insert images and videos from other locations around the internet, via a URL. Some free hosting services do not allow you to include your existing URLs from other web locations where you may already have press releases or advertisements. Others do not have URL-text anchor capabilities. Many free hosting services will not allow you to sell your own products on their free site and saddle your free site with awkward ads and pop-ups that will annoy and discourage a visitor to the site. Here are a few questions to answer before you commit to a free service:
- URL Inclusion?
- Image Upload?
- Video Upload?
- Selling Your Products?
- Pop-ups & Unrelated Third-Party Ads?
- Good Design Tools?
Some free website and blog hosting services offer fixed designing tools that cannot be formatted with the precision that many developers desire. Some sites are not at all friendly to novices who want design to be as easy as possible. There are a few hosting services that will let you try their tools before you commit. Remember, if the service advertises itself as free, do not leave credit card information. You may be sorry you did. Be wary of trial offers that can expire and end up charging your card without notification. If that happens, you probably will not get your money back. The fine print, you know. Be sure to read Terms & Agreement.
Headlines go a long way in getting what you write noticed on the Internet. The first words search engines find in their crawl on the web are headlines. You can write a great article that will be ignored altogether if the headline is poorly crafted, giving no clue as to the web content you are promoting. Learn some tips on how to Write Amazing Headlines for your free online press releases and articles.
In today’s competitive employment and contracting market, a professional needs every advantage available.Once you have created the website or blog, the promotion of the site–free or paid–is the next most important step in utilizing free internet publicity. Without promotion of the website or blog, no one will know about your site or be able to click to find you. Be sure to also consider a video promotion to include in your internet promotional package.