5 Internet Marketing Tips for Your Book Launch

By Tracy DiMarino | Posted Sep 11, 2009 | 6 Comment(s) | Filed in: Internet Marketing

With about $13.70 billion dollars worth of books sold online in North America per year, it makes sense that more and more authors are turning to the Internet for their book marketing and promotion. Online, they can now connect with their consumers and generate interest in a way they couldn’t do before.

In addition, the social nature of the Web makes it easy for consumers to discover and recommend books, since people are actively rating, reviewing and sharing books online.

Recently, many books have experienced great sucess online. A few examples are:

• BusinessWeek bestseller, The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott
• BusinessWeek and Amazon bestseller Tribes by Seth Godin, and
• New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Juilen Smith. 

Below you will find some of the online strategies these authors and others used to get people excited about and reading their books. 

Launch a Website / Subpage for the Book

Create a designated spot online for the book, whether it is a dedicated Website like Rohit Bhargava uses for his book Personality Not Included or a subpage on a personal site like David Meerman Scott uses for his books. People will appreciate having a specific location online where they can go for more information or to purchase a copy. Make sure to include the following information, if possible: book summary, author biography, purchasing information and testimonials.

Also, it’s a good idea to have a detailed media room so that media representatives, bloggers and prospective customers can easily find everything they want to know. For an example, see author of Thank God It’s Monday, Roxanne Emmerich’s media room.

Provide Free Book-Related Content

By offering free book-related content, many authors have been able to pique interest in their books before publishing. If you’re looking for similar success, consider offering free content, such as an eBook, Webinar or iPhone app as a means to generate excitement. Below are some examples.

• David Meerman Scott preceded his book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, with a free eBook on the same topic and an informative blog.
• Connie Dieken (client), author of Talk Less, Say More, which will be released this month, is offering a free iPhone app, containing the book’s main messages.
• Gary Vaynerchuk offered a free chapter of his book, Crush It, before its release.

Engage with People on Social Networking Sites

Use social networks to your advantage. One success story comes from Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, who recently launched their book, Trust Agents. Chris and Julien leveraged their large online networks by engaging people in conversations about their book’s topics and encouraging people to share the book with others. Here’s the result:

(As stated by Chris on his blog)

“YOUR effort paid off. YOU made Trust Agents a New York Times Bestseller. You pushed. You tweeted. You blogged. You showed people twitpics. You took part in the Trust Agents community. It was all you.”

To emulate their success, here are some suggestions on how to actively communicate with potential customers on sites, such as Twitter and Facebook.

• Setup a Facebook Fan page for the book and update content regularly. Here’s the one for Trust Agents.
• Use Twitter #hashtags when discussing the book and its topics.
• Ask questions to stimulate discussions.
• Incorporate multimedia elements such as videos and presentations. For an example presentation, see author of The Adventures Of Johnny Bunko, Dan Pink’s creative PowerPoint presentation, which has been viewed 122,089 times on SlideShare and embedded 430 times.

Encourage People to Refer the Book to Friends   

With the Internet, there are plenty of ways for people to recommend goods and services to each other, and authors should capitalize on this. Below are some suggestions.

• Ask people who like the book to leave positive reviews on Amazon.
• Hold a tell-a-friend campaign. For an example, look at this one for Survival is Not Enough by Seth Godin.
• Encourage people to add the book to their LinkedIn Amazon Reading List.
• Embrace online book communities, such as GoodReads, where people share what books they are currently reading and recommend books to others.
• Have fans use the Visual Bookshelf App on Facebook to alert others of the books they are currently reading.

Create Your Own Social Networking Site

Some authors have also had success creating their own social networking site. If this makes sense for your book’s topic and you think enough people might be interested in joining, it’s a strategy worth considering. Below are some examples.

• Seth Godin formed an online community around his book, Tribes where anyone that pre-ordered a copy of his book was invited to an exclusive Ning community. Here, members could interact with each other, share ideas and get exclusive content.
• Kevin Ferrazzi had a similar strategy with his online community, which was built around his book, Who’s Got Your Back?. The community, called Greenlight, is designed to help people form relationships that will help them achieve their plans, goals and dreams, reinforcing the main topic of his book, “you can’t succeed alone.”

What Do You Think?

What are some online strategies you’d recommend for launching a book? Share with me your resources and suggestions.

Tracy DiMarino is an associate consultant at PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. Follow Tracy on Twitter @TracyDiMarino.

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Photo Credit: margolove