How to push your e-book or p-book online? Make it more visible? Use social networks? Perhaps even get it mentioned here in the TeleBlog?
Steve Weber, an author-bookseller, offers a number of useful marketing suggestions in Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors. You can download it for free from Feedbooks. Yes, the giveaway surely isn’t a coincidence. Perhaps Weber hopes to spur interest in future editions. I notice that a Kindle edition—updated?—is just out.
Plug teems with handy suggestions and on-the-mark observations, such as the fact that steady word of mouth counts more than sales bursts on Amazon. Some of the advice is rather basic, like Steve Weber’s tips on how to set up a blog, but it’s probably appropriate for the bulk of his audience. Bestselling novelist Scott Sigler and publishing consultant Marion Gropen, two names familiar to attentive TeleBlog readers, swear by the Weber guide.
Community-minded
If nothing else, Weber is well attuned to the community aspects of the Web and the nuances. I, of all people, can appreciate his sensitivity. TeleRead readers tend to enjoy fantasy and science fiction, and here I am pushing a Washington, D.C., newspaper novel set mainly in the 1970s—while aware, of course, of the challenges here. You bet I’ll be focusing elsewhere in time. Bear with me, folks.
Amazoncentric
Although I like Weber’s book as a whole, I wish he were a tad less Amazon-centric and devoted more space than he does to possibilities such as Google and MySpace (not that he ignores them). But is it entirely his fault? Maybe he’s simply reflecting reality when he discusses how Amazon stats are influencing the orders of brick-and-mortar booksellers.
About 15 percent of U.S. book sales are now happening through the Internet, where Amazon is the major player. Or at least that was the stat at the time of the publication of the Weber book in February 2007. By now, the percentage could be even higher. Correctly Weber observes that “the real impact is far greater—it’s not just the 65 million readers buying their books on Amazon, it’s the untold millions more using Amazon’s catalog and book reviews to inform their buying choices elsewhere.”
Just one Facebook mention
To return to Amazon alternatives, I could find just one mention of Facebook, which, as of June 2008, was drawing 132 unique monthly visitors, some 15 million more than MySpace. Not Weber’s fault. Facebook wasn’t as much a factor in book promo in early 2007 as it is today. There’s also no mention of Twitter, started in ’06, which now has several million users. So my advice is to read Weber’s book but use, yes, social networks to find out what’s the latest and greatest.
Related: Earlier TeleBlog mention of Weber and, naturally, the Weber book’s Amazon page, where the reader reviews are overwhelmingly favorable (surely he can’t have that many relatives!). Also see his MySpace page.
The local angle: Steve lives in Fall Church, Virginia, within 10 miles of me. I’m tempted to invite him to lunch to pick his brains about the promotion of The Solomon Scandals. I’ll welcome others’ advice as well. I have all kinds of promo ideas but don’t know it all.
