Best Seller Authors

Book Marketing, Publishing, Author Resources

Seth Godin’s Secret to Selling Books

The video below has a quick interview with best selling author Seth Godin.

As usual, Seth has many great ideas about what it takes to be a success today.

The last question was important for any author. Seth was asked about the secret to marketing books. After reminding us that the best ideas come from “getting busy and doing it” and working past all the crappy ideas till only the good one is left. Seth gave specific advice about marketing your book.

The time to start is 18 months before your book comes out. If you wait till one week before, I have no advice for you

Connect Your Book With Real World

One of the few areas growing in publishing is the Blogoshpere. While others are shutting down, worried that e-books or the economy will kill sales.. the bloggers I know are talking about bigger advances, best sellers and respect from media and publishers.

How to connect with Bloggers.

There are millions of blogs and bloggers. The vast majority are splogs (blogs set up to spam) or static, underutilized locations with a few posts talking about themselves.

These are NOT the ones to talk to 🙂

Instead, meet the bloggers. They love to congregate. There is a blog meetup or seminar every week in some cities.

This is how Twitter Revolution got started. I wanted to connect with bloggers to promote books, found them online, at blogger conventions and on Twitter. I started using Twitter just to promote other’s books.

At a recent convention, I met Murry Newlands. He pulled out a camera and asked me about my book. You’ll see that I didn’t have one in hand.

Murray did not edit the interview.. put it up on YouTube and I just grabbed th code from them to embed here (a simple cut and paste).

Now I’ll add a link back to Murray to thank him and encourage him to talk about my book and this site.

Watch the video and see how easy this is:

http://www.murraynewlands.com/2009/10/warren-whitlock-an-interview/

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Does Your Book Get the Attention the Author Deserves?

We live in an attention economy today. There is no doubt about it.. so much information, you’ll never keep up.

For your book to stand out, you need to do something more than YELL THE LOUDEST.. no, yelling usually doesn’t work and is annoying.

The secret is.. we all really want more information. There are readers out there that want what your book offers, if only they knew about you and how the book fulfills their perception of needs and want.

Many author come to us hoping that our blast to millions of readers will click, and in fact, a few million emails sent to opt in readers of other newsletters and blog will get you to the best seller lists. However, the vast majority of reader will not get that day’s email blast.. they don’t subscribe or don’t resonate with the message.

But they do want to read, learn, grow, solve problems or enjoy your book.

So how do you reach them?

Go where they are looking for information. Hundreds of thousands a day are joining social networks, millions are sending text messages (to each other.. please don’t spam us) and having conversations on Twitter.com, Utterz.com and many others.

“But I looked at Twitter and just don’t get it”

Joining a online community is not like buying an ad. You can’t just place a message and hope that the phone rings. (and today, who has time for more phone calls<g>)

Think of these communities like a party. If you go to the event, stand in the corner and wonder why you aren’t invited to dance, you probablly won’t due as well as the people that get involved in the conversations already going on.

Here’s how to get involved quickly and find out if the conversation is right for you…

First off, accept the fact that not every party (social network) will work for you. But you won’t know until  you try.

I’m going to use Twitter.com as an example here because it’s so easy to join, use, and extend through technology. If you have a cell phone, laptop or public terminal handy, you can send a “tweet” (that’s a 140 character or less.. 10 to 15 words) that tells your followers what’s up.

  1. Join the network http://Twitter.com
  2. Find some people to interact with.. Use http://Twitter.com/warrenwhitlock to follow me. All you do is look for that box under my photo that says FOLLOW and click it.
  3. Likely many people in your address book use Twitter.

14 Reasons Every Author Should Have a Profile on Linkedin.com

The connections and opportunities you get because you are an author will be much more beneficial to your career, business and your income than any amount you make from book sales.

Today, producers, reporters, editors and potential partners us LinkedIN.com to check you out before making a deal.

Here’s 14 more reasons you should be on Linkedin

I’ll be watching for a connection invite

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“How Not To Be a Turd” and Other Tips for Authors on Social Networking

As you begin using social media to attract new readers, sell more books and become a best seller, you will want to tell everyone you meet about the good things in your life.
That what networking is all about right?

One thing you’ll want to say is “My new book is a must read”

I suggest you be careful here. Think about the person you are talking to.. what they want to hear.

I’ll quote my friends Jackie & Ben of Church of the Customer Blog who have an excellent network for people wanting to use “Word of Mouth” to build buzz about a book, product or meme.

From the Society for Word of Mouth network terms of service:

What are SWOM’s terms of usage (or How Not to be a Turd)
SWOM is predicated on authenticity — real people who share their stories, data and experiences. It’s up to the SWOM community to maintain the highest levels of trust and authenticity, for one cannot exist without the other. To help ensure that, SWOM has established guidelines for all members to abide by. Failure to adhere to the guidelines may cause you to get trebucheted out of SWOM.

1. Give and you’ll get more back.

2. Be real.

3. Don’t be a turd or a troll.

4. Ideas grow in value as they spread.

These sites aren’t a billboard for your ads. Just like a water cooler conversation, a chamber mixer, or a cocktail party, no one want to talk to someone that walks up and strats selling.

But when you get to know people, and they find out about your book (like in your SIG or profile) they will start asking you. Then you can tell them what they want to hear.

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