Altogether now... ready? A one, a two...

You blurb all day
You blurb all night
Blurb, blurb, blurb
Til the early mornin' light.
Hopin' your book
Is the one they'll choose.
And when the sales don't come
You feel like a bum.
You got the Indie Book Promo
Ain't Gonna Do It No Mo'
Welcome To My Pity Party
Somebody Shoot Me Boogie Blues.

The Indie Book Promo Blues
Yeah, it's the Indie Book Promo Blues.
Your precious time you fritter
On Facebook and Twitter
Tryin' hard to spread the news.
Then when no one bites
You turn out the lights
And cry the Indie Book Promo
Ain't Gonna Do It No Mo'
Welcome Tto My Pity Party
Somebody Shoot Me Boogie Blues.

The reason why there are a million (well, okay, only a little over half a million on amazon) "How To" books on the subject of book marketing is because that's what every indie author wants to know. How to? Probably everything you read about the subject in those books is good advice, to some degree or another. Unfortunately, most of it isn't likely to result in a whole lot of sales. Why?

I suspect it probably has something to do with the fact that the market is now saturated to the hilt with books by indie authors. In a single year (2009 to 2010) nearly 3 million indie paperbacks were published (according to an estimate by Bowker's "Books In Print"). That breaks down to about 625,000 books a month! And that's just paperbacks! The number of ebooks published would likely double that amount. And it hasn't slowed down. If anything, the number of independently published books (paperback and ebook) published per year continues to increase.

That being the case, it's almost pointless to spend time promoting your book to a general population of readers. One of the best pieces of advice is to identify a specific target population, people who would be most likely to buy your book if they knew it existed.

 You can find a lot of online sites, forums, groups and book clubs that are dedicated to a specific genre (for example, "Fantasy"). That's great. The only problem, for an author, is that it seems most of such groups are not particularly author friendly. That is, they either flat out don't allow authors to promote their books on the group pages or, if they do allow it, they'll have it set up so that promotions are only allowed in a specific "author promotion" section on the group site. A lot of the groups at goodreads.com are set up like that. That seems like a good idea, right? I mean, I can see the reasoning. If they allowed promos on the discussion pages, we pesky indie authors would invade in droves of Biblical proportion like a plague of locusts. Thing is, it seems most of the group members who aren't authors, (and that's usually the majority) never (or hardly ever) bother to check out the book promotion section. Why? Because most of them still seem to be under the impression that if you self-published your book, it's probably not worth reading. Anyway, the result is that the only people who visit that section are other authors whose primary reason for going to that section isn't to find new books to read. No, they're only there to post a promo blurb for their own book.

  • • •Authors promoting to other authors • • •

That's become the case all over the internet. There are a ton of book-related Facebook groups where authors are encouraged to promote their books but, again, it's just hundreds of authors promoting to other authors whose primary reason for being there isn't to find a good book to read. They're only on that page (for a minute or two) to promote their own book. People who actually want to find a new book to read rarely (if ever) go to one of those Facebook pages.

Of course authors are readers, too. And once in a blue moon, another author will see your promo blurb on Facebook or Twitter and they'll click the link and buy the book. It's rare, but it does happen. I belong to over a dozen book-related Facebook groups and I do post promos at least 2 or 3 times a week on all of those group pages but, honestly, I don't think it does much good. So why do I do it? I guess because at least I feel like I'm doing something!

What about purchasing ad space, like on goodreads.com or Facebook? Some people do get a few sales from those ads. I've tried both but they didn't seem to result in any sales.

What about Twitter? Seems like every author now has a Twitter account. But do promo tweets result in sales? Maybe, once in a while, but the problem with Twitter is that there's no way to know if a sale was the result of having tweeted a promo blurb. There's no way to track that. I use Twitter quite a bit but, to tell you the truth, I think it's probably more of a waste of time than it is an effective sales tool. Again, I think I do it only because it's there and it makes me feel like I'm doing something rather than doing nothing at all.

What about giveaways? I tried the Kindle 5-day free download thing. At the end of the 5 days, nearly 500 copies of my novel (Ash: Return Of The Beast) had been downloaded. I have no idea how many of those 500 people actually read the book after they downloaded it but none of them bothered to post a review on amazon. Getting reviews is really the primary reason for giving the book away in the first place. The more reviews your book has on amazon, the more likely it might attract other readers.

Some people have had better luck with the giveaways but, from what I've heard (from other authors who have tried it), it's not all that effective. Some authors have argued, saying, "Well, at least now my book is being read by hundreds of people!" Well, maybe. What they don't seem to realize is that there are 10s of thousands of people out there who are practically addicted to scarfing up as many free ebooks as possible just because they can. They'll probably never get around to actually reading most of them.

What about personal blogs? I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to blogging. My blog (www.GaryValTenuta.blogspot.com) has only been in existence for a short time and it's had only a little over 1200 page views. All I know, at this point, is that those 1200+ page views haven't yet translated into a single book sale. But, like I said, I'm still new at this and looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Another suggestion you'll often find in those "How To" books is to "engage in conversations with readers without necessarily promoting your book". The idea is that sooner or later, as people get to know you, they'll want to know more about your books and that will result in sales. Been there, done that (still doing it) and it's not all that effective. Nothing wrong with engaging in online conversations with people who love books but the bottom line is you'll end up investing a LOT of time for very little (if any) actual return in terms of book sales.

So what's an author to do? That's what we ALL want to know. The best advice I can offer is to just do what you can (all of the above) with the realization that it's probably not going to result in a lot of sales. And while you're doing those various promo activities, keep on writing! Get another book out there. Or a series of short stories or novellas. The more books you have available, the better the odds of getting sales. If you have one book available, you might only get 2 sales in a month. But if you have two books available, and two of each are purchased, you've collected royalties on four sales that month, and so on. It takes time for the sales numbers to build up. But as your sales numbers increase (along with the number of reviews), so does the ranking of your books in amazon's system. The higher the ranking the more visible your book will be for people using key words to search for specific kinds of books on amazon.

Of course there's always the possibility that your book contains that undefinable magical "something" that excites the first few readers so much that they tell all their friends they just have to read it, and then it becomes an over-night cultural phenomenon, in which case a big publisher will offer you a ton of money for the rights and you'll no longer have to suffer the Indie Book Promo-Ain't Gonna Do It No Mo'-Welcome-To-My-Pity-Party-Somebody-Shoot-Me- Boogie-Blues.

Today I will be showing you the art of creating a sharing page, with added inputs. For those who don't get the gist of this, what I will be doing is now creating facebook, twitter, LinkedIn etc website links that will direct you, the clickers, to their social media networks for easy sharing - if you like the links. It is the same method YouTube is using to increase their viewing rate, by adding the sharing snippets (facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, google+) below their video productions, the same snippets that I will now show you how to create. 

What these scripts will allow you to do is directly share your subject (published article, blog, promotional website, social links, video site etc) to multiple social media sites without leaving you page, instead of having to sign into each network and then individually posting to them. These scripts makes it easy to share directly to your network(s) without typing, just press the link and press ok. 

Developers with knowledge of php, sql, asp, html etc can decipher and better understand the language of these web-scripts.

Let's get started. These are the sharing snippets that I created for the Indie Writers Support homepage, facebook, twitter, linkedin, google+ 

(Click or copy&paste these scripts to your web browser to view them)

https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.indiewritersupport.com/   (Share us with facebook)

https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=%20Follow%20as%20at%20Indie%20Writers%20Support&url=http://www.indiewritersupport.com/     (Share us on twitter)

http://www.linkedin.com/cws/share?url=http://www.indiewritersupport.com/?xgi=1jq69B0jW1qnsY   (Share us on LinkedIn, must be signed in)

https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=oz&passive=1209600&continue=https://plus.google.com/share?url%3Dhttp://www.indiewritersupport.com/profiles/blog/list%26hl%3Den-US%26gpsrc%3Dframeless%26partnerid%3Dframeless&followup=https://plus.google.com/share?url%3Dhttp://www.indiewritersupport.com/?xgi=1jq69B0jW1qnsY   (Share us with Google+)

Now allow me to decipher the language of these scripts to their minimal. The first is a facebook sharing code developed by the facebook developers themselves. To make this link yours, simply replace the website link. For example; https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.indiewritersupport.com/   CAN BE   https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://amzn.com/B007C4CY6A  -----  DO YOU NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE? --------DO THIS; https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.THEWEBSITE.com

The second script is that of twitter. What's special about this twitter sharing script is that it allows you to apply subject inputs with the shaing, of anything less than 140 words of 'course.

Example; https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=%20Follow%20as%20at%20Indie%20Writers%20Support&url=http://www.indiewritersupport.com/

If you copy the link to your browser, you will see that the twitter written inputs are highlighted.

Now pay attention to the changes I'm about to make, just like the previous one. Follow the inputs, they will be capitalized. 

https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=%20MY%20BESTFRIEND'S%20BOOK,%20AUTHOR%20OMORUYI,%20HIGHLY%20RECOMMENDED&url=http://AMZN.COM/B007C4CY6A

The same system can be apply to the remaining two scripts for LinkedIn and Google+. Simply replace the website links and add your inputs. 

Here is one made for Author Omoruyi Uwuigiaren; facebook, twitter, linkedin, google+  

You can read more about this author here; http://bit.ly/1e0X8qR

These links are best used as hyperlinks when you attach them to your forwarding emails and your social media welcoming messages.

There is another subject that I want to touch bases on. For those who are curious about this sample shorten url for amazon, and how you can apply it to your book, simply follow this step. www.amzn.com is the shortest url link for amazon.com, with the 'a' and 'o' removed. Type the amzn.com to your browser and add your book's ISBN or ASIN number. For example, http://amzn.com/B007C4CY6A will take you directly to Author Omoruyi Uwuigiaren amazon eBook page.

http://amzn.com/(YOUR/ISBN/OR/ASIN/NUMBER)

Another pointer.   www.bn.com and www.book.com are the shortest urls for the Barnes&Noble bookstores. 

Thank you, and I hope that you enjoy this article. Don't forget to share the Indie Writers Support network (facebook, twitter, linkedin, google+).

Share this article. (facebook, twitter, linkedin, google+).

- Judd Miller

Facebook as we all know it is a massive trafficking tool for internet users. In today's lesson, I will show you all the tricks that Facebook has to offer to published writers.

I will show you the six most important procedures of setting up your facebook's marketing platform, and the first step is 'Setting up your Fan-Page.' If you already have a Fan Page, skip to step 11 below to learn how to optimize the Fan page for better results.

"Setting up your Fan Page"

1. Log-in to Facebook.com

2. Visit this link to set-up a page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?campaign_id=372931622610&a...

3. Choose the “Artist, Band, or Public Figure” tile—it’s in the lower-left corner

4. Select either “author” or “writer” from the drop-down menu and enter your name (see note below)

NOTE:  Other Facebook Pages that may appeal to writers include:  “book,” “book store,” “fictional character,” “library,” or “magazine” under the “Entertainment” category (the lower middle tile), and “media, news, and publishing” under the “Company, Organization, or Institution” category (upper middle tile)

5. Check the box to agree to Facebook’s Pages Terms

6. You will be greeted by the “Get Started” page, just to the right of this text, there will be a like button, click it.

7. You’ll see a numbered list of steps. Step 1: Upload a picture. People are more likely to trust a page with a picture, I think (even if it’s merely a book cover or an avatar)

8. Steps 2 and 3—invite your friends and import your contacts. When you click to invite your friends a screen will pop up with all of your existing Facebook contacts, you can search for particular friends that you think may be interested, filter your friends by the lists you’ve set up, or just go through everybody and click who you want to invite. To import your contacts, you’ll have to upload a contact list or enter your email account ID and password.

9. An alternative/supplemental approach to tap your existing fan base:  Scroll to the bottom of the left-hand column and click “share.” This will post a promo of your new site to your Facebook feed. Write a comment asking your friends to like your new page.

10. Fill in the info for your page. You’ll need to provide as much information as you can (concisely written so as not to overwhelm the page-viewer). For an author page, this will include:  name, address, affiliation, birthday, about, description, biography, awards, favorite books, gender, personal information, personal interests, email, phone, and website—obviously some of this information may be too personal to share and other categories are a bit redundant. Only fill in what you want to fill in.

"Optimizing your Fan Page"

11. Click on the “Edit Page” button located in the top right corner.

12. Go to “Apps,” it’s located on the left side-bar

13. The first app listed is “Events.” Set up an event called “Please like my author page.” Specify a longer time period like one week or one month for where list the link to your new fan page. Under the description, write something like “Won’t you please like my new author page? It will only take you a second, but it would mean the world to me. Thank you J” You may also want to write in a bit about how to like your page, step-by-step instructions—this may be required if you want your less tech-savvy friends (like your Grandma or Great Uncle Herman) to like you. Invite all of your friends to this event. This is the number one best way to get followers.

14. If you want to include discussion boards on your site, which I highly recommend for an author’s page. Go back to the “Edit Page” screen and return to the “Apps” page. Scroll down to the discussion boards and click “edit settings,” then click “add.” You can also do this to add in other standard apps like notes, videos, events, photos, and links—yes, you have to add all of that manually now, thanks to the new layout.

15. I also highly (HIGHLY) recommend adding “RSS Graffiti” to your Facebook page. I prefer this to the other, more popular “Social RSS,” because it is far more reliable. It will run your RSS feed directly to your Facebook wall. As I’ve said before, Twitter is the best way to find new followers for your blog or website; Facebook is how you’re going to keep them coming back. https://www.facebook.com/RSS.Graffiti

16. Another app for your Fan Page that gets my shining endorsement is the aptly named “Fan Appz.” You can use it to set up quizzes, polls, give-aways and much more.  https://apps.facebook.com/fanappz/

17. Link your Facebook page to your other social networks.  Add a “like me” button to the sidebar of your blog or website. Ask your Twitter family to like your page (bonus tip: if you say something like “I only need X more fans to customize my Facebook author page URL. Please “like” me. I follow back!” you are much more likely to get people to head on over to your page—don’t forget to add a link to your tweet).

18. Once you’ve secured your first 25 fans, you’ll be able to customize your page URL. To do this you need to go to https://www.facebook.com/username/Enter your desired page name, and if it’s available it’ll become yours! Make sure you choose a good name, because you won’t be able to change it once it’s set. Customizing your URL means that your link will look something like this: www.facebook.com/emlynchand

19. Add favorite pages. Go to any page you want to add as a favorite to your page. In the left column, you’ll find “add this to my page’s favorites” listed directly after the number of users who like that page. Add the page, and if you’re smart, you’ll post on its wall, saying “hey, I added your page to my page’s favorites. Any chance you’d be willing to return the favor?” Make sure to include your link with your request.

"Create Your Author-App with your Fan Page"

Perhaps one of the most crucial of all facebook apps for writers, this application will build an Amazon Buy Link for your published books with options for readers to join your mailing list or sample the book, but only after they Liked it (pressing the like button). This app is so exciting. All you will have to do is enter your ISBN numbers and the facebook app will link with your published books on Amazon.com. The step on how to set up this AuthorApp is further explained below.

1. After creating your Fan Page, go to this facebook site; http://apps.facebook.com/authorapp/ and a page will show up that says 'The Author Marketing App.' Click on the 'Let's get started-" button and the page will direct you to your established Fan Page.

2. The application will ask you to use your fan Page, and after choosing so, you will see the Author-App as an app button. It is a big red button, titled “Read My Book”. When you click it, the app takes you to a separate tabbed page. Under the Author-App tab, you can create an author profile which includes a mailing list, and an option for you to put your books for sale.

3. You can provide each book you list with the buying link URL (to Amazon or similar), price, description, cover shot image, and two fields that allow you to input an URL or upload a PDF file of your book's excerpt.  This can be entered manually, or you can add a book simply using an ISBN number.  This feature also allows you to bring in details of other books not published by you. Yes, I know, it is exciting.

Here is a Author-App page created by one of our members here at Indie Writers Support. Check it out and see what your Author-App with facebook will look like after you're finished. View the sample here; https://www.facebook.com/AuthorApp/Author-Korede-Abayomi/

We hope that you enjoy this lecture, and look forward to reading more as we continue.

"How do I invite people to like my Page via email? "

If less than 5,000 people like your Page, you can invite your email contacts to like your Page. You can upload a file containing your email contacts and Facebook will securely import them. You can also import your contacts by providing your web email address and password. You can then suggest your Page to your contacts.

To invite your email contacts:

1. Click Build Audience at the top of your Page
2. Select Invite Email Contacts...
3. Upload a contact list file or choose your email service and follow the instructions

Facebook won't store your password after importing your contacts. They may use the email addresses you upload to help people connect on Facebook. If you don't want them to store this information, you can manage your imported contacts.

Note: You can import contacts up to five times for a maximum of 7,000 contacts per day per Page. Read more about this from the facebook help center; https://www.facebook.com/help/212291088790957.

Get a list of 900,000 Facebook members in the U.S.A with profile links and email addresses at http://bit.ly/2uf42bV.

Use this tool, http://www.onlineemailextractor.net, to extract the email addresses from the 900,000 list effortlessly. Extract up to 10,000 at a time.

"Run a Facebook Contest with Fan Page"

Creating a contest hosted on your business page is a great way to create buzz about your fan page. You can run a contest through a Facebook app such as rafflecopter. You can also now run a contest directly through your business page as long as the rules and restrictions are properly outlined and that the ways to win are made clear.

"Add a Fan Gate"

What is a Fan Gate? Fan gates (also referred to as like gates) have users “Like” a page before they can see the posts, contests, or products that are offered on an application inside of your fan page. You do this by adding an app to your page. If you want to display different information to fans you can use ShortStack; if you are looking to promote a Facebook store or a daily deal you should use an app specifically for that such as ShopTab for your Facebook store or SharedDeal for your daily deal. All these apps are equipped with optional fan gates that will prompt users to like your page before they can view your deals or products.

Get a list of 900,000 Facebook members in the U.S.A with profile links and email addresses at http://bit.ly/1mixFPP

Use this tool, http://www.onlineemailextractor.net, to extract the email addresses from the 900,000 list effortlessly. Extract up to 10,000 at a time.