Due to technology's rapid advancements, there's no task quite impossible these days. According to New York Times article which dated June 16, 2007, "Sales on the Internet are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales.... Analysts project that by 2011, online sales will account for nearly 7 percent of overall retail sales, though categories like computer hardware and software generate more than 40 percent of their sales on the Internet." No wonder why the World Wide Web has been the favorite venue of every self-published author who aims to generate great market for their books. One third of the planet is glued to the cyber world - that's a lot of prospective readers to catch.
There are numerous online book marketing companies that offer services to self-published authors. These online book marketing companies offer a line up of tools to equip self-published authors in getting their books on to the marketing play, primary services like web design, e-mail advertisement, media release, video marketing, and a whole lot more. Self-published authors can very well make use of these efficient tools to jumpstart marketing their books. However, self-published authors must understand that marketing tools and services works hand in hand with personal efforts too.
Acquiring a splendid website design service is a big step in marketing one's book. Owning a corner on the web gives every author the opportunity to showcase a lot of details regarding their book and about the author himself but as that famous comic book cliché goes, "with great power, comes great responsibility". Maintenance and updates are vital. Readers are always eager for fresh and new details. Comments and hints of appreciation are always helpful to generate proactive relationships among the visitors of the site and the readers. Participation and connection to social networking sites will surely sustain web traffic to the site. The power of online relationships can never be underestimated.
Email advertisements are also one of the many efficient ways to disseminate information about a book. It directly penetrates the email inboxes of prospective readers. One may send from a hundred to millions of email advertisments. A small budget will not stop an author generate multiple e-mail advertisements. Apart from the acquired service, authors can forward e-mail ads to their own list of personal contacts. The author can also ask the personal list of contacts to forward it too. Through this, it can generate information dissemination at no extra cost, just extra effort. Email advertisements can also be posted on author's social networking sites, especially on the blog page section. "A third of the population has reviewed something online, and any of those reviews can be read by millions of people" according to Andy Sernovts, CEO of Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Written reviews about an email advertisement campaign can gather ideas and suggestions that are helpful for upcoming book marketing campaigns. It leads to a room for improvement. Complete.com shares its top five social networking sites. These are namely: Facebook.com, Myspace.com, Twitter.com, Flixter.com, and Linkedin.com. It is also important to use suitable and appropriate social marketing sites for book marketing campaigns.
Press releases are powerful and it can generate major "buzz" for marketing books. But again, personal efforts and initiative makes a lot of difference. Apart from acquiring a press release with a limited number of recipients, authors can personally send press releases to more publishing firms. The internet has lists of PR firm directories which authors can use to send out more copies of their press releases. Examples of these are: gebbieinc.com, pr.com and publicrelations.uk.com. The press is always busy that's why consistent follow-ups are always an extra plus for press releases to be printed.
Book trailers can easily capture the reader's attention through audio and visual impact. It makes books stand out in a crowd. However, productions of book trailers are quite expensive. That is why personally re-producing copies of book trailers is a clever move. There are sites that upload videos for no charge; examples are YouTube.com, DailyMotion.com, VideoWebTown.com, Veoh.com, and PhotoBucket.com. Video uploads will eat much time, so a better way to broadcast book trailers is posting its embedded codes on social networking sites. This can generate comments and discussions which add more buzz to the marketing campaign.
The success of self-marketing books does not merely rely upon the perfect mix of marketing tools and services that have been used. Authors must be actively involved in the game. Authors must make efforts and have the initiative in molding their books market into a victory. Extra little efforts will help pump up every book's marketing proficiency.
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