Book Marketing Q and A: Ask John Kremer, the Book Promotion Expert

Why Hasn’t Anyone Started an Ebook of the Month Club?

By Question Asker on Sunday, June 16th, 2013 | No Comments

Book Marketing Question

Remember the old book of the month club? Why hasn’t someone started an ebook of the week club?

The subscriber could have access to millions of books, similar to Amazon, and pick the one they wanted for a week and then it would disappear from their Kindle unless they wanted to pay a little more to maintain it.

John Kremer’s Book Marketing Answer:

There’s a reason most of the old book of the month clubs have closed: Internet competition provides readers with curation, cheaper prices, complete choice, and no hassle returns.

Besides, with ebooks being so cheap, there’s no margin for running a curated ebook of the month club.

BUT there is room for websites, blogs, and email newsletters that featured new ebooks. And there are already plenty of them. Including Amazon.com’s Best of the Month Picks, as noted below:

Top 700 Independent Bookstores Data Files — This list started out as 500, then 600, then 700, and now over 750 top general interest bookstores. It includes names of the book buyers and event coordinators, address, phone, fax, email, website, and other information about each bookstore. You will be able to download six different formats (your choice of one or all) as well as an information sheet to let you know what is contained in the various data files. Data file download, $40.00. If you find any errors in any listing, we guarantee to hunt down the error and correct it for you immediately.

How Do I Compete with Other Novelists?

By Question Asker on Saturday, June 15th, 2013 | No Comments

Book Marketing Question:

I just heard that the competition in writing and publishing novels is FIERCE! do you have any idea or data in your book on how to get a winning edge over the competition other than being a very good writer?

I was told that most authors do not sell around 100 books within a year.

I really want to win over this. I have no money to get started and all I have are the resources you gave me
and a dream to win.

John Kremer’s Book Marketing Answer:

The competition is fierce, both for fiction and nonfiction — especially with the new ebook and print-on-demand technologies allowing anyone to publish. But, as you noted, most sell few books.

To sell more books, you really have to establish relationships with websites devoted to the genre of your novel (or the subject of your nonfiction book). Get interviewed by them. Offer them excerpts from your book. Offer free ebook copies of your novel to a limited number of their readers. Offer them a review copy.

There are tons of things you can offer these websites and blogs that would interest the blogger, his or her readers, and the general public (which will drive more visitors to their blog or website).

You can get tons of traffic and book buyers simply by offering targeted high-traffic websites or blogs some attractive content. So, do one blog or website a day. Figure out how to contact them (most have a contact page), email or phone them, and make them an offer they can’t refuse.

John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and creator of the Relationships Matter marketing course.

Photo credit: Loupe Clean / CC BY-NC-SA

Posted in Book Marketing, Ebook Marketing, Marketing Novels | Tagged book authors, book marketing, competition is fierce, ebook promotions, novels | Leave a comment

Create New Books in a Flash!

By John Kremer on Wednesday, June 12th, 2013 | No Comments

ClipZine is a new web service that allows you to create PDFs from your Pinterest boards. For details on using this service, see: http://infographicaday.com/clipzine-save-your-pinboards-as-magazines

The key here is that you can create some incredibly beautiful ebooks by using this service. Check out the following ebooks I created from a few of my Pinterest boards. Click on the titles to place an order and review how easy it is to create some beautiful ebooks as PDFs.

Beautiful Homes I Would Love to Live In – 12-page PDF ebook – $.99

Dance Dance Dance – 8-page PDF ebook – $.99 (If you love dance as much as I do, you’ll love these images.)

Great Indie Booksellers – 10-page PDF ebook – $.99

Great Quotations as Graphics – 67-page PDF ebook – $.99 (Note: ClipZine’s processing of images often cuts off part of any words on an image, so about 10% if the quotes are incomplete.)

Optical Illusions and Other Illusions – 13-page ebook – $2.99 (featuring over 60 optical illusions and other wonders of the mind)

780 Sunsets and Sunrises – 170-page ebook – $7.99 (I think this is one of the most beautiful and gorgeous books ever created. Yes, I’m biased, but this book features 780 of the most stunning sunrises and sunsets around. So colorful!)

But, please note, the cover for 780 Sunsets and Sunrises is simply down and dirty, and not nearly pretty enough to represent the book, but I wanted to get the ebooks up for sale. So this is the cover for now. Alas.

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Posted in Ebook Publishing, Internet marketing | Tagged 780 Sunsets and Sunrises, Beautiful Homes I Would Love to Live In, ClipZine, Dance Dance Dance, Great Indie Booksellers, Optical Illusions, Pinterest boards | Leave a comment

What E-Commerce Solutions Are Available to Self-Publishers?

By Question Asker on Saturday, June 8th, 2013 | No Comments

Book Marketing Question:

I’d like to sell my book, Are You Safe?, on my website at http://www.areyousafebook.com.

What e-commerce solution should I use? I have a Paypal business account.

Lynne Roberts, author of Are You Safe?

John Kremer’s Answer:

I think most self-publishers would be well-served by using the WooCommerce plugin — If, that is, you have a WordPress powered blog and website. The plugin is free to download and use. And offers a lot of capabilities. Check it out.

You can find out more here: http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce. Note: It integrates with Paypal Pro.

They also offer a number of add-on plugins to extend its capabilities, but the basic WooCommerce system offers tons of options.