Author Book Marketing

Recently I really got stuck on a writing project. I thought, I paced, I waved my arms at the blank canvas of my computer screen, I bit my nails. Nothing. Just me and the darkness. I was stuck, stranded in limbo. After a day in the dark I was afraid to go forward. There might be a cliff, a wombat, or even worse an editor out there for all I knew. I mean come on, it was really dark and I was scared and hungry sitting there cradling my meager story ideas in my lap. Eventually I gathered enough courage to slink away to the kitchen for a tuna sandwich, leaving the story to fend for itself, because I'm a heartless bastard. And that's the way the story would have ended, except for John Grisham. Strange as it seems, the man of 100 million book sales clicked on friends on my Goodreads account. I know because the website sent me an email, I looked to confirm this happenstance, and there was a great quote from him: "Don't compromise yourself - you're all you have....

Marketing your website or blog without having first provided good content is like capturing water with a net. Even if you do succeed in getting to the source, you won't be able to hold onto it! Readers want quality content - whether you are writing a blog, a web article, or a book. Offer junk and you won't hold your readers, even if you provide excellent SEO practices . Today's search engines don't just analyze your traffic patterns, they actually have amazingly strong algorithms that measure your actual content. Search engines like high quality, continually updated content that is unique on the web. Provide it and the web will beat a path to your site - using front and back links! Know Your Audience Just as a book author has to know their genre, a blogger needs to know their main subject and their readers. If your blog is about manhole covers , you need to know a lot about them, you need a new slant on them, and you need to figure out what your readers want to h...

Dusting off the cobwebs and reigniting the neural pathways is necessary to keep the brain functioning. So, as I do occasionally, I slip from being "In the Moment" to remembering events from long ago. Because my family moved regularly, I'm able to pinpoint dates fairly accurately since I know the grades I was attending in school in different locations, like Cincinnati, Ohio - Walnut Creek, California - - Seal Beach, California - Long Beach, California - Pleasant Hill, California - Dayton, Ohio - Sasebo, Japan - Arlington, Virginia - West Springfield, Virginia - Walnut Creek, California - and I'm through high school. Whew! There are four additional in-town homes on this list, too. Then Concord, CA, back to Walnut Creek, then Antioch, CA - Turlock, CA - South Lake Tahoe, CA where crazy things happen ), Las Vegas, NV - Concord again, Sparks, NV, Reno, NV, Sparks, NV, and that's about halfway. What the hell was I doing? Lots of Memories and Reasons for the Moves My fat...

The Roots of Reno (Kindle Edition) newly tagged casino

Blogging started out as a great way to connect daily with your friends; an open journal. Today we've got Facebook, so the blogging idea has morphed into a more organized way of marketing. That's good and bad. When I was growing up, a few friends and I used to do a lot of running, just for the fun of it. One of them, Fred Schumann, went to the extreme when he ran the length of Japan on a 2,000-mile journey that took him fifty-nine days to complete. He later blogged about it - now that's something you'd want to read about each day. And that's what brings readers back to blogs on a regular basis - great stories. If you're using a blog to sell your books, you're going to have to offer something extra each post to get new readers. My Nevada Casino History blog is written because I love old casino photos and stories. If I sell a few extra books in a somewhat organic way, that's just a nice bonus for me. Every blog that offers something nice has a hug...

Thanks for reading - Al W Moe

The world certainly has more writers, but apparently it needs more readers, too. According to Bowker (who handles ISBN's), there were 211,000 self-published books put on the market last year, up almost one-third in two years. Did you contribute to that total? Turner Publishing expects to crank-out over 1,000 titles this year - and focuses on first printings between 5,000 and 10,000. Their marketing has to be spot-on and conservative to keep in line with those small but realistic numbers. Obviously re-prints are based on performance, and many titles rise in sales to reach six-figures, but what about your book? Last year the average (according to Bowker, again) self-published fiction book sold for $6.94 - in softbound. Nonfiction works commanded nearly three times that figure, and sold more copies on average! Next, take into account that e-books accounted for 41% of self-published units, but only accounted for 11% of sales dollars, mostly due to the average e-book sales price ...

When I'm busy elsewhere it seems like I just can't wait to get to work on my latest novel ( Dying to Be Slim ), but when I sit at the computer, there I go to Twitter, Facebook, my emails, my book sales.........anything but the manuscript! How much time needs to go into marketing and social media these days to be successful? Well, although I have a degree in marketing, so much has changed in the last ten years with regard to selling books I sometimes feel like I have no idea anymore. Publishers still use book wholesalers, book tours and good-old-fashioned TV/Radio/print marketing to drive sales, but publishers are increasingly more reluctant to take on new authors. That's understandable, and fortunately it's easier to publish your own work these days, so there are options for those of use who are inclined to self publish.  In my case, if I actually finish the novel I'm working on (maybe by the end of the next month) I won't be heartbroken if I can't fi...