Excerpt
INTRODUCTION TO

BOOK PROMOTIONAL BASICS



My pen name is Nikki Leigh and in the chapters that follow I’ll share information which will help you learn how to promote your book. I’ve worked in promotional and marketing work for over fifteen years in a wide variety of industries. These include: video rental and sales, a franchise pizza business, furniture sales, a chiropractic office, home improvement office, and my business consulting and web design company.

When I signed a contract for my first novel, I had to learn how to promote my books. Most types of promotion are similar although each product or service is a little different. So, I knew a background in marketing would be an advantage. At that point, I needed to learn the ins and outs of book promotion and online promotion. There’s no doubt the Internet offers a lot of possibilities and I needed to learn how to use those options. At that point, the search was on for free and inexpensive ways to promote my books.

The Book Promo 101 series is a way for me to share the things I’ve learned in the last fifteen years and the last several years in book promotion. Many authors I know don’t really want to take the time away from writing to promote, but what’s the point of having your work published—if no one reads it? From the things I’ve heard, most authors don’t have a promotional background. I hope that putting the information I’ve gathered into a book that’s easy to understand will be helpful.

Book Promo 101 is the first book in a series that I plan to write. Book Promo 101 is about the basics of book promotion. It will give you information about many kinds of promotion. In the upcoming books, I will focus on a specific type of promotion in more detail.

Let me tell you a little about myself and my background. I started writing seriously in the summer of 2002. At that point I wrote on weekends and the rare vacations from work. I completed the draft of my first book in 2003. Of course, I edited it for the longest time and started my second book. In the summer of 2004, I signed my first contract and the book was released in March 2006. In the mean time, I polished the second book and it was contracted by another publisher and released in January 2006. At the time this book is released, I have four novels in print and four business books in print.

In the summer of 2005, I left my day job and dove into freelancing fulltime (not the best idea) and I began writing non fiction that fall. I ghostwrote four marketing manuals for a variety of businesses and three other books. These projects were reasonably simple with my background in business management and promotion.

These ghostwriting projects included marketing manuals for massage therapists, marketing for e-book authors, the benefits of joint ventures for therapists and a promotional book for ice cream shop owners. In addition, I signed a contract for another promotional ghostwriting project for alternative medicine therapists for another client in England.

I won’t lie to you—promotion and marketing are enjoyable and frustrating endeavors. That’s why we all continue to learn and hone our promotional skills, just like we continue to learn and hone our writing skills.This is especially true with Internet promotion since the options are always changing and new opportunities present themselves almost everyday.

Promotional work is something that anyone can learn. It can seem kind of mysterious and intimidating, but you can learn to promote your books. My goal with this series of books is to give you a variety of promotional options to market your books. Not every idea will work for you. It’s better to read through the ideas and make a list of the things you think are right for you. If your list is really small, I suggest that you push outside your comfort zone. Give yourself the freedom to try new things and push the boundaries. Be honest with yourself about what you can do. If you decide to try every single possibility, you’ll spread yourself too thin. Try several things that seem simple.

At that point, try something that’s a bit harder. If you try a promotional option and you can’t do it or you aren’t getting results, move on to something else. That’s why there is a wide variety of promotional options. There should be many that will work for everyone who reads the book.

I facilitate a series of character development classes and I tell the students in those classes to read the lessons with an open mind. I also tell them that they will learn much more with an open mind and the courage to try new things. That same advice works for each person that reads the books in this series.

As your promotional abilities develop, you should review your list of promotional options for a second time. Things are always changing and as our abilities improve, more things are possible. That’s one of the things that make promotional work interesting for some people and frustrating for other people.

Within the pages of this book, I’ll share tips and suggestions from some of my friends. These sections are titled “Professional Promoters Share Their Tips”. I’ve rounded up some great promotional tips. At the end of each chapter, there is a series of questions. Some are very easy and you’ll find the answers in the chapter. However, some are meant to make you think and find ways to apply the things you learned to your promotional work. The idea is to help you spread your promotional wings and find new ways to promote yourself and your books.

My books are published with an e-publisher and I have e-books and POD (print on demand) print books. So, I totally understand the difficulties that POD and e-book authors face everyday. Most of the suggestions in this book will work for e-published, traditional published and self published authors.

I’m creating the Book Promo—Writer’s Resource e-book. It’s over 100 pages with thousands of links to information for writers. There are many types of links and information to help you in your writing, your research and your promotion. These are some of the many topics that are included:

Book Promo 101—Writer’s Resource E-book
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Article Submission Sites
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Author Services
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Blogs
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Bookstore Event Checklist
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Character Name Information
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Contest Submission Sites
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Craft Show Resources
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Get the Word Out About Your E-book
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Make Yourself Known Online
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Author Pages or Author Listing Links
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E-book and/or Book Sales Sites
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Interview Sites
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Research Specific Topics
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Marketing Resources
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Media and Presentation Training
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Online Forums
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Press Release Submission Sites
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Review Sites
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Writers Conferences and Events
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Writing Organizations
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Writing Resources
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Writing Scams

Additional books are planned for the Book Promo 101series. These books will go into more detail about creating an effective web site, how to use the Internet to promote and how to use blogs for promotion, how to become a promotional guru, the various ways and places to generate book sales, how to identify and market to your target market, common mistakes and how to avoid them. (These topics could change. ) If there’s a specific topic you’d like to learn more about, feel free to drop me a note at: bookpromo101@excite.com

In Appendix J, I’ve provided a list of all the people who contributed their thoughts in this book. Their names, book titles and web site addresses are included. I have to thank each and every one of them for their contributions. The various thoughts, experiences and comments will be useful for the people who read this book. If you would like to contribute your promotional experiences in the next book in this series, feel free to contact me and we can see if your experiences will fit in the book.

In November 2007, I’m planning to start writing the second book and will be searching for contributions and experiences about online promotion. If you want to share something, please contact me at: bookpromo101@excite.com.

Nikki Leigh Fiction Web site – www.nikkileigh.com

Book Promo Web Page— www.nikkileigh.com/book_promo_101.htm

Non Fiction and Business Web site— www.nikkileigh.com/promo.htm