How to Promote Your Book on Facebook with a Fan Page

Today for Our Little Books Guest Post Wednesday, we are pleased to present Dana Lynn Smith who is a book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketer Guides. Drawing on her 15 years of publishing experience and degree in marketing, she specializes in developing marketing plans for nonfiction books and helping authors learn how to promote their books online. One such way is using a fan page on Facebook to promote your book. She is someone to listen to as she knows her stuff! Enjoy.

Promote Your Book on Facebook With a Fan Page
by Dana Lynn Smith

Many Facebook users are confused by the role of Profiles and Pages. On Facebook, Profiles are strictly for people. Facebook's rules require that you register your Profile in your own name and you can have only one Profile. If you set up your Profile in the name of your business or book, you risk having your account cancelled, but it is possible to set up a separate Profile in your pen name as long as you use a different email address.

A Facebook Fan Page (or Page) is designed for business use and it's a great way to promote your book. You can set up a Fan Page for your business, book, or even a character in your book, and you can create multiple Pages. Here are some advantages that Pages have over personal Profiles.

• By using Facebook applications like "Static FBML," you can create customized tabs on your Facebook Fan Page containing graphics, text and videos to promote your book, and even include opt-in forms to grow your mailing list. 
• You can specify which tab of the Page that you want new visitors to land on and create a welcome message for new visitors. See the welcome message on my Page for an example, and also notice the "FREE ebook" tab on the Page. 
• Facebook users join a Page by clicking on the "Like" button at the top of the Page and there's no limit to the number of fans who can join. With your Profile, you are limited to 5,000 friends. 
• You can send messages to your all of your fans, which show up in their newsfeed.
• Pages get indexed by search engines and each tab on the Page has its own URL that you can link directly to.

Click here to create your own Fan Page. When you've got your Page in place, here are some ways to promote your book by building traffic to your Fan Page:

• Once your Page has at least 25 fans, create a personalized URL for your Page.
• Beneath the photo or image on your Page, click "Suggest to Friends" to send invitations to your Facebook friends to join your page. The invitation will appear in the In Box of your friends. 
• Write an article for your blog and ezine inviting people to join your Page.
• Invite people to join your page by posting updates on Twitter, your Facebook personal Profile, and on other social networks. It's best to offer a benefit, rather than just asking people to join.

To encourage Facebook users to join your Page, be active in posting on the page, maintain lively discussions, and offer some benefits and incentive for becoming a fan. Even though promotion is allowed, you still need to be somewhat subtle and provide value to your fans rather than just a sales pitch.

Excerpted from The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing, by Dana Lynn Smith. For more book marketing tips, follow BookMarketer on Twitter and get Dana's free Top Book Marketing Tips ebook when you visit her book marketing blog.

You see  why we like Dana! And while we are talking about Facebook pages, please stop by the Our Little Books facebook page and 'like' us!

10 Benefits of Using an E-book to Promote Your Business.

Photo by Chad Miller via FlickrIn a recent post, What is the Best Format to Publish Your Book? Digital or Print? I explored the pros and cons of publishing a print vs. digital book. If you are promoting an online business a digital book has many benefits. An e-book can be easily downloaded from your site, or you can submit the manuscript to Smashwords to be converted to a format compatible with the various e-readers on the market. I have listed 10 ways an e-book can help promote your business.

1.  You can bundle an e-book with a package of products which will add value to your services.

2.  You e-book can be a sneak peek of a bigger book or product.  

3.  Give it away as a promotional item.   

4.  The e-book will increase your credibility and add value to your services. 

5.  When people sign up for your book it will help grow your mailing list.   

6. If you have a large mailing list your blog will be more attractive to advertisers. 

7.  It can easily be converted to a print book

8.  You can have a link to your e-book in your e-mail signature which will increase traffic to your site. 

9.  You don’t have to have lots of books in stock, either sitting in a warehouse, in your garage or on your kitchen table.

10. E-books can be easily transported on business trips.  A business owner is likely to have his/her digital reader or computer with them if on a trip for easy accessibility.  

What are some of the ways you have used an e-book to promote your business?

Do you often purchase e-books from other websites?

If you like the e-book, are you likely to purchase additional services from the business?

7 Ways to Promote Your Book With Video

After a brief hiatus, we are back with the Our Little Books Guest Post Wednesday. Today we are pleased to present Dana Lynn Smith who is a book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketer Guides. Drawing on her 15 years of publishing experience and degree in marketing, she specializes in developing marketing plans for nonfiction books and helping authors learn how to promote their books online. One such way is using video to promote your book. She is someone to listen to as she knows her stuff! Enjoy.

Video is one of the hottest online promotional tools these days, and with good reason. People watch hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube, and folks who enjoy videos often forward the link to someone else, creating viral marketing opportunities.

Google includes videos in search results, and people also search Google and video sites for videos on a particular topic. So, how can authors take advantage of the power of video to promote themselves and their books? Here are some ideas:

• Add a video greeting to your website, to get up close and personal with your audience.
• Record a brief video promoting yourself as an author, expert, speaker, and/or consultant.
• Create a video book promo (similar to a movie trailer, combining graphics, words, and music).
• Offer free video tutorials.
• Make video posts to your blog (known as vlogging).
• Post video testimonials from customers on your website.
• Create a video bio for your online media room or post clips of live speaking events or television interviews.

Short videos get watched more often, so keep your video under three minutes. About 30 to 90 seconds is usually ideal. Be sure to include your website address and a call to action in promotional videos.

You can create brief promotional videos with a webcam, the video capture feature of your digital camera, a digital video camera such as the Flip Video Ultra or screen capture software like Jing.  You don't necessarily need to use editing software to enhance your video—part of the charm is having it look homemade.

For book promo videos, you'll probably want a more polished look. You can download some basic video production tools and learn to produce videos, or hire someone to do it for you. Prices range from $150 to thousands of dollars, depending on the skill level of the producer and the complexity and length of the video.

I recommend uploading your video to YouTube, then embedding a link on your website or blog. Just copy and paste the "embed" code from the video's page on YouTube. When you upload the video to YouTube, include important keywords in the title, description, and tags.

Here are some other ideas:

• Promote your videos in your ezine and through social media sites such as Twitter, Delicious, and StumbleUpon, and embed them in your profile on social networking sites like Facebook.
• Use the free Tube Mogul service to upload your videos to multiple video sites, after you post it on YouTube.
• Submit your videos to video search engines such as Blinkx and Truveo.
• Insert video links into your book's page on Amazon.com, through Amazon Connect.

Dana Lynn Smith is a book marketing coach and author of the Savvy Book Marketer Guides. For more book marketing tips, follow BookMarketer on Twitter and visit The Savvy Book Marketer Blog to get Dana's free Top Book Marketing Tips ebook.

18 Tips on How To Write an Effective Press Release

Your press release can make or break the promotion of your new book. How are you going to come up with effective release without taking a writing class or hiring someone to write it for you? Here you will find a few tips to write your press release.

1. The words “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” should appear in the top left of the first page above the headline. This will be the first thing the editor or producer will see, and it’s important for him to know that your book deserves to be at the top of his list. 
2. Your contact name, phone number and email address should also appear at the upper right hand corner of your release.
3. Type the headline, in all capital boldface letters, centered on the top of the page. This should emulate a news headline, and should summarize why anyone would want to know more about your book. It should also announce some item of news interest. Example: DOCTORS CURE CANCER!
4. A dateline should appear at the start of the first paragraph and should include the location of the news source.
5. Remember that following the headline, the first paragraph of the press release should present the most important information for your book. It’s very important to catch the editor or producer’s attention early because if you don’t, he might not read the rest of it.
6. The release should be no longer than two pages, double or one and a half line spaced.         
7. Do not use typefaces that are hard to read. Use Times New Roman or Garamond and avoid italics.
8. Customize your releases for the media you are targeting. Mention any info of local interest in your lead paragraph.
9. Spell every word correctly and pay extra attention to the spelling of names. Proofread your press release several times!
10. Include any relevant quotes from your book, or from an expert in your field, that substantiates or reinforces the topic of the release
11. Don’t use exclamation marks - these give the release an amateurish air.
12. Do not use hyperboles. Avoid hyped up words like “fantastic,” “best-seller,” and “terrific.”  Be sure to keep your language simple, and keep your sentences short.
13. Edit the release ruthlessly to eliminate redundancies or unnecessary text.
14. Write all your promotional materials from a benefit point of view. In other words, clearly convey what the reader will get out of your book.
15. After first mention of your title in the body of the release, include, in parentheses, the name of the publishing house and the publication date.
16. Names should be written in full (i.e., Joe Smith) the first time they are mentioned and after that, you should simply refer to the last name (Smith or formally, Mr. Smith).
17. At the bottom center of the release, after the body of the text, write -30- or ### to indicate closure.
18. At the end of the release, list the publication date, page count, price, format (hardcover or paperback), publishing house, and ISBN for your book. Also include the book’s website address.

Following these simple tips will get you a press release that will successfully promote your new book. 

==>Amanda Free is a Communication Major at University of Louisville.