BookLocker Online Marketing

by Mark C. McCann

With the publication of my second novel, Jacob’s Dream: The Final Battle, I guess one could wonder what is next for this Christian fiction author. A mystical allegory filled with adventure and battles true and noble? Children’s stories of friendship and faith? Devotionals with heartfelt wisdom and practical ideas for everyday living? Well, perhaps, but I find that the battle must continue! Not the battle of the characters in the novel, but the battle for exposure, promotion and that all-important “name recognition” writers search for with all their being. Here is my “battle story” and where it has taken me…

Read Mark’s story HERE.

Starting the Sales Flow on a Shoestring Budget

One author’s marketing plan for a book targeting African-Americans.

Profitable and well-known author Jim Novo was involved very early with interactive marketing at Home Shopping Network, both on live TV and with early Internet services like CompuServe and Prodigy. His book, Drilling Down: Turning Customer Data into Profits with a Spreadsheet, priced at a whopping $99.20 (the ebook is $69.43), has been one of Booklocker.com’s best sellers since the first edition was bound almost three years ago. Since then, Drilling Down has not only been revised and expanded, but is also offered with a popular downloadable software application for readers.

As the web developed, Jim realized people were making the same customer marketing mistakes HSN had made almost a decade earlier. He said, “The book was my attempt to get people headed in the right direction before it was too late. Of course, everybody was having such a good time that nobody wanted to hear the message and, soon after, the dot-com thing crashed. The book now sells better than ever and sales continue to rise as people look around for the ‘right way’ to do customer marketing on the Web.”

When asked why he decided to self-publish, Jim said, “The material is of interest to a fairly limited audience in terms of the offline book world. I knew that, and also knew it was unlikely to be published by a traditional publisher because it went against the grain of what people thought was true about interactive marketing. They would read it and say, “We can’t publish this. Nobody thinks this way!”.

Jim’s book alone generates net profits for him of $20,000 a year. But, it generates a lot more than that in consulting fees from people who want him to take the ideas in the book and put them into practice. Jim said, “This was always a core idea behind the book; it’s more a marketing tool than a publishing effort in terms of generating income. I don’t have any consulting clients that did not read the book first.”

And not many authors have a “marketing tool” that alone brings in $20K per year!

He adds, “The other great thing about self-publishing is you can control darn near everything, especially if you are working with Booklocker.com. On the web, it doesn’t cost a ton of money to test things, so you try some things and see what works and what doesn’t.”

Jim put up a simple website and started a newsletter, because he knew people would search for his topic and end up on the site but forget to come back. The newsletter keeps his readers and clients (and potential clients!) in the loop and “reminded” that the book exists.

“Right at the start, we were doing free samples of the book for download and pay-per-click ads on GoTo (now Overture) and later Google to drive additional traffic. We tested and tested different keyword phrases and copy until we knew what generated book-buying visitors. I also wrote articles for marketing and CRM sites and these articles were linked back to my site. They generated huge amounts of targeted traffic and lots of sales. And I always, always encouraged questions from visitors to the site and buyers of the book. I told buyers they ‘are a customer now’ and they should feel free to contact me with questions.”

Once the first edition of Drilling Downwas published, Jim started talking with Booklocker.com’s Richard Hoy about what they should do next. He says, “Based on the comments I received from customers and what Booklocker.com knew about the markets, I decided to write a ‘prequel’ (nine chapters long) to the original book. We would publish a ‘2nd edition’ which would include these chapters and at the same time triple the price of the book. In addition, if you signed up for my newsletter, you would get all nine of these chapters free by e-mail, a new chapter every three days (an eserial, which Booklocker sets up for POD authors at no charge), using what is called an autoresponder provided by Booklocker.com. And sales roughly doubled, right then and there.”

Jim says the biggest myth about self publishing is, “that you can’t make any money doing it. You can make a lot of money if you do it right and choose the right people to work with. But you have to have a plan. You have to first think about the way this new publishing world works and how to take advantage of it. It’s not just the book; there is a whole ‘package’ of things that all work together to make you successful.”

Jim stresses that search engines should be a large part of any author’s marketing campaign. “You have to think about search; it impacts everything you do. The title of the book, names of chapters, etc. are all important for driving free, targeted traffic to your web site. It also helps to have a marketing plan before you write the book. If you are going to give some of the book away free, you have to write it with that in mind. Everything you give away should be written so as to make buying the rest of the book irresistible.”

You can read an overview of Drilling Downand view an excerpt at: http://jimnovo.booklocker.com/book.html

Have you ever sat on the beach (with a bathing suit full of sand) and had a fun-filled hour building a lopsided sand castle with your children? My awkward creations were never very elaborate…only featuring walkways (shells) and rivers (the waves edging closer, threatening to level the entire project). Have you, like me, laughed at your architectural skills and realized your child’s half of the “castle” looked a whole heck of a lot better than yours?

And, do you gaze in awe when you see those humongous sand sculptures on television? You know the ones. CNN always features them during the summertime when reporting about sand sculpture competitions. Have you ever wondered how people learn how to do that?

Well, look no further. Sand sculpture master Lucinda Wierenga can help you out…instantly!

And if you’re an author who has a really unique niche market book to sell (or just a book idea that you’re wondering about), then Lucinda can help you, too.

Lucinda Wierenga (a.k.a. Sandy Feet) is the author of “How To Build a Better Sand Castle,” which has been one of the best selling ebooks at Booklocker.com for longer than we can remember. When Lucinda originally submitted her book to us, we didn’t know if a sand castle book would sell very well. But, we were personally intrigued by the title and were anxious to open and read the book…and especially to see some of those cool sand castles. We could only assume other casual beach-goers would be just as intrigued as we were. And, obviously, we were right!

When asked how she conceived of her book idea, Lucinda replied, “I am a master sand sculptor and perform demonstrations, compete at the world championship level and have taught literally thousands of people how to build a better sand castle. The book is merely the illustrated text version of my standard sand castle lesson.”

Lucinda’s first book was published by a traditional publisher that “mucked it up” and did a poor job of marketing (never assume a traditional publisher will do anything to market your book!). Consequently, Lucinda didn’t make any money on the deal.

Lucinda was thrilled when her short, self-published sand castle book became instantly successful. Her net profit has been $10,000 to date. For those of you who aren’t familiar with typical mid-list books, this amount is nothing to poke your pencil at. Here’s the catch…her book is only 23 pages long! Yes, it’s a simple, how-to book that fulfills a need while not offering fluff (that wastes a reader’s time). Readers can read the book and hit the beach within a couple of hours. And, readers who buy the book while on their laptops in hotel rooms are pleasantly surprised that they can learn how to build cool castles quickly on their computer screen (perhaps even before the kiddo’s naptimes are over and they’re begging to go back to the beach!).

One of Lucinda’s creative marketing strategies has been to strategically position free excerpts from her book on other websites. Website owners often agree to publish excerpts because they provide valuable content for website visitors. Authors who post books excerpts include links to their website (or wherever their books are being sold) in those excerpts so people can click and buy instantly.

When asked for a hint on the single most effective form of marketing she did to promote her book, Lucinda replied, “I created a portal website for all things sand sculpture, for all levels of ability. I give away lots of useful tips which keeps me high in the Google search engine rankings, and that drives traffic to my site and helps sell books. Once readers have the book, they usually also want the line of specialty carving tools my company sells, as well as related products developed by other sculptors.”

Lucinda added, “I think the biggest myth about self-publishing is that you need a big publisher to market your book. The internet has changed everything, leveled the playing field and enabled a poor starving artist such as myself to make a decent living without having to punch a time clock.

“How To Build a Better Sand Castle” is a basic, no frills, how-to book illustrated with both simple line drawings and photos of some of Lucinda’s work. You won’t want to miss this. Be sure to click and buy a copy before your next trip to the beach!