Online Marketing Tips (Use These Today!)

I’ve recently run into two great posts elsewhere chock-full of powerful marketing advice for authors. These are too good not to read!

Of course, there are too many good ideas in the world and not enough time. So the trick is to pick the best combo that will work for you . . . strategically (right position? right direction? right attitude to fit your work and make it distinctive?) and tactically (cost? time? skills needed to execute the activities well?).

As a consultant (Litwave marketing services for authors), I recommend picking fewer core activities and doing them well: consistently, well integrated, and with continuity over time, to build a literary career.

That said, check these out:

Jeff Fisher & Social Networking Sites (a visual case study)
Graphic designer Jeff Fisher, of LogoMotives, wrote a great post with screenshots of his social networking pages on different sites (MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, GoodReads, etc.). Excellent overview! It’s a basic principle: have more than one spot on the web where individuals (and whole networks) can connect with you (and find you in the first place, and quickly check out your credentials).

This post is a great way to eyeball the sites and see what one successful creative professional is doing with a bunch of them. You probably won’t want to do this many . . . but can you add one site?

Chris Brogan & How To Promote Your Book Online
Chris is working on a book (Trust Agents, with Julien Smith), and on his blog incited a flurry of excellent (and sometimes contradictory) advice from some very insightful colleagues, in the detailed comments to his post, on how to market a book, especially in advance.

Check this post out (as one respondent said, “I am soo printing all this out!”). You’ll find more than one thing in the comments you’ll want to do for yourself! (As always, don’t follow advice blindly but ask: will it likely work for me? and is it worth it?)

Blogging for Book Authors
I’ll mention my own recent article on blogging for book authors that I stuck on my LitWave site. I’ll comment more in coming posts on the role of the market-focused blog for writers, but this will give you some grist for your literary blog mill.

Posted in: marketing for writers