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Monday, July 30, 2012

Top 10 Ways NOT to Market Your Book

In the wonderful land of internet where people hide behind computer screens and integrity doesn't exist, there are many deceitful and despicable book marketing tactics fighting to be seen. But what they don't know is that hard work pays off, and always wins the screen. Here's a list of losing ways, to market your book for always:

10. Post on Twitter telling people to buy your book over and over and over and over and...
9. Review as many books as possible and always mention your book in the review.
8. Never have a conversation where you don't mention your book - online or off.
7. When people ask a question that you answered in the book, tell them to read your book to find the answer.
6. Make up some (false) statistics (sales, reviews, anything really) to share about how awesome you and your book are and share them with others.
5. Leave nasty reviews for books similar to yours and say that your book is better.
4. Host a webinar just to tell people how great you and your book are without giving them any helpful information and then referring them to buy your book.
3. Try every single book marketing idea that you come across and make sure you are doing everything possible to market your book.
2. Spend thousands of dollars just to draw in one or two sales.
1. Just assume your book will market itself and don't even try.

Okay, so I might not be much of a poet, but the point is clear. Book marketing is about forming relationships with readers, not promoting yourself or your work. Let's look at these from the perspective of hard work and integrity shall we? Ten ways to market your book:

1. Learn about the different aspects of book marketing and form a plan.
2. Market your book on a shoestring budget - you wrote it to make money, not spend money.
3. Don't try everything at once. You'll burn yourself out and end up failing - It's better to do one thing well then ten things poorly.
4. Host a webinar that offers people a ton of useful information in a short amount of time (build their trust, not their desire for more).
5. Only review books that you've read, and review them honestly. Remember that you're an author too, don't write anything about another author and their book that you wouldn't want written about you and yours.
6. Tell the truth and always be honest.
7. When people ask you a question that you know the answer to, answer them - then, if you must, let them know that you go into more detail in your book - or not.
8. Build real relationships that don't revolve around you and your book marketing. Relationships sell books, not meaningless conversations.
9. Never mention your book when reviewing another book. Amazon will delete them and it just looks tacky. If they like your review, there is a good chance they can trace it back to your book without you shouting "look at me!"
10. Use social media to build relationships and make announcements. You should post about things other than your book at least ten times more than you post about it.

What about you? Can you share any ways NOT to market our books, and how we can flip that around and apply it? I'd love to hear from you!

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