Welcome to another edition of the Book Marketing Update.

First, let’s address the above image. I’m hiking more than ever these days. Whether you call it forest bathing or tree TV, there’s nothing comparable to strapping on a pair of hiking boots and hitting the trail.

Besides, writing, publishing, and book marketing comprise a lengthy journey. But like hiking, we break it down into a set number of miles at a time, focused only on that next step.

Gradually, we reach our destination.

I hope you reach the destination you are traveling toward in your writing, book marketing, and publishing career.

Book Marketing

How To Design A Book Cover That Sells by David Gaughran: “Getting your book cover design right is the arguably most important stage in self-publishing a book. Handle this delicately if you want to have any chance of success — this is not an area where you can skate by.”

How to Write Your Author Business Plan – Joanna Pennn is interviewed on Sacha Black’s podcast, The Rebel Author: In this podcast you’ll learn how to write a business plan, mistakes to avoid, and how to improve your money mindset.

Social Media Updates

New cool feature -> Twitter Launches Live Test of Voice Recordings in Direct Messages from Social Media Today: Twitter has officially launched a full live test of voice clips within direct messages to users in Brazil, India, and Japan but not the UK, Australia, or the U.S. Darn!

Instagram Highlights Covers: How to Make Covers that Get Clicked from Social Media Examiner: “Instagram highlights brought evergreen value to Instagram Stories—a separate feed to which people could post content that would vanish 24 hours later. By creating highlights, you can move your otherwise-vanishing stories down into the center of your Instagram profile.”

Book Sales

Tutorial from Joanna Penn: How To Sell Ebooks And Audiobooks Direct With Payhip and Bookfunnel: “Do you want to sell ebooks and/or audiobooks direct to readers and make 80-90% royalties, as well as retaining customer data? In this video tutorial with extensive notes below, I’ll show you how I do it with Payhip and Bookfunnel.”

Of Note

Where Do Ideas Come From? 6 Tips on Finding Inspiration by Helena Fairfax: This post, as you can tell, isn’t about book marketing. Yet, I thought it was a wonderful piece and worthy of including in this roundup.

Quote of the Week

When I approach the preparation of my weekly Book Marketing Update, I purposely look for bloggers who aren’t the regulars that you and I routinely follow.

So you can be pretty much assured that my weekly roundup will contain different information than those of similar consultants.

I hope you enjoy this particular update.

David Gaughran always shares vital book marketing strategies. So if you don’t follow him on Twitter or sign up for his newsletter, do that now.

I also love the post by Mobile Monkey as well as the article on author photos.

Of course, I like all of the posts in this update; that’s why I included them!

Take care, stay healthy, and keep writing.

Book Marketing

How to Tell if Your Author Photo Is Sending the Right Message by K.M. Weiland: I see too many author photos on social media that — how should I say this — are just wrong. Please don’t use pictures of your dog/cat/bird/book cover as your avatar. Your readers want to see your face. Also, don’t camouflage your profile picture by wearing sunglasses. Okay, I’ve said enough. Be sure to read this post.

Book promotion which works: Promo Stacking and building your marketing plan by David Gaughran: This video describes what promo stacking is and how to use it.

Identifying Your Reader from Writers Helping Writers: A vital part of book marketing is to identify your reader as you start to write your book. Read this post to learn more about this aspect of book marketing.

Why You Should Hire a Freelance Publicist by Patricia Smiley and from Career Authors: “I’ve hired a freelance publicist twice in my writing career, the first time out of naïveté and the second time out of necessity. It was expensive, but I have zero regrets. We all know publishing is a business. As it turns out, so is writing. Authors have to invest in their careers if they hope to succeed.”

SEO for Authors

The Frustrating Realities of SEO Success by Dave Brown and from Sabrina Ricci: “Running a successful website requires effort in many different areas. In addition to coming up with a suitable design for the website site, authors will need to populate it with well-written content that attracts visitors. Many site owners hire SEO services to boost the popularity of their site, as writing SEO-friendly content themselves can be frustrating.” Note: I’ve never hired an SEO professional. If you want to hire someone, interview several experts and ask them what results you can reasonably expect to see and what the entire cost will entail.

Social Media to Boost Your Book Marketing

Facebook Best Practices from MobileMonkey: This post lists 20 best practices to increase fans and generate more engagement and traffic to your website.

Email Marketing

19 Lessons to Grow Your Email Newsletter by Brandon Zhang and from Better Marketing: Social media is awesome but you need to use social media to generate traffic to your website. You also need to use it to grow your newsletter list. Why? You can’t control how Facebook or Twitter changes its platforms. But with email marketing, you have your readers’ email addresses and you can develop your platform to best meet your readers’ needs or desires. This post will help you to grow your list and develop your unique platform.

Blogging

How To Maintain An Online Presence When You’re Battling With Your Mental Health from Blogging Wizard and by Kim Lochery: This is a fascinating blog post with real-world tips. I don’t agree with all of them but they are all worth considering.

Of Note

The Artist In The Machine: The World Of AI-Powered Creativity With Arthur I. Miller and from Joanna Penn: Joanna Penn is always ahead of the curve, leading the way for the rest of us. Don’t miss this important podcast. You can also read the text of her conversation with Arthur I. Miller.

7 Letters from Famous Writers Sharing Fantastic Writing Advice from Nicole J. Bianchi: I absolutely love the quotes in this post. They’re the best! Definitely read this blog post.

Quote of the Week

If I must say so myself, I love today’s Book Marketing update.

It’s so full of great book marketing advice. I especially adore the blog post from Reedsy. Be sure to check it along with the amazing book covers. Want to brand your books? Then take a look at what other authors are doing.

I am again highlighting Jamison Hill and his new book. If he can overcome all the obstacles he faced to write his book, then the rest of us have no excuse. Be sure to follow him on Twitter, too.

Enjoy your writing and your weekend. Back at you next week!

Book Marketing

Designing Your Author Platform: A Guide to Get Results by Ruth Tuffnell: This is an excellent post on the author platform basics that every author should know.

Get Reader Reviews Now to Drive Sales Later by Mike O’Mary and from Jane Friedman’s blog: “I know it goes without saying, but don’t expect to sell 5,000 copies of a mediocre book. The steps that follow will get your book into the hands of thousands of readers. If they like your book, you’ll get lots of positive reader reviews, good word-of-mouth, and thousands more readers. If they don’t like your book, you’ll get negative reader reviews and bad word of mouth. Enough said.”

8 Self-Publishing Success Stories Every Author Should Know from Reedsy: Be sure to read this blog post. Even if you don’t have time to read it, at least look at the gorgeous book covers and notice the branding.

SEO

Does Page Speed Affect SEO? from Sabrina Ricci and by Joseph Dyson: “Page speed is one of Google’s ranking factors. Page speed is the time it takes your website to load on a desktop or a mobile phone. Different websites have varying page speeds depending on factors such as image optimization, file scripts, the web server being used, internet connection, browser, etc. The page speed of each website is measured in seconds, and the less time it takes your website to load, the better user experience your customers will have. Studies show that about 53% of users will exit a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds for the page to load.”

Social Media News

Instagram’s Developing a TikTok-Style Vertical Feed for Stories from Social Media Today: It’s amazing how TikTok is revolutionizing other social media platforms. Find what Instagram is working on now. Be sure to apply all of these renovations to your book marketing.

Book Marketing with Email

Email list management explained (11 best practices) from MailerLite: I love this blog post! “We often get fixated on size rather than quality—and this is certainly true when it comes to our email lists. Surely more people joining your list is a great thing, but not when your email performance and email deliverability numbers take a toll because half your subscribers are inactive.”

Of Note

My Book is Officially Published! An author’s journey to writing and publishing his book by Jamison Hill: “I won’t say that I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was a kid, because I probably cared more about firefighters back then, but I’ve definitely been imagining this moment for a long time. Over the course of the decade it took me to write When Force Meets Fate, there have been countless times in which I thought the book would never be published.”

‘Just Make a Start’ — My interview with Bestselling Author Emma Rous by The Writing Cooperative: “USA Today bestselling author Emma Rous recently released her second novel, The Perfect Guests, and it is already gaining attention. Earlier this month CrimeReads included the book on its “Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2021” list and Booklist gave the novel a starred review.”

Quote of the Week

There is a lot to love in this week’s Book Marketing Update.

There was plenty of information this past week about book marketing. Blog posts covered everything from trailers to book launches to the importance of giving away elements for free.

I thought Ryan Lanz’s blog post was especially interesting.

Finally, in a bit of shameless self-promotion, for the first time every I’m sharing a new testimonial I received from a client. To read all of my testimonials just go here.

Book Marketing

The Importance of Finding Your Marketing Sweet Spot from Jane Friedman and by Ricardo Fayet: “One of the first (and only) books I read about startup marketing, with a view to apply its advice to growing Reedsy, was Traction. Published in 2014, it’s a fairly old book now, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it anymore to startup founders. However, one of its central marketing principles remains crucial to anyone trying to market anything—and yes, that includes you and your book. In fact, I interviewed one of the authors of Traction a few years ago, who said as much.”

How I Planned My Book Launch Calendar for 2021 in Just Two Hours by P.S. Pagan: “At the start of every year, I sit down to figure out what books I’m launching and when I’d like to launch by. This is a really critical part of keeping my author business running, because any delay or setbacks in my production schedule can mess up my workflow and my income.”

9 Ways To Unleash the Power of Free in 2021 by David Gaughran: “Authors are giving away more stuff than ever before: permafree books, reader magnets, and ARCs are just the tip of the iceberg. What’s going on? Should you jump on the free train? Does any of this stuff generate money?”

Book Marketing with Videos

Create a Book Trailer with Lumen5 by Brant Forseng: This post teaches authors how to create book trailers by using Lumen5.

2021 Video Marketing Insights from [Infographic] from Social Media Today: Find out what the experts say about how you should use video for your marketing this year.

Audiobooks Sales

6 Ways to Boost Audiobook Sales on Apple Books from Findaway Voices: “If you’ve been wondering how to boost sales on Apple Books, we’re here to give six tips on how to leverage what’s unique about Apple Books to drive more sales.”

Grateful for This New Testimonial

Of Note

3 Tips From My Failure As an Author by Ryan Lanz: “You’re standing on one mountain summit, and there are fifty miles between the next mountaintop to which you’re expected to jump. Any step you take, any direction, and you’re going to go crashing to the ground, lucky to escape with your life. There will be bruises, broken bones, broken pride, despair, and maybe, if you’re lucky, a little bit of determination that you can dig out of the rubble, dust off, and put back in place. That is being a writer.”

Quote of the Week

A social media expert for authors (something I never dreamed of becoming), I build author platforms to enhance book sales. I also use my industry connections to promote authors and their books. What else can I do for you? I’m a writer so I provide content writing and email marketing services, and if all you need is some personalized training, I can do that as well. Let’s chat! And don’t forget to download my free Twitter ebook.