Steve Weber on Online Book Marketing

Steve Weber is the author of Plug Your Book!: Online Book Marketing for Authors and The Home-Based Bookstore. His Plug Your Book blog is becoming required reading for those interested in selling books.

1. You have a new book out, Plug Your Book. What can you tell us about that work?

SW: The message is simple: Free advertising works better than paid advertising. People are paying less attention than ever to traditional advertising, and it's never been very effective for books anyway. But it's easier than ever for authors to get free publicity online, without having any special computer skills.

I recommend three basic things: blogging, joining social networks like MySpace, and strengthening your book's Amazon recommendations.

These techniques are virtually free, but they generate demand for your book everywhere -- online and in brick-and-mortar bookstores.

2. What is the one thing that most folks overlook when planning their online book marketing?

SW: Most new authors assume their book will sell itself; that once it's available in bookstores or on Amazon, people will buy it automatically. You can have the best book in the world, but nobody is going to buy it unless your book has real word of mouth.

Many authors hire a book publicist, but for most new authors, a traditional marketing campaign won't generate many sales. Spending money on marketing is satisfying because it makes you feel like you're taking action. But the truth is, nobody can market your book better than you can, using free or very low-cost online techniques.

3. In your book, you talk about blogging. Why should an author put in the time and effort to blog?

SW: Writing a blog enables your readers to find you.

Instead of trying to beat people over the head with an advertisement for your book, a blog enables your audience to discover you, and they get involved.

Blogging does take time, but the payoff can be huge. The more you blog, the more readers will find you, and contribute new ideas you can use in your books.

You're probably already doing several things now you could be using for your blog. For example, I get a few e-mails every week from readers who have a question about one of my book topics. I take the most interesting questions and post them on my blog along with my answer. This way, more people benefit from my answer. And once my blog post makes its way into Google, hundreds or thousands more people will discover my blog (and book) when they search for a similar question.

4. How useful is your book and techniques for older books? I'm not talking about books that are years old, but perhaps one that came out in the last year or two. What would you recommend for those readers?

SW: These days, with print-on-demand, books never need to go out of print, of course. So as long as your blogging is generating book sales, it's a no-brainer. Plus, with a blog readership, you have more knowledge, momentum, and motivation for your next book.

Also, your blog audience is a great way to try out new ideas. For example, Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine, posted much of his bestseller, "The Long Tail," on his blog first. What originally was a magazine article grew into this popular blog. Then his blog readers added fuel to the fire. They suggested some new ideas and corrected some mistakes, making the book much stronger. This created a built-in audience for the book because even though the blog readers had already read much of the book's contents, they still wanted their own copy. It's no coincidence that "The Long Tail" has been one of the best-selling books of the past year.

5. How did you learn the techniques in "Plug Your Book?"

SW: It was all quite by accident. I didn't relish the idea of spending time on book promotion. When I started promoting my first book, Google advertising was all the rage. I'd heard these "pay-per-click" ads were really effective, so I bought thousands of dollars worth of Google and Yahoo ads. I also tried other expensive things that turned out to be ineffective, like hiring an expensive publicist and mailing thousands of review copies.

All those things that sounded like great ideas were horrific failures -- I was spending $20 on marketing for every $1 of sales. So I ditched my traditional marketing campaign. I started blogging, joined MySpace, and worked at getting some Amazon Top Reviewers to read and review my book. That's when my book started selling, and it was such a revelation. All those things I'd been spending money on were a waste of time, while the grassroots techniques that cost virtually nothing were extremely effective. I though it would be very helpful for new authors to know about these techniques, and that was the inspiration for "Plug Your Book."

Comments

[Philip Harris]

Excellent information and thanks for sharing! I do think that blogs are a great, no cost way to help get your book known.

[Jeff]

Interesting interview. Thanks.

I'm doing a study of author blogs and, sadly, am finding that only a very small percentage of authors have blogs. Steve's book serves a good purpose since it's needed to get the word out to authors about the benefits of blogging.

[Shel Horowitz, Ethical Marketing Expert]

I've read Steve Weber's book and I highly recommend it. Most of his online strategies are different from and complementary to the ones I discuss in Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers (there is some small amount of overlap).

[Tom Nixon]

Hi Shel,

Yes, I found it much the same as you. Since I am currently reading both books (one in the house and one in the car), I can assert that they are quite complementary and it is well worth buying both.

Tom Nixon

[A.P. Fuchs]

Excellent advice, Steve, and I wholeheartedly agree. The methods you've mentioned in this article have certainly helped the sales of my superhero novel (Axiom-man™). Now you're making me want to check out your book to see what else you got.

[Cheryl Kaye Tardif, author of Whale Song]

I consider myself a mega marketer when it comes to promoting my book, and have earned the nickname of Shameless Promoter in my circle of peers and friends. Over the past 4 years I have tried many strategies to increase my internet "exposure". Many of them have been small time. Some didn't work at all.

Steve and I seem to be 'on the same page' when it comes to how important it is to market books online. It's vital. You can reach millions of people if you know how. If you follow Steve's advice you will have thousands of people a day finding you and your book. Do you know how many book signings that would take?

Plug Your Book is an excellent resource and a MUST-HAVE for every published author. I had been doing many of the things he suggests, but not to the extent and without fully understanding why these things work. If you have written a book, if you want to sell that book, then you need Steve Weber's book. Like any business, you need the right tools. And Plug Your Book! is definitely one of them.

***** 5 Stars

Cheryl Kaye Tardif,
author of Whale Song, The River and Divine Intervention
http://www.whalesongbook.com

[Erica Stux]

I want to ask several regular reviewers on Amazon to review my book of humorous essays. But their e-mail addresses are not listed anywhere.
Another question: how do ordinary people go about finding a blog that would be of interest to them? In other words,if I had one, how would anyone find it?

[Steve Weber]

Erica,

For privacy reasons, Amazon doesn't publicly show the e-mail addresses for reviewers. However, it's easy for you to contact them. Click on the pen name (which often is their real name) and you'll arrive at their Amazon profile page. On the right top corner of the page you'll see a link to "Invite as an Amazon friend." Clicking on that link will generate a pop-up box where you can type them a message and Amazon forwards it in an e-mail.

I describe this in greater detail here on my site:
http://www.weberbooks.com/plug/Plug-Your-Book-43.html

As to your question about how people will find your blog: Your blog posts will be indexed by Google and other search engines. So people searching for the topics and keywords you use on your blog will find you when they search the Web for those things.

You can also gain blog readership by mentioning your blog URL in a variety of places -- in your e-mail signature, on discussion groups, in syndicated articles and your comments on other blogs. Anywhere you have a presence online (MySpace, Gather.com, etc.) you can mention your blog address.