The Perfect Book Promotion Webpage

Below is an example of an ideal book promotion website. Featuring Dr. Eric Maisel's newest release, The Atheist's Way, the website to promote the book demonstrates all the elements required to inform the reading public, the media, and anyone else interested in the book. It also provides details about the author and his other works, as well as offering a book trailer and contact information.

First, make note of the strong visual connection via color and design of the book cover and the webpage.


Viewed up close you'll see the various categories that direct to added pages of interest to the viewer. In the left column are links to learn about the author, talks & appearances, invitations to speak, a sampling of other books, information about becoming a "meaning coach", his blogs, his podcasts, and a link to his main website.

In the right column, the reader can find information about this latest book, what readers are saying, the first chapter of the book to sample, book group & study questions, free group telechats, a link to join the virtual book review tour, a telesummit, and a discussion forum.

If you've decided to join the virtual book review tour (which eliminates author participation in the usual aspects of a blog book tour, such as interviews and guest blogs), you'll find the page below with links to a biography, photos, questions, and an appearance schedule, all in one handy spot.

When you link to the author bio above, you get the page below which gives you loads of information about Dr. Maisel, as well as enough information about the book to discern its focus, and embedded are links to various points on the site that offer more information.

It's hard to imagine a more well-designed and informative web page for a new book, and no doubt saves the author as well as book reviewers an enormous amount of time tracking down or supplying information. Use it as a guide for your next book promotion. I might make one small improvement and that is to put a Buy-the-Book link in a very obvious place on the main page. Other than that, this website about covers it all in an attractive and concise way.


Still to come, our review of the book - watch here for links and times of broadcast.

GoodReads Book Promotion

This week, our Blog Book Tours class explored the social forum called GoodReads which attracts anyone with an interest in reading and books. Beth Groundwater gives these tips for using the forum to book promotion advantage:

I'm in a number of groups on Goodreads related to my genre: mystery lovers, Cozy Mysteries, Chick Lit, and some general groups such as BOOK-A-HOLICS, Constant Reader, and Book Buying Addicts Anonymous. But, I'm much more active on the site.

I often go "trolling" in my groups for friends. If anyone joins mystery lovers or Cozy Mysteries and has books like mine in their books list, they get a friend request. Same goes for anyone who makes a comment about cozy mysteries in any of the groups. I now have over 1000 friends. Many of those friends have put my book on their to-read list or even actually read it and reviewed it.

A REAL BASKET CASE is now on the books lists of 162 members, has 18 reviews, 35 ratings, and has an average rating of 4.3. If someone who is not a friend puts the book on their to-read list (which I can see when I go to the book profile), they get a thank-you note and a friend request from me. The book had nowhere near as much activity on its profile before I joined Goodreads and started making friendships and commenting in group discussions. After HinH is published, I plan to do a book giveaway.

Also, for personal pleasure, I keep track of my reading list there, take recommendations and add them to my to-read list, research books that my book club is considering by reading reviews of them, etc.

I enjoy the Goodreads community more than general ones like Facebook, because it is focused on books and reading. Here's my link there, if anyone wants to befriend me:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/471598.Beth_Groundwater
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Beth Groundwater, http://bethgroundwater.com/
A REAL BASKET CASE, Five Star, 3/2007, Best First Novel Agatha Nominee
TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET, Five Star, May 2009

Book Place

This week, the current blog book tours class at our yahoogroup is exploring a virtual community at Ning created by our member, Morgan Mandel. It's called Book Place and has about 1,600 members. The set-up is a little different than Facebook and MySpace - to me a bit more user-friendly - so head on over there if you're an author or a reader. Click here to join and try it out. Tell us what you think by commenting here.

The Daily Facebook

I asked our current blog book tours class just how they handle their time commitments over at Facebook, and Joan De La Haye left this helpful comment:

My daily routine on Facebook is this.

I first check my Friend requests (I usually have about 2 to 3 a day) after I've accepted them as friends, I leave a thanks for the request message on their walls.

Then I ignore all the annoying application invites.

Then I check to see who's birthday is on that day and leave a Happy Birthday message on their walls.

Then I check my messages - reply to any questions, etc.

Then I respond to the people who accepted my Friend requests and leave thank you messages on their walls.

And then I go trawling through my groups - which I've specifically chosen for the fact that they have to do with the genre I write in. So in my case I belong to a lot of horror groups.

I send about 5 or 6 Friend requests a day.

So that's my morning Facebook routine.

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Thanks, Joan. We're all looking for good methods to minimize our non-writing chores, and this is enormously useful. You can visit Joan for more information here:

Website
Blog

Facebook Week

The group is now working on Facebook, and I admit, I could use some tips myself to maneuver around over there. My first big stumbler was the Facebook link, and I learned today how to convert my ugly Facebook url to something memorable. Here's how:

Go to http://tinyurl.com/ and instead of converting to a tinyurl, create an alias. My new one to Facebook is http://tinyurl.com/Daniatblogbooktours thanks to Blog Book Tours class participant, Bob Sanchez. So much easier to remember, and I highly recommend you all convert your Facebook links to something nicer and much easier to remember.

Next challenge - how to get around that miserable word verification issue?
Then - how to get and use the Twitter apps?
Finally - how to get friends without overdoing it and getting in trouble?

Is it just me who feels like Facebook is a tad too complicated to maneuver?

Twitter Tools

One of the built-in tools in Twitter is the ability to text message to your Twitter account from your phone, and many Twitter users do this. There is a page in Settings that allows you to create this ability. I don't use it because I can barely see well enough to make a phone call on my cell, much less text message. That doesn't mean it's unpopular with other tweeple. Many updates are sent to Twitter in this way.

There are other third party applications to organize Twitter, which is in itself a fairly simple and straightforward arrangement. Some of those more sophisticated applications like Friendfeed are mentioned at this blog.

As your Twitter following grows, you might want to try some of these tools to see if they help keep your Twitter account more organized. Me? I tweet on my computer, monitor the account daily, and find that this works fine so why mess with success? You, however, might find some of these applications very useful, so by all means try something new and then tell us what works for you and why.

DM on Twitter

DM stands for Direct Message, and allows people on Twitter to "talk" to each other without their messages appearing in the timelines. Most of the time this privacy feature actually works, but not always, so be cautious of what you say in a DM.

The DM feature should be used much like you use a telegram - for very important messages. Don't DM everyone on your list to tell them you just blogged. That's what the regular timeline is for, after all. Many times, the DMs land in tweeples mailboxes and your message will be viewed as spam. It's just too invasive, and risks loss of followers.

Here's an example of an appropriate DM:

My doctor has given me ten days to live. Thank you for sharing time with me on Twitter. You've made my life much better. Goodbye!

Okay, that might be a little extreme. The point is that DMs are meant for important and private information. Keep that in mind before you use this feature on Twitter. If this guideline doesn't fit your post, just update in the usual way so everyone following you can read your post.