I gotta admit it. I still like getting a book from someone wanting a review. Especially if it’s from and author I’ve met, or a friend recommending a title.

But today, I read most books on my Kindle, phone or computer or audio playback.

As usual, my friend Robert Scoble is ahead of me. He recorded this bit on Cinch

Context is even more important. I want to know why I’ve got the book, dates and plans in your promotion (since I’m the Best Seller Book Expert).

Other contact is good too. Do I know you? Is the book the type I generally read or review? Is this for my reading pleasure, or are you considering using our professional services?

With hundreds of thousands of new books each year, no one reads them all. Rather than a mass mailing hoping for results, use these tips to build real relationships and better long term results.

What did I leave out? What other tips can you share here to get more reviews? What has worked for you?

Author 101 University is a must attend event for authors who are serious about making it in publishing.

I’ve told Rick Frishman that the “101” title is misleading. This has become a networking event that we go back to again and again.

The next one is March 3-6 in LA. I’ll be shooting video segments for my TV show.

Time will be tight, so I’m giving priority to my readers. You do have to be attending Author 101. If not, we’ll have other opportunities announced here in the future.

To get on the schedule, leave a comment below and let me know you’ll be there.

Author 101 is Sold Out

Last I heard, the event is sold out. Publishers, agents, book marketing professionals and authors gathering like this has a tendency to draw a crowd fast.

If you don’t have a ticket, but want to come and be in a video. let me know. I may be able to get a ticket. (leave a comment with your and I’ll email you privately).

No doubt you are anxious to share your message with everyone you meet and talk about your baby.  You have an emotional bond with your book, your topic and are excited to share it.

Authors love their books.

Readers aren’t like you. They have motivations and emotional triggers and their own goals. You and you book are not at the top of their lists.

So How Do You Get Their Interest?

In all your book marketing, social media, interviews and interactions with readers, make it about them.

Sally Hogshead, wrote a book explaining how to be fascinating. FASCINATE: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation

I just finished reading Sally’s book and have dozens of questions for her whenever I get a chance to do an interview. She’s an expert on her topic and I imagine could produce more content, talk for hours and fascinate you with what she knows.

However, on Sally’s Blog, there are interviews with other authors that would be on interest to anyone wanting to know more about persuasion and fascination.

Sally marketing is for her readers. Provides information that readers will love and draws you in with an appeal to your emotional needs, not hears.

Your Appeal To Readers Emotions

Watch Sally’s video below. It’s a short and simple interview with best selling author Scott Stratton about UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.

This short interview asks questions that would interest readers of Fascinate, and focuses on a message Scott is sharing.

Scott practices this too. The interview is not “why buy my book” or him. His answers are directed to the subject, from the hear and great advice for any author.

Watch for the information. Watch for the method and think about how you might go beyond selling your book and think about what appeals to your readers emotions.

Thousands of Online Marketers came to Las Vegas last week for PUBCON. An conference for webmasters, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Social Media and Internet businesses.

Many of the sessions were about Twitter and Social Media.. and how to make them work for business. In one session, “Latest Trends on Twitter,” I shared my thoughts about what make Twitter work so well in the new world of marketing and a step by step approach to getting your message out today.

I told them about Edward Bernays, the greatest marketer of the 20th Century and the 3 steps for making a message spread.

Bernays is the guy who invented Public Relations. Before Bernays, we called it propaganda. Propaganda wasn’t a negative term until much later. In fact, Bernays wrote a book Propaganda in 1928 long before the Nazi’s gave the word a bad name.

Bernays was an expert as determining the desires of the public, then crafting his messages into short, memorable ideas that people would want to share. Today, we these memes.. the smallest unit of an idea, Or the more popular term for a short repeatable message: sound byte

Bernay’s worked for pork producers. They wanted to sell more bacon. After researching how people thought about bacon and breakfast, Bernays decided to tie bacon to the more popular dish of eggs and created the phrase you likely use today: “bacon and eggs”

In 1929, Bernays placed article in newspapers from his Middle America Information Bureau featuring quotes such as “Doctors recommend that Americans start the day with a hearty breakfast such as bacon and eggs.” Before that, this popular phrase didn’t exist.

Today, one might question the health benefits of that statement, we won’t discuss that here. What’s important to our study of marketing messages is that the simple idea of attaching bacon to the more popular eggs and creating a short, memorable, easily repeatable phrase has worked over an over again.

Twentieth Century media was broadcast. Companies with money to buy enough advertising would use it to create the popular slogans and products we talked about. In the Twenty-first Century, we’ve got a fragmentation of the old media and many channels that connect person to person without a centralized middleman (ie the publisher or broadcaster) and everyone can create and choose their own messages. It’s much, much more expensive to try to buy your way into popular culture, which makes crafting your sound byte more important.

Today, more than ever, it’s vital that you distill your message into a short meme that can be shared. A sound byte version that is consistent and repeatable.

Once you have a sound byte, you next work on finding groups of people who are already having a conversation about your topic. In the past 15 years, millions of web sites, special interest forums, niche blogs and personal web sites have been created and recently, Facebook and other social media have allowed anyone with any interest to connect and identify themselves. The cost of connecting is essentially zero, so there is no longer a need to trust a centralize authority (big media) to decide what message gets spread.

You can create your own community from scratch, but the leverage of connecting with thousands of existing groups and communities will work faster. Their structure will be stronger and is now the best means to share your sound byte.

Once you have a sound byte and engage with the conversations online, the third step is one that often frustrates marketers trained in the 20th Century… you must count on serendipity to succeed.

Serendipity is not “wishing for good results”… rather, it is the essence of tapping into the market power of trillions of individual conversations going on right now.

The science of chaos theory tells us that random events are extremely difficult to predict on an individual basis, but very dependable when grouped together.

You use serendipity every day.

One example of our dependence on chaos and serendipity is a water faucet. It would be impossible to predict the flow of one drop of water from the faucet into your glass (will this be the drop that splashes onto the counter top?) but you can count on the majority of the drops winding up in your glass.

Thanks to the extremely low costs of producing and sharing media today, you can share your meme (sound byte) over and over, through text, video, audio on blogs, social networks and media sharing sites where conversations are already happening.

When your message resonates with the reader, they can easily share it with others in that group, and groups that you don’t even know about. While you can’t predict which message unit will resonate with any of the groups, once you build relationships with these groups and learn their desires, you will begin to improve your odds of resonating and serendipity will kick in.. bringing you success well beyond anything you could have predicted for one campaign.

There are still many opportunities to buy your way into a conversation. Advertising a meme that resonates will speed up the chance that it will succeed. (advertising a message that does not resonate will not. It just adds to the noise at best and could even create an backlash).

The work of Edward Bernays shows us that the principles of marketing that work best are not new. The media has changed, and the days of multi-million dollar launches over loading us to break into the conversation are pretty much over. The playing field is a level as it’s ever been.

Use this simple three step process in any media for effective promotion:

1. Distill your message into a sound byte
2. Join the conversations. Add value while using your sound byte
3. Expect serendipity

My own sound byte version of today’s marketing is “Listen and Love” When I speak about marketing, I tell businesses that the conversation is already going on, then encourage them to listen. Once they really listen to people, they find things they can do to add value and do it (the “love”).

Using this approach to creating a meme, then sharing it, is “Listen and Love” on steroids. Once you begin to see the value of listening and responding as you would to help a friend, you will find your sound byte gets picked up and repeated. People don’t want to be sold. They do want to do business with someone they know, like and trust. You can build this trust with an authentic sound byte you spread while you listen and love.

The story of bacon and eggs is just one of many case studies from the work of Edward Bernays that we’ll be sharing in a book soon. Let me know if you see value it this method, or would like to know more about marketing this way.

I suspect you’ll think of Edward Bernays next time you order bacon and eggs.

I think this is a wonderful idea.

Clubs pay people to stand in line. Restaurants invite diners in to fill the tables. I teach authors to stage a book signing. The publicity from these events is the goal, not book sales directly.

What are you going to do to make your book stand out?

From

Novelist Jennifer Belle decided to be proactively hands-on with the publicity for her latest release, The Seven Year Bitch, by hiring actresses to read from it in the subway and various NYC landmarks. Belle’s publicity strategy garnered the attention of The New York Times, The NY Post, Judith Regan‘s Sirius radio show, and several blogs.

Belle requested that respondents be ages 25-75 and possessed infectious laughs. More than 600 actresses applied for the job sending headshots, resumes, and cover letters with anecdotes about their "compelling laughs."

Some of those "laughs" were recorded and uploaded online with links provided for Belle’s viewing pleasure. A smart few professed a love for the author’s previous publications and were brought to the top of Belle’s list. The actresses were hired for an hourly salary of $8.

read the full article here

In almost every field, there are people who are extremely good at getting publicity.

The media loves them and they’re regularly on radio/TV shows and written-up in print publications.

They not only know how to get a ton of free coverage, but also how to profit from the coverage in the form of increased sales, name recognition, speaking engagements and more.

To discover how these "publicity superstars" do it and how you too can use their strategies, join Steve Harrison this FREE WEBINAR

Here’s just some of what you’ll learn on Thursday:

• Advice from a former NBC producer who booked guests for the Today Show and Dateline NBC on how to become a regular guest on national TV and/or even get offered your own show (think Dr. Phil).
• How to brand yourself for the media in a way that celebrates your uniqueness while also separating you from all the other experts in your field.
• Three things Donald Trump does to speak in compelling sound bites.
• How Jennifer became a regularly-featured lifestyle expert on Fox News Channel and the Early Show as well as scoring coverage in hundreds of print media outlets including O the Oprah Magazine, Redbook, US Weekly, Success and Entrepreneur.
• Why most authors and experts fail to make the leap from just getting local publicity to scoring big-time national media coverage.
• Why your credentials don’t matter as much as you might think, but what DOES matter when the media is deciding whether or not to feature you.
• "The Book Plus Strategy" and how an unknown self-published author used it to become a regular on radio, making a six-figure income doing phone interviews.
• The hook that helped a nutritionist score so much media coverage it generated over $60 million in sales of his books and information products.

Click to register for this FREE WEBINAR

I’ve worked with Steve Harrison for years and can endorse the programs he recommends because I have seen the results.

You will see that Steve’s free training such as this seminar give you a ton of actionable information… regardless of whether you sign up for his paid programs. (Imagine how much more you get when you do though :)

Don’t miss out on this chance to learn some of Steve’s secrets

I help authors sell books, build a business and take their messages to the world.

We do that in two ways here.. a lot of free information on the web, and high paid clients. Unless I get a crazy idea to test new software and give away the paid consulting.

I am trying out a new webinar system for my private coaching sessions. So you get this same ME, hopefully a great show, and the fun of watching me bumble through with new technology (OK.. you can get that anytime)

The only catch.. I’m just doing this ONCE.. it will NOT BE RECORDED (no evidence if I screw up) and it is on SHORT NOTICE.

Friday at Noon Eastern (9am Pacific) on July 16th (yes, that is tomorrow.. I did say SHORT NOTICE)

Grab a slot here –> Warren’s free coaching session

I’m going to share some new tests from what is working on FACEBOOK, how partners are getting 10x the publicity on the MEGA SUCCESS DAY promo for next week and other freebinarific advice. I may talk about Twitter if you twist my arm.

I will answer ANY question… show any secret site.

You can still ask your question in a comment, on Twitter or whatever.. but you won’t get the real live me with a mouse in my hand showing you exactly what YOU need to succeed unless you register here

The other day, we had Peter Winick on the Profitable Social Media radio show.

Peter is the brains behind so huge best selling books, and specializes in strategies to sell lots of book and turn your content into a substantial income.

Here’s a clip from the show where I Peter talks about what he does. If you listen for a few minutes, you’ll also hear another guest, Pat Obryan, volunteer to have us talk about expanding his platform.

Peter and I want to help more authors and combined our talent to put on a series to you authors make a lot more money from your content, without a huge start up cost.

If you are an author looking to leverage your content into new revenue streams, I invite you to apply at http://PlatformRoadmap.com

Guest Post by Dr. Daisy Sutherland

I chose Dr. Sutherland from the authors visiting this blog as my Blog Reader of the Day. After visiting her web site, YouTube channel and Facebook page, I just had to share some of her writing with you.

Now that I have your attention, I must confess that a PERFECT article does not exist, but I will share tips that will make your articles more enticing and enjoyable.

If the articles you are developing are meant for marketing of your business it is important that they are informative and of the highest quality.  Remember the articles you produce will be a reflection of your business and service or product that you provide, so let’s keep the following tips in mind:

• Share your knowledge: Write about what you know, the article will flow nicely and will be easier to write.  If you are writing on a topic you are unfamiliar with, be sure to research, and write the article when you are confident on the topic.
• Make an outline: When developing an article it is important to plan, and write an outline first.  Doing this will ensure that your article flows nicely and will keep the reader enticed and motivated to continue reading. Nothing is more annoying than reading an article that is scattered without a flow that is necessary, it is not only confusing, but it will more than likely not get read and your goal is to have your articles read, right?
• Be informative: Many articles are meant to share information whether it is teaching, how-to or inspiration. When sharing information, share examples that the reader can associate with. This can be in the form of stories.  Think back to the text books you read in school; sure they were informative, but they were also very BORING.  Be witty in your articles and your readers will crave more.
• Avoid sales pitches: No one wants to read an article that has a sales pitch through out its content.  If you must add a link, add it to the end or add a resource box or area.  The resource area can include your name, title, as well as website information.

Writing a perfect article will not be difficult if you put some effort into it, and simply let it flow.

One question that comes up over and over in the hundreds of interviews I did last year.

“How can a author get known when nobody knows about them?”

I thought you might like to know the answer.. quite simply, it’s the one thing that successful best selling authors do that most others miss…

I use this story of my friend Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Hold, on.. Did you see what I did there? … Mark has sold many millions of copies of his book series yet insists that I introduce him as “co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series”. Why? Because, believe it or not, there are many people who don’t know who he is.

Mark and partner Jack Canfield did many things to boost their book from “a cute pile of stories” to the record breaking success it is today. You could say that the one thing was persistence on multiple fronts.

And then there is that Magic Bullet I promised you…

You have to keep doing this one thing for as long as you want to sell a lot of books. I know it’s the key to separating yourself from all other authors and media competing for your reader’s attention.

Keep doing publicity interviews everyday… every single day

Don’t dismiss this with a “yeah, I know that and I try to…”

How Many Interviews Have You Done This Month?

Let’s get serious for just a moment. This is your career we’re talking about.

Do you have a daily habit of booking more interviews?

Mark and Jack do 5 interviews each and every day to promote a book… and they started this back when we didn’t have tens of thousands of online radio talk shows, teleseminars and millions of blogs looking (sometime begging) for content.

I asked Mark how he booked so many interviews.  He explained that they paid retainers to multiple booking agencies and spent heavily to get started. He still retains a publicist today.

Howver, there now are some low cost and FREE resources that will get you started.

Just follow this plan.

How to Get a Ton of FREE Publicity.

I’ve taught this system to hundreds of authors. The ones who follow these simple steps get free publicity. It will take a little while to get results, but once you do this, you’ll be well on your way to continued publicity.

1. Start with the mindset that you must do this. Only you can be you
2. Sign up for Author Media Connection. A FREE resource will get you tons of leads
3. Contact reporters as soon as you receive the daily email
4. Follow up on email, phone, etc. No excuse that you are too busy.. This has to be done
5. Ask for referrals from everyone in your network

Once you get started, you’ll want to add more resources and get some help to filter all the leads or book your schedule. If you have an assistant, you can speed up the process, however you can get started yourself. I’ve booked myself on hundreds of shows, speaking gigs and press just by following the steps above.

Don’t wait till your book is done, or till it comes out, or till you have more time… that will not happen.

Make a decision. You want the world to get your message, this is the magic bullet that will propel you to the reach more readers, boost your book to best seller status, and leverage your career success.

Author Media Connection is a FREE service from my friends Steve and Bill Harrison. They know author publicity and have the connections to accelerate everything you do.

The one thing you must to do use this magic bullet.. Click now and start getting more media leads.

I know I’ve said it before.. calling a inane letter or email the worst ever.. so I won’t proclaim that here.

Then again, this one is certainly a candidate:

Hi, Warren.

GuiltyInc has been talking with your company intermittently about helping address your company’s vague requirements.  I am currently planning a trip to your area in March. Is it possible for us to meet to talk about your vague strategy?

GuiltyInc is the largest vague firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Since we are very familiar with your company’s products and technology, I think we might be able to contribute meaningfully to your vague program.

If you feel it would be better for me to talk with one of your colleagues, I would appreciate your letting me know the name of the appropriate person to contact and forwarding this email.

Thank you for your help and I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

GuiltyInc Rep

I’ve changed the company name to GuiltyInc and their vague description of what they do to vague.. not to protect them, just to keep us from discussing that technology. But trust me when I tell you that there is no way that they know anything about my “products and technology” as I don’t have such things!

I imagine that you could look through your standard business letter books and find this letter as a template. The sender likely spent as little time putting in their company name as I did changing it to post here.

Don’t Be a Dull Salesperson When You Talk About Your Book

I’m a firm believer in sending cover letter, introductory emails and any other means of getting you and your book in front of prospects for publicity or sales. Just remember, we all get tons of spam, bad letter and inane requests. It take just a moment to be real and open a dialog with people.

Just use my marketing mantra .. listen and love

1) Find out something unique about your prospects. They have a web site or blog, read it first.

2) Comment to let them know you read up on them.

We all know that people approaching us have business interests and selling desires. We accept that if you have just a modicum of personality. If you can approach the media, book distributors, prospects yourself, do this and you’ll get better results. If you have someone helping you, teach this to them.

Whatever you do, don’t put this off because you think there is more important things to do. You are asking for a human being to allot some of their time to listen to you. They deserve this much attention.

Best of all, the return on investment here is immense. Spending a few extra seconds yourself, or paying your help to add real person al contact will pay off 100x

Poll Finds 89% Use Blogs, 65% Use Social Networking Sites, and 52% Use Microblogging Sites — but Reliability is a Major Concern

CHICAGO, IL, January 20, 2010 – A national survey conducted by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University’s Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Public Relations found that an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Among the journalists surveyed, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter. The survey also found that 61% use Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.

While the results demonstrate the fast growth of social media as a well-used source of information for mainstream journalists, the survey also made it clear that reporters and editors are acutely aware of the need to verify information they get from social media. Eighty-four percent said social media sources were “slightly less” or “much less” reliable than traditional media, with 49% saying social media suffers from “lack of fact checking, verification and reporting standards.”

Are your social media profiles up to date?

I’m getting ready for a special class for authors called

“Best Book Marketing Strategies for 2010″

You can attend this Teleseminar Nation event FREE by calling in at 11:59AM Pacific Time (3:00PM Eastern) on 1/28

To Listen Live by Phone:
Phone # to Dial: 323-476-3672
Use Conf ID: 921346#

I suggest you head over to the Teleseminar Nation web site now… at the site, you can scroll down to 1) Submit a question before or during the class or 2) Use the Web Player to listen online

While at Teleseminar Nation, be sure to sign up for an account (FREE) which will allow you:

1. Updates about teleseminars, classes, radio show of interest
2. Free promotion for your own teleseminar or radio show
3. Directories of authors and businesses using teleseminar (great networking tool)

Using Teleseminars and Radio Shows to Promote Your Book

Teleseminars and Radio are wonderful tools to build momentum in your book marketing. There is little or no cost, you can reach anyone with a phone and it’s the easist way to establish a additional channel of communication with your readers.

We all like to hear a voice behind the words we read.. I have had dozens of experiences where I meet someone that I only knew through a teleseminar or radio appearance and it really breaks through to a new dimension when you have had this experience.

Have you used teleseminars to teach the material in your book? Leave a comment below and include links to any free playbacks you offer.

Do you have a Radio Show?

Every author should host their own radio show. There is no cost, and no commitment to length or number of shows.

We’ve seen authors get additional search engine rank and web site readers with just a single BlogTalkRadio show. Each show is submitted to directories, indexed by the search engines and can be found as a podcast on iTunes. Sign up takes just a few minutes.

You can see my show page at http://BlogTalkRadio.com/warren

Be sure to click “Add Friend” and make a connection so we can network and build audiences there.

Secret to Entertaining Author Radio Shows

Most authors can speak on their topic for hours, but it gets lonely speaking into a phone as the only voice (and not much fun for the listeners either).

The cure is easy… just add one or more guests.

You’ll find that it’s much easier to book a guest than to get booked as a guest (which is fairly easy anyway). When you are a show host, you add another creditial to your resume, and you will be amazed at the authors and experts that will set aside time to be on any radio show.

Find guests by browsing through your keywords at BlogTalkRadio, connecting with the other members of Teleseminar Nation or visiting the leading bloggers in your niche. You will find that most of them are open to reciprocating to use you are a guest blogger, show guest or joint venture partners once you have had them as a guest (NOTE: Don’t make reciprocity a demand.. do the favor or having someone as your guest.. waiting to ask until after they have had a pleasant experience on your show.

Need a Social Media, Twitter, or Book Marketing Expert?

I would love to say yes if I am not booked or on a plane… contact my staff at j@BestSellerAuthors.com for availability.

One of the few areas growing in publishing is the Blogoshpere. While others are shutting down, worried that e-books or the economy will kill sales.. the bloggers I know are talking about bigger advances, best sellers and respect from media and publishers.

How to connect with Bloggers.

There are millions of blogs and bloggers. The vast majority are splogs (blogs set up to spam) or static, underutilized locations with a few posts talking about themselves.

These are NOT the ones to talk to :)

Instead, meet the bloggers. They love to congregate. There is a blog meetup or seminar every week in some cities.

This is how Twitter Revolution got started. I wanted to connect with bloggers to promote books, found them online, at blogger conventions and on Twitter. I started using Twitter just to promote other’s books.

At a recent convention, I met Murry Newlands. He pulled out a camera and asked me about my book. You’ll see that I didn’t have one in hand.

Murray did not edit the interview.. put it up on YouTube and I just grabbed th code from them to embed here (a simple cut and paste).

Now I’ll add a link back to Murray to thank him and encourage him to talk about my book and this site.

Watch the video and see how easy this is:

http://www.murraynewlands.com/2009/10/warren-whitlock-an-interview/

Technorati : Twitter Revolution, author promotion, author video, book marketing, promoting books, self promotion, selling books, social media
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