When you get ready to launch your self-published book, one of the best tools you have to help is publicity. Why? It’s one of the greatest ways to get your book in front of a lot of people and, if you’re on a budget, you can do a lot of it yourself.
Joan Stewart, known as The Publicity Hound, has been helping authors and other businesspeople get free and low-cost publicity for a long time. She really knows this stuff.
Although I’ve been following her for some time, I just met Joan recently when we gave a presentation together at the recent IBPA Publishing University in San Francisco.
After I finished my part about getting traffic for your author blog, Joan took over and started going through her 19 ways authors can make money from their blogs.
I started writing down her ideas and I was amazed at just how effective her presentation was. I’ve been doing this stuff for quite a while, and I learned a ton of new stuff from Joan.
With that in mind, I invited Joan to do an interview for my Marketing Masterminds series, part of the Self-Publishing Roadmap training course.
But when we finished the interview, I realized there was just so much great content, so many tips and ideas in the 50-minute talk that I needed to share it with you.
I think after you hear this talk you’ll be just as excited as I was. And if you want to explore Joan’s website, she has a ton of useful programs and links, lots of them free.
In particular, take a look at these two programs:
- Where to Find Millions of Readers Online to Review, Recommend & Buy Your Books. This webinar package will explain exactly how to find the right reviewers for your book, which sites are right for you, and how to find a network of nearly 2,000 book bloggers and book reviewers.
- A Simple 5-Part Formula for Delivering the Perfect Media Pitch and Hitting it Out of the Park. Joan is a former newspaper editor who knows exactly how to pitch your idea to the media, and in this webinar she explains it to you in a way you can easily understand.
If you’ve been wondering how to get reviewers to take a look at your book, or how to get feature articles about your books or your special area of expertise, these two programs will supercharge your marketing efforts.
But first, take the time to listen to this interview. Joan packed more information into 50 minutes than any other interview I’ve ever done (yes, she talks pretty quickly!).
Here’s the interview:
And here’s a download link if you want to take it with you. Just right-click and “Save As…”
Interview Notes
- The difference between advertising, promotion, publicity and public relations
- The role of free publicity using traditional media in your book marketing
- The importance of your email list
- Preparing your platform long before your book launch
- Why it’s crucial to have a blog to build your business
- Platform building with LinkedIn
- Why authors should have their own Youtube.com channel
- The role of Facebook in building relationships
- The importance of driving traffic
- How to manage multiple social media accounts
- How to share when you don’t like to get personal
- Why it’s okay to have fun in your promotion
- Reader communities like Goodreads.com
- Using Pinterest correctly for authors
- How to plan your book marketing and promotion
- Joan’s webinar series on publicity topics
- The problem with most author’s bios
- How often you should issue press releases
- Your publicity budget and hiring professional help
Links mentioned in the talk:
LinkedIn.com
Quora.com
The Power Formula for Linkedin Success by Wayne Breitbarth
PRWeb
ExpertClick
89PressReleaseTips
DeniseWakeman
Self-Publishing Roadmap
If you’d like to find out more about the Self-Publishing Roadmap, which includes hours of classroom-style lessons on self-publishing as well as many interviews on book marketing like this one, you can get on the list here: Self-Publishing Roadmap.
Links to Joan Stewart products are affiliate links. Photo by FaceMePLS
