Radio Interview Channel on YouTube

Here’s a good tip for radio hosts, regardless of if you have a show on an AM/FM station or internet radio: Post recorded audio interviews with your guests on your YouTube channel for additional exposure. Recently we started working with KBMW and host Doug Groff does this. They upload interviews to the radio show’s YouTube channel after accompanying the audio with some simple visual elements. As you listen to the interview, you see photos of the author, his or her book cover, additional photos, and links. You can check out their channel here.

Examples from three recent Savas Beatie author interviews:

Confessions of a Military Wife by Mollie Gross

Playing with the Enemy by Gary Moore

The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln by Larry Tagg

It’s a convenient way for the station to get more listener hits, and for the author to be able to share the link with family and friends, post on his or her website, and use as a sample to generate additional radio spots.

Getting Partners for Your Book

I listened to an interesting teleseminar offered by Steve Harrison yesterday, titled “How to Get Major Companies and Nonprofits to Sponsor the Promotion of Your Book, Product, or Service to Millions of People. . . FREE!!”

Like many of these phone calls, there is a call-to-action to sign up for a pricey seminar to get the whole package and additional info, but there are some good tips and advice that anyone can implement after listening to the free phone call.

I also watched a video featuring Brendon Burchard (who was interviewed on yesterday's call) today listing nine different areas that one can explore for sponsorship and partnership, embedded below. They are:

1. Live events
2. Educational programs
3. Corporate programs
4. Product buys/launches
5. Promotions
6. Websites
7. Services
8. Causes
9. Tours

The video gives good examples or explanations of each, and even mentions a phrase that was unfamiliar to us here until last week: “financial literacy.” Stay tuned for more on that subject, and how we are incorporating it into one of our titles this year soon . . .

Top 10 Book Promotion Strategies for 2010

Interesting press release out this month titled “Top 10 Book Promotion Strategies for 2010 Revealed by Survey.” The results go hand in hand with what I spent a lot of my week working on.

According to Smith’s late 2009 survey, here are the top 10 book promotion methods that authors and publishers plan to use this year:

1. Social networking and social media: 94 percent
2. Blogging: 84 percent
3. Seeking book reviews: 75 percent
4. Seeking testimonials and endorsements: 73 percent
5. Press releases: 68 percent
6. Ezines or email marketing: 62 percent
7. Radio and television talk shows: 62 percent
8. Speaking or teleseminars: 60 percent
9. Article marketing: 57 percent
10. Book signings: 56 percent

You can read the entire press release here.

It’s interesting because when Savas Beatie started in 2004, not every author had a website. Those who did, stood out. MySpace and Facebook existed, but weren’t used for book promotion the way they are now. And who had heard of Twitter yet? No one, because it started in 2006.

Today, we expect a lot more from our authors, and as the findings of this survey confirm, so do other publishers. This month I have been working closely with all of our Spring 2010 authors on creating and maintaining their online presence. All five new authors started (or are in the process of developing) their websites, blogs, and Facebook accounts. Even our Saratoga author who was born in 1922 started his blog today. Now that’s a dedicated author.

Before each author’s book comes out this Spring, they will have an established online presence and social networking skills. They will have followers, commentors, and a “fan base” (for lack of a better term) that looks forward to seeing their online updates and who will be interested in reading their books.

Radio interview tip for the day: Repetition in Message

I talk to our authors a lot about radio interviews. Prepping them on what to say, what not to say, keeping their answers short, making sure they work the title of their book and website url into the conversation, etc.

There’s one thing that I often forget, though, and it’s very important to keep in mind: thousands of people are tuning in and out of your radio interview every minute. They are punching the scan button on their car radios trying to decide what to listen to. They are turning the car off when they pull into work and missing the last half of your interview. They are turning the radio back on after running into the post office.

To overcome these obstacles and constant fluctuation in listenership, make sure to work the title of your book and pertinent information into the interview THROUGHOUT the interview, not just in the last baton pass the host gives you before thanking you and signing off. Get your message about your book out there no matter what part of the interview listeners hear.

A Basic Blog How-To

How do I start a blog? What do I write about? Who will read it?

Common questions for an author to have. It is important that an author have his or her online presence established with a blog prior to book release. Here is some simple information on set up, content, and format.

Structure and Basic Content:

- Choose a blog domain name that is short, easily remembered, and directly connected to your book (This can be part of your website or you can set up one with a site such as Blogger, Word Press, etc.)
- Add your picture and short biography
- Add image of book cover and internal pictures
- Include side list of relevant links and related blogs

Ideas for Blogging Content:

- Book Excerpts
- Extrapolate on interesting concepts, events, or details described in book
- Book Reviews (of your own book or your reviews of books on related topics)
- Comment or feature on other related blogs
- Trends in the research and study of your area of expertise
- Comment on recent news events and articles connected to your book’s topic
- Interview people with perspectives relevant to your book
- Something controversial to spark debate and comments

Additional Tips:

- Link Twitter and Facebook widget boxes to your blog page
- Add video clips and other multimedia content to blog posts

Examples:

http://www.jdpetruzzi.blogspot.com/
http://bullrunnings.wordpress.com/
http://ultimatebasictraining.com/blog/

It is important to set up your blog and actively post before your book comes out so your blog will have content, followers, and comments. You will be ahead of the curve. We consider this mandatory for our authors, and absolutely critical today.

(Note: This post is based on an email to our Spring 2010 Authors.)

January and February are not book signing season months, but in keeping with the “New Year, New Start” tradition, below are some helpful tips on book signing events. They are from Sandra Beckwith’s newsletter Build Book Buzz. Additional tips and programs can be found on her website here.

1. Don't approach a bookstore to discuss a signing unless you've written your book for a wide consumer audience (vs. an industry or other type of niche - lawyers or rock climbers, for example). Many bookstores won't host signings when it's clear that the audience for the book is too narrow. Ask yourself if there's a better place to meet your niche audience face-to-face.

2. Plan an event, not a book signing. The book signing where you sit at a table and try to make eye contact with shoppers is increasingly passé and often a waste of time. You need an event where you can speak to and engage your target audience, whether your book is fiction or nonfiction. My goal buddy Marcia Layton Turner is doing a Barnes & Noble book signing later this month for her newest title, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vision Boards, but she won't be sitting at a table near the entrance. She'll be in the function room teaching people how to create vision boards before they try it themselves with materials Marcia and the bookstore provide. "I'll share the message of the book and show how to apply it," she says.

3. Consider non-bookstore locations. Go where you'll find your audience - it might not be at a bookstore. When Irene Levine introduced her community to Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend, Irene's hair stylist hosted a book signing at her salon. They invited lots of friends - who brought friends. Borders was on hand to sell books to about half of the 150 attendees. Be creative - if your book is a vegetarian cookbook, schedule an event at a natural foods market or the produce section of a supermarket. Your new mystery takes place at a museum? Talk to the most popular museum in your area about hosting a presentation and signing.

4. Market to warm. Are you an active member of a supportive group? Jackie Dishner, author of the regional travel book Back Roads and Byways of Arizona, sold more than 60 books at her signing at the weekly meeting of her businesswomen's group. Members knew she was writing the book and welcomed the opportunity to celebrate its publication with her. Do you belong to a similar group that might support you? For whatever reason, people like to say that they know an author. A signed book is proof of that connection.

5. Do your share to get the word out. Don't expect your event host to do all the promotional work - collaborate so you reach as many people as possible. Contact the press, send an e-mail to locals in your address book and ask them to forward it, and use social networking tools such as Facebook events and Twitter to spread the word.

6. Don't just sign your name. When I sign copies of my humor book about men, WHY CAN'T A MAN BE MORE LIKE A WOMAN?, I write the person's first name, add "It's all true!" and sign my name. For Publicity for Nonprofits," I use "I'll see you in the news!" People like that additional touch because it feels more personal.

7. Be prepared to invest time. Planning, promoting, and executing a successful book signing takes time, thought, and effort. It will all be worth it, though, as you watch those cases of books under your table empty and your hand gets tired from writing with your favorite pen.

Reporter Connection Launches

We’ve been using HARO, Help a Reporter Out, for quite some time now. Three times a day, I get an email with a list of requests from reporters looking for sources, segment producers looking for guests, bloggers looking for products to review, etc. I scroll through the list to see if any of our authors are experts in subjects that match up with a request. If so, I send the HARO contact an email with more information on our author and his or her book. It’s led to some good coverage for books such as Flying Drunk, Surviving Military Separation, and The Elementary Common Sense of Thomas Paine in newspapers and on radio stations, websites, and blogs.

Bradley Communications, who we turn to for lots of book marketing and publicity help, recently started a service called Reporter Connection. It’s in BETA now and I receive one email a day with a similar list of reporter requests for sources. That might increase to three emails a day as the program grows. So far the only differences I’ve noticed between HARO and Reporter Connection are:

• With HARO you send an email directly to the people who make the request (sometimes with a blind email address, like Craigslist uses). Reporter Connection uses an online contact form where you submit answers to general questions in a few different fields.
• The user interface for Reporter Connection seems better, easier to read but still basic enough to scroll through the requests quickly.

Will keep you posted as I compare the two.

Happy New Year to All!