Issue #745 Aug. 27, 2013
Publisher: Joan Stewart
“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
In This Issue
- Help Readers Find Your Books
- How to Use Facebook’s Embed Code
- Crisis Guidebook Needs Writers
- Hound Video of the Week
This Week in the Hound House:
I found a spectacular new place to take Bogie for a walk. It’s the new Coal Dock Park on the lake in Port Washington, Wis., the best little town on the planet. It took more than 10 years to transform a dirty, ugly coal dock into a beautiful park that’s surrounded by Lake Michigan and offers sweeping vistas of the city and the marina. This video offers an aerial tour.
1. Help Readers Find Your Books
When readers go to Amazon.com and search for a book on a topic you’ve written about, but they don’t know your title, will Amazon list your book in the search results?
That depends on how good a job you’ve done choosing your keywords and search terms when you uploaded the book.
Book marketing expert Penny Sansevieri asked 10 authors for permission to go into their Amazon accounts and see if they were doing everything possible to make their books searchable.
She was astonished to find that none of them had listed any keywords or search terms! Two giant missed opportunities.
If you uploaded your book to Amazon, go back and check your search terms. If you have a publisher, ask the publisher what keywords they used.
Penny also offers this tip. On Amazon, create a subtitle for your book that uses keywords the reader is most likely to type into the search box, even if the subtitle isn’t printed on your book cover.
For example, if your book is a murder mystery, the subtitle can be “A murder mystery thriller.” If it’s a romance suspense novel, the subtitle can be “A romantic suspense novel.”
A subtitle will help your book rank higher in search. Yet none of the 10 authors mentioned above used subtitles either.
Knowing those little tricks has helped Penny create 11 bestsellers. She shared other valuable tips that the sharpest publicists know when she was my guest on the webinar “How to Launch a Book, Promote It and Sell a Truckload–Without an Expensive Publicist.”
If you can’t afford several thousand dollars for a publicist, and most authors can’t, this is the one tool you will need to walk you step-by-step through a book launch. Read more about what you’ll learn, and the tools you’ll get in the giant bonus package.
2. How to Use Facebook’s Embed Code
Facebook users are rejoicing now that they can finally share some of their Facebook posts on their websites and blogs.
The new feature allows you to share all public status updates, photos, videos and hashtags and–here’s the best part–let people interact with it.
They can like the post, share it, like your page or follow you, without leaving the page it is embedded on.
This is a huge marketing advantage. Hubspot offers step-by-step instructions on how to embed your posts and gives you five examples of how to use it to market.
Then make sure you’re doing everything possible to pull the greatest number of people to your Facebook pages. Mari Smith explains “33 Ways to Find Facebook Fans, Provide Sterling Content & Keep Them Coming Back for More.” It’s a video replay of a webinar I hosted with her, and it comes with a package of bonuses. Get $10 off if you order it today only by typing the word “Facebook” in the coupon code box at checkout and click on “Apply.”
3. Crisis Guidebook Needs Writers
PR pros, crisis counselors, media trainers, social media experts and others have a chance to flaunt their know-how by contributing to a book on crisis management.
PR News is looking for contributors for the latest volume of its Crisis Management Guidebook. It wants how-to tips, anecdotes and case studies for several chapter categories.
Sept. 6 is the deadline for submitting your 50-word proposal for a chapter topic. Read more about it at my blog.
4. Hound Video of the Week
Cuteness Alert: This little Yorkie puppy, only 18 weeks old, will do anything for a treat. I love the pink bow.
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