Getting started with online book promotion

From: Russ Swan <ruswan_at_ourpostbox.com>
Date: Mon 07 Jul 2003 09:31:20 -0500

I'm looking for comments, suggestions or advice on getting started
promoting my books online. The books will be produced in three digital
formats (html, pdf and lit) and/or on CD, depending on file size. Will
probably look at others e.g. Rocket later.

I'm also offering a virtual shop-front to other authors so they can get
their work "out there" in the public domain, and I do all the necessary
formatting, sales processing and delivery. The idea is to establish a
sales record and (hopefully) in due course, a more traditional
publishing house with more resources may take notice.

The website is http://www.adventureyarns.com.au

Obviously I'll also need to do most, if not all the marketing. The
website is finally listed on most of the major search engines e.g.
Yahoo, MSN, Google etc but not Open Directory. Some keyword phrases are
working well within the top 30, while most are more than 100 down
depending on the SE. I'm fairly competent with page optimization (I
think) but I know there are better people out there who could pick me to
death. However I think I can keep working on the search engines bit for
now at least, and improve keyword rankings using Web Position Gold,
Wordtracker and Overture.

What I'm looking for specifically is OTHER ways to attract traffic. I
need to get some sales started because I can't work on visitor to sales
conversions (is that the right phrase?) until I do. For just one
example, should I set up an affiliate system? Is there enough product
there to attract an affiliate if I offer (say) 30 percent of retail
sales value? Ezine advertising? Free classifieds? Partnership of some
kind? Write a newsletter? (not plausible until I have a mailing list,
and to get that I have to get visitors to the website to sign up) - or
is there another way to attract a mailing list?=20

What do you think? Have you tried these things? What pitfalls? What
must'do, should-do, could-do's?

Perhaps you could recommend a good course on the subject that won't put
me in the poorhouse?

Am willing to spend money to make money of course, but speaking of
hundreds of dollars for online promotion is way outside my budget.
Right now I only have two books of my own, with three more titles ready
in the next couple of weeks. I expect to attract more authors as time
goes by. As you can see I don't have a "back list" yet. Do you have
any ideas where I might find something to use which is in line with the
theme of the website?

If I can't find the answers in this list, do you know a good but not
over-priced consultant?

Time however is constrained to a certain degree. I'm a one-person
operation and hold down a full time job. As well as spending time
online doing promotion work, I need to work on my third book, prepare
the current submitted titles, maintain the website and do regular
maintenance on my cruising sailboat - which demands as move love and
attention as it can get.

Cheers and thanks for the opportunity to ask.

Russ Swan
Adventure Yarns
True stories of unusual travel by adventurous people
http://www.adventureyarns.com.au





Received on Mon Jul 07 2003 - 09:31:20 CDT