In the last two months I've been very busy with marketing my new book and I've learned so much by being indie (a self-published author who works fully independently and is a do-it-yourself person) that I wanted to share my knowledge with other authors to help them achieve success.
As a solopreneur and a business-woman who's used to making things happen for herself, I have been working on setting up all the essential marketing tools for this book on my own. Everything - from buying a domain name and hosting to developing website's headers, footers, pages, and looks, to setting a Facebook page, a Twitter account, Goodreads profile and a giveaway, linking all these together and making it look pretty, while creating a video script to produce a book trailer and actually finding an affordable producer - I've done it all just by myself.
Frankly, it's been not easy by any means. So, I thought to myself: "Why not write an article about how I have accomplished all this, and dedicate it to self-published authors?" Here you go - you're reading it now.
A website. The website for your book is aimed to serve as book's landing page and contain the info that your potential readers and media may need: the book's cover, the intro to your book, author's bio and photo, samples of media appearances, a book trailer, endorsements for your book from readers, sign-up box for your potential readers, and the like. START WITH A CATCHY AND EASY TO REMEMBER DOMAIN NAME! To create my website, I went to GoDaddy and started trying different domain names that were popping up in my head. The actual name of my book contains too many words, so, obviously, this wasn't an option for a domain name. I came up with a nick name for my book, tried SMARTgoalsBook, and it was available. I purchased hosting from GoDaddy for one year for $75 as well as the domain name for three years for $51 after some discounts, for which I received special discount codes via e-mail a few weeks before that. I did not purchase any additional pages - just one page that comes with a basic package. I didn't pay for any website building tools either. Instead, I installed the WordPress app, which is free and has no page limits whatsoever. Installing the WordPress app took a few minutes and then a few minutes more to wait for a confirmation. Once that was done, I was able to login and start building my website.
First, I had to set up a theme. I tried a few, searching for something orange, clear, contemporary and good-looking - something that would look good on a mobile device it's being viewed on. I chose the "Black and Orange" WordPress theme. I didn't like a few things about it though, such as a Search box in a header. So, I opened Appearance/ Editor / Header on the right side, and it showed me the code. I had no clue how to work with HTML code, so I copied all of it into a safe place and started playing with it on the Editor page, saving and checking it out. I got the Search box out! Next step was to edit a footer, where it originally stated who developed the theme, etc, but I wanted it to say "© Current Year My Name and My Company, LLC My Company Website My Phone Number My Email Address" You will want to customize your footer as well - it's a free branding and gives you credibility; it also shows that your website is professionally done. So, I did what I described before. Appearance / Editor / Footer on the right side, and it showed me the code. I copied all of it into a safe place and started playing with it on the Editor page, saving and checking it out. I got my copyright message in! For pages to appear the way I wanted in a certain order, I created a menu for pages under Appearance / Menus. Of course, your website's name and tagline can be edited under Settings / General, unless you have a customized banner like I do - then, you won't need these. Just play with it, save and see, if you like the look. Patience and time investment will pay off - I promise.
Social Media. Social networks are your free marketing tools and your opportunity to engage with your current and potential readers and clients. Definitely use them! I created a Facebook page for Turn Your Dreams and Wants into Achievable SMART Goals! in just a few minutes. You do need to have a Facebook profile first though. Facebook tools are free. To promote my book's Facebook page, I went to Build Audience / Invite Friends and invited all of my current friends from my personal profile, 10 at a time. Then, I invited everyone on my Constant Contact list by exporting the contacts from Constant Contact to a separate file and uploading it to my Facebook page. Then, I also invited my Skype contacts. Next, I created a Twitter account for my book. It's free as well. I added the Facebook page to my Hootsuite social media manager (another great FREE tool) and pre-sceduled once-a-day posts for a month or so. After that, I set my Facebook posts to go directly to Twitter. The hardest part was to create a Twitter tab for my Facebook page, which means that my tweets would show up on a separate tab of my Facebook page for the book. As a solopreneur, I like free everything, so I kept looking for another free tool and ended up using this one:
https://apps.facebook.com/twitter-tab-app/ It literally guides you on how to configure it for your taste - you can change colors of the actual tab, its links, the number of tweets shown, etc. This is a great tool to show your audience that you have a wide online presence.
Integrating Social Media into Your Website. By integrating your social networks into your website, you make yourself searchable, accessible and allow your readers and clients to easily get a hold of you as well as join your community. It's a great way to promote your book and yourself as an author and expert! To have a Facebook LIKE box with faces of people, who already liked my page, I installed a plugin that's called "FB Like Box". It gives you an opportunity to configure its appearance the way you want - with a stream of your posts "on" or "off" (I chose "off"), with faces of your fans "on" or "off" (I chose "on"), and, finally, it lets you specify the width and high of the box as well as allows you to name the box. Next is Twitter To have a very pretty Twitter feed with the "Follow" button, I simply went herehttps://twitter.com/settings/widgets. I configured the widget the way I wanted it for my website and copied the produced HTML code (it's very easy - takes just one click and no special knowledge). Then, I went to my Dashboard on Worpress website under Appearance / Widgets, I dragged the Text Widget to the sidebar on the right, placed it wherever I wanted the Twitter feed to appear, and, lastly, I pasted the code that I copied from the Twitter widget site - straight into the Text Widget on my sidebar. I saved it, and it looks perfect - check it out. I recommend it highly!
Social Sharing and Commenting. By allowing your visitors to comment and share on your website in general and your blog posts in particular, you get a word-of-mouth marketing for free. You've got to get rid of your fears of receiving negative feedback - even if you do get a few poor comments, that's your chance to improve. The task of finding right plugins for this purpose is the most complicated part due to a huge variety of social share buttons available for Wordpress. The only advice I can give you here is this - figure out first what social website you want to include into sharing options, decide whether or not you want counts of likes and shares to appear and, lastly, try, try and try until you find what's pleasant for your eye. I have spent many hours doing just that. I tried to install different social share plugins, configured them, saved, checked out how it looks on my website, deactivated, deleted, searched for another one... But now I am happy with what I've got! For comments, I use a plugin called Facebook Comment. You will see that Wordpress has two of these, the one I use is the second one that appears under Plugins / Add New / Search results. Right now on my very website I use 4 different plugins: one for social shares on the bottom of each post and page, another for social sharing buttons on excerpts of the blogs, the third one is a floating widget on the left hand side (which isn't visible on mobile devices - only laptop and computer), and, finally, there's a widget on the right side that allows you to follow me and has all my social networks listed as icons. Let me tell you about each of these.
The first plugin I use for social share buttons on home page and pages and OPEN blog posts is called Social Sharing Toolkit - it allows you to have Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and LinkedIn sharing buttons on your home page, other website pages, and FULL OPEN blog posts, but it doesn't allow you to show the social share buttons on BLOG EXCERPTS. The plugin is easy to install - simply go to Plugins / Add New / Social Sharing Toolkit / Install / Activate, and it will appear on your dashboard on the left hand side, under SETTINGS. Configure it at your liking and see how well it works.
The second plugin for social buttons on excerpts of the blog page is called Sociable. This one will only allow you to have the button EITHER on the home page OR the excerpts... Of course, you want to have the sharing buttons on BOTH, so you will only use this plugin for excerpts since you now have the first plugin shown on your home page. It's easy to install - simply go to Plugins / Add New / Sociable / Install / Activate, and it will appear on your dashboard on the left hand side on the bottom of the dashboard. It will be called Select Sociable Plugin. You go there and configure it the way you want.
The third plugin I use for the floating widget, which once again does NOT SHOW UP ON A MOBILE DEVICE. The widget is called Digg Digg. It will stay in your dashboard, on its bottom, and it will be called alike. I only use one feature of this plugin, so after installation, I went straight to its Digg Digg / Floating Button Bar / Configuration and I configured it the way you see it now on my website.
Lastly, the plugin that allows you to connect with me is called Social Media Icons Widget - once you install it, it won't show up anywhere under Setting or in the Dashboard. Instead, simply go to Appearances / Widgets / Social Media Icons Widget. Drug it to your sidebar and then configure it at your liking. I used Facebook, Twitter, and whatever you see now on my website on the sidebar. I love this tool - gives people a quick access to your networks.
E-Mail Signature. One free marketing tools that many authors disregard is your very own e-mail signature. Here's how I did it. I posted a picture of my book's cover on my blog, which generated a link. Then, I went to my Gmail e-mail setting under signature and inserted the image link, the link to my website, and other info such as website name, etc. This tool allows you to market your book with no additional effort and free of charge. Why miss out on such an attractive opportunity?
Book Trailer. I can't emphasize the value a great book trailer adds to the promotion of your book. Nor can I tell you enough stories about how bad book trailers diminished marketing efforts of good authors. Deciding what I wanted my video to be like, I focused on what successful companies and authors use... All routes led me to the speed-drawing technique. I did my research on-line and discovered that the price was to start at $900... Oops, that was waaaay outside of the limits of my entrepreneurial budget. So, I took a chance and explored Freelancer. It's free to register there, and you can do it with Facebook login, so it takes about 30 seconds or so. I created a speed-drawing video project within 2 minutes, posted it, and was shocked when 5 minutes later I already had a bid!!! The price was above my expectations, so I politely negotiated and got the price I had in mind, which was $300 for 1.5 min video, INCLUDING a voiceover. The freelancer sent me several links to his work, I reviewed those, and that was it - 20 minutes after the project's posting, I already had a video producer and a voiceover guy!!! The next step was a script for the video. The freelancer asked me to send one as soon as possible, but I had no clue how to write one. I did a little research online, after which I wrote a very good script by myself, while my hubby was watching a football game on New Year's Day. It was 258 words, 1 min 34 seconds - right within our agreement. I would definitely recommend Freelancer for projects like this. It's safe, easy, and affordable.
Goodreads. Goodreads is another social media platform, but this one is designed specifically for readers and authors. It's free to join and it puts your book right in front of readers. What's great about Goodreads is that it adds value to your SEO: your name and your book's name will be pushed up in Google search as long as you have a complete profile and stay active. By staying active I mean rate books you read, write a review maybe once a week, add your friends from e-mail and Facebook, add quotes, and definitely make sure you establish an AUTHOR profile. It's free, but you have to apply for that. Once approved (takes about one day), you can set up your book, its full description, you will be also able to add videos such as trailer, endorsements, etc. You can even add pictures relevant to your book. There's also blog, which you can integrate with your current Wordpress blog that we discussed above. There are widget you can embed to your website to help spread the word. And most importantly, there's a free marketing tool called Giveaway. Before your book is published, you can generate a buzz by submitting a few book for a Giveaway: you apply, Goodreads approves, they run this promotion, at the end you mail physical copies of your book to the addresses of winners. You can set it up to run worldwide or locally. I did the USA only and submitted 5 books. It's a great way to gain extra exposure.
I shared a lot with you here. To summarize, I will say this: you need to set up your online presence in the way that it makes you easy to find, helps you establish yourself as an expert, allows readers and media learn enough about you and your book, and provides wide exposure.
By A. Stevens
