I know this blog is about marketing for authors, and I am an author who is marketing every day.  Even though my newest book is for businesses who want to market themselves and gain more clients, I think this little book can be helpful to anyone needing more exposure for their business, collection agency, books or presentations.

I am happy to announce that Collection Agency Marketing is now available!
When I wrote Starting a Collection Agency, how to make money collecting money I did include some marketing information but based upon the number of inquiries I receive on this topic, it was not enough.

In this book I include what I did when I marketed my collection agency, along with contributions from 4 other women in the debt collection industry. We hope that by coming together and sharing our experiences, we can help others be successful as well.

I have gotten some feedback from people who have read this new little marketing book and they have said it is helpful to anyone trying to sell anything – so maybe it can be helpful to you.

My good friend Stephanie Chandler is putting on her annual Nonfiction writers conference but this year it is virtual!  This means you can stay in your pj’s and join the conference from the comfort of your own home!

Stephanie has brought together 15 top publishing industry experts to speak and teach during this conference.  If you are an author, if you want to sell more books – don’t miss this event!

I write about marketing on this blog and mostly marketing for authors or book sellers.  I have a new short little, special report on marketing that I put together and wanted to let you know about.  It is called the “Marketing success system Special Report”

There are quite a few things any author can do that are quick and easy to expand their networking group and give their books the name recognition they need in order to get the word out about their books in order to make more sales.

Many of those things are time consuming and need some detailed planning. If you are short on time but need to do something in the way of marketing, there are some things you can do that are relatively painless and will give you big results.  I hope this report can help you do that!

I have been experimenting with the Amazon Kindle KDP program on some of my books to see if it was really beneficial to me as an author.  I was looking for ways to increase visibility about me and my books, reach new audiences, and get the word out all while making sales so I could make some money.

To give you some background, I currently have 16 titles available through the Amazon KDP program, and I started out offering just one kindle title free for 2 days, and then a few weeks later, 3 days.  My books are business books about collecting from past due accounts and credit management, so I didn’t see the same number of free downloads as some of my peers who offered their books free in the fiction and other categories.  I was lucky to break 100 downloads even with my promoting the free days online beforehand.

I kept reading articles about other authors using the KDP program and having much better success than I was.  I even bought a couple of kindle books on how to use the KDP program in a more effective way.  Some of the things I learned that helped me were:

The more books you have to offer on Kindle when you offer one as a free promo the more success you will have.  I found that when I offered one or two free books, no matter how many days it was offered, my other books made more sales and moved up to the top 10 in their categories.

I then tried offering 2 books for the entire 5 days in a row for free, and had better success than when I offered just one for less days.  I then thought to myself, if I can offer more of my books for free at the same time, more people may visit my books page and download all of the free books, because in my case these would be entrepreneurs or businesses that were looking for specific information about collecting from past due customers, and so having captured their attention, they were more likely to download all the free books offered and then even possibly purchase a book or two, especially if they were priced at $.99 each.

I decided to go big and offered 8 of my kindle books free for 2 days, 11/1/2012 – 11/2/2012.

On my books Facebook page I posted a week ahead that next week I would have a big announcement.  I promoted this on my blog, on my books Facebook page, in my discussion group, on my LinkedIn status and in groups that were relevant, under the “Promotions” tab, other online networking sites for bill collectors, and I tweeted about the free promo throughout the 2 days and the day before telling everyone it would be coming.  I emailed an announcement to my mailing list of past customers, folks I network with, colleagues, press and media and friends.  Many shared the announcement with their newsletter subscribers, mailing lists, groups and friends.  I also emailed some LinkedIn friends that I thought would be interested and asked them to share the information with everyone they knew.

To give you some idea in numbers how this worked out for me, in October 2012 my total kindle sales were 63 books.

Today is November 25th, so I do still have a few more days left but as of today I have sold 104 books.  I had 906 free downloads during this free promo, and have sold 104 books.  I know this may not seem like a lot, but it is to me.  I try to make a living as a write so every little bit helps.

I should mention I did some tweaking to my books individual pages before the promo, such as adding key words, creating “So you’d like to Guides” and Listmania lists on amazon, and getting as many reviews as I could beforehand.  I noticed I received a few reviews afterwards from people who may have downloaded the book free, so that is an added bonus.

When my books were free and I was tweeting about it, and promoting them, all of my books climbed up towards the top of their categories.  Then they actually stayed there for about a week after the free promo.  Most of my books are in the bookkeeping category and there were times that 9 out of the 10 books in the top 10 were mine!  I feel as though I received good exposure, and increased my audience base as well as made more sales than I have before in the Kindle category.

Many authors write a “form” query letter and send it out to all types of media without doing any research.  Before you send out any letters to an editor or publisher, make sure they have an interest in your genre or type of book and take some steps to keep it from getting tossed in the trash.

Your letter will be one of many that they receive in a given day, so you must make yours stand out from the rest.

1.  Make your letter different, do some research, learn from others who have written successful query letters and try to do something to make your letter really stand out.  Why is your book awesome over every other book in your genre?

2.  Make your query letter one page, not the front and back, just the front.  If it is to long reduce your font size but not to much so it is hard to read.  Change your margins to create more space but remember that less is more.

3.  Use colored paper, not bright orange but something a little different from the white everyone else is using.  Maybe gray, ivory or a pale color.

4.  Use a creative mailer, maybe a plain white box rather than an envelope or a red, white and blue Priority mail box or envelope.  Everyone else uses a plain white envelope, make your package stand out so it gets opened first.

5.  Use a heavier weight paper, like stationary paper or letterhead paper.  The more professional you can make your letter and package the more seriously you will be taken.

6.  Use spell check – do I need to say anything more about that?

7.  And finally - Follow up! Call or send an email, calling is better but any follow up contact will do.

As an author trying to market yourself in a sea of authors here are my Top 7 reasons to send out a press release:

1.  Publicity is free advertising – it costs nothing to send a press release.

2.  Publicity (which is free) builds your image and business – it creates awareness about you and your book.

3.  Once you are published the media considers you an “expert” in your genre.

4.  People will remember reading about you and your book rather than reading a paid advertisement.

5.  You can frame your articles and hang them at presentations you give, you can post them on your website and promotional materials.

6.  Being written about in any publication lends credibility to you and your book.

7.  People will know about you and your book and what you offer.

For my final installment on how authors can survive in a bad economy I want to share with you my best advice.  Write or have someone write you a marketing plan and work aggressively on your marketing plan.  Do something to market yourself or your books every single day.

Send out press releases about everything newsworthy that you do – when your book is published, when it is available, if you have a book launch gathering, when you give a presentation, when you launch your website, when your book is available on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or in stores, or when it is available on Kindle or Nook, or when you or your book wins an award.

Never stop marketing unless you want to stop selling copies of your book.

As an author you know you can’t just write, you also need to know how to network and market yourself and your book or books.  You should also look at your book as a business and not a hobby.  If you look at your writing as a business you can stand above other writers who do not.  For example, you will be taking book orders and filling those book orders if you are giving a presentation or maybe even from a store on your website.

One of the most important things you can do is offer outstanding customer service.  If you sell and distribute your own books or articles, focus on having the best customer service out there.  This will help you to stand apart from the competition and give you happy customers.

Happy customers become repeat customers and also help you spread the word about your books.  Thus doing some of your work for you!

I know when I decided to write my first book I wrote about what I knew, I wrote about what people were asking me in my industry.  I always try to write a book based on what my audience wants from me.   When you started writing how did you decide what to write about?  Depending on your type of book you may have experience and leads, new and old that coincide with your book or genre.

Now is the time to follow up with old and new leads.  Pull out any and all business cards that you have collected from trade shows, book signings or meetings, chamber meetings or any networking events or classes.  Get in touch with everyone on your list.  Send them an email or give them a call asking them what they have been doing and telling them what you are up to.  Just get back in touch and maintain those relationships, ask them if they know anyone who might be interested in your book.  This can be schools, libraries, other networking groups they may be able to introduce you to or individual people.

If you have sold any books, given any presentations or joined any networking groups, you already have a mailing list.  Use your mailing list of people who purchased your books, signed up for your newsletter or showed an interest in you or your book to market to.  If you don’t have a mailing list yet, start a newsletter or quote or tip of the day relating to your genre and advertise this in your email signature, on your website, and on everything you mail.  As people sign up your list grows.

Use your mailing list to send out emails or send direct mail pieces about your books, your promotions and sales.  If you sell your book on Amazon and are part of the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program, use this list to let folks know when you have a free kindle book promotion.