Guest Blogger: Bestsellers Are Not Born. They’re Made! by Terri Giuliano Long

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Bestsellers Are Not Born. They’re Made!

Terri Giuliano Long

When I published my debut novel, In Leah’s Wake, in October 2010, I had no clue as to what I was doing. Stupidly, too embarrassed to self-promote, I posted the book on Amazon. That was it. I mean really it – not even my parents knew I’d published the book!

I sold two books in October, four in November, and thirty-four in December. For a month or so after the holidays, as people bought books for their new Kindles, I sold a few copies a day. By March, with sales lagging, and I realized that, if I didn’t do something, my book would die. In early March, I began blogging and activated my Twitter account.

A Twitter newbie, I didn’t know the first thing about protocol or practices. Scouring the Internet, searching for advice, I landed on the Novel Publicity site. After my third or fourth time on the site, I contacted Novel Publicity founder, Emlyn Chand, and signed up for a few basic services. For three months, Emlyn and I worked on building my social media platform. Emlyn introduced me to Twitter, reorganized my blog, and created a media kit, book discussion guide, and video trailer. In mid-May, I began my Novel Publicity blog tour. In May, I sold thirty-eight books. In June, sales increased to about 2 – 3 books a day.

Once I got used to the idea that marketing didn’t have to mean shameless self-promotion, 24/7, I began to enjoy it. I’ve done several promotions with Author Buzz – for readers, book clubs and librarians – organized by M.J. Rose, two blog hops with the IBC, a second tour – Social Media Whirlwind – with Novel Publicity, and the IBC’s elite promotion, Bestseller For A Day. I’m currently doing a Pump Up Your Book Tour with Dorothy Thompson. Emlyn and I have also done fun things, like creating an interactive In Leah’s Wake quiz and crossroads stories for my blog.

Six months later, we’ve sold 45,000 books, with over 16,000 sales in October alone.

You Can Do It Too! Here’s How

Pre-Publication

Mobilize Your Networks

Well before your pub date, mobilize your networks. Spread news about your launch to family and friends; send copies of your eBook or paperback to beta readers and anyone else who might be interested in reading. Post a pre-sale page on Amazon; a week or two before your launch, begin asking readers to post reviews.

If you don’t have a website or blog, now is the time to create one. Your blog is the basis of your social networking platform. Even if you don’t blog regularly – I don’t, though I hope to get begin soon – your blog provides a platform for talking about your book, reaching out to readers, announcing your news, sharing your thoughts.

Create a book trailer.

People disagree about whether or not trailers promote books. I can’t say for sure that mine has, but I can tell you – with very little promotion – I’ve had close to 1000 YouTube hits; I have no idea how many people have viewed it on my site, the Novel Publicity site, the trailer parks or blogs where it’s been featured. If nothing else, trailers attract interest on a Web page. If you’re talented or know someone who is, you can make the trailer yourself. Whatever you do – do NOT post it on your Amazon page. The last thing you want is to distract people away from your sales page.

Set up Social Media Pages

Next, activate your book-centric social networks. Create a Facebook author page. Friend pages are great, but they’re better for connecting with real friends. I made the mistake of building my friend page, rather than focusing on my fan page. Now I have trouble connecting with family and real life friends; although I have over 1000 author friends, I’m hesitant to post book information for fear of annoying my family.

Set up a book page on Goodreads. If you can afford it, take out an ad. It doesn’t have to be terribly expensive. Goodreads recommends a budget of $5/day. Direct the ad to your Goodreads page. This will encourage readers to add your book to their shelves.

Post Teasers

The month before your launch, begin posting teasers on social media sites – Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, G+. Be conversational, fun – don’t push sales. Show your cover, tell people how excited you are; post an excerpt on your blog. Share information about your pre-publication preparations, your feelings. Engage people; build anticipation. Ask author friends to help you by cross-promoting – a friend could interview you on his or her blog, post info on Facebook, tweet about your book. Whatever you do, be sure to give back. No one likes takers.

Launch

Today is your big day! Have fun! Host a blog party! Celebrate your accomplishment! Post event information across your social networks. Try to involve as many people – readers, author friends, and bloggers – to participate and to share your news.

If you can afford one, hire a publicist.

Over a million books are published each year. Most never sell more than 1000 copies.

If you’re one of the chosen few – a traditionally published name author or an author who’s received a hefty advance – good for you! Your publisher will promote you. The rest of us, unless we take PR into our own hands, will receive little or no notice. Your publicist is your partner. Work hard with him or her to promote your book.

What If You’re Broke? Does This Mean You’re Doomed to Sell 100 Books?

No, absolutely not!

If you can’t afford or don’t want to hire a publicist, do the work yourself. Create a website, using a free or low-cost platform like WordPress; build your social network; contact reviewers and bloggers and request reviews interviews (be polite and be sure to follow instructions posted on the sites); reach out to book clubs. Dollars & Sense: the Definitive Guide To Self-Publishing, by Carolyn McCray, Rachel Thompson and Amber Scott, offers a wealth of information. You can also find information online. Check out Seth Godin and Jon Konrath’s blogs. It’s hard work, and it takes time—months or even a year—but it can be done.

Post-Launch Strategies I’ve Found Successful

Give Books Away

Over the last year, I’ve given away about 200 paperbacks and over 500 eBooks, via downloadable PDF, mobi or ePub files or with Smashwords coupons. Most traditional media refuse to review indie books, so we rely on readers and bloggers for the all-important reviews we need in order to spread the word about our book.

Bless and cherish these people! They read our books and write reviews purely out of love. Because I value them so greatly, I happily give a book in whichever format a blogger or reviewer requests. Buying and shipping paperback books costs money, particularly when you ship overseas. A lot of reviewers are happy with an eBook. That’s terrific and cost-effective. But if someone requests a paperback, I always send one, with a note saying thank you.

I’ve also given books to readers via Goodreads giveaways as well as through various promotions. The Indie Book Collective sponsors periodic daisy-chain blog hops. So far I’ve done two – Tour de Troops, over Memorial Day Weekend, and Menage a Blog, in July. From November 10 – 14 I look forward to my Tour de Troops encore. For the IBC blog hops, every person who leaves a comment receives a Smashwords coupon for a free eBook. I’ve had about 125 unique comments during each blog hop. For Tour de Troops we also give one book to an active duty troop for every book we give to our visitors. I also gave books away during my Bestseller For a Day event and Social Whirlwind Media Tour. In each case, I communicated directly with every person who received the book. Giving away books gives us a perfect opportunity to reach and out and connect with readers. When we communicate with readers we let them know we feel they’re important, we value them – maybe they’ll be loyal to us.

Enter Contests

How do you make your book stand out? Accolades. I was honored to win the Coffee Time Reviewer Recommend Award from Coffee Time Romance. The award, selected by reviewers, was a wonderful surprise. But such awards are few and far between. Most require that you enter a contest. Submit your novel or novel excerpt to any competition you can find for your genre or category. Submit far. Submit wide. If you’re lucky enough to win, the award will validate you (yay, somebody thinks your writing is great!) and attract the interest of readers. As a bonus, you may get a shiny new badge to print on your book cover or post on your website. What’s more, the contest will promote itself and your winning entry. Free PR! Woo-hoo!

A traditionally published friend writes for a terrific website called Book Bundlz, a resource for book clubs. My friend gave me the name of the owner and I emailed to ask if she’d be interested in my writing an article; the owner never responded. One day, I visited the Book Bundlz website, noticed a call for entries for their 2011 Book Pick, and decided to enter. For some reason, I had the (mistaken) impression that the site favored traditionally published books. I was shocked when the Book Bundlz judges chose In Leah’s Wake as a finalist. It was a huge honor when club members, by vote, selected my book as the winner.

If you win a contest, forever after, you get to call your book an award-winning book. This may not seem a big deal, particularly if your book wins an award no one has ever heard of; it does, however, change readers’ perception of your book. Remember – indie published books haven’t been vetted by a team of editors and most of us don’t have a traditional PR machine to shape and promote our brand. Readers are taking a risk on us. It’s our job to lower the risk and make readers feel comfortable. An award proclaims, this book has been deemed worthy by a book critic or judge.

Get Creative

Emlyn and I are idea people, so we enjoy thinking of strategies others may not have tried. When I signed on for the IBC’s Menage a Blog Tour, I wanted to do something different and fun to attract readers to my blog. Emlyn came up with a ten-question character quiz that tells participants which In Leah’s Wake character they resemble. We wrote the questions together, a lot of fun. As a kicker, I had the idea of creating a competition, asking visitors to vote for a winner. To enter, you had to take the quiz, and then leave a comment on my blog telling us which character you were and what it meant to you. I asked my friend Barbara Hightower to select the ten best comments. Emlyn organized the finalists in a post and we invited the winners to rally their friends to vote, offering some really cool prizes as an incentive. The contest generated enormous traffic to my blog, and I met a lot of terrific people. When the IBC featured In Leah’s Wake in their Bestseller For a Day promotion, several of my blogger-sponsors joined because they’d met me through the contest.

Cross-Promote

Some authors are reluctant to cross-promote, so it can be hard to put a solid plan together. This month, I worked with thirty-six authors to promote the launch of bestselling author Melissa Foster’s new novel, Come Back To Me. For the month preceding the event, the participating authors all shared news about the upcoming event. On launch day, we all lowered the price of our eBook to 99¢, making the party fun for readers, too. The IBC blog hops and Bestseller For a Day promotion work in a similar manner. By promoting an event together, everyone wins.

This sort of cross-promotion creates connections among authors. I continue to correspond and cross-promote with authors I’ve worked with on tours. I’ve also maintained contact with many of the original bloggers who sponsored me on my first Novel Publicity tour. This sort of community is great for promotional reasons, but the support and camaraderie – the virtual hug you receive on a bad day – are, by far, the bigger rewards.

Cross-promotion, because readers often buy both books, also helps to get our books into the “If you liked this, you’ll like this” chain in the online retailer sites. These lists expose our books to many readers who might never have heard of us or found our book otherwise.

Be Patient

Publishing your first book is like starting a small business. You’ll work longer hours for less money than you’ve ever dreamed possible. I’ve been joking lately about posting before and after photos. Before promoting my book, I actually looked like my author photo. Now . . . well, I won’t even go there. The point is, over the last six months I’ve worked many 12 or 16-hour days. Some days I’ve wondered why I bothered, and – my husband will attest to this – I’ve had many days when I’ve threatened to quit writing. Forever.

But then I’d receive a note that says your book has given me hope. Or, you speak for so many parents and teens. Thank you. Or if I were stranded, I’d want to bring your book with me. And my heart melts. In those moments, I know it’s worthwhile. I’ve been blessed. Those wonderful, poignant, breathtaking moments far outweigh any down times. It’s like children – parenting is tough, but your children bring you the greatest joy you can ever imagine. Hold your head up, reach higher, and hold onto the joy.

Don’t ever give up.

Terri Giuliano Long is the bestselling author of the award-winning novel In Leah’s Wake. Books offer her a zest for life’s highs and comfort in its lows. She’s all-too-happy to share this love with others as a novelist and a writing teacher at Boston College.

Her life outside of books is devoted to her family. In her spare time, she enjoys walking, traveling to far-flung places, and meeting interesting people. True to her Italian-American heritage, she’s an enthusiastic cook and she loves fine wine and good food. In an alternate reality, she could have been very happy as an international food writer.

Terri loves meeting and connecting with people who share her passions.

You can visit her website at www.tglong.com or connect with her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/tglong and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/tglongwrites.

Award-Winning Book Publicity Company Since 2007

VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR, BLOG TOUR & BOOK PUBLICITY ENDORSEMENTS: NICE THINGS PEOPLE SAY ABOUT PUMP UP YOUR BOOK

NEW! "Thank you Dorothy for a lovely tour! Thanks so much for the graphics and wonderful trailer!!"Avery Sterling, PRECIOUS BURDENS

"I just wanted to thank you for everything. You ARE the queen. Your are so personable and professional. Your graphics soared beyond. They are beautiful. It was a pleasure to work with you."Jude Hopkins, BABE IN THE WOODS

"THANK YOU for all of these graphics!!! That was a valuable added perk of working with you on the VBT! Thank you for all the work you put into those, and into the organization and follow-ups on the tour itself. It's been a pleasure working with you, Dorothy!"Allyson Rice, The Key to Circus-Mom Highway

"Oh, awesome!! Thank you so much! You ran such a lovely tour. Those images are great, I look forward to using them and will miss seeing the regular postings on Twitter ;-).
I really appreciate your steadfast and ongoing support. It means a lot!!"Palmer Pickering, MOON DEEDS

"Just wanted to send you a quick note to say thank you again for the amazing blog tour and to tell you that we will be adding the tour to Mark's author website in the next few days. We will of course be recommending your company to other authors we know. And when Mark's next book is out, we will use your services again." Kirsten Grenside on behalf of Mark Grenside, FALL OUT

"Thank you for all the great, creative, work you have done on behalf of my book. You are
a special lady, as a kind hearted woman and a professional."
Maria Andrade, DEFIANCE AND REDEMPTION

"Everyone did an excellent job. The blog pages were beautiful, and the trailer was so clever and funny. Thanks for sending these lovely "souvenirs" from my tour. I will be able to use all of these posts on Twitter. I enjoyed this so much and look forward to my next tour!"
Irene Woodbury, HONEYMOON ROULETTE

" I am delighted with the results of my recent tour with Pump Up Your Book. Dorothy is meticulous and professional, presents beautifully laid out pages, maintains constant contact with the client, and gives more than expected value for money. In a nutshell: you get what you pay for and more on top! I will certainly be using Dorothy’s services for my other Regency romance books.”
Arabella Sheraton, THE LORD BLACKWOOD REGENCY ROMANCE SERIES

"Thank you so much for The Shadow of Atlantis tour. I've really enjoyed all the posts and seeing my book being promoted. I will definitely come back to you with another of my titles!"
Wendy Leighton-Porter, THE SHADOW OF ATLANTIS

"Thank you so much for the great job on the book tour! Pump Up Your Book was a driving force in the launch of THE PILATE SCROLL!"
M.B. Lewis, THE PILATE SCROLL

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Kathleen Shaputis, HIS KILT DROPPED HERE

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Joni Ankerson, TO KILL OR BE KILLED

"Thank you for an Amazing Virtual Book Tour for Son of a Soldier! I really appreciate all the work you put into it!"
Aiken Brown, SON OF A SOLDIER

"Thanks so much for getting ANNA INCOGNITO out there and reviewed and shared with so many people. It was great to see it on so many twitter feeds!"
Laura Preble, ANNA INCOGNITO

"Thank you so much for such a fantastic tour! You did an amazing job getting it together so quickly, and I couldn’t have been happier!"
Lena Gregory, GRAVE CONSEQUENCES

"Thank you so much Dorothy! I appreciate your hard work. Love the graphics!"
Jennifer Chase, FLOWERS ON HER GRAVE

"This has been one of the best things I’ve done as an author. Not only am I getting the word out about my books but I’m learning about my own work and my readers along the way. I love it!"
Elysia Strife, A PROMISE IN ASH

"Today my blog tour ended, with another great review which made me end the tour with a big smile! What a fun way to end this incredible 4-week tour. I will surely miss it. I want to thank you for arranging it so well and for being there for me whenever I needed. Thank you!!!"

Miri Leshem-Pelly, SCRIBBLE & AUTHOR

"I think you did an excellent job last time, thank you!"
Shami Stovall, KNIGHTMARE ARCANIST

"Just wanted to thank you for the book tour. :) You did a great job. :)"
Suzanne M. Hurley, THE TEDDY BEAR EYE CLUB

"I just wanted to thank you for a wonderful virtual tour in August for Brimstone and Water. I was very happy with the amount of attention given to the book and to me. I am mentioning it to friends on line that haven't gone to the site yet to be sure and take a look. Thanks for all your work."
Sharon House, BRIMSTONE AND WATER

"Thank you for running my book promotion for BlackJack. I am so pleased with the reviews that came in and appreciated all you did. My sales have improved from being around 800,000 down to the 200,000 on Amazon and hopefully dropping still. I will definitely be contacting you for a promotion again."
Christine Donovan, BLACKJACK

"You’ve been a joy to work with, and I’d do another tour with you in a heartbeat. Overall, it was an excellent experience and a good value. I’ll be sure to look you up when it’s time to release my next book."
Michael Allan Scott, GREY DAZE

"Just wanted to thank you for putting together a great tour for You Won't Remember This. I think the author was pleasantly surprised and overall very pleased."
Bacon Press Books

"Dorothy, thanks so much for another great VBT!!! The Twitter-Party was a new feature this time that I particularly enjoyed. I will continue to recommend PUYB to my writer-friends, because you are simply the best!!!"
T.M. Wallace, WINTERGARDEN

"Thank you for a great blog tour for my “Depression and Your Child.”
I’m in the middle of my third book and will definitely call on you again when it’s time to market it."
Deborah Serani, DEPRESSION AND YOUR CHILD

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Ashley Fontainne, GROWL

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Mary Lawlor, FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER

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Lee Papa, TEMPLE OF ALL KNOWING

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Madeline Wynn, DAUGHTER OF THE FALLEN

"Just wanted to say I'm appreciating your tweets so much. This is really helping my book sales, and I'm telling writer friends about you."
Mary Lawlor, FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER

"Thank you SO much!!!! I had a blast on the tour and appreciate all the time the bloggers and reviewers spent promoting Ash to Steele:)"
Karen-Anne Stewart, ASH TO STEELE

"When it comes to looking for a virtual book tour coordinator, Dorothy Thompson of Pump Up Your Book Tours is simply the best. I have tried several virtual book tour coordinators and have even set up a book tour on my own, but none of them were as successful as my tours with Pump Up Your Book Tour, which has the combination of expertise and experience needed to get the author the results they need. On this latest tour, TWELVE TO MURDER made it up to number three on Amazon! Thank you, Dorothy!"
Lauren Carr, Best-Selling Mystery Author of Mac Faraday, and Lovers in Crime, Mysteries

"Thank you again for all of your help and support for my recent book tour. You were so supportive and responsive, and I enjoyed working with you. It was a great tour and I really enjoyed it, especially when my book hit the top 100 in the two subcategories! That was awesome! Thanks for "pumping up my book!""
Monique Roy, ACROSS GREAT DIVIDES

"Thank you for another amazing tour, Dorothy!! I loved the sites I had an opportunity to visit and the people I met along the way. I even made a few new friends and found wonderful supporters that I'll never forget - I promise! The exposure you gave my book was absolutely unbelievable, and I can't think of a better way to welcome and expose an author's new creation to the literary world. Happy New Year to all your readers and may your success continue to grow. "
Kaylin McFarren, BURIED THREADS

"Thank you for a great virtual book tour. I thought it went really well and it was great to have a wave of PR that flowed through the two month period of my book release. I'm working on my next book - and will definitely reach out to you when it comes time to market! You were a delight to work with and really made me feel looked after. As I've mentioned before, I just don't know how you do it all."
--Deborah Serani, DEPRESSION AND YOUR CHILD

"I just wanted to let you know how wonderful I felt my book blast went for Be Careful What You Wish For in the month of August. So many emails and contacts that I would never have gotten. The publicity was just phenomenal!"
--R.K. Avery, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

"Just wanted to touch base with you and extend a huge thank you for the wonderful and successful book blast you arranged for Love Vindicated for me. I was very happy with your services and will be passing your name and brand along to some writer friends with a stellar recommendation. Again thanks and I look forward to working with you again in the future."
--Lila Munro, LOVE VINDICATED

"Thank you so much for all your hard work in putting together the virtual book tour for The Sixth Power. I appreciate it so much."
--Carol Nicolas, THE SIXTH POWER

"Thank you SO MUCH for such a great blog tour!"
--Sandra D. Bricker, ALWAYS THE BAKER, FINALLY THE BRIDE

"Wow - you are absolutely fantastic. Can't believe how lucky I was to find you :)"
--Jo Sparkes, THE BIRR ELIXIR

"I just wanted to let you know that tonight Steven Manchester's Twelve Months became The Story Plant's first #1 Kindle bestseller. This couldn't have happened without you. Barb's cover is an absolute showstopper, Sue's copyediting boosted the overall work, Jackie's proofreading kept all of us honest, and Tracee Gleichner's blog tour started what has become an avalanche of great reviews."
-- Lou Aronica, STORY PLANT

"Blog tours have been the most effective promotion I’ve done. Dorothy Thompson and her company Pump Up Your Book are the greatest. I’ve spent money with other promotion companies that advertised packages then didn’t deliver the service they advertised, inflated their audience and reach and point blank falsely represented themselves. Dorothy has been a Godsend, and by far, her services are the best promotional endeavors I’ve invested in thus far."
-- Alicia Singleton, DARK SIDE OF VALOR

"I didn't realize that there is a place on amazon that you can see your stats for foreign sales; mine are really good and I believe it is your tweeting service. I think I might have found the key to successful self-publishing when I found Pump Up Your Books."
-- Suzanne Jenkins, PAM OF BABYLON SERIES

"Dorothy Thompson helped promote my book, Gringos in Paradise: Our Honduras Odyssey. Taking part in it was so much easier (and less expensive) than the travel schedule I was hving to keep doing on my own. She set up everything, coached me through my part, and I found my book and I promoted it all over the Internet. It definitely increased my book sales."
-- Malana Ashlie, GRINGOS IN PARADISE

"Dorothy was not only a lot of fun to work with but she helped me get the word out about my book. I would recommend her to both debut and experienced authors."
---Deborah Woehr, PROSPERITY: A GHOST STORY

“Dorothy is a firecracker promoter. She is skilled at finding the most visible placements in promoting your book with unmatched enthusiasm.She is creatively talented and a wonderful person to have on your team.”
--Kathy Holmes Eckardt, REAL WOMEN WEAR RED

“I invested in a three month virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Books promotions for my noir thriller, Moonlight Falls. Not only did the marketing campaign work wonders for spreading the word about the new novel, in the very last month, on the very last day of the tour, Moonlight Falls became an Amazon Kindle bestseller!”
–Vincent Zandri, MOONLIGHT FALLS and THE REMAINS

“I’m so pleased every day when I look at Google Alerts and see our titles all around the blogosphere, so thanks for that!”
–-World Ahead Media

“This has been a wonderful experience. Dorothy Thompson and her whole team are very committed to each author, take each author’s tour very seriously, and work towards maximum exposure in the right places. This is the best book promotion expenditure I’ve made in terms of return on investment. I highly recommend Pump Up Your Book Promotion.”
--Phyllis Zimbler Miller, MRS: LIEUTENANT

"I used Pump Up Your Book promotions a few months ago for my novel, Nephilim. My publisher is a great person, but when it comes to promotions, she encourages authors to do that on their own. Enter Dorothy Thompson at Pump Up Your Book. I had 8 reviews of the book and was featured as a guest author every day of the week at various websites during the month that I used her company. Amazing! She secured everything for me which was really nice and I didn't have to do anything but write a few blogs or answer interview questions. I would use Pump Up Your Book again in a heart beat!"
--Mary Ann Loesch, NEPHILIM

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Question of the Day

How do you make sales happen for you?

A lot of hard work! I sponsor a lot of on line parties, festivals and contests. Book sales don’t magically happen, believe me. An author has to work hard to earn her readers. And then she has to work hard to keep them by giving them something they’ll enjoy reading. I try hard to make my books worth a reader’s time.

-- Sheila Roberts, Author of Winter at the Beach