If you’re not “buzzing your book,” you ought to be!
Today my point of excitement derives from a great little promotional tool I employ called AuthorBuzz A prolific novelist in her “spare time,” M.J. Rose is the brains behind the service. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t sleep or eat.
Here’s what’s happening. You’ve heard me rave about our October book, The Green Beauy Guide, well, AuthorBuzz is how I am encouraging others to rave about it BEFORE it hits the shelves.
A couple times a week, AuthorBuzz features books in Shelf-Awareness, a widely read, online book industry newsletter. Book jackets are shown (what I live for), and small notes are displayed typically written by the author. With this tool, before publication time, I can reach over 3000 librarians and 3000 booksellers. After the book’s published, it’s 360,000 readers and 10,000 librarians more and that includes over 3400 bookclubs. How else can you do that? If you know a way, by all means do tell! (Remember, the first layer of interest must come from the “trade” before a reader can find the book.)
So, late yesterday a note from Julie Gabriel, the author of The Green Beauty Guide , appeared in the latest edition of Shelf-Awareness bearing an offer to give away free ARC’s (that’s bookspeak for Advanced Reader’s Copies) Not only did requests trickle in all day, their sources were downright impressive.
Since early this morning, I’ve been sending ARC’s to an eclectic array of venues. Queries came from Ingram’s (the world’s largest book wholesaler), several independent book stores, a University bookstore, libraries, serious book reviewers, bloggers, a glossy UK magazine, and more are awaiting my response.
So, what I’ve got is a pretty impressive audience to preview the book before it’s published. Hopefully, they have big mouths! From their interest will come reviews, publicity, library stock and orders for their bookstores. Hence the term “buzz” in the AuthorBuzz moniker. I’ve been employing MJ Rose’s clever advertising vehicle for some time now and am increasingly pleased with how well it works.
Although it is one of my favorites which I use for numerous HCI titles, AuthorBuzz is but one vehicle for cultivating early interest in a book. I will introduce you to more techniques in future posts. For now, I can cautiously predict that The Green Beauty Guide will attract interest and subsequent sales when the finished book becomes available.
Did I hear someone say, it’s good to be green? (Not again!) Apparently, the book industry seems to think so. Good news for Planet Earth!
Start buzzing your book and see what happens. I’d love to hear how it works for you.
Remember, there’s nothing like word of mouth.
We just have to find effective ways to get it going.
Buzz away.
MJ Rose
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I was directed to you…… several people have told me they think I could easily get a book of my middle-age relationship poem published….
And, having been through and hated, internet dating, my friends, who get my emails about my bad dating experiences tell me they are funny and I should write a book……. I already have the title, “A Thousand Bad Dates” Your thoughts? ( Of course I’ll change the name of the guy who was missing a foot, and the guy who said he was 6′4″ and asked me to wear heels – he turned out to be 4′6″…. muttering something about dsylexia. Ohhh yeah, like I believed that. Of course, I still think, it only takes ONE good date to change your life…. or someone to remove the dork magnet that attracts the wrong ones.