Book Marketing Tip of the Week
July 15, 2008: Be a Dork Day, MSNBC Birthday, Queer Eye Birthday, Winnie-the-Pooh Day, I Love Horses DayDetails on these days — and 18,500 others! — can be found in
John Kremer's Celebrate Today Special Events Data Files.In this issue . . .
-- John Kremer's Ten Million Eyeballs Event
-- John Kremer's Free Q&A Teleseminars: July
-- Jeff Rivera interview
-- Travel Ad Network
-- Video Traffic Guys: 30-Day Free Trial
-- Select markets for books . . .
-- newspaper book review editors
-- top book publisher websitesJohn Kremer's Ten Million Eyeballs Event
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I am having to cancel the Ten Million Eyeballs Event in Boulder, Colorado, as well as the one in Atlanta, Georgia, due to a problem with our landlord and the next door tenant for the townhouse that my wife and I reside in right now. Because both the landlord and the tenant are highly irrational people, I really have to stay here during this time to protect my wife from harm.While this might be bad news for those of you who wanted to take the Boulder course, it's good news for the rest of you. I will be making the Ten Million Eyeballs Event available as an online webinar much sooner than I had originally planned so you won't have to travel to take advantage of all the great ideas and proven techniques for getting millions of people to pay attention to you, your book, and your website.
I'll be announcing the details of the online webinar series in a few weeks.
I will also be doing an Event on September 20 to 21 in Houston, Texas. Again, details to come.
John Kremer's Free Q&A Teleseminars
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You can listen in on the first two hours of July 8th's Q&A call by going
to: http://www.InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=3491994.
I apologize for the event being cut off at 2 hours. I went on for another
45 minutes, but that part was not recorded. It was all my fault for not
extending the time (I got distracted while answering a question).You can listen to last week's call (July 17th) by going to:
http://www.InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=3492057Jeff Rivera interview
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Check out and listen to the following interview between Jim Kikral and novelist Jeff Rivera. Jeff is always generous in sharing his experiences and the things that work for him. I just love what he does. To listen: http://www.jimkukral.com/how-to-write-market-a-book-with-no-moneyTravel Ad Network
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The Travel Ad Network (http://www.traveladnetwork.com) provides advertising opportunities on travel websites around the world. Includes over 47 million impressions a month with 11.7 million unique visitors. They reach one out of five online travelers. As they point out:“Travel Ad Network has a proven track record of generating very profitable, high-margin revenue for travel website publishers like Lonely Planet, Rand McNally, FlightView, Viator, Rough Guides, EuropeForVisitors, HotelsByCity, and more. Aggregating an audience of over 14.5 million unique users per month makes us the largest online travel information audience on the Internet. Our audience reach has successfully attracted the attention of major media buyers in the travel space....
“We will bring you household name, well-branded advertisers which add value to your user experience and make you more money. We build your brand with top travel advertisers. For example, here is a short list of our past advertisers that ran on our sites: Hilton, Visa, Disney, Dollar Rent a Car, Colgate, Marriott, Best Western, Travelocity, British Airways, Avis, various Tourism Boards and CVBs, American Airlines, American Express, CitiCards and more.”
If you want to join the Travel Ad Network and feature their travel ads on your travel-related website, contact Scott Cherkin via email at scott@traveladnetwork.com.
If you want to advertise via the Travel Ad Network, contact Neil Strow; 212-2867-0747 or email: neil@traveladnetwork.com.
For more display and classified advertising networks, see http://www.bookmarket.com/blogads.htm.
Video Traffic Guys: 30-Day Free Trial
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My friends at Traffic Geyser are offering a special 30-day free trial of their video creation and promotion service. Here's what Traffic Geyser can do for you:
==> Help score top organic search rankings, fast, fast, fast.
==> Make down-and-dirty videos in minutes without a camera, using an exclusive slideshow creator.
==> Save hours, even days of time uploading and submitting promo messages. Their proprietary technology distributes to 70 locations automatically and in minutes!
==> Spin one message into more than 70 videos, social bookmarks, blog posts, directory entries, and podcast episodes with the click of a button -- all linking back to your web pages.
==> Create podcast channels and episodes in minutes and get them listed in the top podcast directories...driving even more qualified prospects to your sites.
==> Build list-building video lead pages for you automatically!
The Video Traffic Guys have agreed to give you a 30-day risk-free trial of the system so you can see how well it works. Even if you don't have a video, this trial will show you how to create one so you can test this for yourself ASAP. Their instructional videos are all you need to get started creating and marketing videos. Again, check out: http://www.videotrafficguys.com for their 30-day trial offer.Select markets for books . . .
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From last week's newsletter: But the fact is that most books only fit into a few select marketplaces, media, etc. Trying to push your book into marketplaces where it really doesn't fit hurts the rest of us who might have a book that fits that marketplace.A reader's feedback: Very, very well put, John - and SO often not followed! I've stopped trying to promote books and even stopped going to book shows to see new author's books because the expectations are so unrealistic and the authors SO often don't grasp the concept of vertical markets -- and it does make it more difficult overall to reach even appropriate markets, so -- overall there are better things to do with life than attempt to batter down walls with nothing useful behind them, basically! I think a lot of the tendency for scattershot marketing is due to Internet promoters who suggest such nonsense will work -- and it's rewarding to read you being realistic. Thanks for the moment's touch of reality!
Newspaper book review editors
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I received the following email from someone who visited my website and found the list of newspaper book review editors listing at: http://www.bookmarket.com/newspapers.htm“Looking for reviewers I used the list of 60+ of newspaper book reviewers in the country. I thought that coming from you this list and their email would be reliable. Unfortunately it is not like this. No one responded to my email. It seems that when no money is involved people do not try very hard.”
My response:
I provide the listing of book reviewers as a service. I expect the people who use that list to help me keep it up to date. I do not actively update it on my own. I would never have the time to do that for every page on my website.
The last time I update any listing on that page is noted at the end of the listing (6/08) -- which means June 2008. 6 is the month / 08 is the year.
The fact that no one responded to your email does not mean that the emails are invalid. There could be any number of reasons why they don't respond to your email.1. They did not receive it (my guess is that at least 20% of all email sent is never received by the intended receiver -- this estimate is based on just my experience).
2. You reached them on a busy day.
3. Your email arrived when they were travelling, sick, on vacation, etc.
4. Your email was not addressed to their needs. Note that most newspaper book reviewers are only interested in major fiction, major biographies, major social issues books, and some regional books.
Indeed, the most likely reason for no response is that the message was received and considered spam because it was not directed to a need the recipients have. I often do not read email if the subject line doesn't interest me or if it isn't clear what the email is about.
Top Book Publisher Websites
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Congratulations to the following book publishers who have built up their sites to high-ranking positions. Check out their sites for inspiration in building your site as well as promoting it. Note: Alexa.com is the defacto standard right now for measuring website traffic for most websites.Baen Books: http://www.baen.com Alexa rank: 88,468
Dragon Door Publications: http://www.dragondoor.com Alexa: 52,605
Fodors: http://www.fodors.com Alexa: 16,389
HarperCollins: http://www.harpercollins.com Alexa: 28,476
Information Please Almanac: http://www.infoplease.com Alexa: 3,290
Lonely Planet: http://www.lonelyplanet.com Alexa: 2,872
Nolo: http://www.nolo.com Alexa: 18,565
Random House: http://www.randomhouse.com Alexa: 7,199
Simon & Schuster: http://www.simonsays.com Alexa: 33,740
Abbeville Press: http://www.abbeville.com Alexa: 556,786
While Abbeville isn't ranked in the top 100,000, they have just launched a new website featuring a blog and audio/video podcasts.
Quotable Books
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Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., novelist
More great quotes at http://www.quotablebooks.com
Index: http://www.bookmarket.com/tipsindex.htm
Copyright © 2008 by John Kremer
Email: JohnKremer@bookmarket.com
Open Horizons, P O Box 2887, Taos NM 87571