Creating a Relationship with Potential Readers- By Phyllis Zimbler Miller

Today, we have Phyllis Zimbler Miller, author and book marketing expert, back with us as she shares with us ways we can create relationships with our readers. As she points out, it's truly the best time ever to be an author.

Before we get to her article, I want to let you know that chapter 12 in my award winning novel, The Samson Effect, has been released on the serial release site. If you have not started this novel that NY Times best selling author Clive Cussler calls a "first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure", then you can visit the Table of Contents to start from the beginning. While there, check out the announcement of the novel being acquired by a major Hollywood film producer.


We all know how crowded the book publishing market is – thousands and thousands of books all clamoring for readers' attention. How, then, do we as book authors get our books to stand out?

Thanks to the Internet, which has erased almost all barriers to entry (as long as you have online access), book authors have a large number of free and low-cost book marketing options that can create a relationship between the author and potential readers.

Here's a brief primer of some of the major opportunities:

• Videos – book trailers as well as videos of the author talking to her/his audience
  
  
• Blogs – on the subject of a book, on the subject of writing or publishing or whatever the author believes will interest her/his audience
  
  
• Articles – submitted to article directories – again on a variety of subjects connected to the target book audience
  
  
• BlogTalkRadio show – the subject of the book, other authors, fictional characters
  
  
• Social networks – Twitter, Facebook (including a page for the book), LinkedIn, etc.
  
  
• Book sites – places such as freado.com where a partial or the entire book can be uploaded
  
  
• Book author website – a major strategy in getting in front of an author's target markets
  
  
• Online press releases
  
  
• PR pitch sites such as PitchRate.com
  
  
• Audio recordings of a book
  
  
• Virtual book tours
  

Can you do all of these? Perhaps if you're super human – or perhaps if you do book marketing full time over a long time period.

So what's an author to do? Start somewhere – start with the opportunity with which you're most comfortable. Do this for a few weeks until you're ready to move on to the next opportunity while still doing the first opportunity. (You don't want to give up too soon on any one option. You need to give these strategies a long time to work.)

And here's the most important thing to remember in this new age when all authors have equal access to Internet book marketing:

Thanks to Amazon, print-on-demand publishers, freado.com, etc., an author no longer has to worry about a book title being pushed off the bookstore shelves in a few weeks to make room for new titles and thus the book title disappears forever from view. Today a book title can be around forever – so you can continue to build your reader fans over a very long time period.

Now that's something to look forward to!

Read Phyllis' article now on suffering "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller's company MillerMosaicLLC.com has launched http://www.WeTeachWebMarketing.com to help people promote their brand, book or business online. She's also a National Internet Business Examiner at http://www.InternetBizBlogger.com. And you can watch a video explaining why her novel MRS. LIEUTENANT – a 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semi-finalist – is excellent for book clubs to discuss at http://www.mrslieutenant.com/book-discussion-questions/.