Marketing Tips Around The Net: September 4th

Can you believe that school and football are already here? I have trouble wrapping the thought around my brain that my twin boys are three years old. But with the fall around the corner, the focus on book sales will ramp up. Hopefully, these links will help with your book marketing activities.

1. On Branding and Your Web Site- Gayle Trent guest blogs on Carolyn Howard-Johnson's blog and gives some good advice about how to focus your online efforts to enhance your brand.

2. What Makes a Good Online Media Kit?- Angela Wilson shares with us her experience on creating media kits. She looks at live examples and then ends with a video about creating online media kits. This is an example of not only great marketing content, but also one of how video and text can enhance the marketing message.

3. Virtual Reader Communities- If you spend any time with Dana Lynn Smith, it doesn't take long to learn that she is the place to go for quality lists of resources. If you purchased any of her books, then you know that's true. Here is a useful list for writers looking for Internet sites that welcome authors with open arms.

4. Internet Business 101: What is an Internet product launch?- Phyllis Zimbler Miller adds to her 101 series with a topic that anyone who sells anything on the internet needs to understand.

5. Video about BookBuzzr from the CEO of BookBuzzr himself- Since I started using BookBuzzr, I have heard from a lot of authors how much they love it. Vikram Narayan takes us on a video tour of this free, innovative marketing tool for authors. (Be sure to see his April 30th article on Marketing Tips For Authors entitled, BookBuzzr: How to Market Your Book on Facebook, MySpace and Other Social Networks).

6. Advice for Writers from Expert Mike Shatzkin- Joanna Penn introduces us to Mike Shatzkin and breaks down his encouraging article. This is a great read to put any author in the right spirits!

7. A Simple Way To Funnel New Traffic & Sales From Buried Blog Archives- This post by Lynn Terry is full of sweet tidbits of marketing ideas for anyone trying to take their online marketing to the next level.

8. 200+ words that will get your emails snagged by Junk and Spam filters- Thinking of writing a press release? If so, you may want to pop on over to Steven Greene's (SalesNexus) resource list of words that you want to avoid in your e-mail communications.

9. Have You Prepared Your Book's Marketing Plan?- Roger Parker takes you deep into the world of creating a solid book marketing plan that goes well beyond selling books.

10. Interview With Behind The Books- Forgive this self-indulgent stop on our trip around the net, but Kathy-Diane Leveille has posted an author interview conducted with me as the author of The Samson Effect. Come learn the "story behind the story" of The Samson Effect and learn the answer to the question behind "The Photo."

*BONUS* Get Published TV- This is not an article, but a site geared toward helping authors publish and market their books. The novel thing about this site, created by Dale Beaumont, is that almost all the content is done through video.

That's it for this week's trip around the net. Read and watch your way to more book marketing ideas that you can start using this weekend... but not until you spend time with your friends and family. For those in the US, Happy Labor Day- for those elsewhere, have a wonderful weekend (weekends are universal, right? ;) )