How OK! Magazine Taught Me A Thing Or Two About Book Promotion By Dorothy Thompson

Today, I am thrilled to have Dorothy Thompson as our guest writer. Dorothy is the founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotions, a full service PR agency specializing in online book promotion. She is also the author of numerous books including A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook and 101 Internet Radio Shows to Promote Your Books among others. It's my pleasure to introduce Dorothy to you today as she talks about what the popular magazine, OK!, taught her about book marketing.

Before we get to Dorothy's article, I just wanted to mention that the new video tips for my subscribers is out. The 3 videos deal with time-management tools available to most users. These videos were prompted by a few requests for me to share my time-management tips with others.

This series of videos is actually three parts of a larger video broken into smaller videos of about 10 minutes each. Part 1 looks at Outlook and internet calendars. Part 2 looks at integrating e-mails into your task list and creating e-mails to go out at a later date. Part 3 discusses creating e-mail folders, automated rules to file new messages, and syncing everything with your mobile PDA devices.

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Now, on to Dorothy's post...


How OK! Magazine Taught Me A Thing Or Two About Book Promotion
By Dorothy Thompson

I want to thank Tony for asking me to guest blog today!

Let's say I'm the editor of a weekly supermarket tabloid that focuses on celebrities. I'm writing an article on a certain celebrity couple's relationship that's been all over the news lately and I need quotes from a relationship expert.

And…I'm on a deadline. The few relationship experts I have in my rolodex are either out of town, won't answer their phone or are tired of being harassed by weekly supermarket tabloid editors.

Whatever the reason, I'm sweating, hyperventilating and don't have a moment to spare. Then, a light bulb goes off. This isn't old journalism, I scream! Get with the times!

So…I go to the Internet.

I know which search words I want to use and I fly over to Google and put them in. "Relationship expert" seems to be the operative phrase here and I frantically type it in their search box. As I'm busy, I stop at the first 3 pages of search and jot down what names I find (btw, the average Internet user finds what they are looking for in the first three pages of search).

And…I send out emails.

Less than 24 hours later, a "relationship expert" responds to my email. She is more than happy to give me a quote and I give her a call. Bingo bango, I have her quote and I send them off to the presses just in the nick of time.

A week later, the tabloid is sitting proudly on grocery store and bookstore shelves and I thank God for the wonderful powers of the Internet.

I can personally relate to this story because I am the relationship expert that the editor of OK! Magazine phoned whose quote appeared in the October 12, 2006 edition of one of the most popular tabloids on the supermarket shelves.

As an author who was learning how to promote her books online, I knew the powers of adding key search words to my press releases and blog posts, or anything else that was posted online. I knew I had to focus on the set of key search words that people (in this case a very important editor) would be using to find me.

And this is what I do for my clients at Pump Up Your Book Promotion. Before you even think about promoting online, you must come up with a set of key search words that will bring people to your website or blog where they can find out more about you and your book. Your name out there isn't enough. Your book's title out there isn't enough. Whether you write about relationships or historical fiction or poetry or the latest antics of your dog, if you want notoriety, if you want your star to shine, you must add to your online exposure by incorporating those key search words so that not only will your readers find you, but those hungry editors and journalists who write for big time newspapers and magazines, will too. Who knows? Maybe you'll get that email or phone call that will have you thanking God for the wonderful powers of the Internet just like I did.

Do you incorporate key search words in your blog posts? Have you ever been contacted by an editor because they found you online? We'd love to hear from you! Please leave your comments below so that others will learn by your experiences. Thank you and we'll see you next month!

Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion with almost a decade's worth of experience in online marketing. What began as an experiment after self-publishing her promotional e-book A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook and 101 Internet Radio Shows to Promote Your Books turned into her thriving new career as an online book marketer. She is also the author of the children's book, No More Gooseberry Pie, the relationship anthology, Romancing the Soul, and the paranormal comedy novel, The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost which is under the consideration of a playwright in New York. Dorothy has written hundreds of online marketing articles and has been quoted in the celebrity tabloid, OK! She has also appeared on dozens of radio shows including Lifetime Radio, Single Talk, and Achieve Radio with Fran Silverman. Dorothy runs several blogs including her marketing blog, Book Marketing Buzz, The Writer's Life and Beyond the Books which are syndicated into USA Today, Chicago Times, Washington Post and other national newspapers. Dorothy resides on the beautiful island of Chincoteague, Virginia. Her offline interests include traveling, biking and sitting at the end of her dock and watching the sun go down. You can email her here.

Connect with Dorothy at Facebook at www.facebook.com/thewriterslife.

Connect with Dorothy at Twitter at www.twitter.com/pumpupyourbook.



 -------- Tony Eldridge is the author of The Samson Effect, an action/adventure novel that Clive Cussler calls a "first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure." He is also the author of the Twitter marketing book, Conducting Effective Twitter Contests.