Guest Expert: D’vorah Lansky, M.Ed. and Author of Book Marketing Made Easy: Simple Strategies for Selling Your Nonfiction Book Online.
When you think of Amazon, the online “800 pound gorilla” of a bookstore what comes to mind? Do you think about the great price you are going to get on your book purchases? Do you think about all the helpful customer reviews that are easily accessible? Do you think about how easy it is to shop on Amazon, with their easy check-out system?
I’d like to share with you a few more things about Amazon that you may not have realized. If you are an author, wanting to promote and sell more books, Amazon provides you with some powerful tools, as well as access to online social networking opportunities.
Amazon Author Central
Each author can create their own author page on Amazon Author Central. Not only can you list your author bio and your bibliography of published works, you can pull in the RSS feed from your blog, post videos, and add images. This provides you with an “online resume” if you will, as well as a powerful place for people to come to find out more about you and your books.
There is an additional feature of your Amazon Author Central page that will help you to build an interactive community and create more buzz about your book. That is the customer discussion section of Amazon Author Central. You can post a conversation starter or encourage your readers to begin a discussion, based on the content of your book. Think of the possibilities.
Gathering Book Reviews as a Social Networking Experience
When my new book became available on Amazon, I was prepared. For weeks before my publication date I began putting out the word and interacting with other authors interested in book marketing. Being that my book is on the topic of “online book marketing” I put out an irresistible offer to create a win/win situation.
I let it be known that I was looking for book reviewers interested in online book marketing. My offer was that by participating in an online survey, and agreeing to provide a brief review of my book on Amazon, I would send them a digital review copy of my book.
I had 97 people take me up on the offer and to date have over 50 reviews of my book listed on Amazon! The results are actually much higher than I anticipated as I expected that 1 out of every 4 people who requested a copy of my book would turn in a book review.
This also built the foundation towards the momentum of my 21-day virtual book tour and my book becoming an Amazon bestseller in three categories. If you’d like get some ideas about virtual book tours or find out about the 20+ book marketing blogs that hosted me on my tour, visit: http://BookMarketingMadeEasy.com and click on the “virtual book tour” tab.
Ok, so you may be asking at this point, “What does this have to do with social networking on Amazon?” Here’s the scoop:
• By requesting answers to a few brief survey questions along with book reviews (to be posted on Amazon) in exchange for a review copy of my book, this allowed me to build relationships with people in my target audience and provide them with opportunities to network with one another.
• Each person who submitted a review to Amazon, was also featured on my book blog, publicly recognized, and featured in my book marketing eZine along with the name of their book and link to their website. This encouraged interaction between the reviewers and the rest of our author community.
• Spotlighting the Amazon review process not only helped to promote my book, it provided a guided tour for other authors to discover the power of Amazon reviews for their books and for themselves as an author.
• Being that there is the option of creating video reviews on Amazon, this provided an opportunity for my reviewers to be in the spotlight and grow their own following as video is a powerful relationship building, marketing tool.
• And, as mentioned, the customer discussion section of your Amazon Author Central page provides a place for your audience to both share their ideas and interact with one another.
Have you benefitted by marketing your book on Amazon? Scroll down to share your thoughts, experiences and ideas in the comment section below. Here’s to your book marketing success!
D’vorah Lansky is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, Book Marketing Made Easy: Simple Strategies for Selling Your Nonfiction Book Online. D’vorah is the producer of the annual BookMarketingConference.com and the publisher of the BookMarketingGazette.com. She teaches courses on online book marketing strategies and supports a membership site of over 2,000 authors. Connect with D’vorah and her community of authors and pick up your free book marketing kit at: http://BookMarketingMadeEasy.com
