BookBuzzr - Online Book-Marketing Technologies for Authors

Dear BookBuzzr,

The problem with today's Facebook fan pages

So you're an author with a Facebook fan page. You've got book trailers, polls, quizzes, photo and writing contests running on your page. You've even got a few hundred "Facebook Likes" for your page. And yet your book sales are not going up. You then compare yourself to popular authors with tens of thousands of Fans on their Facebook fan pages. And you wonder what they are doing that you're not doing.

Here's what's happening.

If you are a popular mainstream author, the people becoming fans of your page are people who already read your books or have heard enough about you that they are likely to soon become readers.

If you are not yet a literary superstar, then the people who are "Liking" your page are doing so because of some other inducement that you may be providing ("get entered into a prize drawing if you Like my page"). They are unlikely to think about you or notice your book even if they "Like" your Facebook fan page. And they are unlikely to return to your Facebook page or tell their friends about it.

Thus, while a Facebook fan page (and associated bells and whistles such as the BookBuzzr Facebook Fan Page Widget) is a necessary condition for entry into the book marketing game, it is not sufficient.

So how do you actually find some readers for your book?

John Locke's Principle of Transfer of Loyalty
A few months ago, best-selling author - John Locke - wrote a book - "How I Sold a Million Books". In this book John comes up with the concept of "Transfer of Loyalty". The idea is simple and fairly well-known. It is best illustrated by an example.

Let us say that you've written a vampire romance book and your target audience is the set of people who liked the Twilight movie series. You write a blog post on the Twilight movie series and promote the blog post on Twitter to Twilight movie fans. Some of these folks will read your blog post and get exposed to your book. Some of your blog post readers may now "transfer their loyalty" to give your book a try.

While this is a fantastic, proven concept, we at BookBuzzr, believe that the principle can be extended to find readers on Facebook.

Characteristics of Facebook users
Some of the characteristics of Facebook users are:

1. They don't like reading lengthy blog posts while on Facebook.
2. They like playing trivia games
3. They like sharing fun stuff with their friends
4. They are usually thinking WIIFM (What's in it for me?)

Announcing QuizBuzzr - a revolution in book marketing on Facebook


Melding John Locke's loyalty transfer principle with our insight about Facebook users, we've come up with QuizBuzzr.

QuizBuzzr is a quiz that you, the author, create. There are ten questions in each quiz. The quiz would ideally appeal to your target audience. For example, if you think that fans of the Oprah Winfrey show would enjoy your book, you would create a quiz featuring 10 questions about Oprah Winfrey.

QuizBuzzr also features "Lifelines". Clicking on these will offer you clues to the correct answer with one twist - some of them require you to share the game with your Facebook friends.

QuizBuzzr is also made interesting by the fact that at each point during the game, you can "Walk Away" from the game thereby saving the points earned till that point or risk it all by trying to answer the next question.

And we've built in several 'viral hooks' which cause users to share information about the specific quiz and about your book with their Facebook friends.

And winning points in the game allows users to use those points on Freado.com where they can win real prizes including Kindles and best-selling books.

Why is this useful for you?
To summarize, this technology is particularly useful because:

1. You can create several quizzes that are likely to appeal to your readers.
2. It shows up your book at strategic points in the game alongside the questions.
3. As described earlier, it appeals to the average Facebook user.
4. Because of the in-built viral hooks at various points in the game, your book will be surely be marketed.

How can you use QuizBuzzr to market your book on Facebook?
QuizBuzzr will soon be released as a test beta product. It comes bundled with a BookBuzzr Author Pro subscription. To use it to market your book, simply sign-up for a BookBuzzr Author Pro account.

• Upcoming Free Webinars from BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies Center

This month, we're featuring 3 webinars on the topic of 'Marketing Your Book on Amazon'. Here are the links to all the 3 webinars.

1. Amazon Book Marketing Secrets Round-Table
2. Becoming a Bestseller on Amazon Round-Table
3. Amazon Bestseller? Been There Done That! (Successful Author Round Table)

If you are a BookBuzzr Author Pro author you will be able to access the recordings of these webinars through your BookBuzzr Book Marketing Home page.

• Congratulating the latest Kindle winner on Freado.com

We're pleased to let you know about the latest winner of a Kindle on Freado.com. Her name is Karen Mallory and this is what she had to say after winning a free Kindle - "This is so exciting! I didn't think my bid would make for the Amazon Kindle. There are so many players with far more points to bid. Now I look forward to loading it up with so many wonderful books to enjoy this winter."

If you'd like to win the next Kindle being given away click here. Contest ends December 20th.

• Authors in the News section

Teryl Cartwright - Her book, Courting Constance, has won the 2011 Reader's Favorite Gold Medal award for Christian Romance.

Hot Prizes on Freado for Book Lovers

     Click here to win these books for free »

• Two Out of Three - 8,000 Points
• Truths and Roses - 1,000 Points
• Purple Knot - 6,000 Points
• Taking Out the Trailer Trash - 6,000 Points
• Fake Profile - 10,000 Points
• Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow by Katy Towell - 30,000 Points
• Daniel Keep Dreaming - 1,000 Points
• Schooled by Gordon Korman - 40,000 Points
• It's Always Spring Break Somewhere In The Galaxy - 5,000 Points
• Charismatic Captivation - 3,000 Points
• The Ideal Man by Julie Garwood - 30,000 Points
• Bloodlines by Richelle Mead - 100,000 Points

And now onto the lists of the top BookBuzzr books for the month of September 2011.

In Full Screen Mode

Book Name	Views
Expressions of Life	1983
In My Dreams It Was Simpler	597
The Cruiserweight	540
Fifty	522
A TIME TO...	272
The Complete Empath Toolkit: 44 Steps to Master Your Energy and Reclaim Your Personal Power	213
Postcard from Provence, paintings	173
Signature Tastes of Charlotte	144
Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born	125
Soul Evolution with Zarathustra: Wisdom for 2012	107

Book Name	Views
A Love Rekindled	14583
5 SAT Math Practice Tests (2nd Edition)	8475
Walking In the Light	6843
Eyes: a Binscombe Tale	5528
Frankenstein's Legions	5405
Goodbye Natalie Goodbye Splendour	5191
My Memories of a Future Life	4968
Mirabilis - The Royal Mythological Society	4748
Mirabilis - Year of Wonders	4730
Mirabilis - Year of Wonders #2	4690

Book Name	Views
Expressions of Life	1983
In My Dreams It Was Simpler	597
The Cruiserweight	540
Fifty	522
A TIME TO...	272
The Complete Empath Toolkit: 44 Steps to Master Your Energy and Reclaim Your Personal Power	213
Postcard from Provence, paintings by Julian Merrow-Smith	173
Signature Tastes of Charlotte	144
Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born	125
Soul Evolution with Zarathustra: Wisdom for 2012	107

BookBuzzr is a monthly email newsletter packed with the most important book-marketing technology information to help you sell more books with less effort. It also contains a listing of the month's most viewed book-extracts and book-widgets that are available in the BookBuzzr format.