I’m proud to have this guest post by Fauzia Burke, president of FSB Associates – a  web marketing
firm specializing in online book promotion and author branding.

It Takes a Village to Promote a Book

By Fauzia Burke

Today’s marketing is truly about conversations and social media allows

you to have those conversations. So if you are going to spend the time

and money marketing your brand, you should think “Will this start,

maintain, or enhance the conversation?” Will this get people talking,

will they take it to their twitter feeds and Facebook pages? Will they

forward, post, or retweet this?

I have found that it is seldom that one big hit that results in

conversations. You need a lot of attention, some big, some small, all

moving the conversation forward. If you compare hits to the old

formula that big is best, then the smaller blogs have little impact.

But if your goal is to truly broaden the scope of the discussion, you

need lots of people talking on lots of different Web sites and blogs.

Even a feature on Web sites like CNN.com or Oprah.com does not

guarantee instant increases to your Web site traffic or book sales. In

fact, these days even a Today Show appearance is no guarantee.

However, I believe a sustained effort to keep people talking results

in speaking engagements, paid blog posts (yes there is such a thing),

interview opportunities, more fans on your Facebook page, more traffic

on your site, increased sales, and a recognition and expansion of

“brand YOU.”

Selling books is almost always the first goal of every author, however

if you chat with them a bit they’ll say things like, “I want to help

people,” “I know my book will make a difference,” “I want to make sure

people know what is really going on,” “I want to make people laugh,”

“I want to entertain my readers” or “I envision a world where people

love what they do and if they read my book they would.” I often take

on projects based on these secondary goals, the goals that speak to

the truth of the person and the importance of the book. These are the

goals that are worth talking about.

As a marketer, I can’t ever get people to talk about the author’s

first goal. Not once has a reviewer said, “Please buy this book

because the author would like to have a bestseller.” However, those

secondary goals have always started conversations and sparked

interests and led to interviews and discussions.

Many of the bloggers we work with post their reviews on multiple blogs

and Web sites like Twitter, Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, Ning, Library

Thing, Facebook, and more, all of which increase the search visibility

of the book and author. In that way, those reviews or features are all

fluid and viral. They do not stay where they are created. They often

take flight and have a much broader life than just the traffic on

their own blogs.

Search results, conversations and virality are most important in

today’s connected market place, and they are achieved by a broad

spectrum of coverage, not just the sites that get the most hits.

So as of today, think about the real reason you wrote the book, the

reason why only you could have written it, think about those secondary

goals, and then get on with the business of starting conversations.

“As originally appeared on Huffington Post”

Author Bio

Fauzia Burke is the Founder and President of FSB Associates, an

Internet marketing firm specializing in creating online awareness for

books and authors through web publicity, blogger outreach, social

media, digital branding and web site development. From the company’s

inception in 1995, Fauzia has been a trendsetter in developing

integrated online marketing campaigns for authors and publishers

alike. Before starting FSB Associates, Fauzia worked for John Wiley

and Henry Holt.

She currently blogs about digital marketing on Huffington Post. You

can follow Fauzia on Twitter as well.