BlogHer ’07 | Blog to Book | Author Resources

Today I shared a these thoughts on book marketing with the members of my teleseminar forum and thought my readers might also benefit from this knowledge.

Last Saturday during the Blog to Book session at BlogHer [the world’s largest blogging conference], I got the microphone  wrangling assignment. Let’s just say I ran around – a lot. It’s not surprising that there’s a huge amount of interest from authors on how to market their books.

Key takeaways from this session:

– publishers want to know you have a platform or presence within your market – more and more publishers are requiring that authors blog

– both self-publishing and being published by a major house have its advantages, but most people thought self-publishers made more money

– book tours are exhausting [I mentioned Virtual Book Tours]

– Wiley’s reps were there and willing to talk; going to a conference like this or BookExpo America is a great way to meet publishers, agents and book marketers. The rep cautioned against a best-seller spike and then drop off.

– even if you have an agent and a publisher, you’ll still have to do some of your own marketing. If you don’t want to do it yourself, think about outsourcing your marketing/PR over the long haul, not just at the launch.

Author Resources I often recommend, not mentioned in the session:

– Rick Frishman’s agency, Planned TV Arts, is a premier book PR agency, Rick’s a big fan of morning drive radio phone interviews. You can sign up for Rick’s free Author 101 Newsletter.

– Dan Poynter’s book, The Self-Publishing Manual is must-read for anyone who wants to publish in any format and Dan’s newsletter is also packed with resources and free information.

– David Hancock’s company, ,Morgan James is a very author-friendly, New York publishing company

– Harris Fellman managed Tim Knox’s recent book launch online. I participated as a partner with “Power PR Secrets” as a giveaway. In my opinion, this was an outstanding book launch – visit the Everything I Learned About Business I Learned from My Mama  site.