September 25, 2005

"Selling Yourself and Your Book"

Getting to Bestseller
Every author wants his or her book to be a bestseller. Is this a realistic goal? What types of publicity and promotion are best for your book? Where can you get the most bang for your buck? Do you have to do it all? Who can help? We’ll look at ways you can get your book into the hands of readers.

Bio:
John Vonhof is a writer’s conference speaker and the author of Selling Your Book: The No Nonsense, Step-by-Step Marketing and Promotion Workbook. He has self-published several titles, two of which have gone on to mainstream publishers.

John Vonhof’s presentation at our September 25 meeting had all of us eager marketers mesmerized. He gave a PowerPoint presentation that covered such topics as: how to get your book reviewed, online listserves and forums which are formed around various topics and themes, ezines, and web articles. He explained how an ezine works. It is an electronic magazine which is sent monthly or bimonthly to your list of connections and potential customers. (I began my ezine through the tutelage of Alexandria, the ezine Queen at www.ezinequeen.com.) Another way to get connected on the Internet with a wide audience is to write articles and post them on the web. Articles denote you as an expert on certain topics, and create more spiders to help you get more connected. Another wonderful resource for authors to help you create your articles and ezines is Judy Cullins—www.bookcoach.com. John talked about blogs—web logs—which are another way to make sure the internet spiders grab you up and relay you out into the web world. A blog can be used as an online journal, but now they are being used by authors, or anyone who has anything to say, to get more connected and to publicize their work. A blog is easy to begin at such sites as www.blogger.com or www.typepad.com. John grabbed and held our attention for over an hour, and then was besieged by questions. Please visit him on his websites and try the other resources mentioned here if you want to learn more about publicity, marketing and business success on the web.

—Linda Joy Myers