Book Marketing Success Podcast (John Kremer)

You have a choice when writing the sales copy for your book. You can use something like the following generic points, or you can create sizzling sales copy. Your choice.

* A strong powerful message about mental health

* Inspiring

* Raw and Authentic

* Lets people know they’re not alone when having mental issues

* Gives people hope

* Lets public understand job as a Wildland Firefighter

* It is relevant, a true story and extremely motivating

Now, the above are certainly descriptive of the author’s book, Above the Ashes, but most of the points are too generic to create much impact and motivate people to buy the book, either for themselves or for people they love.

Here, on the other hand, are a few of the sales points I wrote for his book as part of a promotional letter to indie bookstores. Note: I got a lot of this content from his book, his Instagram feed, and his Amazon book page.

Here are just a few reasons readers will want to buy Above the Ashes and a great bookstore will want to stock the book:

If you loved You Can’t Hurt Me by David Groggins, or Wild by Cheryl Strayed, or Thirst by Heather Anderson, you’ll love this incredible memoir.

One of the best ways to help readers and booksellers to identify books they might be interested in is to associate your book with other well-known or bestselling books.

Mental illness is a serious condition. More than 50% of Americans will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetimes. 1 in 25 Americans lives with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression. You can help them by giving them this book!

Identify a key audience for your book by citing relevant statistics. Such statistics can also help other people to understand the importance and value of your book.

Kevin has been interviewed on local affiliates of CBS, Fox, ABC, and NBC around the country as well as on podcasts such as Anchor Point and Chats with Fire.

Show readers and booksellers that you are media savvy and worthy of attention by demonstrating your media appeal or by pitching media-worthy story lines or interview possibilities.

In the first 30 days, Kevin sold more than 500 copies of Above the Ashes. He’ll work with you to sell many more copies. Just give him a chance!

Show that you as an author can sell your books and are willing to go out of the way to help others to sell your books as well. If you have an author street team, a social media tribe, or other partners, showcase them.

“This is the story of a man who saved his own life. Reading it could save yours or that of someone you love.”

Strike the heart strings of your potential readers by quoting a reader, telling a brief story, or excerpting a short statement from your book.

There is no quit in the soul of a wildland firefighter. There is no it’s too late, it’s too early, it’s too steep, it’s too hot, it’s too heavy. Above the Ashes contributes to the many, many firefighters who work to save your homes and your lives.

You can showcase another potential audience or topic. In this case, I did it with a very short excerpt from the book that the author also featured on his Instagram feed.

“Wow, this was a tough one to put down! Loved following Kevin on his journey across the United States. Also very insightful to hear more behind the scenes about what it's like being a wildland firefighter. True heroes. Couldn't recommend this book enough.” — Iron Tazz

If you have some specific and/or moving testimonials from Amazon or other readers, feature at least one quote in your sales letter.

Also in your sales letter feature your book cover, a photo of the author, and any other engaging photos (like the one above featuring the author on his ride across America).

You can find the complete sales letter I created for Above the Ashes on my other podcast site: Five Things I Love About Books at https://ilovebooks.substack.com.

Where Do Author Ideas Come From?

Here are a few of the activities that book shepherd Judith Briles identified recently as tools for coming up with great ideas for books, blog posts, podcast episodes, webinars, and more:

Goofing off.

Doodling.

Watching a movie or TV show.

Listening to a podcast or a radio show.

Reading an article.

Showering or hot tubbing.

Daydreaming.

Hiking or taking a walk.

Getting dressed or undressed.

Having lunch with a friend.

Shopping.

Reading. Reading books. Reading magazines. Reading blog posts. Reading people.

The list is endless ... what isn’t endless is you. Ideas are like tides that ebb and flow—moving in your direction and flowing away. What you do with ideas when they arrive is what makes you an author.

So, are you jucilating? Creating new ideas? Catching the eyes and ears of your potential audience?

Notice: Judith's copyright notice on the above image is an invalid copyright notice. Valid copyright notices require a date (year).

I’ll be sharing my own list of 24 sources of inspiration tomorrow. Meanwhile, enjoy and be inspired by Judith’s list!

Start your own Substack newsletter and podcast. Learn more here: https://substack.com/refer/johnkremer

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Follow me at . . .

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnfrederickkremer

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkremer

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/johnkremer

Rumble: https://rumble.com/register/BookMarket

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@bookmarketing

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/johnkremer

For writers and authors looking for inspiration for your next book, your next story, your next podcast episode, your next blog post, your next social post, or your next talk, here are a few sources of inspiration . . .

34 places to look for inspiration . . .

In the music you hear and the songs you sing

Through the lens of a camera

In a great neighborhood bookstore

In a garden where you can dig for it

Through the eyes of a friend

In the laughter of little kids

On the shelves of your local library

In the conversations around you — Listen in!

Via movies, TV shows, and Rumble videos

In the sound of a burbling spring

On the beach, on the street, or on the subway

In the faces of lovers and strangers

Via Craigslist, Buzzfeed, Reddit, or Mix

In People, Vanity Fair, Wired, Woman’s Day

On Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, on TikTok

In a great retail gift store

Via Tumblr, Medium, Flickr, Substack, etc.

In your notebooks, junk drawers, or diaries

On a random street or highway

In the wag of a dog’s tail

Via a podcast, a webinar, or a Facebook Live

On the pages of Amazon, Ebay, Wayfair, etc.

In one of your old blog posts

Up in your attics and down in your basements

On the pages of your favorite bloggers or podcasters

In WalMart, Target, Home Depot, Whole Foods, or Lowe’s

Through the hearts and minds of your friends

Via a Google or Bing or Duck Duck Go search

Amid the hustle and bustle of your office

On Pinterest, Instagram, or Snap

In a book, a poem, an essay, a manifesto

On the dark side of the moon

In the stillness of the night

Via the deepest inkling of your soul

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Follow me at . . .

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnfrederickkremer

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkremer

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/johnkremer

Rumble: https://rumble.com/register/BookMarket

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@bookmarketing

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/johnkremer

Before publishing his book with an independent book publisher, this author took two key steps—two steps that any author can follow to create a better book.

His book became a New York Times bestseller and formed the basis for a series that has sold over 700 million copies.

Who was this author? And what were the two key steps he took to make his book a bestseller?

Want to know more? Listen in to tomorrow’s podcast.

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Before publishing his book with an independent book publisher, this author took two key steps—two steps that any author can follow to create a better book.

Who was this author? And what were the two key steps he took to make his book a bestseller?

Dan Gookin was the author.

DOS for Dummies was the book.

What two steps did Dan take to make his book a bestseller?

First, Dan created a brandable and memorable title, DOS for Dummies.

Booksellers at first refused to feature the book because they claimed that no readers would ever intentionally call themselves dummies. Well, the booksellers were wrong. Hundreds, then thousands of readers marched into bookstores to find the book.

Second, Dan created a user-friendly design that caused his computer primer to stand head and shoulders over any other computer manual.

DOS for Dummies ended up selling millions of copies and established a brand that has sold over 700 million copies of additional titles.

When writing a nonfiction book, you can follow Dan’s example. Start by coming up with a memorable and brandable title. That’s actually easier than you might think.

Second, come up with a design for your book that is both approachable and effective in conveying information. Ask yourself: What design elements would make your book easier to read and to use? What graphical elements would you include?

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

One year before their book became a New York Times #1 bestseller, two authors committed to doing one thing to promote their collection of short stories—something that any other book author can do.

Who were these authors?

What was the title of their book?

And what was the one thing they did faithfully every day for one year?

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

One year before their book became a New York Times #1 bestseller, two authors committed to doing one thing to promote their collection of short stories—something that any other book author can do.

Who were these authors?

What was the title of their book?

And what was the one thing they did faithfully every day for one year?

Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen were the authors.

Chicken Soup for the Soul was the book, the beginning of an incredibly bestselling series.

Jack and Mark committed to doing one interview every day for a full year. At the end of that one year, their book was a #1 bestseller and launched the series that has sold over 800 million books thus far.

Note: Jack and Mark focused at that time on getting radio interviews and TV interviews. In today’s world, most authors would now focus on getting podcast interviews. There are hundreds of podcasts eager to interview book authors on almost any subject. Seek those podcasts out. Start looking for the podcasts you want to be on by joining https://www.matchmaker.fm and creating a guest profile there.

Video: The Chicken Soup for the Soul Book Marketing Campaign

Listen to Jack talk about how he and his co-author Mark Victor Hansen took hundreds of ideas from 1001 Ways to Market Your Books and placed them up on a wall as Post-It notes. And then took the notes down as they implemented the ideas. It took them two years to carry out all the ideas but by then their book was at the top of the New York Times bestseller list.: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/jack-canfield-on-how-he-used-1001-ways-to-market-your-books.

Connect with John Kremer

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

If you have trouble asking people for money, don't ask for the green stuff. Ask for the beautiful purple Australian dollars—with flowers!

Always ask people to pay for your book or other content. Yes, you can give some content away for free, but the really good stuff you should charge for. People value the content they pay for. And, when people discover good things, they like to share those good things with other people. They are far more likely to share the things they've paid for.

Start your own Substack newsletter and podcast. Learn more here: https://substack.com/refer/johnkremer.

Listen to my Book Marketing Success Podcast: https://bookmarketing.substack.com.

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com.

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs.

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing. Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec.

Become my patron for all good things: https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing.

Or choose to Venmo me at https://account.venmo.com/u/bookmarketingsuccess.

A secretary at an insurance agency in a small Midwestern state self-published a book and then did one thing, over and over again, for more than a year—something that any book author can do as well.

She ended up selling over 30,000 copies of her book in that first year and then went on to become the bestselling book author on the QVC home shopping channel, selling well over a million books.

Who was this author?

What was the title of her book?

And what was the one thing she did over and over again for more than a year?

Want to know more? Listen in to tomorrow’s podcast.

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

A secretary at an insurance agency in a small Midwestern state self-published a book and then did one thing, over and over again, for more than a year—something that any book author can do as well.

She ended up selling over 30,000 copies of her book in that first year and then went on to become the bestselling book author on the QVC home shopping channel, selling well over a million books.

Who was this author?

What was the title of her book?

And what was the one thing she did over and over again for more than a year?

JoAnna Lund was the author

Her book was the Healthy Exchanges Cookbook.

JoAnna spent the first year after self-publishing her book promoting it via radio, TV, and newspaper interviews in her home state of Iowa and parts of western Illinois.

She did interviews at least several times every week. She became one of the most well-known people in Iowa during that year and sold over 30,000 copies in Iowa, out-selling every other book during that time (even the Bible!).

Authors: You, too, can become a star in your own state. Most media covering statewide or local news are hungry for unusual news or interesting people to interview. Find an angle and promote the heck out of yourself.

When life handed me a lemon, not only did I make lemonade, I also wrote the recipe and then sold that recipe! — JoAnna Lund, author, Healthy Exchanges Cookbook

In my new book (a work in progress), Book Marketing Success Stories: How to Become a Bestselling Author (As Revealed by the Stories of Bestselling Book Authors), I reveal even more book marketing secrets JoAnna shared with me during our many talks. She was a wonderful sharing woman, full of joy and inspiration.

Of course, in my new book I’m also be revealing all the stories and more even details that I’ve been sharing in this series of podcasts. Here’s a link to download the work in progress for only $30: https://buy.stripe.com/dR66s608f0dJavS8wz. Note: I’ll be updating the book as I continue to work on it. You’ll get all updates for free!

This first-time novelist forced her publisher (against their normal practice) to reprint her book twice within six weeks of the novel’s release. The novel became a New York Times bestseller, won the Doubleday New Voices in Fiction award, and also won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

Her subsequent novels became #1 New York Times bestsellers, sold millions of copies, and were made into top-grossing movies.

Who was this author?

What was the title of her first novel?

And what was the one thing she did that any first-time book author can do?

Listen in to tomorrow’s podcast for the answer to this puzzle. And a great tip on how you too can be successful selling books and building a bestselling reputation as a book author.

Please note that I will not be available via email, phone calls, or social media for the next week or so. But I will return!

This first-time novelist forced her publisher (against their normal practice) to reprint her book twice within six weeks of the novel’s release. The novel became a New York Times bestseller, won the Doubleday New Voices in Fiction award, and also won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

Her subsequent novels became #1 New York Times bestsellers, sold millions of copies, and were made into top-grossing movies.

Who was this author?

What was the title of her first novel?

And what was the one thing she did that any first-time book author can do?

Terry McMillan was the author.

Her first novel was Mama.

Terry played the numbers game. She wrote thousands of letters to all sorts of people to get readers and stores excited about her new novel. Any unknown author can follow Terry’s example by playing the same numbers game.

When Terry McMillan’s first novel Mama was published in 1987, her publisher only sent out press releases and review copies—their standard low-level effort for first-time authors. So Terry took the promotion into her own hands.

She wrote more than 3,000 letters to bookstores, colleges, chain stores, African-American groups, and other groups asking them to stock and/or promote her book. She offered to do readings wherever they would give her space.

The response was so great that she ended up doing her own book tour to 39 cities. Her efforts gained plenty of rave reviews for her book as well as two re-printings in six weeks.

The key point of this story is not who Terry sent the letters to, but how many she sent. It’s a numbers game, and few book authors or even Internet entrepreneurs make full use of the numbers game.

For an ebook (rather than a print book), you would send 3,000 emails or letters to online book sites, ebook reviewers, book bloggers, potential JV partners, and other authors who write books like yours.

If you send out 10 emails or letters per day, you’d reach more than 3,000 people in one year—and that’s with time off for good behavior!

First rule: The Numbers Game. Send out lots of letters and emails!

Second rule: Create relationships with those people, websites, and stores who respond.

Third rule: Build from there.

The above story has been excerpted from About the Author by Alfred and Emily Grossbrenner.

A friend on Facebook shared this information after seeing the above video: “My friend got books in nearly 100 libraries by sending approximately 400 emails.”

Website: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/the-mama-bestseller-video

Again, note that during the next week or ten days, I won’t be reachable via email, phone call, or social media. But I will be back! — John Kremer

In this podcast episode, John Kremer interviews Mustafa Ammar, author of Time to Move On: The 7 Career Myths Keeping You from Finding Your Dream Job, And What to Do About It.

It’s never too late to pursue your dreams—you just need to know when it’s time to move on. Welcome to the future of working: career shapeshifting. Career shapeshifters pursue life on their own terms, based on their individual circumstances and passions.

Just because you have spent years in one occupation doesn’t mean you can’t pursue something new, something you are truly passionate about. Time to Move On is the roadmap you need for your journey.

Note: The audio and video end a little abruptly, but all the content from the interview is featured in the audio above.

Resources

Book website: https://www.MustafaAmmar.com

Author website: https://www.thepassionmba.com

Author email: DreamCareer@ThePassionMBA.com

How to Be a Career Shapeshifter: https://thepassionmba.com/become-a-career-shapeshifter-how-to-be-a-career-shapeshifter

Book Marketing Bestsellers by John Kremer: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

A year ago I wrote the following post in answer to a question from several authors. Last week I decided to test the post below against a number of websites that claim to be able to tell whether a blog post, article, student paper, or other writing was written by a human or created by an A.I. engine. Below my blog post, you’ll see the results of my little experiment on the questions: Am I a human? Or am I just an A.I. bot?

Book Marketing Question: Why is marketing my book so hard?

During the past few weeks I’ve had a number of authors write me to complain about how hard it is to market a book. Well, gosh, it is hard.

It’s hard to write a book. It’s hard to publish a book. It’s hard to carry out a book marketing plan. It’s hard to do Internet marketing. It’s hard to keep up with social media. Life is hard.

If it were easier, everyone would write a book. If it were easier, everyone would publish a book.

Thank God, it isn’t easy. Otherwise there would be so much competition that marketing would be even harder. Social media would be even harder. Everything would be harder.

Thank God, it’s just hard, not harder.

Now, having said that, don’t forget that I’m the Book Marketing Ambassador of Fun!

If you don’t want writing a book to be hard, then write from your heart.

If you don’t want publishing a book to be hard, then publish from your passions.

If you don’t want marketing a book to be hard, build relationships from the heart.

Share with others. Accept their offerings of help. Help others in return. Give, give, and then give some more. That’s the most fundamental law of marketing books.

A.I. Results

Below are five highly touted websites that are supposed to be able to tell whether something is written by a human or by an A.I. bot. How did these five website view my blog post above? See for yourself:

Content Scale: https://contentatscale.ai/ai-content-detector reported that my blog post is 100% human created. Give Content Scale an A!

Copy Leaks: https://copyleaks.com/ai-content-detector reported that my blog post is human text. Give Copy Leaks an A!

GPTZero: https://GPTZero.me reported that my blog post is almost all written by A.I. Give GPTZero a big fat F!

Undetectable: https://undetectable.ai reported the following: Your content is detected as written by A.I. Give Undetectable a big fat F!

Zero GPT: https://www.zerogpt.com reported my blog post as 23.15 A.I. generated, Give Zero GPT a B at best! But probably a C would be more appropriate.

Do you write as a human? Or as an A.I. bot? You can use the above websites to find out how your writing rates. Just beware. 3 our of 5 of the above services judged my writing as A.I. created. A big mistake. I am not a bot!

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Book MarketingSuccess is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Listen in as John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, and Judith Briles, host of Your Guide to Book Publishing, discuss what you should do for 2023, 2024, and beyond to better market your books!

Your takeaways include:

More book marketing tips for 2023 to start doing now

Why your core message is an essential component in your book marketing

How to take advantage of being a featured guest on a podcast

Why authors must be proactive in marketing their books

What sparks the interest of book readers

3 essentials that every book cover must have and do

How to be a social media powerhouse

How to test social media ads

Easy peasy way to become a guest on even the best podcasts

Are you ready to start?

Listen in and get ready to rock the rest of the year AND sell more books.

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today, I’m featuring a podcast episode from Amy Porterfield of Online Marketing Made Easy. Listen in!

Imagine this scenario. You’re an author who works one-on-one with clients. You love what you do, you have a lot of knowledge to share, and you’re making money. Most of all, you love the feeling you get from helping your clients achieve their goals.

But the thing is, you’re starting to get the feeling that one-on-one work is holding back your growth potential.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase time is money—and in a lot of business models, this old saying rings true because your ability to change more lives and make more money is totally dependent upon the number of hours in the day.

But the thing is, it doesn’t have to be like this—and creating a digital course is one way that you can significantly scale your impact and your income without maxing out your calendar.

In this episode, Amy Porterfield shares four telltale signs that one-on-one work is holding you back, along with true stories of how some of her students have scaled their businesses with a digital course.

[04:16] The first sign 1-on-1 work is holding you back is that you technically work for yourself, but you still feel burnt out.

[07:09] Online courses allowed me to step away from my laptop and live the life I truly want to live. I can continue to make money even when I walk away.

[10:10] Jessica Burke had so many 1-on-1 clients that she became burnt out. She realized she could put all of her sleep knowledge into a digital course.

[16:19] Even if what you’re doing is working well, imagine how you could serve in an even bigger way.

[16:58] The second sign is that you feel there’s a cap on your income, because you’ve completely maxed out your time.

[20:21] Yoga teacher Kelly McHugh was limited by her studio space. She started a course showing other instructors how to set up a successful yoga website.

[23:10] The third sign is if you have an extremely inconsistent workload. A digital course is a great way to even out your revenue.

[26:23] Dog walker Corrine Gerheard leveraged her Goldendoodle expertise to scale her business. She started a podcast and a digital course.

[28:15] The fourth sign is feeling discouraged that you’re not able to help more people.

[30:35] Casey McGuire Davidson wanted to help more women with their sobriety issues. Creating a digital course enabled her to scale.

[31:26] Darcie Milfeld was a coach helping people break the paycheck to paycheck cycle. With a digital course, her impact was 2 to 3 times more.

[33:36] 1-on-1 work could be holding you back if you feel burnt out and overwhelmed, you’ve hit an income cap, you have an inconsistent workload, or you feel discouraged that you can’t help more people.

Learn more about Amy Porterfield and what she offers at https://www.amyporterfield.com.

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing — Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMa

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Join Gerald Leonard, John Kremer, and Celeste Jonson for a Book Launch Streaming Event! On August 1st, we hosted two book launch events streamed live to LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and StreamYard.

We answered questions about Gerald’s new book A Symphony of Choices and the book's relevance to business leaders, evidence of the book’s effectiveness and unique value, as well as how the book addresses the specific needs of the primary audience, i.e., anyone interested in optimizing their decision-making, project management, and workplace engagement skills and improving their overall performance at work and in life.

You, too, can launch your new books using StreamYard.com to stream a live video event to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Twitch, and other RTMP platforms. Streaming a live event to multiple social media platforms can be very effective at getting attention for your books, courses, and other creations.

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Follow me at . . . GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing — Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber

Lazy is a very strong word. I like to call it selective participation. — Snoopy and Woodstock

John's book marketing tip: You can't be lazy in marketing your books, but you can be selective in what you do. And you should be selective. Do the things you love to do in marketing your books. Do the things you can afford to do. Do the things that you have time to do.

Note: You can't do everything, so do the things that make you happy and actually result in helping you sell more books and change more people's lives.

Source: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/selective-participation-find-something-you-love-to-do

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Find something you love to do, and figure out a way to get paid for it, and you will have a third of your life kind of solved. — Dennis Quaid, actor

John’s book marketing tip: Writing books (and selling them) are a great way to spend a third of your life. If you love writing and sharing, become an author.

But don’t become a silent author. Do something every day to sell what you write.

And a few other of my favorite quotes from Dennis Quaid:

All of us have a relationship with God, whether you're a Christian or not. — Dennis Quaid, actor

Love. Families need a spiritual bond with one another and with God. God is the only way you're going to make it in life, the glue that holds everything together. — Dennis Quaid, actor

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Or become my patron for all good things - https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing

Or choose to Venmo me at https://account.venmo.com/u/bookmarketingsuccess

We are all descended from kings. You got to live your own life. Be your own man. — Carl Elias’s stepmother in Person of Interest TV series

John’s book marketing tip: I love this idea. We must all feel like we are worthy of being kings and queens and emperors and more. Market your book like you are the greatest author around, worthy of the attention, worthy of the sales, worthy of the impact your work can make on others.

Writers are the ultimate rulers. We are the ones who can truly change the world. We are the ones who can truly make a difference. We are the true rulers of time and space. Never forget that.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Or become my patron for all good things - https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing

Or choose to Venmo me at https://account.venmo.com/u/bookmarketingsuccess

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

In this episode, I'm going to show you how to take a typical YouTube video, 1280 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall, and turn it into a TikTok video that's 1080 pixels wide by 1920 pixels tall.

First I show you a sample of a video I created for YouTube.

Then we’re going to use PowerPoint to take that YouTube video and make it into a TikTok video.

Now, I have PowerPoint open, and what you do is select a slide size using the design function.

Now, normally, the slide size is going to be a simple horizontal slide size, generally speaking, widescreen, 16 by 9.

But what we're going to do is use the custom slide tool and create a slide that is 1080 pixels wide and 1920 pixels tall.

That turns out to be 11.25 inches wide and 20 inches tall when translated from pixels into inches.

Now, obviously, on the screen, it's definitely not 11.25 inches wide and 20 inches tall, but that's because PowerPoint fits it into the window you are using, and that's fine.

Now this is, again, 1080 wide, 1920 pixels tall, the standard size for a TikTok video that also works really well for a Pinterest video.

So now what I'm going to do is take the video that I made for YouTube, and I'm going to drag and drop it into the PowerPoint slide. Then I basically just stretch the video until it fits.

Now the video is going to be slightly distorted but not so much that it really matters. You’ve now stretched the YouTube horizontal video to fit a TikTok vertical video.

Note that you can now play the video in PowerPoint to see how it looks. Then you save the video by going to the option File, Save As, and save the slide as an MP4 video.

It take about 5 minutes for PowerPoint to save the slide as an MP4 video. Once saved, you now have a tall thin video that you can upload to TikTok and Pinterest.

And once you have it saved, it becomes an actual MP4 video that you can upload to Pinterest and to TikTok as a tall, thin video.

See how simple and easy it is to change video sizes using PowerPoint!

Here’s the video of this podcast:

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Become my patron for all good things - https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing

Or choose to Venmo me at https://account.venmo.com/u/bookmarketingsuccess

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Check out the video on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/57983913945852328

And here is the resulting video:

Today I want to show you how you can take a talking head YouTube video formatted in horizontal format and make it into a vertical Pinterest or TikTok video.

I showed you one example where basically you took a video and you stretched it to fit in a vertical PowerPoint template.

I'm going to take a talking head YouTube video that I just made and I'm going to bring it into a PowerPoint template. As you can see, it's a small video right now but what I'm going to do is make it into a talking head Pinterest video.

You can drag, drop, and stretch your video to fit the size that you want it to fit.

The PowerPoint video template features just my head, not all the background. I’ll place the YouTube video at the bottom of the template featuring only my talking head and then I’ll insert a text box at the top of the new vertical video.

First rule, always give more than you get. And that's what the video is going to be about. I’ll make the text box colorful with white type.

Now, what I'm going to do is the same thing I did in the previous podcast, which is to save as this PowerPoint slide as an MP4 video.

You can take other videos where you're not just distorting them to be tall and thin, but you're actually taking a part of the video, a part of the landscape of the video, and putting that into the new vertical video that you're creating.

PowerPoint offers a very simple way to take a YouTube talking head video and format it to a vertical Pinterest video. This is a very simple way to take a wider video and still make it tall and narrow.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Check out the new video on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/57983913945853248

And check it out on TikTok as well:

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Become my patron for all good things - https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing

Or choose to Venmo me at https://account.venmo.com/u/bookmarketingsuccess

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Check out the video on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/57983913945852328

In this episode, I want to talk a little bit more about creating Pinterest videos and TikTok videos from YouTube videos.

Here's an example of one that I just imported. One of the criticisms I got from one of the listeners was that, well, you're distorting way too much. And as you can see in this one that I just imported, that it clearly is distorting people.

Some videos you could get away with distorting by just simply stretching them. But you can't get away with it every time.

Sometimes you want to have a video that's literally a YouTube size video and you can bring it in or you could possibly stretch it a little bit but you don't want to stretch it a lot because then you get the distortion, people don't look right, things like that.

But here's an example of how you can take this YouTube video, horizontal in appearance, and still create a Pinterest or a TikTok video by putting in some headlines.

You can insert some text just like we did yesterday in the video that I made using a talking head video. Add a headline via text and then additional text below the video to explain it more.

After adding the text boxes, you can adjust the video and text boxed to give them all some breathing room. And then add your website URL at the bottom of the slide to brand your video.

Note: The neat thing is that I have found the Pinterest really showcases videos and that videos with headlines get more views, repins, and clickthroughs to your website.

So you have the value of a video on Pinterest, but you also have the headlines that people can read.

Two Key Points

One is, this reformatting of videos for Pinterest and TikTok allows you to recycle content you've already created. So you don't have to create new content to have good posts on Pinterest, TikTok, and so on.

You can recycle videos you've made before.

Now the neat thing is, and I wanted to show you this, this is what's happened with these three videos in less than 20 hours on Pinterest, one of them got over 472 views, 8 pins, and 8 click-throughs to my website.

Another one got 213 views. It doesn't have any repins yet, but it does have 4 people that clicked through to my website.

And then this one, which was the first video I did, the stretched one. You can see that it doesn't have a good presentation because there's no headline, there's just a blurry image there. So it's still got 170 presentations and a couple click-throughs, but not nearly as much as ones with headlines.

So I uploaded these three videos last night to Pinterest, and I already have 850 views from just these three videos.

That's because Pinterest favors videos. And that's why I want to recommend that you repurpose some of your previous YouTube videos to make them into videos that work on Pinterest because you'll get a lot more views.

Check out the video I made on TikTok. So far my four new vertical videos have had more than 900 views on TikTok in just one day (24 hours).

Check out the video on Pinterest here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/57983913945856728. My four vertical videos on Pinterest have gotten 1050 views in under 24 hours! So, between Pinterest and TikTok alone, I’ve had almost 2,000 views in 24 hours!

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Become my patron for all good things - https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing

Or choose to Venmo me at https://account.venmo.com/u/bookmarketingsuccess

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

In 2020, almost $68 billion was spent on cosmetic surgery in the U.S. That same year, only $25.7 billion was spent on books.

What does that say about our priorities in this country?

One thing it says is that we place more value on looking good versus thinking well.

In marketing your books, you might be able to take this comparison between looking good and thinking well to promote your book more effectively.

Because a good book is worth a lot more than a good nose.

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Or become my patron for all good things - https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I was recently invited to do a podcast interview with another author. But, when I tried to give her some kind critiques of her book cover (something I do as a paid consultant all the time), she turned me off completely. She decided not to interview me and essentially stopped talking to me.

I didn’t mean to offend her, but I obviously did. I was just trying to be helpful.

There were what I considered major problems with her book cover.

* The cover design was not related to her topic. It didn’t address the expectations of her target audience. You would not know what the book was about by glancing at the cover. My advice: Meet the expectations of your target audience.

* It violated a basic principle of cover design by having each word of the title single file down the front cover, making the title hard to read at a glance. My advice: Make the book title easy to read.

* The colors of the cover were not dynamic. The cover would fade into the background in any placement of books on a shelf. My advice: Don’t let your book cover fade away.

* The typeface was not a strong display typeface. My advice: Use a strong display typeface.

* The book title was not brandable or memorable. My advice: Whenever possible, create a book title that is memorable and brandable.

I would have been more gentle in critiquing her book cover if she had been willing to listen. But the above critique features advice that any author should follow to create an effective book cover.

As it is, she has done some great book marketing, so I hope the book sells despite the cover.

The above, of course, is not the actual book cover I’ve been discussing. It’s just a place holder.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Pinterest has sent more than 11,000 people to my main income website (https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com) in the past 60 days. How did Pinterest do that? Because one of my pins has gone viral during the past two months. It has received more than 2 million impressions in that time.

1.4 million views in the past month and more than 2.1 million views in the past 60 days:

And here are the Pinterest numbers for the past two months:

As you can see from the above statistics taken from Pinterest, since I pinned the image on August 21, 2023, it has generated 2.1 million impressions, 67,860 pin clicks, and 12,860 pins (saves). And, most important, it has generated 11,250 clickthroughs to my BookMarketingBestsellers website—all for free! All that traffic goes to one page on my website where I encourage people to buy my 1001 Ways to Market Your Books via Amazon.com.

How many of your social media posts have generated that kind of activity. And it’s not the only Pinterest pin I’ve created that has generated traffic to my websites. While most of my pins don’t generate millions of impressions, they do generate thousands of impressions and anywhere from 200 to 500 visits each and every day to my money website as well as my hobby websites.

I get 1.8 million monthly views for the pins I’ve generated over the past few years. That’s a lot of views (which are more than merely impressions) that generate tons of clickthroughs to my websites. That’s big traffic!

You can generate similar traffic with a consistent creation of interesting pins linked to key pages on your website where people can sign up for your newsletter, buy your books, and inquire about your other services. Join me on Pinterest today: https://www.pinterest.com/johnkremer.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Five days ago I shared the results of one of my most popular pins during the past two months. See the detailed results in the graphic below:

In the first 60 days of this pin (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/57983913939285987), it received 2.1 million views, 67,860 pin clicks, and 11,250 visits to my main website at https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com.

Well, I just checked the Pinterest stats for this particular pin and over the past 5 days (while I was away on a medical checkup trip without internet access), the pin has generated the following additional results:

As you can see by the Pinterest stats, this pin has received 220,000 new impressions in the past five days, more than 5,000 new pin clicks, and more than 1,000 additional clicks to my main website at https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com. Again, all in the past five days!

In the next ten days (through November 2nd), the number of impressions increased by another 360,000 to 2.68 million views. The number of pin clicks increased by almost 9,000 clicks to 83,110. And the number of visits to my main website increased to 14,060 — more than 1,800 additional visits to my main website!

I can’t guarantee similar results, but during the past week several people have asked me if I offer Pinterest Marketing services. So, I decided to offer a limited time service where I will create 10 Pinterest images/videos for you, your book, your product, or your service and then pin them to my Pinterest profile which gets 1.8 million views per month. And do that all before the holidays!

My fee for this incredible Pinterest Marketing service is only $300.

You will have full rights to the 10 pins I create for you. You can pin them to your Pinterest profile (if you have one) as well as to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and other social networks. You can also use them in other online or offline promotions you do for your book, product, or service.

If you are interested in this unique and effective Pinterest Marketing service, email me at johnkremer@bookmarket.com and I’ll let you know how to sign up for this new service.

Please note that because of the time required to create unique powerful pins, I can only offer this service to the first ten people who sign up.

The Book Marketing Success newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today I want to talk a little bit about what really matters in marketing a book. And I'm going to do it by telling a story that I've told before, but apparently people haven't gotten the message. So I want to tell it again.

It's a story about Terry McMillan, now a bestselling novelist who had several movies done with Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back.

But her first novel was published by a large New York publisher, but they didn't do much with it. This was in 1987. They sent out press releases. They sent out some review copies. But Terry was a first-time novelist, so media didn't care. Nothing much happened.

The publisher did their normal low-level promotion for first-time authors. So Terry decided that she would take her promotion of the book into her own hands.

What she did, the thing that really is vitally important for all of you to hear, and I hope you'll actually take it to heart, was simple: She wrote 3,000 letters. Actually, more than 3,000 letters. She wrote them to bookstores, college stores, chain stores, African-American groups, college professors, other groups, all asking them to either stock her book or promote her book.

Now, this was before the internet. If she were to do promotion in today's world, she probably would have asked bloggers and podcasters, social networked with others, and creating Youtube videos.

What she did, however, was write 3,000 letters to the key audiences for her book. She offered to do readings wherever they would give her space and she'd be happy to give a talk. She would ask different actions of them depending on what audience she was addressing at the time

Again, she wrote 3,000 letters.

The response was so great that she ended up doing a 39-city book tour. Her efforts gained her plenty of rave reviews for her book as well as two reprintings in six weeks. That's a major success for a first-time novelist.

Her publisher got behind her once they saw that the book was selling, and it was worth reprinting again and again.

The key point to this story is not who Terry sent letters to, but how many letters she sent. It's a numbers game, and what happens with most authors, even though I've told them this story many times, is that they ignore this crucial advice.

Write a lot of emails.

Write a lot of letters.

In today's world, I would have at one point told you to send out emails to people, but my experience in the last six months is that emails don't do the job. People aren't reading their emails anymore. So you should send out real letters via the post office.

Obviously, it takes time to write 3,000 letters. It takes a lot of time to write even 100 letters.

Now, most of the letters can be the same thing. Or if you're writing a postcard, it's just a short little scribbled note on the postcard to your directed audience asking them for something specific.

You should write 3,000 letters. That is the most important thing you can do in marketing a book. Nothing else can replace that personal attention from you to people that could have an influence in the marketplace, who could potentially bring your book to the readers you want to reach.

Again, write to bookstores, college professors, African American groups, in Terry's case, other groups that you might want to reach out to depending on what kind of book you've written.

Now, she promoted a first-time novel. I want to encourage you, every novelist, especially first-time or second-time novelists, to take this advice to heart.

Write letters. Write 3,000 of them.

If you write 10 letters a day, it'll take you about a year to write 3,000 letters. If you write 30 letters a day, it will only take 100 days. And, if you take some time off for good behavior, it would take you about four, maybe five months.

If you wrote 50 letters a day, obviously, it would go much quicker.

Maybe you could get your friends involved with this so that it's not just you writing letters. They could help you write some of the letters or stuff the envelopes and put on the stamps.

And again, your letters have to be handwritten. Escept if you did a postcard, it should be handwritten.

In today's world, you might be writing to bloggers as well, bloggers who write about books like yours, review books like yours, interview authors like you.

Sent letters to podcasters as well—podcasters who might be very happy to interview a new first-time author or second-time author.

Writing letters is really a strategy that even applies to people who have published 10 or 20 books.

When you're launching your new book, really think about writing a lot of letters. Take it to heart. Do more promotions. Write to the people that you think could make a difference in your book—even if it's only 10 letters a day,

It's going to take you a long time to write 3,000 letters. That is a year's worth of time if you write every day 10 letters.

Make your letters personalized. Even a handwritten note even on those letters would be worthwhile. You can easily customize 20 or 30 letters a day if you take a half hour to an hour to set aside to promote your book.

It's a numbers game. It really does matter.

I know this is not an easy ask. I know that it's hard to write that many letters. I know it's hard to find that many addresses. I know it's not an easy thing at all. But it's the most important thing you could do to promote your book.

Terry’s novel Mama did not become a New York Times bestseller, but Waiting to Excel and When Stella Got Her Groove Back become bestsellers and movies.

But Terry had to start somewhere. She was a first-time novelist. Mama, that was her book. That was the novel that she wrote. That is the one that she chose to promote right from the beginning.  She was a 36-year-old first-time novelist. She was trying to reach out to people who could make a difference with her book. In her case, that was bookstores, colleges, African-American groups, and other groups that she thought could help to promote her book.

In today's world, that list would also include podcasters, bloggers, people with websites that address an audience you want to reach out to. It might be people that do YouTube book reviews. You might reach out to social media influencers that might make a difference, reach out to them, write them a letter.

I would, if I could, try to get people's addresses and send out a letter, a physical letter that will have much bigger impact in today's world. It's hard to ignore a beautiful postcard or a handwritten letter hand-addressed to that person.

That can make a big difference. So try it.

Maybe you can't do all 3,000. Maybe it becomes overwhelming. So start with 300.

300 you can easily do in a month. Once you've done that, the next month, do another 300. And the next month, do another 300. And pretty soon, you'll have reached 3,000 people.

It really is a numbers game.

It really does make a difference how many people you reach out to.

It's not a simple thing of emailing somebody and going, oh, okay, they didn't respond and that's it. And I did it to 10 people. Or I made phone calls to 10 people and I didn't get through, so I gave up trying to reach out.

It doesn't work. You have to reach out. It's hard. Absolutely. It is very hard. But writing your book was also hard. Getting it published was also hard. Formatting it, editing it, getting cover design, working with a publisher, working with a publicist, etc. All of that is hard.

Some people have spent five or ten years writing a book, and then they don't want to spend a year promoting that book. Why not? Is your book important to you?

If it's important to you, do the work. And I know it is work. It's hard work.

Now I'm going to give you one little tip. It's a sort of selfish tip on my part, because if you want to reach 950 independent bookstores, I have a database of those bookstores. And I'll sell it to you for $50, really cheap. But it'll give you your first 950 stores to reach out to with addresses, phone numbers, emails, social media, people's names. You can order it here: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/top-900-independent-bookstores.

Now I didn't do this video to sell that database. I did this video because I really want you to succeed. I want you to create an impact with your book, whether it's your first book, your second book, or your tenth book.

It's a numbers game. You really have to reach out to people and knock on their doors. Terry did it with 3,000 letters. You can do it with 3,000 letters and it's worth doing. It really is worth doing.

It could make the difference between you having the opportunity to write a second book or a third book or really get the notice that your book and you deserve.

But you have to put the work in. I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

I'm telling you now, if you've watched this video, and you've listened to it, please take it to heart.

Contact 3,000 people. Write 3,000 letters.

It'll make a difference in your world.

It'll make a difference for your book.

It'll make a difference for you and your authority as an author.

It could set you up as an expert. It could make a big difference.

Besides writing letters as Terry did to bookstores, colleges, and other groups, write letters to major newspapers, book review sections. You can get their free addresses at https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/newspaper-book-review-editors. That's free. There's about 50 newspapers there with their addresses and you can just say, attention book review editor.

You can do the same with Google searches to discover the key magazine editors you want to reach out to, TV producers you want to reach out to, radio producers you want to reach out to.

There are over a thousand live local radio shows every day in the United States). These radio shows are looking for people to interview, interesting people to interview. An author is almost inevitably an interesting person to interview.

So you have bookstores, you possibly have colleges, you have groups you want to target, blogs, podcasts, radio shows, TV shows, magazines, newspapers.

The world is open to you, but you have to knock on the door to get it answered.

Write those 3,000 letters. Start today.

Source: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/the-mama-bestseller-video.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In marketing your book, product, or service, you can't be afraid to approach famous people or busy people or even untouchables. It's better to go out of your comfort zone and out of your way to reach out to people. It's even okay to be strange.

We're all strangers until we are friends.

Why not take the chance today and make some new friends? Reach out to a stranger and make that person a friend.

Then reach out to another stranger and make that person a friend as well.

In my experience, we can never have too many friends. I have friends all over the world: in Australia, in India, in Italy, in Switzerland, in Ecuador, in South Africa, in England, in Norway, in Russia, in Ghana. And so many thousands of friends here in the United States and Canada.

Those friends are my storehouse of wealth, my storehouse of happiness, my storehouse of meaning.

Reach out today. Make at least one new friend today!

Never be afraid to stand up and advocate for yourself. This is your life. You dictate which story is told. — Admiral Horace Kilbride, character in NCIS: Los Angeles TV show

There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met. — William Butler Yeats, poet

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Or become my patron for all good things - https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing - Check out this service I offer via SnipFeed: Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a personalized video.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, please become a free or paid subscriber.

Several weeks ago I shared the story of how Terry McMillan promoted her first novel, Mama, when her New York publisher failed to do much for her book. If you remember, the key action she took was to promote her book to more than 3,000 bookstores, libraries, organizations, and other groups.

My question to everyone who listened to that episode of my podcast: Did you act on this advice?

Did you contact people who might be interested in your book—especially people who could influence other people to buy your book?

Did you contact more podcasters?

Did you contact more bloggers?

Did you contact more booksellers?

Did you contact more librarians?

Did you contact more social media influencers?

If you really want your book to sell, you must do the work. You must reach out to a number of key influencers, friends, or helpmates.

In my experience, most authors start by reaching out to 5 or 10 people and then give up because they received no positive responses. That doesn’t work. You have to stick with it. You have to continue reaching out to people who can make a difference with selling your book.

Check out the articles referenced below. Choose at least one action to carry out.

* Reach out to 3,000 influencers by following the Rule of 3,000.

* Carry out the 6-week book marketing program described in the I-Don’t-Have-Any-Time Hour-a-Day Book Marketing Plan. or …

* Ask your friends to help you. Show them 51 ways they can help you as a book author to sell more books.

References

The Rule of 3,000: How to Become a Bestselling Author: https://bookmarketing.substack.com/p/the-rule-of-3000-how-to-become-a

The I-Don’t-Have-Any-Time Hour-a-Day Book Marketing Plan: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/the-i-dont-have-any-time-hour-a-day-book-marketing-plan

51 Ways to Help a Book Author You Love: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/36-ways-to-help-a-book-author-you-love

Last month I reported the results of just one pinned image I shared via Pinterest on August 21, 2023. Since that time, the pin has received more than 4 million impressions! Yup, that’s correct: over 4,000,000 impressions. In fact, the pin has received 4,150,000 impressions and counting!

Plus, it has generated 115,070 clicks (interactions) as well as 19,810 saves and, most important, 19,110 clicks to my main website.

Check it out at: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/everybody-somebody-anybody-and-nobody-who-are-you.

My previous article: 2 Million Impressions and 11,000 Clickthroughs: https://bookmarketing.substack.com/p/2-million-impressions-and-11000-clickthroughs

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or, better yet, paid subscriber.

You can make anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000 before your book is published if you know just a few secrets. Here are four ways that you can make money before your book is published.

One, you can coach or consult. Focus on the topic of your book. You can make anywhere from $30 per hour up to $1,000 or even $2,000 per hour. I charge $600 an hour for my consulting and I get it.

Two, you can make bulk sales to corporations, associations, and catalogs. You can make anywhere from $200 for a case of books up to $200,000 if you're somebody like the authors of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul which sold over a million copies to one of the pet food companies before the book was even published.

Three, you can make pre-sales of your book to your tribe, subscribers and fans. When I first came out with 1,001 Ways to Market Your Books, when it was called 101 Ways to Market Your Books, I sold over $50,000 in books before I'd even written the book.

But then I had to deliver. But it was nice because I had the publication of the book all paid for by the pre-sales. And I told people exactly when I would deliver the book, and I did deliver it. It took a lot of work, a lot of typesetting and writing and proofreading, all at the same time essentially. But I got it done and I delivered the books on time to the people who had bought ahead of time.

Point four, you can sell sponsorships for your book or advertising in your book. In many editions of a 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, I sold sponsorships. I sold between 20 and 30 sponsorship with each edition. Companies and services paid to be featured in the book. They also wrote an article for me and got a credit line at the bottom. And I made over $30,000 on those sponsorships. And that paid for the printing of the book.

So essentially, I was making money from the beginning when the book started to sell because the books didn't cost me anything. Because I had sold $30,000 in sponsorships.

I've used these four methods to make as much as $50,000 per book before my books were published.

You can too!

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The key to getting what you want is really simple. If you want love, you have to give love. If you want happiness, you have to give happiness. If you want abundance, you have to share abundance. If you want money, you have to give money.

But there is one caveat.

You can't give with larceny in your heart. You can't give with an expectation of reward. You must give with a generous heart. You must give freely and openly, without pause, without hesitation. You actually must be a genuinely good person.

You might remember the one question that Santa asks every child when they are sitting on his knee, giving him the list of what they hope to receive for Christmas. What does he ask? He asks them just one question. Have you been good this year?

If you become a genuinely good person, miracles happen. When you give generously, everything comes your way. I call this the multifold secret.

It's very simple.

Whatever you give out to the world will come back to you multifold. The universe is generous if you are generous. It's a fundamental law of the universe. It all comes back to you in ways that multiply what you give out.

When I was a child, my mother would plant gardens wherever anyone would let us plow a part of their lawn. And we planted many things, but the one thing I remember so vividly is what happened when we planted a kernel of corn. That kernel grew up into a plant that gave us two to three ears of corn. And each of those ears of corn featured hundreds of kernels of new corn, delicious corn, sweet and juicy corn.

That's the multifold secret at work.

It's how nature works. It is a universal law. Go with it.

So this has been the introduction to the Book Authority Guide to Getting What You Want.

In the coming lessons, I'll be sharing tips and secrets from some of my friends and mentors. People like Zig Ziglar and Jack Canfield, Jim Rohn and Tony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey and Earl Nightingale, Les Brown, Marcy Shimoff, Phil Town, Lisa Nichols and Stephen Covey.

You're going to love the course. I hope that you'll join me in the rest of this course.

You can sign up for the course at https://bookauthorauthority.com/why-you-need-the-book-authority-course-to-getting-what-you-want

In mid-December, Judith Briles and John Kremer recorded a podcast episode on How to Market More Books in 2024.

I thought I posted this last week but, alas, the tech zombies chewed it up.

To celebrate my quarter century on Earth (75th birthday!), I’m hosting a free Q&A session on marketing, promoting, and selling your books.

What? - John Kremer’s Birthday Bash Q&A on Book Marketing

When? - Tuesday, January 16th at 4:00 p.m. Pacific, 7:00 p.m. Eastern

Where? - https://meetn.com/bookmarketingsuccess (nothing to download, just come to the website and join the meeting)

Join me tomorrow for a good time, great questions, incredible answers, and a celebrity event of wonder and delight!

On January 16, 2024, John Kremer hosted his 75th Birthday Bash with a Book Marketing Q&A session. In this session, he answered participant questions on marketing books, publicizing books, and more.

Sources: https://www.bookauthorauthority.com and https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

Free Book Offers

Five of the participants in the Q&A webinar made free offers to anyone listening in. Here are their offers.

Freddy Niagara Fonseca offer a free ebook for poetry lovers, Nature Poems for a New Dawn. It’s packed with witty and mystical poems you can read on your phone wherever you go. When you join Freddy’s email newsletter, you can download his book here: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/427947/107845540909155533/share.

You can download a free copy of Explore Vancouver Washington by Patty Grasher by going here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/uo5x82nbrj

Keith Wilhelm offers a free ebook, Self-Love Unleashed. You can have and give all the love you want. Download it here: https://parentinghappydance.com/free-stuff.

You can purchase a free copy of Sara Freeman Smith’s Action Planner and 30-Day Gratitude Journal by clicking here: https://www.urgems.com/store/p/action-planner-30-day-gratitude-journal

John Kremer offers a free ebook, Marketing in 501 Words or Less. Download the free book here (at the bottom of the page): https://www.bookauthorauthority.com.

I just loved this video I created and then pinned to Pinterest:

It combines a testimonial video from Jack Canfield along with a gif of my 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. I think it’s fun.

“We love 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. We followed it to the letter. Without his book, we wouldn’t be where we are today at the top of the bestseller list.” — Jack Canfield, co-author, Chicken Soup for the Soul series

And here’s the transcript from Jack’s testimonial:

Read books on marketing books.

John Kremer wrote a great book called 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.

When we did Chicken Soup for the Soul, we took about 900 of those ideas that we thought were relevant, made a post-it for each one. I had two staff people writing them for days.

We put them on a wall about 12 feet long. Every day we took a post-it off and did it. It took us two years to get through all those post-its.

But by the end of that, we were #1 on the New York Times list and we stayed there for three years.

When the second book came out, it was #2 on the list. At one point, we had #1, #2, and #3 on the New York Times list because we kept doing those things.

You can watch this video on Pinterest as well. Check it out here:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/57983913942730196

Or watch another video on Rumble:

https://rumble.com/vg2xaj-jack-canfield-on-1001-ways-to-market-your-books-by-john-kremer.html

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’ve just published a new book on why you should write a book. It’s called The Book Authority Guide on Why You Should Write a Book by John Kremer. It’s now available on Amazon in Kindle ebook format ($2.99), paperback ($12.99), and hardcover ($19.99).

But you can get the book free as a PDF by clicking here: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Book-Authority-Guide-on-Why-Write-a-Book.pdf.

Enjoy. It’s my gift to you! It’s a full-color ebook as well as a full-color print book available on Amazon. The PDF, of course, is also full-color!

Want to know more? Just call me at 928-767-4022. Or email me at JohnKremer@BookMarket.com.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

As you may know, I critique book covers as part of the consulting services that I offer. A number of years ago I had the challenge of reviewing a number of book covers for a client. One of the books was titled Power and Petroleum. Now, the front covers of the books were okay, but the back cover copy was terrible. In this episode, I’ll critique the back cover of Power and Petroleum.

First, the title is boring. It has no power to convince people to pick the book up.

The back cover of this book was too focused on abstract ideas rather than immediate impact. Here is the original back cover copy:

A Wake-Up Call!

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is the successor to Fidel Castro as the enemy of the United States in the Western Hemisphere!!

Read quotes from Chavez's speeches to know his intentions: To absorb Colombia and form La Gran Colombia, with Castro as his guide; and with China assisting in future adventures!

This warning is by a former resident of Venezuela, and former advisor to the Venezuelan oil industry.

In writing the above copy, the author used four exclamation points. There’s only one reason why the writer used so many exclamation points: The copy was weak.

Note: Exclamation points do not create excitement. Details create excitement. If you don’t believe me, read my rewrite below:

In the coming years, gasoline prices will triple.

Cocaine will be on every street corner.

Cuba will dictate U.S. policy in the Americas.

South America will be ripe for revolution.

Mexico will fall.

Communists will be knocking at our door.

Terrorists will be streaming in through our porous borders.

You will be sitting in jail—along with three of your children.

No one will be safe.

Are you listening?

If Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, has his way, the above headlines will be the norm in just a few years. Venezuela and Columbia will join with Cuba and China to create a new reality for the Western Hemisphere. It's time Americans woke up.

In Power and Petroleum, Emma Broussard, a former adviser to the Venezuelan oil industry, reveals the hidden intentions of Chavez and his cohorts. You have a choice: Read this book, or learn how to speak Spanish and keep your head down.

Notice how the details above created more drama, more urgency. Now that’s drama (whether it’s a true projection or not). It gets attention. And it’s not out of line with what the old cover copy hinted at.

Whether the book matches the back cover copy, that I don’t know. I didn’t read the book. But I could certainly sell lots of copies with a back cover with the drama outlined above.

How is your back cover copy?

Ask yourself:

Does your back cover copy get readers excited about picking up your book and buying it?

Does it make them want to start reading the book right away?

Does it create urgency and excitement?

If it doesn’t, rewrite it. Add more details. Create more urgency. Give people reasons to open your book.

If your back cover copy does succeed, congrats. You’ve take the first step in selling more copies of your book.

Website: https://www.BookAuthorAuthority.com

Website: https://www.BookMarketingBestsellers.com

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

First, a few notes from yesterday’s podcast episode.

1. The author of Power and Petroleum died shortly after I reviewed her back cover copy. Apparently her book was never published.

2. I write promo copy for all authors, no matter where they are on the political spectrum. My job is to write great copy for any author who hires me to copywrite for them.

Here’s my copywriting on environmental policy and promotion:

If you want people to be worried about global warming, don't talk about global warming.

Too big. Too hard to grasp. Too hard to figure out how to help.

Tell the story of one lone polar bear cub who is losing its home as it melts around him.

We will respond to that.

3. I have no problem with people speaking Spanish. For the past 18 years, I’ve lived in two bilingual states: New Mexico and now Arizona. I interact with Spanish speakers all the time. I studied Spanish in college. It’s a beautiful language. But in the context of the sales copy for the book, I did essentially denigrate Spanish. I apologize for that.

A Novel of Ancient Rome

This novel had a front cover that looked much more like a nonfiction academic title than a novel. It needed fixing.

The back cover read: “A thought-provoking story that is truly original — Copernican in nature. The premise meshes well with historical evidence, which lends startling merit to a sequence of events exquisitely revealed in this gripping novel. The theory proposed will inspire intriguing debate among readers, historical scholars, and theologians for decades to come.” That’s it.

There's nothing in the back cover copy to draw the reader into the drama of the novel. Is the novel truly gripping just because the back cover says so? The cover also says other things — none of which indicates the novel is gripping. The rest of the copy says that the book is a theory, an academic think piece. Nothing wrong with an academic think piece, but think pieces are not novels. Not ever.

My guess — and it is only a guess based on the jacket — is that this book has a great story to tell, but where is it? Stories involve people, not ideas. Focus first on people. Then focus on the plot. Only then can you move on to tell stories about those people struggling with ideas or conflicts.

Besides better descriptive copy, the back cover needed a few testimonials or reviews. The copy was too sparse to sell the book to most readers.

Website: https://www.BookMarketingBestsellers.com

Website: https://www.BookAuthorAuthority.com

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

One of my readers shared another key idea for back cover copy: testimonials. Linda Condrillo had a suggestion for the back cover:

Visualize what you want on the back cover—including rave reviews from prolific authors. Then send your final (perfect) manuscript to those authors, or other prominent people you admire or even know. Ask them to write a review for your back cover (and also have a sample of suggested text waiting, just in case they ask you for it).

You may be very surprised at the responses! I did just that. Voila!

Linda’s strategy outlined above is the same strategy I’ve used on the back cover of my 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Here’s the latest version of my back cover:

If you collect the right testimonials from a variety of people talking about how they use your book in a variety of way, those testimonials can really sell a book. Are you convinced by any of the testimonials above. I know that I get inspired by the testimonials whenever I read them. They keep me going.

Web: https://www.BookAuthorAuthority.com

Web: https://www.BookMarketingBestsellers.com

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’ve just completed a new book, A Is for Asterisk * - An A to Z Guide to Punctuation and Related Symbols (from the new ABC Book Series).

According to the grammar experts, there are either 14 or 16 primary punctuation marks, but there are also mathematical operators, newly invented punctuation marks, emojis, and other symbols that are becoming popular as people write and post to social media.This new book is an A to Z guide to many of these punctuation marks and symbols. Enjoy!

My hope is that this short book will help you become a better writer. I think you'll enjoy the book.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Have you thought of creating videos to market your books, writing, and other products and services? If so, here are a few statistics that should encourage you to do more with video in the coming year.

Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% in text.

More businesses are now using video than ever before. 90% of businesses plan to use video for marketing in 2024.

85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound.

66% of people will watch the full video if it’s less than 60 seconds.

1 in 4 consumers have made a purchase after seeing a video story on Instagram.

The sweet spot for video ad length is 6-10 seconds. Short-form videos offer a great return on investment.

80% of consumers want to see more short-form videos this year.

For American adults, the average daily social media time for video is plateauing. Still, video consists of 60% of social media time among American adults.

84% of people claim to have visited a website after watching a video promoting a product or service.

Video production is often outsourced. Many marketers also use AI to create marketing videos.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The first secret of success is very simple: Tell the truth. That is how you build relationships with potential customers. This first secret does not change, no matter how successful you become. You must always tell the truth. — John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books

Truth is the easiest thing to sell. — Daymond John

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. — Socrates

Be truthful, gentle, and fearless. — Mohandes Gandhi

Web: https://www.BookAuthorAuthority.com

Web: https://www.BookMarketingBestsellers.com

Host a Podcast and Be a Podcast Guest!

John Kremer: Every author should have a podcast. I still believe that. I've been promoting it for a long, long time.

I still really believe that because I think podcasting is one of the most powerful tools you have for getting the word out about yourself.

The neat thing in today's world, it's easy to create a combined audio-video podcast that you can syndicate on 40 or 50 platforms.

Judith Briles: How many people come in and start a podcast with absolutely amazing intentions? Kind of like when people are going to do a blog and then within six months the blog is dead. Is there any stats on the startup for podcasts that start petering out?

John Kremer: I don't know of any specific stats, but I do know from my own anecdotal experience that probably 80 or 90% of podcasters give up on their podcasts within six months. It becomes too much work. It's too hard. It's every week.

But the thing is, you don't always have to do a podcast that's going to be a forever podcast. You could do a limited edition 10-episode podcast.

Some of the most popular podcasts in the world are limited podcasts. They cover a true crime case, and then once you're done covering it, the podcast is done. But the podcast lives on in all the podcast syndication sites. It lives on in Audible. It lives on in Amazon. It lives on in lots of places.

Judith Briles: Some of the news shows I'll pick up once in a while, they have both the ongoing, like in perpetuity, like ours has been, and we're seven years old now. But they also have limited edition episodes, almost like a serial book and then it's over. And then maybe they'll come back again when they have a new serial to start up.

John Kremer: Even a limited podcast series still gives you the benefits of a podcast, especially the power of syndication.

One of the incredibly powerful things about podcasts is that it puts you on 30, 40, or even 50 of the major websites on the Internet, including Apple, Amazon, Audible, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, and more!

You know the power of a podcast because you built up a listenership for your podcast, and you've had millions and millions of listens and possibly views because I know you also put it up on YouTube.

Podcasts not only allow you to syndicate it to all these powerful websites, but it also gives you the opportunity to exchange views and podcast episodes with other podcasters.

Ask key influencers and authors this question: I'd love to interview you for my podcast, but I would really like it if you would also interview me for your podcast. I think we have complimentary audiences that would like to hear both of us talk on each other's podcasts.

The Book of the Month Club

John Kremer: I'm going to talk about the Book of the Month Club. Now, this isn't the old line Book of the Month Club, which died a sad death.

Judith Briles: So, how do we create our own Book of the Month Club?

John Kremer: I met somebody once at one of your seminars, and I'm still trying to track down his name now because I seem to have misplaced it in my move to Arizona.

But he offered a book of the month club. He was a business speaker and consultant to corporations. What he did is he wrote 12 short books. I'm talking about short books, 96 to 128 pages, somewhere in there.

Then whenever he'd go out and speak or whenever he attended a convention, whenever he met somebody that might be a potential client or customer or speaking agent, he added them to his book of the month club.

Once a month, he mailed out real books to his prospect list, a list of about 500 potential customers. He kept adding people to the list as he spoke in different venues and met people on planes, in hotels, or at convention sites.

His book of the month bluc not only justified him printing hundreds or thousands of copies of his books but it also impacted his speaking engagements and his corporate consultations.

From a business standpoint, his book of the month club made perfect sense for him because he picked up all kinds of coaching clients, speaking engagements, and corporate programs that he would do.

To be successful with such a club, first you have to write 12 books. And you can't produce junk. You have to produce real content worth reading, something that would showcase your experience and help to sell people on other products and services you have to offer.

The neat thing is that at the end of every book, of course, he included a pitch for his coaching and his speaking and his corporate programs.

His book of the month club was designed for a business audience. But the thing is, novelists, memoir writers, cookbook authors, and other writers could release five to 10 pages per week instead of releasing a book a month.

One chapter per month, a recipe per week, something like that. They could email it out. Or they could podcast out episodes. They could even do YouTube videos.

I just ran across an old friend of mine, Peggy Glenn, who's now doing videos under the name Grandma Potty Mouth where she shares fun recipes. She's a little spicy in her videos. They're entertaining and fun. She obviously enjoys it. And she actually got a book deal with a New York publisher to publish a cookbook.

It wouldn't be that hard for any author, regardless of what kind of book they're writing, to offer a book of the month club or pages per week club or something like that.

As you share, be sure to collect listener email address so you can email out the episodes or posts or videos to your list.

It means that you don't have to invent new content for your email every week. You can simply be podcasting a book. Or email out a book a few pages at a time.

The classic case of this is the novel, The Martian, which the author originally released as a series of blog posts. The story became so popular that Andy Weir ended up self-publishing his book before he got a contract offer from a major publisher to publish the book. Of course, it got made into a movie. He ended up making millions of dollars on what began as a simple blog.

Judith Briles: Many authors sell their ebooks on Amazon, but they don't go any further.

John Kremer: The neat thing is now with Amazon Kindle, you can do a paperback and a hardcover as well. And they actually encourage you to do those now. And an audio, an AI-generated audio that's actually not bad.

Give Away Your Book

Judith Briles: Yeah, it really can make a powerful difference to have different versions of your book.

Authors are too often afraid to give away their book. I really think it's important to get rid of that mindset because I think in some ways giving away pieces of your book.

John Kremer: For novelists, I recommend giving away your first book because I know you got three more books in you. I don't know any novelist other than Harper Lee and Margaret Mitchell that don't have a dozen novels in their heart and soul.

One of the best ways to market the second novel is to give the first novel away.

Offer the 1st Book in a Series to Sell the 2nd Book

Judith Briles: Here's a little trick I found when I've been in bookstores. I have a historical fantasy fiction book called The Secret Journey. Book two is The Secret Hamlet and book three, The Secret Rise.

When people meet you for the first time, they usually want to start with book one. If they like it, they'll come back to the trough. I typically tell a bookstore to order 20 to 25 copies of my book. I’ve learned to ask booksellers to order 20 to 25 of the 1st novel in a series and a dozen of the 2nd novel.

In one instance, I asked readers, “How would you like to read book one for free if you buy book two?” That got their attention.

So I said, “Do you ever read e-books? Are you on Amazon's Kindle? Let me sign book two for you and you can go up on Kindle Unlimited and download book one for free.” Within five minutes, I sold another five books of book two.

Reach Out to Influencers

John Kremer: The first step to marketing your books is to reach out to influencers in your topic area.

Judith Briles:; How do we find the influencers?

John Kremer: It should be easy for you to find influencers in your topic area. If you don't know who they are, you're probably not writing on the right topic— because you should be a fan of that topic if you're writing in it.

For example, I think it's terrible to write science fiction if you've never read science fiction. It's terrible to write a business book if you don't read business books.

That's a crucial element in researching your audience, researching your topic, and making your book 10 times better.

Work with Your Competitors

Judith Briles: Many times I talk with authors and I ask them, who are their competitors? One author told me, “Well, I don't have any competitors.”

I said, what BS? She just looked at me startled.

That is total BS. We all have competitors. Ask yourself, what are the names of authors who are comparable to what you write? Or, who is competing for your services? Who is competing for your wisdom? Who's out there trying to get people to buy their books that have storylines in your genre? Those are your competitors.

So I don't actually call them competitors. I call them friends or potential friends. And they can become friends, right?

John Kremer: Back when I started out, Dan Poynter had written The Self-Publishing Manual. We partnered together, and he sold thousands of copies of my 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. And I sold thousands of copies of his self-publishing manual. I did the same for Tom and Marilyn Ross with their Complete Guide to Self-Publishing.

I didn't see them as competitors at all. I saw them as people who were offering great content, and I could sell their content. So one of the first things you should do is ask your competitors is: “Can I sell your books?”

Via the Amazon affiliate program, you can easily sell competitor or compatible books.

You can also publish a catalog that you send out to customers when they order your books direct from you. That's how I created my first catalog. If you create a catalog to send out to customers who order your book direct from you, you can generate lots of extra orders. With my catalog, I ended up selling thousands of other authors' books that I stocked in-house.

Potential competitors should be cooperating with each other. One of the best things that writers can do is work together with other people writing similar books to reach out to their audiences and expand each author's audience.

The Audience as Super Fans

Judith Briles: You're talking about the audience as super fans. Who are these unique animals out there? Number one, they're mostly women, but they devour anything in the genre because they're always on the prowl looking for new things. So, why not create a cooperative collective of other authors like you?

Or you can create a collection of related author books on Amazon and collect referral fees for encouraging such sales.

Earlier when we were talking about the Book-of-the-Month Club, we both said we miss them because they were curating books. And there's still room for curators.

John Kremer: I could see you doing a science fiction podcast that interviews your favorite SF authors and promotes their books. Any author can do that.

When authors tell me that they can't think of anything to podcast about, I'm going, duh. All you have to do is interview people. Just interview your favorite authors.

If you started interviewing a few famous authors, you can also start to become famous by associating and interviewing those celebrated authors. You start to become well-known. Their audience starts to seek you out because they say, wow, this person seems to know what they're talking about.

Back in the day, I would have loved to interview Isaac Asimov or Jerry Pournelle or other science fiction authors. I went to a couple of world science fiction conventions and actually got to sit down with some authors and talk to them. In today’s world you could easily go to the next world science fiction convention and record a whole year's worth of podcasts.

And that’s just the first half hour of the podcast. Listen in for even more great ideas!

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Resources

The I-Don’t-Have-Any-Time Hour-a-Day Book Marketing Plan: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/the-i-dont-have-any-time-hour-a-day-book-marketing-plan

51 Ways to Help a Book Author You Love: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/36-ways-to-help-a-book-author-you-love

The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Hashtags for Book Authors (439 author hashtags): https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/423-social-media-hashtags-for-book-authors

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

If you subscribe to Microsoft Office, you have access to the new Microsoft Clipchamp program for creating videos using AI, images, videos, and text to speech.

Above, I showcase a text to speech video I created using the words and image from my previous newsletter. To create this video, I used Microsoft Clipchamp.

Check it out!

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

Website: https://www.bookauthorauthority.com

In an hour-and-a-half Meetn session, John Kremer answered questions from book authors on his birthday (76 years old as of January 16, 2025).

Here are a few of the show notes from that session:

Meetn.com

Meetn.com is a less-expensive alternative to Zoom, with more capabilities. Rick Raddatz is the founder and CEO of this service.

Stream Simultaneously to Multiple Social Media Platforms — Meetn grants you the ability to live stream to many social media platforms at the same time with its unique one-click Start-Streaming button.

Video Share with One-Click Simplicity — Meetn provides the capability to upload and share your videos, PowerPoint presentations, or testimonials…faster, better and easier.

Title Events Before You Start Recordings — Meetn allows you to name your virtual webinars with one click so you’ll never lose a recording again.

Persuade Your Participants to Buy Faster — Meetn's CTA function gives multiple options that make it a more comfortable alternative to monetize webinars and live events without forcing you to type hyperlinks inside the chat.

Custom Web Page Popper — This monetization tool makes it easy to pop-up web pages during your presentation so none of your participants leave your Meetn room and get distracted from your Call-To-Action.

Custom Exit Page — This monetization tool makes it seamless for your early abandoners to experience and take advantage of your re-engagement message that historically leads to 15-25% more automated profits.

Custom Featured Button — Imagine creating any call-to-action button and display it on your Meetn toolbar for your participants. It could be a Donation button, an Application button, or any other button of your choice.

Custom Call-to-Action Pop-up — Meetn allows you to create any custom pop-ups with your own headlines, subheadlines, photos, pop-up backgrounds, and call-to-actions with a single clickable button inside your presentation.

You don’t get the above features with Zoom.

Clip Champ

Clip Champ is the Microsoft Office program that allows you to create videos, including videos featuring AI narration that is very human like. You have this program if you subscribe to Microsoft Office.

Check out these two videos I created for novels using Clip Champ:

Thrall Conspiracy: Genesis by John Sorflaten — https://tellmeastory.substack.com/p/thrall-conspiracy-genesis-by-john

Life by Chance by John Graves — https://tellmeastory.substack.com/p/life-by-chance-by-john-graves

Book Publicity Opportunities for Book Authors Via Email Newsletters

Book Industry Online Newsletters: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/pitch-your-book-story-to-book-industry-publications

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Start writing your own story today. Don’t wait! Take control of your life and set the direction you want to take.

Do the same with your writing. Take control today. Don’t let AI be your voice. Use your own voice. Your voice is what leads to better writing, more powerful writing, writing that moves people, writing that sells.

I wanted to take the time to introduce you to a new series I'm doing of Instagram videos (which I will also share on other social media websites).

In this new series I will talk about why you should write a book. Note: there are many good reasons to do so. And I will also talk about how you should go about marketing your books.

So, I’m going to be doing short videos, one or two minutes long, every day. That’s my goal, as part of my new Instagram marketing plan!

This is the first episode of that series where I just wanted to introduce you to the concept of this Book Authority Video Series.

If you comment on this video post, I will send you a copy of my new book: Write a Bestseller in 30 Days or Less: 111 Books You Can Write Fast — With Examples!

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Welcome to another Book Authority video minute. Today I want to feature a quote by Issa Rae, an actress, director, producer, and all-around wonderful person.

Storytelling is forever.

Make no mistake, but sometimes the stories get detached from the storytellers.

The best stories do.

Doesn't that make sense? Don't we often detach a story from who the storyteller was?

And really, as a storyteller, it really doesn't matter because what is important is the story. Get ready to tell your own story over and over again.

Leave a comment here and receive a copy of my new book: Write a Bestseller in 30 Days or Less: 111 Books You Can Write Fast — With Examples!

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Today, I want to share something from Dan Nikas, who's the founder of GearBunch. He said,

My journey from Detective Sergeant to founding GearBunch, an e-commerce brand that hit nearly $5 million in its first year, has taught me the importance of authentic storytelling.

When you tell a story, tell it authentically. Tell a real story and tell it from your heart. Tell it from what you actually have experienced, what you hear, what you see, what you are! So become an authentic storyteller.

Comment on this video post and receive a free copy of my new book, Write a Bestseller in 30 Days or Less 111 Books You Can Write Fast — With Examples!

Website: https://www.bookauthorauthority.com

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

One thing you should never forget as a writer or a publisher is this: The truth sells. Tell the truth, and you could become a bestselling author.

Lie, and if you are a politician, your book might still sell—only, of course, to your side of the argument. The other side only likes to hear their own lies, not yours.

You might be surprised to know that, even in fiction, you have to tell the truth. If you tell a story that doesn’t ring true, readers will know—and they will not pass on your book to their friends. In fact, they will tell their friends this: Don’t buy that novelist’s books. They don’t tell the truth.

In marketing your book as well as in writing it, you have to tell the truth. Tell the truth of the book in its description. Tell the truth in your news releases and interviews. Tell the truth when people ask about your book. Tell the truth on your website, in your blog posts, in your social media tweets and pins, and in your podcasts and videos.

The truth will take you a long way in selling your book and getting on to writing your second and third books.

A writer should never forget: Your first obligation is to the truth. It might hurt, but without it, everything else is worthless. — Park MacDougald, Life & Arts Editor, Washington Examiner

Never tire of telling the truth. It is the best this world has to offer. Spread the truth thickly on everything you do.

If you liked this podcast and would like to get 2 - 4 such podcasts every week, please sign up for the PAID edition of this newsletter. Click on subscribe below:

Thank you for your interest and support. — John Kremer

Ernie Zelinski shared his success story on the Book Marketing Success Stories group on Facebook. Here’s his story:

Just to show that an innovative author can still get results during the pandemic, check out the front cover of the Vietnamese edition of The Joy of Not Working that was just published in Vietnam and is being released this week along with two of my other titles.

It will be a few weeks before I get my complimentary copies of the three titles but I know that Ken, the Vietnamese gentleman who works at my favorite coffee bar in Vancouver, will be pleased to get copies of the three new translations.

He was super excited when I gave him the Vietnamese edition of 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting, and he keeps treating me to free coffee.

Again, a bit of history about The Joy of Not Working. Over 30 years ago I told anyone who would listen to me (including an order taker at McDonald’s, two derelicts on a Vancouver park bench, and a Nigerian scam artist) about my idea for a book on how to escape from the regular work-until-you-drop mentality.

The book's title eventually became The Joy of Not Working. I figured that this book would launch a career for me as a successful author. Many people laughed at the idea; others seriously thought that I was crazy. By the way, many people still think that I am crazy—but I have the results and they don't!

Incidentally, I self-published The Joy of Not Working in 1991 because no mainstream publisher was willing to take it on. The Joy of Not Working became my signature book. Today it still sells in print and ebook form.

Not many books have this sort of staying power 30 years after publication. It has been published in 17 foreign languages and has sold over 315,000 copies worldwide.

Now, I have a question for you:

Do you have as much faith in your book? Here’s how you can tell if you have faith in your book: Tell everyone you meet in the next three days that you are writing and publishing a book. Tell them what your book is about. Get excited. Tell them you will be famous soon. Tell them you are a real book author.

Start talking today. Don’t wait. I expect to hear from you on Monday that 20 people are ready and willing to buy your new book BECAUSE you told them about your book!

The following article is adapted from a wonderful newsletter shared recently by Steve O’Keefe, author of Set the Page on Fire: Secrets of Successful Writers. It outlines ten ways you can promote your books on Amazon—as well as ten ways you SHOULD promote your books on Amazon.

1. Register, Claim, and Fix Your Amazon Author Page

Amazon Author Central (https://author.amazon.com/claim/welcome) enables you to register as a book author and claim your books. You can add a blog feed (from your main author blog), videos, photos, a bio, and more. Steve wrote a detailed article for IBPA on how to claim and complete your author page here: https://www.ibpa-online.org/blogpost/1734581/309773/The-Amazon-Makeover-by-Steve-O-Keefe.

An Amazon author page can act as your home page on the internet (if you like to use it for that purpose). From there you can promote yourself as an author, talk show guest, consultant, expert, speaker, and more.

Steve O’Keefe’s Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Steve-OKeefe/e/B001HD0BJ4

John Kremer’s author page: https://www.amazon.com/John-Kremer/e/B001H6L2T4

2. Fix Your Amazon Book Pages

You can control the content on the pages for your books. Amazon provides six bins you can fill with content, including Editorial Reviews, Inside Flap Copy, Back Cover Copy, and About the Author. You can put anything you want into those bins, within reason, such as excerpts, reviews, special offers, rights information, tour schedule, etc.

But don’t be annoying or too aggressive. And don’t link to any site outside of Amazon (Amazon does not like to send people outside of itself when people are reading about books to buy).

3. Add a Media Kit to Your Website

A good media kit, the key to promoting your book to a variety of audiences, is foundational content for a book website. Your kit should contain a single-page printable summary with Contact Info, Book Summary, Author Summary, Book Cover, Author Photo, and META data such as dimensions, pages, ISBN, etc.

Steve recommends an index to Best Lines, Power Paragraphs, and Best Excerpts, along with Keynames, Keyplaces, and Keywords. You should also include and update Author Endorsements and Book Endorsements. And, of course, you can add all that onto your Amazon Book and Author pages.

Check out this wonderfully complete media kit for Words Whispered in Water: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fgJI0dZvI09JBmJGMsEuSPT2Y8SRVILhHM0OQVeHNR4.

4. Review Books on Amazon

Review books in your field, books you like, books you’ve just read, books Amazon associates with your book (both in the Amazon ads as well as on your book pages), and books by authors Amazon associates with you. When you do a review, always link your name to your Amazon Author Page and your book title to your Amazon Book Page.

You don’t have to write long reviews, but you should show that you read the book (or at least scanned it). A one-sentence review can often get more attention and be more effective. Most important, make sure your review enhances your credibility as well as the credibility for your book.

Besides reviewing books on Amazon, you can also post your book reviews to GoodReads, Facebook, Twitter, your website, and more. Again, with links to your Amazon Author Page and Amazon Book Page.

Note: If you start doing effective book reviews that help sell books, you can ask for free review copies from the publicity department of book publishers.

Here is Steve’s book review page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/amzn1.account.AFAEINMZMSHSFDABB5CJDQ5NR3OQ.

5. Link to Your Reviews

Link to your book reviews on Amazon. Link from Twitter, from Facebook, from Pinterest, from your website, from LinkedIn, etc. Note: Your book reviews on Amazon have a unique URL which you can post to social media or include in your email newsletter, such as Steve’s review of New Orleans: A Literary History: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R24YF8OE73FXZ9.

When your review gets traffic, Amazon notices and elevates the visibility of your review. This creates a positive feedback loop between your reviews and your social media that brings you to the attention of the media, talkshow producers, literary agents, publishers, and rights buyers. — Steve O’Keefe

6. Create and Maintain a Blog

You can add an RSS feed from your blog to your Amazon Author Page. You can get a free blog from WordPress.com, Blogger.com, Medium.com, or Substack.com.

A blog allows you to push your content to your Amazon Author Page. And with the bonus of featuring links to outside sites on your blog posts within Amazon. You can also get videos onto your Amazon Author Page using this blog backdoor. You don’t have to keep blogging if you don’t want to. However, it’s a great place to post all the book reviews you write and receive.

You can follow John’s BookMarketingBestsellers blog on his Amazon Author Page at: https://www.amazon.com/John-Kremer/e/B001H6L2T4.

7. Comment on Amazon Book Reviews

Your comments on Amazon book reviews can contain a link to your Amazon Author Page as well as links to one of your Book Pages (or the books of other authors).

As you review books on Amazon, you’ll come across other people’s reviews that might be worth commenting on (because their reviews are insightful, because of the traffic they get, or because of the topic itself). All you have to do is write a few words of encouragement and link to your Amazon Author Page.

Note: Your comments on reviews are excellent ways to introduce yourself to other authors, editors, and agents.

8. Comment on News Stories

As you peruse news stories on various websites, blogs, or podcasts, you should comment on relevant news stories. As a book author, you are an authority on the subjects you write about. So use your expertise to comment on the news stories where you can add unique perspective, added ideas, or useful tips. Most sites will welcome your authority.

Note: When you comment, use a signature that includes the title of your book and a link to your media kit.

Steve offers a campaign that turns the drudgery of commenting into something more entertaining and productive (sort of like a treasure hunt). Contact him if you want help with your commenting campaign. Email: steve.okeefe@orobora.com. Phone: 540-324-7023.

9. Connect with One Reporter Every Week

Reach out at least once a week to a reporter, journalist, editor, producer, or host. Connect with them via a short email offering a free review copy of your book or a reason to interview you. Also connect with them via comments on their social media posts, etc.

Keep an email message under 100 words. Don’t include any links or attachments—or your email could end up in their spam folder never to be seen again.

If you need help pitching, see Chapter 7 of Steve’s book, Set the Page on Fire: Secrets of Successful Writers, which contains detailed instructions for creating effective short pitches for books and authors. You can also hire Steve to pitch for you; he does that for a few authors every week. See his contact info in Point 8 above.

Plus Tip: Check out Help A Reporter Out (HARO) for reporters and others looking for experts: https://www.helpareporter.com.

10. Create a Database of Connections

Most authors fail to record all the connections they make every week. You should build a database of your own contacts (either as an Access or Excel data file or simply as a Word document. Use what works best for you.

Personally, I use Microsoft Access for most of the data files I create, but I’ve also used Excel on occasion to develop media lists and key contact data files.

Every week, you should transfer the names of any new contacts from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Email, etc. to your own database. Then you can look them up, fill out their profiles, send a thank you note, invite them to subscribe, share a special offer, etc. Keeping your own list protects you from being cut off from your contacts or charged to communicate with your own fans by these social networks. A well-maintained mailing list can be a valuable asset worth up to $25 per contact when a business is sold!

One final note: A great book cover is the most effective piece of content on Amazon for selling your book.

In the early 1980s, Texas spent $20 million a year cleaning up litter on their streets and highways.

Why? Because people ignored the Keep Texas Beautiful ad campaigns.

So Texas tried out something different. They hired a new ad agency to create a campaign that would speak to the guilty parties—mainly young men who like to break rules.

Rather than trying to convince them to care about the environment or how things look, the campaign featured a slogan that spoke to what those men already believed.

The slogan? Simple: Don't Mess With Texas.

No true Texan would ever litter their own state. It's the outsiders that do the littering.

This Don't Mess with Texas messaging reduced litter by 72%!

Think about that.

How will you change your message to appeal to different audiences? Try to adjust your marketing message to the people you really want to reach.

A recent survey of podcasting done by Acast and Nielsen found the following:

* 45% of those surveyed started listening to podcasts during the past year.

* 52% of those who love podcasts are spending more time listening to their favorite podcasts.

* 41% of Americans plan to spend more time with podcasts in the coming six months, while they plan to increase music streaming by only 36% and listening to online radio by only 29%.

* Podcast listening increased by 52% during the past six months, while radio listening only increased by 36% and audio books consumption by only 33%.

* 57% of those surveyed listen to podcast episodes multiple times.

* 62% of listeners listen to more than half of longer podcast episodes (hour long or more).

* 65% of listeners are attentive when listening to podcasts. They focus on the content.

* 57% of listeners will listen to any ads because they believe it’s important to support their favorite podcast hosts.

What all these numbers mean is that podcasts are becoming a more important part of the lives of American consumers.

Nick Southwell-Keely of Acast notes, “We think of our favorite podcasters like our friends, and trust them to entertain and inform us.”

Podcast Content

What kind of podcast content do people enjoy?

* 70% enjoy listening to guest interviews.

* 64% listen to news shows, including news in a specific field.

* 58% enjoy panel discussions.

* 55% enjoy the banter of their favorite hosts.

* Other prime content favorites include music and comedy.

If you plan to host a longer podcast (half an hour or more), feature interviews, news, and banter. If you are hosting a shorter daily podcast (2 to 5 minutes), feature short excerpts from your book, blog posts, or seminars.

Key Tips on Hosting a Podcast

And here are a few tips from a podcast host with over a million daily listeners:

* Be a first mover. Find a unique topic and/or format, and build excitement for it.

* Syndicate your content everywhere you can.

* Note: Some podcasts have a collective audience larger than many cable news or opinion shows.

* Host a show every day (5 days a week) for the most impact.

Subscribe for one year to get the complete course on using Substack for your email newsletters, podcast syndication, content delivery system, and membership portal.

My friend Brian Feinblum recently wrote a blog post on 22 things that book authors should do in 2022 (https://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/22-things-authors-should-do-in-2022.html).

I thought I'd post some of his recommendations along with my riff on his ideas. Here are three of his ideas to start with.

1. Do more on social media. Either join a new social media, get more active on your existing social media accounts, or learn more about how to use social media effectively.

Brian suggested looking at Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube. You could also look at new platforms (such as CloutHub, Gab, Gettr, Locals, Medium, Parler, Rumble, and Substack) that might fit your area of expertise or target the audience you want to reach.

Focus on one or two social media. No more. You can belong to more social media, but focus your efforts on the one or two social media that will make a big difference for you.

2. Launch a blog. Or become more active on posting to your current blog. Post regularly. And be sure to share your blog posts via your social media.

I recommend posting three times a week to your blog and then posting to your key social networks.

Include a graphic in every post. Your social media posts will automatically pull in the graphics to make your social media more impactful.

3. Launch a podcast. Post regular episodes, at least once a week for longer podcasts. Post more frequently if you doing 2 to 5-minute episodes.

Make sure you syndicate your podcast to as many outlets as you can. The power of podcasting is in the syndication by high-traffic websites.

Be sure to create an intriguing name for your podcast. And write a description that sells the podcast to potential listeners. And, finally, create a graphic that helps to attract your target audience to your podcast.

I would love your feedback on the above graphic. Do you think it works? Do you think it will bring people to my new Heroes for Today podcast?

Thanks for any feedback you want to share.

For those who haven’t subscribed to my Podcasting to Millions course via the paid version of this newsletter, think about getting involved now, especially if you want to build a successful podcast that helps you sell more books, products, and services.

Podcasting to Millions

If you want to be part of my new Podcasting to Millions course, subscribe to the paid version of this Book Marketing Update newsletter. Click on the button below:

Here are a few of the things you’ll learn in this course:

How to set your podcast up to reach thousands possibly millions of listeners.

What kind of podcast you should create for maximum reach for what you want to sell.

How to syndicate your podcast to the top podcast aggregators and video sites.

How to get started, step by step, in creating a podcast.

And much, much more.

As noted yesterday, Brian Feinblum wrote a blog post on 22 things book authors should do in 2022 (https://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/22-things-authors-should-do-in-2022.html). I thought I'd post his recommendations along with my riff on his ideas. Here are three more of his ideas.

4. Launch a video channel using YouTube, Vimeo, or Rumble. You can syndicate your podcasts as videos to these video channels, or you can create new videos for these channels. Generally, keep your videos short (under 5 minutes), but you can feature Zoom interviews, Skype interviews, Facebook Live interviews, etc., that go an hour or more.

Post your videos regularly, at least once a week. But you will build up a bigger audience if you post videos 5 times a week, Monday through Friday.

Also share your videos on all your social networks, but especially on the one or two social media you are focusing on to target your audience.

5. Guest post often on the blogs of others. Personally, I wouldn’t focus on this as much as I might have once done. But, if you can get invited to write articles for a top magazine website targeted to your audience, definitely do that. Write an article once a week if they allow you to.

Here are a few top magazine websites: Cosmopolitan.com, Elle.com, MarieClaire.com, NyMag.com, Oprah.com, RealSimple.com, Self.com, Vogue.com, WomensHealthMag.com, and WomensWorld.com.

Also write articles for top websites targeted to your audience, sites such as Bustle, Elephant Journal, GirlBoss, HelloGiggles, MamaMia, PopSugar, Romper, SafeMom, SheKnows, and WomenVoicesForChange.

If you want to write for blogs, pick some of the top blogs to solicit opportunities. For example, you can find some of the top food and cooking blogs and websites by following these listings:

25 Food Bloggers We Love (and Their 25 Best Recipes): https://www.themuse.com/advice/25-food-bloggers-we-love-and-their-25-best-recipes

30+ Best Food Blog Examples (2021): https://firstsiteguide.com/best-food-and-cooking-blogs

Top 30+ Food Blogs: https://insanelygoodrecipes.com/top-30-food-blogs

The 50 Best Food & Cooking Blogs: https://detailed.com/food-blogs

Top 100 Food Blogs: https://blog.feedspot.com/food_blogs

106 Best Food Blogs and Bloggers to Follow: https://masterblogging.com/best-food-blogs

108 DIY Bloggers, Food Bloggers, Beauty Bloggers, Garden Bloggers: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/diy-bloggers-food-bloggers-beauty-bloggers-garden-bloggers

6. Get interviewed by targeted bloggers and podcasters. Interviews are generally more effective at driving traffic to your website that guest posts or articles. The main reason for this is that in an interview you get to interact with a key influencer in a way that should attract the influencer’s followers to your content. If the followers like how you interact with the person they follow and if they like your presentation, content, and answers, they will seek you out.

If you don’t know who the top influencers are for your target audience, you can search for them via DuckDuckGo or Google. Search for “top travel bloggers” or “top travel websites” or “top business magazine websites” or something similar. That’s what I did for the list of food bloggers in point #5 above.

You can also check out social media sites to search for the top influencers on each social media for your target audience.

Also, of course, each time you are interviewed, ask that person if they could recommend other bloggers, podcasters, or influencers who would be open to interviewing you. When you ask, also share with that person other people you would recommend they interview and/or be interviewed by. Such recommendations are among the most powerful you will find.

7. Add guest posters to your blog. And interview others, especially influencers, for your blog, Zoom sessions, Facebook Lives, and new podcast.

Quite honestly, I have found hosting guest posters on my blog is more work for me than writing original content for my blog. But you might have a different experience.

Certainly, if I wrote cookbooks, I’d want to invite other cookbook authors to share their recipes on my blog, website, podcast, and/or Pinterest boards. And I would definitely want to develop and participate in a number of topic-specific group boards on Pinterest with other people writing about the same topic.

I am definitely happy to interview other authors and marketers who can share insider secrets on what worked for them in marketing their books, courses, products, and services. I love interviewing others (and being interviewed by them as well).

Interviews, as I’ve said before, are one of the most listened to podcast topics. People love listening to great interviews. To interview people, create a great pitch why they should agree to being interviewed and showcased by you.

Once you book them, create a Podcast Prep Sheet to send to people before you interview them so they are prepared to provide you with a great interview. For an example of a Podcast Prep Sheet you can send to the people you will be interviewing, see https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/wp-content/uploads/Brilliance-Podcast-Prep-Sheet.pdf.

Here’s a new Heroes for Today podcast graphic. How do you like this one?

I would love your feedback on the above graphic. Do you think it works? Do you think it will bring people to my new Heroes for Today podcast?

Thanks for any feedback you want to share.

For those who haven’t subscribed to my Podcasting to Millions course via the paid version of this newsletter, think about getting involved now, especially if you want to build a successful podcast that helps you sell more books, products, and services.

Podcasting to Millions

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As noted a few days ago, Brian Feinblum wrote a blog post on 22 things book authors should do in 2022 (https://bookmarketingbuzzblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/22-things-authors-should-do-in-2022.html). I thought I'd post his recommendations along with my riff on his ideas. Here are two more of his ideas.

8. Join online groups. Join LinkedIn and Facebook groups connected to writing books, especially those targeted to your genre or topic. There are writing groups for romance, science fiction, self-help, memoirs, travel, food, business, and more. Plus, of course, there are groups targeted to any topic you write about, groups that might not be about writing, but might bring in fans, advocates, bloggers, podcasters, etc.

Online groups are one of the best ways to discover insider secrets for researching, writing about, and publishing on your topic as well as marketing and promoting to your target audience or audiences.

Here are just a few of the writer groups on Facebook that I discovered several years ago. I joined many of them. Check them out and see if they work for you:

Creative Designers and Writers – 322,267 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/creativedesignerswriters – No rules, promotions allowed.

Writers’ Group – 40,572 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/memberswritersgroup – Writers of all skill levels and experience are encouraged to help each other through problem spots in their writing, bounce ideas off other members, and talk about the latest news affecting the industry/craft; exchange leads to discovery.

Content Writing, Writers – 37,993 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/copy.content – This is an exclusive place on Facebook for writing professionals into advertising, brand management, promotion and digital marketing to share and contribute with their experience and exposure in writing.

Books, Books and More Books!!! – 35,192 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/320356974732142 – Where authors and readers can post to help promote their books and giveaways.

English Writers – 33,823 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/English.Writers – Any post containing a link (and nothing else) will not be approved (when you post a link try to specify it to open in a new window so that it does not take the user away from the Facebook page). So not send quotes. A member can advertise his own book.

Writers Unite! – 32,576 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/145324212487752 – IF YOU HAVE A BOOK FOR SALE OR SERVICES TO OFFER (book cover, editing, etc.): we put up a bookstore on the pinned post that stays up from Friday morning until Monday morning. . . . IF YOU WANT TO POST A LINK TO: your blog/vlog, author's page, personal YouTube video, Facebook/Twitter page or anything of that ilk, post it in the comments of the pinned post from Monday through Thursday. Please remember, only one post per day for each link. You may post more than one link per day as long as it is not the same link. DO NOT POST LINKS IN THE REPLIES TO OTHER LINKS.

Book Promotion – 31,839 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/BookPromotion – The purpose of this group is to enable authors to promote their books, to readers of all tastes. What it is NOT for is the promotion and sale of anything other than books. If you post ads for anything else, you and your post will be removed – permanently. Author pages and other posts related to publishing and book business are permitted. (Operated by BestSeller Publishing; email: rebecca@bestsellerpublishing.org, Rebecca Grosch)

Authors – 30,575 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/179494068820033 – Anything about writing. Stories, experiences, advice and tips. Any new books, promotions or book cover designs.

Books, Blogs, Readers & Writers – 29,409 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1738820499716120 – We are here to have crazy book lovers, amazing literary bloggers, avid readers and passionate writers, all at one place. Feel free to share your works (Literature), your reading experience... anything and everything related to LITERATURE!

Online Book Publicity Group – 28,556 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/online.book.publicity – Operated by Substance Books. But members can post about their books.

Amazon Kindle Goodreads – 25,125 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/kindle.goodreads – This group is for people who own Amazon Kindle and want to share their recommendations for books they recent read and liked, or chat about their favorite authors etc.

Promote KDBook! Free! – 24,128 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/promotekdbook – Promote Your Kindle Book. Glad to have you with us. Wishing you every continued success.

Indie Author Book Promotion Page – 23,797 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/571135069563269 – Welcome to the open group for Indie Author book promotions. Share the links for author pages and books on your wall as well!

Freelance Writers – 23,561 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2351373470 – This group is for all the freelance writers out there. Please share experiences, works or job postings.

Authors and Book Lovers Discussion Group – 23,293 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/authorspostyourbooks – This is a discussion group for authors and book lovers to chat about their favorite books. All Authors are welcome to promote here!

Kindle Publishers – 23,211 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/512098985483106 – Kindle ebooks only. New members please do make an introductory post so we can all know who you are, what you do, where you are from, etc. Feel free to include contact information like website or email or facebook page links. I do allow, indeed I encourage, self–promotion, advertising links, even affiliate links, in most of my groups. If not, it is clearly stated in the pinned post (No second chances for those groups!), but those promotional posts, comments, or links must be on topic for the group. If it's relevant, feel free to share it, whether commercial or otherwise. If you post about the same book, theme, plugin, etc. more than once, do so only with reasonable frequency. Some groups have more traffic than others. Your book should not show up more than about once in 6 to 10 screens.

Book Reviews & Promotion – 22,232 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/148313988694907 – Post books, including those for sale (Sale Posts).

Authors, Reviewers, & Book Lovers – 22,142 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/BooksLuvers – Post only things that are book related, this includes book reviews, book promos as well as author sites, blogs, and Facebook pages, etc.

Book Promotions – 21,961 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/623206594363552 – This group is for promoting books of all kinds. Including poetry. Feel free to put up any book you have written or like.

Where Authors Begin – 21,273 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/516756898457588 – No promo posts – this is a group to support the writing process, not to promote your books. Posting covers of your books are also considered promo. If you want to share the art, share the art, but if you post the full cover, regardless of its context, it will be deleted. Blog post links about the writing craft allowed.

Ebooks N Books Promos Group – 20,359 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/eBooksBooksPromo – The purpose of this group is to enable authors to promote their books, to readers of all tastes. What it is NOT for is the promotion and sale of anything other than books. If you post ads for anything else, you and your post will be removed – permanently. Author pages and other posts related to publishing and book business are permitted. (Operated by BestSeller Publishing; email: rebecca@bestsellerpublishing.org, Rebecca Grosch).

Writers and Readers – 20,335 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/writersandreaders – Post questions about books and recommend books and where writers can interact with readers.

Novelspot Readers – 19,589 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/NovelspotRecommendsbooks – We're all about the books? Authors, your brags go here! Contests you're in! BUT If you're an author and want to TALK WRITING with authors, publishers and editors, join Novelspot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Novelspotters.

Author Promo and Book Sales Group – 19,453 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/147716185430164 – Post your book covers, links to where the book can be purchased, as well as a log line of what your book is about to try to get readers interested.

Creative Writing – 19,448 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/wherecreativitylives – No rules.

Promote Kindle Book++ – 18,740 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1084582441578359 – Promote your Kindle book free.

Writers Helping Writers – 18,565 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/mikegeffnerpresentswritershelpingwriter – New members are encouraged to introduce themselves, tell a little about yourself, how you got started writing, the type of genre you work in (sci–fi? romance? historical fiction? non–fiction?) and other interesting trivia, but no links to your books or "please buy my book" posts will be allowed.

Authors Promoting Authors – 18,498 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/apablog – Authors Promoting Authors community group. This group serves as a forum for discussion, promotion and sharing. Please be respectful.

Authors, Agents, and Aspiring Writers – 18,349 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/204725947524 – You are free to promo new releases, your books, your writing blogs, your thoughts on writing and asking for help from others to improve your craft. If you have information that you think will be beneficial to writers, please share. Please do not post the same link/cover/promo more than once a day. This includes promotional services. If you post six different authors in a day, you're flooding the wall and making your promo more like spam.

Books, Readers and Authors – 17,903 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/BOOKS.READERS.and.AUTHORS – All of us are either readers, reviewers, or authors. Let’s celebrate our reading experiences and out books!

There’s an eBook in the Room – 17,659 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/126014020784739 – A room full of eBook enthusiasts and their eReaders. Featuring the very best in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, There's an eBook in the Room is your guide to great reading!

Cheekypee Promote Your Books – 17,519 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/2friendspromatewithauthors – This is a UK based group. Feel free to advertise your book/books, but please DO NOT SPAM the group with post after post with your books. Respect others in the group. Everyone wants to advertise their books, so please do not bump posts or arrange your friends to do so. People are FREE TO COMMENT on your post but not by prior arrangement just to move your post up. We do not endorse or encourage REVIEW SWAPS within this group, what you do outside of this group is up to you.

Amazon Kindle/eBook Readers – 17,477 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/129536203777715 – The group promotes not only ebooks but also paperback copies...some recommended reads.

Celebrating Authors – 16,721 members – https://www.facebook.com/groups/157960580960255 – In this group, shameless SELF–PROMOTION is not only welcomed, it’s encouraged––and the point! Give a hook line and the link to your book.

There are, of course, more such groups, some of which have grown much larger in the past few years.

LinkedIn also offers many similar groups that you can join.

In any group you join, don’t be mercenary. Share first. Answer questions from others. Ask questions. Become a real member of the group. Talk about your book only within the legitimate answers you give to other people’s questions.

And, of course, where allowed, you can always include an author signature with every post. Something like: John Kremer, author, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books

For more Facebook group links and other resources, download the following Facebook Links PDF: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/wp-content/uploads/Facebook-Links-1.pdf

9. Boost your social media posts. In other words, pay to get more people to see your social media posts and click through on them.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of this suggestion. But that’s just because I’m cheap. I hate paying for traffic when I can get the traffic for free.

On the other hand, I do understand that with many social media, the only way you’ll get much traffic is to pay for it. Facebook definitely works that way for most users. You have to pay for traffic. And it’s certainly still worth it to test Facebook ads to see if they will pay off for you in sending traffic to your sales pages.

You will also get more traffic on Instagram and LinkedIn if you pay for that traffic.

In my experience, you can get a ton of traffic from Pinterest without paying for it, but ads on Pinterest could be very effective in selling your books or other products. I would certainly test ads on all social media, including Pinterest.

Facebook Ad Options:

Get ready for an hour with two masters of book marketing and what you should be doing during 2022: John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Book and Dr. Judith Briles via the AuthorU - Your Guide to Book Publishing podcast.

Your takeaways include:

Hot tips for 2022 to do starting now.

Rediscover why superfans are your sweet marketing spot.

How to serialize your book via Amazon Vella.

New tips for creating the “CliffNotes” version of your book.

Discover Substack.com and how to use it to publish your email newsletters and more.

Why authors should be using Pinterest.

Are you ready to start?

Book Marketing Success Updates is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my on-going work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

You can also listen to this podcast via a few other podcasting services:

Amazon Music:  https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b06bb3b2-1ad2-40fc-adbc-d704c0a7cb4c/episodes/daa8b267-8bd0-46fc-94be-82e1a71809ef/author-u-your-guide-to-book-publishing-book-marketing-2022-with-john-kremer-12-30-2021

Thank you for reading Book Marketing Success. This post is public so feel free to share it.

I just finished a coaching call with an author. And at one point I asked her this question (actually, two questions): How can you fall in love with your readers? And how can your readers fall in love with you?

The thing is, these two questions are probably the two most important questions you can ask yourself as an author.

Perhaps you don't like the word "love" and, if that's the case, use a different word.

But, regardless, the most important thing you can do to market your books is to really care for those you write for. If you care, they will care.

As Rick Blaine said at the end of one of my favorite movies, Casablanca, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Join me if you can on my birthday book marketing Q&A via Zoom. It's tomorrow, January 16th, at 4:00 p.m. Mountain time, 6:00 p.m. Eastern time (U.S.).

Click on this link to join: https://zoom.us/j/93353375853?pwd=QkRaYVBGWXN4anhPcUZncTNWVVJHQT09

It could be the beginning (or continuation) of a beautiful friendship. I hope to see you there.

Thank you for reading Book Marketing Success. This post is public, so feel free to share it. Thanks!

Here are a few more facts that I hope will convince you to start your own podcast. As I said before, podcasts are hot, hot, hot. And big, big, big!

Spotify Podcasts

299 Million Listeners — Spotify has over 299 million listeners (172 million paid listeners) across 92 markets worldwide just waiting to discover podcasts like yours.

#2 Podcast Audience — Spotify is the second most popular place to listen to podcasts in the world—and it’s growing fast. iTunes from Apple is #1, but I believe Spotify will catch them soon!

Double the Audience — Spotify’s podcast audience has nearly doubled since the start of 2019.

Revenue Driven by Podcasts — Spotify’s advertising revenue jumped by 75% in just a year, much of that revenue driven by podcasts. And you can get in on that revenue.

299 Million Listeners — Spotify’s ad team is testing a new ad format, a clickable call to action visual ad, that plays after their audio ads on original podcasts.

The King of Audio — Spotify wants to be the king of audio, so it’s expanding its exclusive podcast and audiobook offerings. It has signed deals with Bad Robot, Higher Ground Productions, Joe Rogan, Dax Shepard, and others.

$100 Million Podcast — Joe Rogan was paid $100 million to keep his Joe Rogan Experience podcast only on Spotify. His podcast gets over 10 million listeners per episode.

Other Podcast Pluses

The New York Times recently paid $25 million for Serial Productions, a podcasting firm. The Times also bought the audio subscription service Audm for $8.6 million. They expect podcasting to grow much bigger in the next few years.

The iHeart Podcast Network reaches 32 million people every month with 392 million monthly downloads.

The Rubin Report with Dave Rubin has 1,660,000 subscribers on YouTube alone. He has had 423 million views of his podcast since 2012.

Newsmax, a major media company (with a magazine and a TV channel), launched its first podcast recently, The Newsmax Daily with Rob Carson.

Judith Briles, author of How to Write a Million Dollar Speech, has broadcast over 350 podcast shows on Your Guide to Book Publishing with more than 9 million downloads so far.

Listen in on one of her latest podcast shows featuring an interview with me: https://www.toginet.com/podcasts/authoruyourguidetobookpublishing/AuthorUYourGuidetoBookPublishingLIVE_2021-12-3.mp3

These are just a few of the reasons you should start your own podcast NOW!

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Thank you for reading Book Marketing Success. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Joanna Penn is the author of Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting and Voice Technologies and a number of other writing and publishing books, including these:

How to Write Non-Fiction: Turn Your Knowledge into Words

How to Make a Living with Your Writing: Turn Your Words into Multiple Streams of Income

Successful Self-Publishing: How to Self-Publish and Market Your Book

Public Speaking for Authors, Creatives and Other Introverts

Here are some of the questions we covered in this podcast

What criteria should an author use to decide which books to publish as audiobooks as well?

Is it easy to create an audiobook on your own as an author? Or would you recommend working with a professional narrator?

Would you caution authors about producing their own audiobooks?

How should an author price an audiobook versus Kindle ebook, paperback, and hardcover?

How do authors position their books to take advantage of an increasingly audio world?

How easy is it for an author to start up their own podcast?

And why should an author start up a podcast, especially as a tool for marketing their books?

What is the best type of podcast for an author to start? What are some of the options?

How do authors find the best podcasts to pitch as guests?

What does an author do to be a great podcast guest?

Anything new on the voice technologies like AI, speech to text, and text to speech?

Audio for Authors

Do you want to create, publish and market your audiobooks?

Are you ready to use podcasting to grow your author brand and reach more readers with your books?

Audiobooks are the fastest-growing segment in publishing with double-digit growth in markets across the world. Podcasting has gone mainstream with listeners consuming audio on mobile phones and in-car devices, as well as through smart speakers. Advancements in voice technology continue to expand possibilities for audio creation and marketing.

With such rapid growth in opportunity, how can you position your books in an increasingly voice-first world?

Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting, and Voice Technologies by Joanna Penn: https://amzn.to/3z7IRe5

As Joanna has noted, I've been podcasting for over a decade as well as narrating and producing my own audiobooks since 2014. I'm an avid consumer of audio content and I'm also experimenting with AI voice technologies. In this book, I'll share everything I know so you can position your books and your author brand for the next shift in reader behavior.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

A little over a week ago, Joanna Penn interviewed John Kremer on book marketing for 2022 and beyond. Here are a few of the points I made during that interview:

Your goal is to stay out there long enough that the people that need you or want you or hope to find you actually do find you.

A lot of us end up writing a book because we actually need the information in the book. Or we're looking for a really interesting novel that will entertain us. So we write it.

The key thing in marketing books that you need to still do is connect with people that can help you. Connect with the distributors, the editors, the producers of TV shows, the bloggers, the podcasters, and so on.

I recommend that you connect with people through email. That's something that even us shy introverts can do. You start by checking out their social media. Start commenting on what they're writing about, what they're doing. You try to make some sort of connection.

The reality is that that magic process doesn't work unless you make it happen. So, you do have to persist. You have to connect. If you don't connect the first time, you try again. You really have to be a little bit obnoxious, and patient!

The minute you connect with one person, the magic can start to happen. There is actually some magic that, if you connect with one top influencer, and they write about your book, chances are that other influencers follow that influencer, and they go, ‘Okay. If he's going to interview him on his podcast, I want him on my podcast.' And that kind of thing happens, and they start to reach out to you.

You're not really passive marketing when you're advertising on Amazon, which I think almost every author should do, especially an unknown author, because it's one way to get people to notice you.

Hire professionals to help you if you can't or don't want to do it yourself?

The neat thing about advertising on something like Amazon, or Facebook, or Google or wherever you might want to advertise, is that most online marketing, you can set a budget, even a small budget, $10 a week or $25 a week, and at least test the market and see if by advertising you make book sales, or you make connections, or in some way, it helps you move along in your goal to become a bestselling author.

It's about also staying out there long enough that people notice what you do, or they eventually look for what you do.

it's about also staying out there long enough that people notice what you do, or they eventually look for what you do.

Once you create a podcast and you set up the syndication, all you have to do is create more episodes, because the syndication will take place automatically. And that's one of the really, really neat things about doing a podcast.

Audio is hot, and the neat thing is that with a podcast, you can also do a video version of your podcast, and put it up on YouTube and Vimeo, and a key source right now is Rumble.

How do we know when we need to give up one way of marketing and find another one? When it's not producing results is one of the best ways to know. If you're not selling books any longer through that particular platform or whatever you're doing, nobody's discovering you, nobody's emailing you, things like that, then you know that, ‘Okay. What I'm doing now isn't working.'

If you know how to pin, if you know what to pin, you can get a lot of traffic through Pinterest.

I think all authors should be connecting with other authors, and doing some sort of co-op marketing where you help each other.

I think a podcast tour could work. In other words, you connect with 5 or 10 key podcasts, people who are podcasting in your area, and I would probably approach those podcasters by first saying, ‘I'd like to interview you,' which is what I did with you, and then you said, ‘Well, I want to interview you.'

The neat thing is that Substack, besides that email capability, and the paid version, which is like a membership site, they also offer podcasting. So you can do your podcasting on Substack, for free. No charge, and it's up and running, and you can syndicate it.

Note: I said that Andy Weir podcasted his book, The Martian, but he actually blogged about it, one short episode at a time. You can read more about Weir here: https://bookmarketingbestsellers.com/how-to-create-a-bestselling-novel-and-movie.

The most successful authors don't make all their money just from book sales.

Part of my content that I do in some of my websites has nothing to do with marketing or books in general. It's just a way of attracting people to my website, so they can discover, because I believe almost everybody has a book inside them. So the world is my audience for how to market a book.

The key thing is, if you're going to do marketing, do at least one thing a day.

If you do one thing a day, whether it's send out an email, do a podcast episode, get interviewed by somebody else, over time, that's 365 action items a year.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

For the entire transcript of this podcast, see: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2022/02/07/book-marketing-tips-for-the-long-term

Joanna Penn is the author of Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting and Voice Technologies.

This episode and the following one are courtesy of my friend, Judith Briles and her Your Guide to Book Publishing podcast.

Audiobooks are leading the publishing industry in terms of growth and smart authors and publishers are getting into the game as quickly as they can.

Most find there is a lot more to producing and marketing audio than they thought before getting into it. Much of it is different from publishing other formats, and the learning curve is steep.

Your takeaways include:

Tips to use your existing audiobook files to build your author platform

Tips on how to increase your royalty payments

Tips on how to increase the price of your audiobook

Tips on narrating—you or someone else

Tips to drive traffic to your website via your audiobooks

If you want to take you and your work to another level, then the AuthorU-Your Guide to Book Publishing podcast is for you. Judith Briles and her guest, Becky Parker Geist of Pro Audio Voices have lots to share in this episode.

Thank you for reading Book Marketing Success. This post is public so feel free to share it.

This episode and the previous one are courtesy of my friend, Judith Briles and her Your Guide to Book Publishing podcast.

Audiobooks are leading the publishing industry in terms of growth. Smart authors and publishers are getting into the game as quickly as they can. This episode is all about taking your audiobook presence to a higher level with key marketing and distribution tips!

Becky Parker Geist and her company, Pro Audio Voices, work on projects ranging from single narrator to full cast with music and sound effects to author-narrated books in all genres from children's books to novels to textbooks to memoirs.

Your takeaways include:

Tips on how to leverage your audiobook production from the inside out.

Tips for driving traffic to your website so your audience can continue to engage with you.

Tips on what makes a great listening experience and some key things to watch out for.

Tips on how to use the existing audiobook files to help spread the word in new ways you can only do with audio.

Wowsa tip on how to open your audiobook to 50 distribution platforms at once.

Discover a way to earn higher royalties than you can get from any existing retail platform while retaining more control over pricing and customer information.

and, soooooo much more.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

It’s time to give up your old happy hour of drinking and snacking after work. If you want to sell more books, you need to start a new Happy Hour—an hour in the morning or early afternoon where you pick up the phone and call people who could make a difference in marketing your books: media people, editors, bloggers, podcasters, website owners, social media influencers, etc.

In an hour, you can call four or five top influencers and have meaningful discussions with them. Ask them what you can do for them? Focus on that in the beginning. After you’ve created a helpful relationship, you can ask them if they can help you as well.

The best help you can offer each other is simple: Interview each other on your podcasts, or Facebook Lives, or Google Meetings, or Skype calls, Zoom calls, Whereby calls, etc. Or on your new podcast on Substack.com!

Join me sometime soon on my Whereby.com/bookmarketingupdates video space.

Once you interview your new friend, social share that sucker everywhere and everywhen you can. Once your new friend interviews you, again, social share that sucker everywhere and everywhen you can. And ask your friend to do the same.

The following is a podcast episode from Book Marketing Mentors hosted by Susan Friedmann. This episode features David H. Lawrence on how to record an audiobook.

Why you should turn your book into an audiobook …Where having an audiobook fits into marketing a system …Whether or not some books are better than others in the audiobook format …

If you should or shouldn't be the narrator of your audiobook …

The first step to take to get started converting your book into an audiobook …

Common audiobook mistakes to avoid …

The following is another podcast episode from Book Marketing Mentors hosted by Susan Friedmann.

This episode features Tina Dietz sharing her treasure trove of tips and techniques to get your message heard by creating a great audiobook.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

If you want to sell more books, be sure to let your potential readers know more about the true value of reading books—beyond the entertainment, inspiration, or information that a book might provide. For example …

A recent study found that adults who read three and a half hours a week are more likely (by 20 to 25%!) to outlive those who don’t read books (Social Science & Medicine study).

That means you could add two to three years to your life by reading books!

Now that’s incredible!

This is part two on the new Happy Hour. See part one here: https://bookmarketing.substack.com/p/one-minute-book-marketing-the-best.

Remember: If you want to sell more books, you need to start a new Happy Hour—an hour in the morning or early afternoon where you pick up the phone and call people who could make a difference in marketing your books: media people, editors, bloggers, podcasters, website owners, social media influencers, etc.

Note: Most people don't answer their phones these days. They let it go to voice mail. Or, they let their mail box fill up and only take the calls they want to take. Many people in Hollywood now use this strategy to keep their return calls down to a minimum.

Here are some things you should know about this new Happy Hour:

It's a numbers game. All of marketing is a numbers game. It may take 10 or 20 or 50 or even 130 calls before you get one YES.

Results will come. You will get a YES if you call enough people. It's your job to make the phone calls, not their job to say YES.

Stay positive. Keep plugging away. The YESes will come.

Make this a habit. Call every day. Or, at the very least, do your Happy Hour at least three times a week.

Make time for it. If you work full-time, do your Happy Hour during your lunch break or after work. But do it.

Stick to it. Try doing Happy Hour for at least one month. That's the amount of time you need to take to give the new Happy Hour a chance to work its magic.

Michele Cobb, host of the Behind the Mic podcast published by Audiofile magazine, interviewed bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell to talk about audiobooks, podcasts, and the meeting of the two.

Gladwell is the host of the Revisionist History podcast. Check out his latest audiobook, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know. Gladwell is the president of Pushkin Industries, an audiobook and podcast production company.

Discover more audiobook recommendations at https://audiofilemagazine.com.

As Malcolm writes his books, he’s always think about the audio experience as well. What will the audiobook sound like? What extra content can he add to the audiobook?

His company creates what he calls 5-star audiobooks that offer an immersive and enhanced listening experience. As he notes,

“When … you start with the audio in mind and then move toward the print, I think the writing really does change. I think your writing is necessarily more conversational. You spend a lot more time on character and emotion and those kinds of things. But you tend to do a little bit less of the things that print is good at (print is good for complicated, analytical kinds of stuff). Hard to do that when you're talking. So I think it does change the shape of books.”

When he writes a book, he does a table read of the entire book, listening for how it sounds. And then he often rewrites the draft to make it more concise, more interesting, more attractive to the ear. He’s also done public performances of parts of a book to get audience feedback.

His company, Pushkin, originally focused on podcasts but quickly moved into producing audiobooks as well. As Gladwell notes, the difference a podcast and an audiobook is slight. You pay for one, the other is free (in most cases). The other differences are mainly technical, which most listeners would not notice.

John’s Comments

If you are doing hour-long podcast interviews, you are essentially creating short audiobooks and print books with each session. And you can create even longer books and audiobooks by interviewing the same person or other experts in a series of related podcasts.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you!

If you want to sell more books, let your potential readers know more about the true value of reading books—beyond the entertainment, information, or inspiration that a book might provide. For example …

Readers of short stories need far less cognitive closure than those who read nonfiction essays (University of Toronto study).

The conclusion? Fiction readers, both those who read novels and those who read short stories, are more open-minded and creative.

Listen in as Anthony M. Turner of Biz Success Radio interviews Grant Ferry, an innovation expert from Australia. They talk about innovation as a mindset and how even the smallest innovation steps can ensure the survival of your business.

Grant Ferry’s first book is The Innovation Opportunity: Getting Started with Business Innovation and Moving Beyond Survival!, available on Amazon. I love this cover (but, alas, survival is misspelled as survuval).

Fortunately, the actual book cover doesn’t have that problem:

Also, check out Grant’s video about innovation.

Note: The description of this video on YouTube should have featured Grant Ferry’s name in the title (The Innovation Opportunity by Grand Ferry) as well as in the description so people could find it via his name.

Plus the description shows where to buy his books, but do not provide links. Why not?

To purchase the books visits:

- www.fortitudebusinessconsulting.com.au

- Amazon:

- Audible:

- Kindle:

It looks like they intended to add links after the colons, but that didn’t happen.

And to make www.fortitudebusinessconsulting.com.au a clickable link on YouTube, you have to add the https:// like below:

https://www.fortitudebusinessconsulting.com.au

Also, of course, list the full titles of both books in the description, with links to both books on Amazon, Audible, and Kindle.

The above podcast is courtesy of Brendan from MasterTalk on YouTube.

Public speaking, much like leadership, is NOT something you're born with, but rather something you learn over time if you know exactly what to work on.

1. Master Silences

Silences are the biggest difference between great and exceptional public speakers. The top speakers in the world use this technique to make their presentations better instead of seeing them as a sign of weakness. That's why it's absolutely crucial that you learn to master the art of silences.

2. Master Filler Words e.g. ah, uh, eh

Saying filler words in a presentation detracts the quality of your entire pitch, so it's very important that you learn to remove them altogether before you think about giving an exceptional presentation. By replacing these filler words with silences, you'll be able to get one step closer to mastering this.

3. Master Your Audience

The quality of your presentation is solely determined by how much your audience LOVES you. Thus, it is important that you're always thinking about how to craft your presentation in a way that your audience will be able to fully understand what you're saying and get behind you.

What is the goal of your presentation? Teaching, motivation, entertainment?

Understand the needs and desires of your audience.

Communicate their needs back to your audience to get them excited.

Tell stories and analogies.

Stay energetic.

4. Master Eye Contact

Eye contact is a tricky subject because it varies based on the space you're in, the number of people in the audience and your ability as a speaker. But don’t look up to the ceiling. Look at the people in your audience (but don’t focus on just one person).

5. Master Posture

Most students assert they don't need coaching on posture, when in reality, most of them make two big mistakes when speaking: legs are too far apart and the famous leg tick, where they frantically move their feet for no reason. Brendan always recommends Sticking Together, where you essentially glue your feet together to avoid these problems until you're in a comfortable position to present.

Bonus Video: 5 Advanced Public Speaking Tips

We explore the powerful tools that the best communicators in the world utilize to make their presentations perfect in this week's episode of MasterTalk.

1. Master Impromptu Speeches

I do not know what I'm going to say next as much as you do. But, through my way of speaking, I'm going to CONVINCE you that I do so that with some practice, you will too.

Speakers who have mastered the art of presenting anything to anyone with no preparation have mastered the following three things.

They use silences to masterfully buy time. Instead of standing up and worrying about what to say next, they raise their glass, confidently look at the room, and say nothing to buy time.

They have strong facial non-verbal cues. Through their face, they convince you that they’ve practiced their speech 100's of times.

They keep eye contact with their audience at all time to never hint that they have no clue what’s coming next.

2. Master Vocal Tone Changes

Vocal tones have nothing to with singing or being a news reporter, but rather deciding in advance where you want to change your tone, in other words, artificially using them to grab the attention of your audience.

For speaking tones, have a few honest friends tell you if they enjoy hearing your voice to figure out how to adjust your voice for a mass audience.

High Tones project optimism, positivity, something amazing happening at the company, or an exciting future for the organization moving forward. I usually use high tones when I present a solution to a problem or when I’m presenting what MasterTalk is to prospective clients.

Low Tones are mostly used to emphasize the key message of your presentation, or the moments that really matter that can be somber, extremely vital, or emotional to hear.

3. Master Audience Obsessively

Take your level of obsessiveness with your audience to the next level. It is the only way to master any of these tips. Here’s a trick you can use to really bring it to the top 1% of speakers.

Practice talking to an audience that doesn’t exist. When I would participate in business competitions, most of them consisted of a judging panel that was NEVER from the actual company. In order to win, I needed to pretend as if they existed in the flesh which meant being inspired by what they are doing, raving over the mission and embodying that in full, Then, when the audience was real, it was easier for me to present.

Get a friend to act like your audience and point out every flaw that you don’t understand about them and their needs.

4. Master Your Pace

Mastering pace means understanding how you normally speak and aligning what you normally do with the way you present. This is known as aligning. Most people speak faster in presentation mode than if they are conversing at lunch. That because they have a different mindset in presentations (get over it as fast possible). The key in speaking is to speak at the same speed for both.

5. Master the Unknown

From my experience in theater, I’ve learned that some of the best performers were also the most fearless. The best presenters can give a keynote under any circumstances, no matter what challenge is thrown at them.

Fall in love with disaster. No matter what happens, whether it’s a broken mouse or projector, or forgetting to put your slides on a USB so you have to present without them, don’t let anything falter you.

For business or one-on-one public speaking coaching inquiries, you can reach Brendan at brendenkbusiness@gmail.com.

Pinterest is a very powerful social media platform that can help you get more visits to your website as well as more sign-ups for your newsletter. So learn how to get more people to visit your website by offering freebies!

Kay Moody, author of young adult fantasy books, gets 2.6 million views every month on Pinterest. In her Pinterest profile description, she offers the following: Visit my website to get my FREE short stories.

You can do the same. If you have something free to offer, add your free offer to your Pinterest profile description just like Kay did! You can add your free offer on your Pinterest board descriptions as well.

If you offer a free report, for example, featuring keto recipes, send people to your website via your Pinterest profile and some of your Pinterest board descriptions. You can write something like this: Get 100 free Keto recipes by visiting DailyKetoSuccess.com.

Using freebies on Pinterest is a very powerful way to get more people to visit your website and sign up for your email newsletter. And those newsletter signups are the first step in creating relationships with potential customers.

Check out her Pinterest profile here: https://www.pinterest.com/kaylmoodybooks.

By the way, her website is https://www.kaylmoody.com. Below is one of her ebooks she offers for free via her website.

She can crack and shatter glass with her mind, but the only people who call it a gift are the ones who don't have it.

Listen to this this story of how Shaahin Cheyene ended up getting massive national publicity for his business selling Herbal Ecstasy. You can find the complete story in the Dropping Bombs video below:

In Cheyene’s Amazon Mastery, Amazon FBA Seller Course, he helps individuals and business owners to create predictable recurring revenue with his bulletproof Amazon systems that never fail, putting you ahead of 80% of all Amazon sellers.

Find out more about his course here: https://fbasellercourse.com.

Find out more about Shaahin’s book Billion: How I Became the King of the Thrill Pill Cult by clicking here: https://amzn.to/3D88Iod.

I think there are things to learn from Shaahin about persistence, audacity, integrity, authenticity, and influence. That’s why I shared his interview and quotes.

Words of Wisdom from Shaahin Cheyene

Here are a few of Shaahin’s quotable words of wisdom featured in the above video showcasing Brad Lea of Dropping Bombs interviewing Shaahin Cheyene.

I was motivated to put my own dent in the universe. — Shaahin Cheyene

At the end of the day, it all comes down to two things: Authenticity and Influence. — Shaahin Cheyene

People can sense a natural hunger for success. — Shaahin Cheyene

Once I set my mind to something, nobody can tell me no. — Shaahin Cheyene

Riches are in the niches. — Shaahin Cheyene

The more you think about the negative stuff, the more it will be affirmed. — Shaahin Cheyene

If you’re not focused on making your money now, someone else is. — Shaahin Cheyene

I've never been one to chase money. You chase excellence, not money. — Shaahin Cheyene

If you can learn how to influence people, you will never go hungry. — Shaahin Cheyene

Check out Shaahin’s Hack and Grow Rich podcast: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/hack-and-grow-rich-podcast-shaahin-cheyene-DenFP24ySfd.

And, finally, here is a link to many of the podcasts that have featured interviews with Shaahin Cheyene. If you have a business book or story, these podcasts might be interested in interviewing you as well.

https://www.shaahincheyenne.com/podcasts/collaborations

How do you get your videos out to more and more people via YouTube? Here's what Shaun Letang of Music Industry How-To has to say about that:

Well today I’m going to share a big secret you can use to get your videos out there more: Optimize them for YouTube’s search and suggestion engines!

If you didn’t know, YouTube videos can be found in one of a few ways.

Send Viewers Directly

First, you can send people there directly. Unless you already have a big audience, you won’t get many views this way.

Keyword Optimize Your Videos

Next, you can optimize your videos so they get found when people search for specific things.

As a very basic example, if someone searches for the words California rapper (California rapper being the keyword), you want your video to show up for that YouTube search. In order to maximize the chance that happens, you’ll need to optimize your video for that term and other related terms (aka keywords).

To optimize your videos, put the words California rapper (your keyword) in your video description, the video title, in the actual video, and more. This will show YouTube you’re relevant for this search term and increases the likelihood they’ll show your video when people search for that keyword.

That’s an overly simplified description of how to optimize for a search term.

By learning and doing these optimizations, you can get many people consistently finding your videos when they search for specific terms. Imagine making a bunch of videos, optimizing them, and having them bring you new subscribers and fans every day. Well, this is exactly what can happen!

Video optimization is so underutilized in the music industry (and the book industry) it’s crazy. So, by default, optimization is still open for you to take advantage of. Every musician and book author who’s serious about doing music or writing full time should learn YouTube optimization.

Get YouTube to Suggest Your Videos

A final way you can get traffic from YouTube is by YouTube suggesting your videos to its users. This won’t normally happen until you get an existing subscriber base on the platform, and YouTube knows that people like what you’re doing.

From there, YouTube will test your videos by sending them out to new audiences, and if these viewers like what you’re doing (which YouTube will measure via watch time, engagement, and more data), YouTube will keep pushing your video out to more and more people over time.

Get a free ebook, 5 Steps to a Profitable YouTube Music Career, by going here: https://www.musicindustryhowto.com.

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you!

For this episode of the Book Marketing Success Podcast, I interview Grant Ferry, the author of The Innovation Opportunity: Getting started with business innovation and moving beyond survival!

Here are a few of the questions we covered in this podcast. Note: Most book authors are owner-operators. That means that they need to innovate to create the best books, publish those books in a new way, and market those books with new passion and foresight.

In basic terms, what is innovation?

What is the innovation imperative?

Why do owner operated businesses innovate less than larger business?

What are the biggest mistakes made by owner operated businesses when it comes to innovation?

What are the biggest weaknesses smaller businesses have when it comes to innovation?

What strengths do smaller businesses have when it comes to innovation?

What are the key elements of engaging in effective and efficient ongoing innovation?

What is the innovation opportunity for owner operated businesses?

How should owner operated business get started with innovation?

What should book authors do to innovate?

Listen in to hear Grant’s answers to these questions!

In this Book Marketing Success Podcast, John Kremer interviewed Elizabeth Backman of Wildflower Social Media. Elizabeth gave a ton of tips on how to create a great Instagram profile and post images and videos that get results. Listen in for all the details. Or watch in the video below.

Liz creates social media strategies tailored for book author and their books. For most authors, she focuses on using Instagram as the major social media tool for promoting books. She teaches authors how to leverage themselves to promote their books as well as Instagram best practices that are often missed or simply overlooked.

Look at all the wonderful graphical elements she has on her Wildflower Instagram profile at https://www.instagram.com/wildflowrsocial:

You can watch the interview as well:

And here is my new LinkTree profile which Liz recommended in the video: https://linktr.ee/bookmarketing. When you go to that link, you can also create your own Link Tree profile.

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

Listen to my Book Marketing Success Podcast: https://bookmarketing.substack.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing

Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a video: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing/shoutouts/U2hvdXRvdXQ6NjIxZjBmNDFkNTVjODUwMDIzZWQxMzk5

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Connect with me here:

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BookMarketingSuccessStories

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnfrederickkremer

Here's the video of the podcast on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/videos/189191-book-marketing-success-podcast-marketing-authors-and-books-on-instagram

Here's the video of the podcast on Vimeo:

Here's the video of the podcast on Rumble: https://rumble.com/vz0i8u-elizabeth-bachman-how-to-use-instagram-to-market-books.html

And here's the podcast on Twitter:

And here's the video on LinkedIn (first 15 minutes): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnkremer_bookmarketing-instagrammarketing-activity-6914864001428455424-oWPI

Introducing the brand new book Marketing Counts by Shreya Banerjee and Paul Counts — an important new book that digs deep into all the information entrepreneurs and marketers really need to know.

Why everything you’ve learned about marketing is wrong

How to identify your perfect customer

Master messaging to your audience, and much more.

With tips on everything from effective landing pages, SEO, and email marketing hacks to a deep dive into every kind of advertising available on platforms today, Marketing Counts is an essential, must read for anyone in the field.

Marketing Questions and Answers

These questions were answered during the podcast episode.

What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to how marketing is taught and implemented?

Explain why the letters FTE will literally transform a business or organization?

Why do businesses market themselves like they are promoting a hobby instead of a real business?

How are businesses holding themselves back from true success?

How can your mindset influence your marketing for the better?

How can you position your business as the leader in a crowded marketplace?

Free Report on Emailing

For a free report on email, Boost Your Sales With These 26 Powerful Email Marketing Tips, click here: https://www.emailmarketingcounts.com.

About Paul and Shreya

Shreya Banerjee & Paul Counts are co-founders of Marketing Counts, serial entrepreneurs, tech startup founders, fractional CMOs, and advisors to the influencers.

They are teachers at heart who have a passion for helping entrepreneurs and students alike grasp proven marketing concepts.

They created a marketing curriculum that has been in over 140 high schools.

They have also taught marketing to numerous colleges throughout the country.

Their client list includes a who's who of the personal development and influencer world, and their marketing can be seen on display with Fortune 50 companies and Publicly-Traded organizations.

They bring a process-based approach to marketing stemming from Shreya Banerjee's Six Sigma Black Belt experience.

For more information, email paul@marketingcounts.com.

One of my friends, Roberta Vigilence, author of How to Secure Sponsors Successfully, Third Edition Revised—Funding For Events, sent me a Facebook notice about a video released just a few days ago. Here’s her message:

Guess whose book got a shout out. Yours did. I told Loni Mendez about your book. She purchased it and here is what she said.

Listen in, especially, at the 8:38, for a wonderful and sweet message about 1001 Ways to Market Your Books:

In the above Grounded Jeremiah video, Loni tells her story as an author, going from one book to three books over a few years.

Special thanks to this amazing author Yolanda-Loni Mendez for sharing her inspiring journey with the women of Grounded.

Check out Loni’s store on BigCartel: https://lonismerch.bigcartel.com where she features her current three books.

You can also find her latest book on Amazon here: Nurture the Soul: Inspiring Words from My Heart to Yours.

Big Cartel Online Stores

If you don’t have a store online, check out BigCartel.com where you can sell your books as well as custom merchandise as screenprints, resoprints, clothing, wood, tote bags, or original art. For five products, it’s free to set up a store. Or, for up to 50 products, the cost is $9.99 for your online store. Big Cartel has an Alexa rank of 4,529 so it has a lot of traffic that might help people to discover your online store.

So, I took a half hour to set up a little store on Big Cartel. You can find it here: https://bookmarketing.bigcartel.com

Here is the edited transcript of most of this episode:

John Kremer: I want to welcome everybody to another episode of The Book Marketing Success Podcast. Today I'm featuring my great friend, Judith Briles. She's the author of many books, including How to Create a Million Dollar Speech.

She will talk about speaking both as a tool for promoting yourself has an author as well as using speaking as a great way to create content.

Judith Briles: It's a dual edged sword. There are so many things that you can do with speaking. And, the number one thing is you can sell a boatload of books.

That's what I call the cash cow two-step, combining your words and your speaking. Together, they're dynamite.

Ask yourself: Who are you writing for? Who are you reaching out to? Once you figure that out, that connection is already off and running. And when you can now bring the verbal side to it, and the how to, or the storytelling, or whatever it is that you as an author are writing about. It's the way to really connect—and where people want to take you home with them. And since they can't usually physically take you home with them, your book would be the next best thing in most cases.

John Kremer: Another way that it works is that they can also take you home, via the audio and videos that you create, from your speaking engagements and your podcast episodes. I mean, I take you home every week via your wonderful podcast.

Judith Briles:

I think that is an evolution. I actually started out as a speaker before I ever wrote anything. At the time, there was no such thing as blogging, there was no email. But I would write articles.

When my first book came out, which was going to be the one and only—no one told me that books bred by themselves. Then people said, well, we want you to come and talk on your book. And it was a while before I really got that this is the way to move.

I am a recovered New York publishing snob. I used to believe that “Oh, only legitimate authors are published in New York.” I did 18 books with the big boys before I finally crossed the bridge.

It all started because of speaking. I was speaking to a group in Seattle, and I got a call and they said, “Judith, could you reach out to your publisher and ask if we could get maybe a little discount if we bought a few of your books?”

Well, I had just taken back the rights to the book. I bought the remaining stock, which consisted of 60 copies. And I said, “I'm sure I can make an arrangement. How about if I could get you a third off?”

And they say, “Oh, that'd be so great. So tell them we'd like 1000 copies.”

Well, that was the giant goal. I actually needed to do a revamping of the book. And that's how I crossed the bridge. And once I did that, and figured out how much faster and timely and how much I could control it. And, oh, I can make more money. I never looked back. Never look back.

John Kremer: Right. It's really great, especially in your case where you ended up having to print more books, which a publisher would have taken weeks and weeks and possibly years to do?

Judith Briles: Yes, I had to do the rewrite. And then I had to find a cover designer, and I had to find a layout person. I had to do all that and I was totally ignorant.

The only mistake I made in that process was that I knew nothing about manufacturing and printing books. And I probably paid twice as much per book to do that. But I was able to negotiate enough books. I had a 2,000 copy first run for the book. They wanted 1,000 copies. Then they immediately came back and wanted 500 more copies. And, you know, I was in the green.

John Kremer: That's one of the really neat things about speaking: not only can you get paid to speak, but you can sell your book as well. And they will often buy copies for everybody in the audience, or all the members of their association.

Judith Briles: Well, I had the formula down. I was a traveling store by the time this thing really got rolling. And we knew, depending upon the time of day, how many books we would sell, for the audience, for the time of day, if I was opening in the middle, if I was the keynote, or I was a workshop person, or if I was the closing person. I mean, they could love you, you could rock the roof, but half of them are already gone, because they just want to go home. And, if you’re the evening speaker, rarely did you sell much in books, because they may love you  but they wanted to get home.

I have always been very transparent on what my book sales and speaking fees are. I sold over a million books this way. I grossed over $2 million dollars. At the same time, I made over $3 million more in speaking fees. So I think people are nuts not to be speaking on their expertise.

John Kremer: I agree with you on that. When I talk about ways to market your books, probably my number one way is speaking.

Judith Briles: Number one, number one.

John Kremer: Because you control it for the most part. You don't have to rely on the bookstores to sell your books or a catalog to pick up your book or TV appearances or anything. You just start booking yourself as a speaker.

Judith Briles: And when you sell your books, you get paid on the spot and nobody returns them. That's an author's dream.

John Kremer: Non-returnable is definitely an author's dream. I remember selling my book sometimes when people would come up with cash. My book was $19.95, but they would give me $20. I made five cents extra.

Judith Briles: No, we always rounded our numbers. But the other thing I told people at gigs, because you're there, you're there to sign your fabulous book. You're not discounting, sweetheart. Why should you discount? So my books were marked at $20 and $25. I actually raised prices on books. I did have one book that went for $35. I had one book for $29.

Once you start having multiple books, you could put bundles together. We offered a six pack. And then it was like they got a free book in the six pack via the price and we would bring that down. We were like a traveling store. It made a lot of difference. It really helped.

I started pre-selling a book six months before I ever had it in hand. Six months I was starting to collect money.

John Kremer: That's one of the things I really liked about self-publishing. When I first came out with 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, it was called 101 Ways to Market Your Books. I actually pre-sold three books in a deal. And so I had to write them (because I hadn't written any of them when I offered the deal). 1,000 people paid me up front for the book deal.

Judith Briles: And that pays for your whole print run. It pays for so much when you're ready to go. But you know, you do have to use the money for what you're going to deliver people. And the only deal I offered for the presale group is I covered shipping. I would eat the shipping cost.

John Kremer: Can you tell us some of your inside secrets of how to book a speaking engagement and to get the ones that buy 1000 copies?

Judith Briles: Well, at first, I didn't know that they were going to buy 1,000 copies. But it was the topic. I had three distinct areas that I spoke on. One was from a financial background, when I was with EF Hutton, long ago, the token woman stockbroker. That's how I started speaking. Someone asked, “Hey, can you come over and speak to a group of us in the East Bay?”

And I said, “Yeah, I could.” And, I did so many things wrong from a presentation side of it, but I realized I knew a lot of stuff. Once I figured out how to start doing this structure and get it sequential, it was hot. So I started in the financial area

I then went back to school and earned my doctorate. My thesis was on ethics. And the topic was: Do women undermine other women? I discover that was going to be the ultimate lemonade stand. It propelled me into major media, from the Wall Street Journal to the National Enquirer, an unbelievable media magnet

I thought I was writing for the corporate woman, but I was actually writing for the people who would buy my services. Corporations were scared to death of me. I said to them, “I don't get this. You do programs on sexual harassment. But it’s often women undermining women.” Men don't discriminate was one of my pitch lines.

Contrary to popular belief, men don't discriminate. They will equally shaft anybody. Women, though, are more inclined to undermine their own gender. But that idea was taboo.

But, then, my audience came and found me. It was called health care—a predominantly female dominated workplace that had toxicity woven through its blood veins. They always wanted zapping conflict in the workplace or sabotage: how to deal with the pitfalls skunks snakes scorpions insolence in the healthcare workplace. And anybody who worked in healthcare knew exactly who I was talking about. The book sold itself.

That was what carried me for a long time. And then other things, came along. I've transitioned because I've always helped people with books, introducing people to my agent, etc.

Then I got injured in a hotel accident, slipping on the marble floors, and ended up with a brain injury. I couldn’t do the work I used to do. For a while I was wheelchair bound. I couldn’t travel. I couldn’t do math.

How was I going to take care of my family? Well, when I was able to start speaking again, I began helping people with their books.

The gift that came to me is when I'm talking to someone about their book, I see it. I see how it's supposed to lay out. I see how it's supposed to structure. I see it. So that was the new gift that came to me.

Do I still speak when I'm asked to? Absolutely. I love to speak. I love to share. I love to talk about kick-butt book marketing. I love to try to inject the fun that marketing is instead of feeling like it’s overwhelming all the time.

John Kremer: I think people are often afraid to speak. And I think there are a lot who say, “Oh, I don't want to do that. I would shake in my boots.” But in my own experience, if you've done it a few times, you start to really enjoy it. And I think that most people that start to speak and get used to it, actually start to enjoy it. I started pushing people off the stage to get to speak. They took too long to introduce me!

Judith Briles: Some people would rather die than speak. But the public needs to hear that you wrote this book. Why should you speak? Because you're a problem solver. I've always said that it's not money that makes the world go around. It’s problems. We authors are problem solvers. We're problem solvers.

I had an epiphany. If you don't start taking some of your own ideas and write about them or speak them, other people will. …

Part of my speaking contract specified that I had an educational table—and not in the back of the room where I was speaking, but out in the exhibit area, near the bathroom or registration where the traffic was. My record in five hours: I sold 560 books, one book at a time. And that was a gross income of $16,000 and some change.

For the nonfiction writer, here is how you create a speech. You have chapters. Each chapter is a key point. Then ask what's your point? How are you going to reinforce it? Is it going to be with an alarming statistic? Is it going to be with an awesome story? How are you going to set it up? And then, are you going to have an activity or an exercise within it? …

It's always smart to have an opening story and a closing story. Tell stories that are yours, not anecdotes from other speakers. Tell signature stories that are your own.

When, for example, I'm talking about conflict, I often tell a story about how I ran into the back of an elephant because I wasn't paying attention. Then I would compare it by saying that some of the people you have to work with are equivalent to running into the rear end of an elephant. Hey, point made. Now move on. …

John Kremer: It’s easier to sell when you're in control of the pace of what you're telling. Q&A really interferes with that rhythm. That's why you always go back to make that one final point. So you're back in control.

Judith's website: https://thebookshepherd.com

AuthorU: https://authoru.org/april.html

Book Marketing Success is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing

Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a video: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing/shoutouts/U2hvdXRvdXQ6NjIxZjBmNDFkNTVjODUwMDIzZWQxMzk5

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Welcome to this episode of the Book Marketing Success Podcast.

Let’s talk about marketing as storytelling. All marketing, ultimately, is about telling stories. Become a storyteller if you want to sell more copies of your books.

For example, in my own experience, I often tell the story of why I wrote and published 1001 Ways to Market Your Books.

The story is short and simple. I first created a Directory of Book Printers. People loved it. But then they would come to me for help on how to get the books they’d printed out of their closets, their spare rooms, or their garages.

Well, that was easy for me. I knew at least 101 Ways to Market Your Books, which was the title of the first edition of my book on selling books. Now the book is titled 1001 Ways to Market Your books, and it’s still a lie, because there are more than 1001 Ways.

Telling the story of how and why you came to write your book is a good way to market your book.

You can also talk about other reasons why you wrote the book.

You want to help people.

You want to entertain people (if you've written a novel).

You wanted to change people's lives.

You want to let people know how to do something.

So tell stories when you're marketing your books.

I was recently listening to the Social Media Marketing podcast where they reported that long videos are no longer working on Facebook. Facebook is a highway of fast-moving cars, of users moving from one post to another with hardly a glance.

If you go over two minutes on a video, you’ve gone on way too long.

I’ve gone on over two minutes here, but I’ve still kept it short.

Tell stories. Keep them short. Have fun. And move on!

This is John Kremer, with your book marketing tip for the day!

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing

Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a video: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing/shoutouts/U2hvdXRvdXQ6NjIxZjBmNDFkNTVjODUwMDIzZWQxMzk5

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Rumble: https://rumble.com/register/BookMarket

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user135683864

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnKremer

Here is the audio and text content from one of Judith Briles’ new 3-minute videos featured in her Author & Publishing Tips in 3 Minutes or Less playlist on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhXzmXm7u15joaoEPy23ASD2mCXtW-c-f). That playlist currently features 37 videos. Here’s one that got my attention:

Use Amazon Search Inside to Add to Your Book

How many of you have used Amazon? I bet most of you do.

Have you ever looked inside the book when you're looking at the details? Most books have the look inside or search inside feature in the book listing.

Now, go to a comparable book like yours, a bestselling book on your topic? Take a peek at how the look inside feature is laid out. Usually it has a table of contents, or what we now call the contents page.

Take a look. Does any of that book’s content match what you're thinking about including in your book? We're not talking about doing a copy paste, copy paste of content. We're looking for noodling. Is there something maybe you hadn't thought about to include or something that sparks your thinking?

You know, that seems so old, everyone has it? Maybe I need something with a unique twist. The search inside feature is very, very helpful on Amazon to spur your own thinking and planning for a book

I would also read the back cover to look for bullet points that pop out at me. Does any of the back cover copy speak to me in what I'm writing about?

I can't tell you how many times I've watched movies or a TV show, and there's a line in it that pops out and reminds me that I need to include something like that in my book. And then I end up writing an entire chapter on eight words that I heard that became the golden egg.

And now that you’re read the edited text and listened to the podcast audio, watch Judith tell the same story in her YouTube video:

Judith is using the power of YouTube playlists to showcase a series of related videos and, in essence, creating a YouTube podcast via an integrated playlist of related videos. Cool!

I might steal this idea from her or, more likely, copy some of her idea to create a new playlist for myself. You could create a series of related short videos as a playlist for your nonfiction book, novel, memoir, children’s book, or podcast.

Here are my two main playlists about book marketing:

Book Marketing Success Podcast (a playlist that syndicates many episodes from my Book Marketing Success Podcast): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBmBDUpR8MYLB0AIBTk3Zau82aW0Y9cZ5.

Book Marketing Tips Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBmBDUpR8MYJccMHTCuq-loHZ5ORYPso3.

Listen to my Book Marketing Success Podcast: https://bookmarketing.substack.com

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing

Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a video: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing/shoutouts/U2hvdXRvdXQ6NjIxZjBmNDFkNTVjODUwMDIzZWQxMzk5

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee!: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

450 million people listen to podcasts every month. You can reach those millions of people via a daily, weekly, or limited podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, and many other Podcast apps, directories, and platforms. Plus, with a simple modification, you can syndicate your podcast as well through video and social media platforms.

30% more people listen to podcasts now than in 2020. That’s a big growing audience!

Podcasting is expected to reach a billion listeners by 2028. So the growth in the potential audience will more than double in the next six years!

People like listening to podcasts while they drive around town, while preparing and eating meals, while gardening or walking or doing other outdoor activities. Podcasts are easy to consume.

A number of podcasts reach several million people every day.

One of my friends, Judith Briles, has had 10 million podcast downloads in six years—and been exposed to ten times as many people via syndication and video.

The Bible in a Year podcast has had more than 238 million downloads, thus becoming the #1 podcast in the United States. It features two men from Minnesota reading the Bible for about 20 minutes a day.

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing

Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a video: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing/shoutouts/U2hvdXRvdXQ6NjIxZjBmNDFkNTVjODUwMDIzZWQxMzk5

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

I love this recent interview of Jackie Lapin, founder of SpeakerTunity, by J.V. Crum III of the Conscious Millionaire Podcast Network.

It’s a strong, detailed, useful interview on How to Get Booked as a Speaker (or Podcast Guest!).

Also, check out Jackie’s speaker packet which you can model to create your own speaker packet: http://www.jackielapin.com/wp-content/uploads/OfficialSpeakingPacketGeneral.pdf

Michelle Nedelec of Awareness Strategies and the Business Ownership Podcast interviews Jackie Lapin, founder of SpeakerTunity, on The Art of Getting Booked. Another great interview.

Connect with me here:

Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/johnkremer

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BookMarketingSuccessStories

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnfrederickkremer

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkremer

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/johnkremer

Rumble: https://rumble.com/register/BookMarket

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@bookmarketing

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/johnkremer

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user135683864

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnKremer

Offer me a coffee or pizza tip: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing/tipping/TGlua0Jsb2NrOjYyMWVmYWRhMzJiNjdmMDAxNzUxMTIyMg==

In this episode of the Book Marketing Success podcast, I interviewed Dr. Rachel Noorda, assistant professor at Portland State University, and Michele Cobb, executive director of PubWest on the new report about book distribution options, Publishing Distribution Practices: How the Future of Publishing Distribution Can Be Forward-Thinking, Sustainable, Eco-Friendly, and Profitable.

Here are a few of the questions answered during this podcast episode:

How can the book industry decrease the return rate for books?

What does efficient delivery of print books to readers look like going forward?

What needs to be done to make book printing truly carbon neutral by 2050?

What’s stopping the industry from embracing POD as the preferred means for printing?

What shortcomings in the book industry were most exposed due to the pandemic?

And here are a few of the insights gained from the report:

Local buying can restrict supply chain disruptions caused by outsourcing and can support cost-effective delivery

Trade organizations such as IBPA and PubWest are vital for creating systems and alliances for the best publishing distribution practices.

Reduced print runs and more effective book marketing and promotion are key to minimizing returns.

Pre-orders (especially direct-to-consumer) can be particularly effective for combating returns and accurately determining print runs.

Distribution Practices Report

To read the entire Publishing Distribution Practices: How the Future of Publishing Distribution Can Be Forward-Thinking, Sustainable, Eco-Friendly, and Profitable report, click here: https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.ibpa-online.org/resource/resmgr/docs/DistributionPractices.pdf.

Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA)

Founded in 1983 to support independent publishers nationwide, IBPA leads and serves the independent publishing community through advocacy, education, and tools for success. With over 4,000 members, IBPA is the largest publishing association in the United States. Its vision is a world where every independent publisher has the access, knowledge, and tools needed to professionally engage in all aspects of an inclusive publishing industry. For more information, visit https://www.ibpa-online.org.

Attend the IBPA Publishing University live in Orlando, Florida on April 29 to 30. Check out the details here: https://www.publishinguniversity.org.

Portland State University (PSU)

PSU is more than Portland’s public research university. It’s a place to test ideas and projects that show the world how different is done. Their innovative approach combines education with creative problem-solving and collaboration across campus for maximum impact. Nestled in the literary hub of Portland in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, the Book Publishing Program at PSU equips students with skills in writing, editing, design, and marketing that prepare them for work inside and outside of the publishing industry. For more info, visit https://www.pdx.edu/english/mams-book-publishing.

Contact Dr. Rachel Noorda, assistant professor, via email at moorda@pdx.edu.

Publishers Association of the West (PubWest)

PubWest, a national trade organization of publishers and publishing-related members, is dedicated to offering professional education, publishing-related benefits, and opportunities for their members to do business as well as advocating for members, recognizing outstanding achievement in publishing, and providing a forum for networking to our members from across the United States and Canada. For more information, visit https://www.pubwest.org.

Contact Michele Cobb, executive director, via email at executivedirector@pubwest.org.

Sign up for the PubWest Webinar on the Publishing Distribution Practices Report to be held on June 22nd at 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m. Eastern. Click here to sign up: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RrArIoI6Sj2WNnKzD97d7g.

Listen to my Book Marketing Success Podcast: https://bookmarketing.substack.com

Website: https://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com

1001 Ways to Market Your Books: https://amzn.to/3ICjpAs

SnipFeed: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing

Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a video: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing/shoutouts/U2hvdXRvdXQ6NjIxZjBmNDFkNTVjODUwMDIzZWQxMzk5

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Phil Singleton, host of the Local Business Leaders Podcast and co-author of SEO for Growth, interviews Jon Schram, chief marketing officer of the Purple Guys tech support company.

Why Write a Book?

The key points on becoming a bestselling author on Amazon start at 11:35. Why write a book: Up your E-A-T score for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

10 Steps to Create Authority

Here are the 10 steps to creating authority for you and your book using an SEO-driven authority campaign. Use blog posts to write your book, section by section. Or use podcast episodes to record and write your book, section by section.

11 Steps to Optimizing Your Book on Amazon

And here are eleven steps to optimizing and marketing your book via Amazon. They use the example of Jon’s book, I.T. Support Selection Made Simple: How to get friendly, reliable support for a more productive day.

Here, again, is Jon Schram’s book, I.T. Support Selection Made Simple: How to get friendly, reliable support for a more productive day:

Connect with John Kremer

Ask me a question and I'll answer back with a video: https://snipfeed.co/bookmarketing/shoutouts/U2hvdXRvdXQ6NjIxZjBmNDFkNTVjODUwMDIzZWQxMzk5

Book me as a podcast guest or be a guest for my podcast. Connect here: https://www.matchmaker.fm/podcast-guest/john-kremer-bd46ec

Or just buy me a cup of coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BookMarketing

Or become my patron for all good things: https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing

In this episode of the Book Marketing Success Podcast, John Kremer interviews Janine Bolon, author of Author Podcasting, on being a great podcast guest as well as creating your own podcast.

Janine Bolon is the author of Author Podcasting: Be a Stand-Out Guest While Taking Your Book on a Virtual Tour. Available at Amazon: https://amzn.to/393xUB6 or free with shipping at https://book.authorpodcasting.com/free-sh.

Author Podcasting is a guide to the author who wishes to promote their book without coming off as salesy. There is so much more to you, your book and your message that you can share with podcast hosts and their listeners.

Download the free media kit checklist here: https://authorpodcasting.com/checklist.

Connect with John Kremer here:

Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/johnkremer

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BookMarketingSuccessStories

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/173511.John_Kremer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnfrederickkremer

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkremer

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/johnkremer

Rumble: https://rumble.com/register/BookMarket

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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/johnkremer

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user135683864

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnKremer

Become my patron for all good things: https://www.patreon.com/bookmarketing