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From Karen Saunders

Your Branding, Marketing & Self-Publishing Coach



Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

March 26th, 2014 | By: Karen Saunders

Self-Publishers: Use GoodReads to Promote Your Book to Your Target Market

GoodReads is a like an online book club or a social media network for people who like to read books. Amazon owns GoodReads, so if you buy a Kindle and you open a GoodReads account you can synchronize your Kindle with GoodReads. It will offer recommendations of books to read based on your past reading history and how you rate books. GoodReads Author Program This free program is great way for authors to reach their target market. Readers may add your book to their recommended list on GoodReads and authors can promote their books to passionate readers. Here’s how to get…

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September 26th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

3 Creative Ways to Sell More eBooks: Matchbook, Kobo, Ganxy

Kindle Matchbook Program Amazon has just unveiled Kindle Matchbook for ebook publishers. This special program encourages their customers to buy two copies of your book; the printed version at the regular price and the ebook version at a discounted price. Publishers receive approximately 50% royalty on the ebook sold and a standard royalty on the printed book sold. What this means for the publisher is increased revenue; they’re selling two books at one time. The book buyer can immediately download the Kindle version while waiting for the printed version to arrive in the mail. Publishers will need to discount the…

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May 28th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

How to Use Radio Talk Shows to Publicize your Self-Published Book

Radio talk show producers are always looking for quality guests, and this is the perfect way to publicize your book at no cost. There are 900 radio talk shows that need guests every day. You can do the interviews right from your home phone. Here are the guidelines to securing an interview and maximizing the experience to promote book sales. Contact the Producers Radio talk show producers – not talk show hosts – are responsible for arranging guest interviews. You should send an email to the producer first to schedule a time for your phone “audition” to pitch your topic….

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April 25th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

Creating Julia Spencer’s New Brand, Website & Speaker One Sheet

Spotlight on a Client Project: Building a New Brand Last year our team designed Julia Spencer’s award-winning book, Looking Through a Key Hole. The memoir is about her challenges with severe and progressive vision loss. She relies on her Seeing Eye guide dog, Irene, for independence. Since self-publishing her book, Julia’s speaking business has grown so she needed to clarify her brand and update her marketing materials. Julia asked for our help with creating a tag line and updating her website and speaker one sheet. Team lead, Patrice Rhoades-Baum – who is our branding expert – helped Julia nail her brand and created…

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April 1st, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

Use Google AdWords Keyword Planner to Help Market Your Self-Published Book

You can use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool to research and choose productive keywords to use in your book marketing campaigns. This free tool allows you to type in a word or phrase then see the results of your search term and additional keyword ideas. Each word or phrase is ranked by competition and by the number of global monthly searches on Google. You want to select and use keywords and phrases that have low competition and high search volume. Go to this page: https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner For this exercise, let’s suppose I’ve published a book on puppy training. I’ve typed in…

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February 26th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

Build a Powerful Author Platform to Sell More Books

Publishing industry leaders say successful authors and publishers build their book sales by having a strong author platform. What is an Author Platform? It is a combination of how you share your core message, what exactly is marketing message and who is listening to you. The larger the number and the depth of your personal relationships with your followers, the stronger your platform. This is what’s called “relationship marketing.” It is optimal to have a powerful platform before you launch your book, but it is never too late to begin building your platform. An author’s goal is to develop a funnel of…

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January 30th, 2013 | By: Karen Saunders

Should Self-Publishers Enroll in Amazon’s KDP Select Program?

Kindle Direct Publishing Select (KDP Select) is a special program that Amazon offers independent publishers, authors and self-publishers to be a part of the digital Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. You can earn a share of a $6 million fund based on how often your ebook is borrowed through the program. In addition, you can use Amazon’s special marketing tools, which include offering your ebook for free to readers for up to 5 days in each 90-day period. You can also earn up to 70% royalties on sales in Brazil, Japan and India. Ebooks not in the KDP Select program only…

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December 27th, 2012 | By: Karen Saunders

Creating a Brand and Website for Lifestyle Hearing Solutions

Client Case Study: Brand and Website Design My creative team recently finished a large project for a hearing aid dispenser. We guided Byron Patton of Lifestyle Hearing Solutions through the steps of creating a brand and website along with a new logo and stationery package for his new company. The process was deliberate and creative and constructed in a way to leverage ideas and concepts to save Byron time and money. Here’s how we did it. First, our branding expert, Patrice Rhoades-Baum held an in-depth interview with Byron and other team members to discuss his target market, the value his company…

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November 26th, 2012 | By: Karen Saunders

It Takes a Community to Make Your Book an Amazon Bestseller

At a recent Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA) meeting we had a panel speak on the topic of how to make your book an “Amazon Bestseller.” One of the panelists was Marcia Reece whose book, Secrets of a Marriage Mouse became the #1 bestseller in three Amazon book categories: Marriage, Personal Relationships, and Health. She shared with us a few of the many very specific techniques she used to sell 3700 books in 3 days on Amazon.com. Marcia occasionally offers one-day workshops where she explains ALL the important steps in this process. Shown below are some of the highlights of her…

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November 24th, 2012 | By: Karen Saunders

You Can Make Your Book an Amazon Bestseller

You Can Make Your Book an Amazon Bestseller – Even if You’re a First Time Author or a Marketing Novice It’s true…my friend, Marcia Reece Can Help You Make Your Book A Bestseller! If your book is not yet finished, Marcia will show you exactly what you need to do while writing and marketing your book to make it a bestseller–and create more business when your book is finished. If your book has already been published, Marcia will show you how to start a sudden surge of sales carrying your book to bestseller status in your category–even if your book…

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