It Takes a Village to Promote a Book

"Markets are conversations," said the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto and it is still the number one thesis on their Web site. Social media allows you to have those conversations. When I wrote a Blog on Huffington Post called "It's 2010: You Really Need to be on Facebook", I was shocked by the response. In fact, Donna Fenn, author of Upstarts wrote on her Bnet blog that judging by the response, you'd think that I had asked people to walk around naked. It is surprising that anyone could still deny the benefits of social media for marketing.

Today's marketing is truly about conversations. So if you are going to spend the time and money marketing a product or service, you should think "will this start, maintain, or enhance the conversation?" Will this get people talking, will they take it to their twitter feeds and Facebook pages? Will they forward, post, or retweet this?

I have found that it is seldom that one big hit that results in conversations. You need a lot of attention, some big, some small, all moving the conversation forward. If you compare hits to the old formula that big is best, then the smaller blogs have little impact. But if your goal is to truly broaden the scope of the discussion, you need lots of people talking on lots of different Web sites and blogs.

Even a feature on Web sites like CNN.com or Oprah.com does not guarantee instant increases to your Web site traffic or book sales. In fact, these days even a Today Show appearance is no guarantee. However, I believe a sustained effort to keep people talking results in speaking engagements, paid blog posts (yes there is such a thing), interview opportunities, more fans on your Facebook page, more traffic on your site, increased sales, and a recognition and expansion of "brand YOU."

Selling books is almost always the first goal of every author, however if you chat with them a bit they'll say things like, "I want to help people," "I know my book will make a difference," "I want to make sure people know what is really going on," "I want to make people laugh," "I want to entertain my readers" or "I envision a world where people love what they do and if they read my book they would." I often take on projects based on these secondary goals, the goals that speak to the truth of the person and the importance of the book. These are the goals that are worth talking about.

As a marketer, I can't ever get people to talk about the author's first goal. Not once has a reviewer said, "Please buy this book because the author would like to have a bestseller." However, those secondary goals have always started conversations and sparked interests and led to interviews and discussions.

Many of the bloggers we work with post their reviews on multiple blogs and Web sites like Twitter, Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, Ning, Library Thing, Facebook, and more, all of which increase the search visibility of the book and author. In that way, those reviews or features are all fluid and viral. They do not stay where they are created. They often take flight and have a much broader life than just the traffic on their own blogs.

Search results, conversations and virality are most important in today's connected market place, and they are achieved by a broad spectrum of coverage, not just the sites that get the most hits.

So as of today, think about the real reason you wrote the book, the reason why only you could have written it, think about those secondary goals, and then get on with the business of starting conversations.

What do you think if takes to promote a book these days? Please share your comments. Thanks.

Fauzia Burke is the Founder and President of FSB Associates, an Internet marketing firm specializing in creating online awareness for books and authors. For more information, please visit FSB Associates. You can contact Fauzia on Facebook.