Guest Post: Seven Ways to Use One Article for Book Promotion

Web 2.0 technologies have empowered authors to write, publish, sell and promote their books online in many different ways. There are so many options now that utilise free software. They take some time and effort to achieve, but you can gain fantastic results.

One effective book promotion tactic is to use articles. These can be segments of your book, or an article written on the topic of your book. This works for both fiction and non-fiction. Repackage parts of your existing written work into articles of around 500-700 words each. You will also need a 'call to action' on the bottom of the article that contains your contact details and book buying information. I'd also recommend including an offer that gets people to click through, for example, 'Get Three Free Chapters Here'. Here is an example if you are unsure.

Here then are seven ways you can take one article and turn it into multiple channels for book promotion...

1. Turn it into a blog post with free services such as Wordpress or Blogger. Blog posts turn into individual web pages indexed by search engines, so each article of yours will represent a new web page.

2. Post it on Scribd.com, Docstoc.com and EzineArticles.com. These sites are specifically for article marketing and millions of people search them each day. People can download your work for free, but you get great exposure.

3. Post a link to it on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. This will bring people's attention to your article, and to your book if it is referenced. People can also forward your link on to others, generating a ripple effect for your promotion.

4. Add it to a collection of articles and release as a free (or paid) ebook through Smashwords.com or Scribd. You could offer a selection of 10 articles for free download. Once you have between 70-100 articles, you will even have enough for a regular book that you can sell separately.

5. Record yourself reading the article and release it as a mini-audio or part of a regular podcast. You can record yourself using a basic microphone and the free Audacity software [ND: This is explained in detail in The Ultimate Podcasting Kit from WCCL]. You can then release it on your blog or through a network like BlogTalkRadio.

6. Make a video of yourself talking about the article and post it on YouTube and TubeMogul. You can use a basic video camera, a webcam or Flipcam. At Viddler.com you can even record straight to the screen. Many people use YouTube for primary search, so you need a video presence.

7. Turn it into a press release. You can reshape your article into a press release by linking it to a newsworthy subject, adding quotes, and targeting it to a specific market. Send it to journalists you have targeted for your specific book niche.

These ideas will cost you nothing in money - just your time. Multiply these by as many articles as you can write in a specific period and you will see how this can generate an effective web presence in little time!

There are many more ideas in Author 2.0 Blueprint: How to use web 2.0 tools to write, publish, sell and promote your book, available free by clicking on the link.


Many thanks again to Joanna for a very informative post. I do highly recommend checking out her blog and her free Author 2.0 Blueprint.