Marketing Your Book With Articles

There are literally millions of web sites on the Internet, and many of them are looking for fresh content every single day. Many web site operators write their own content, but others get their content from services which provide articles. Most of these services are advertiser supported, but others charge a subscription to the web site operators that use the content. These content provider services actually present a good opportunity for authors to showcase their talents as writers, and to promote their books.

For the past few months, I have been experimenting with a service called Ezine Articles. I post some of my blog posts to the site as articles, and these articles include links back to this blog. Each article includes a short bio about me, and the fact that I am writing a book for authors about marketing and promoting books. Not only does this drive more traffic to this blog, but it also helps me build credibility. In turn, these articles have been picked up and used by other web sites and blogs, each providing links back to this blog. If an article is picked up by a large number of web sites and blogs, that provides more exposure for me, this blog, and my upcoming book.

These content provider services cover a wide range of topics, not just book marketing. Of course, these services work best for authors who write non-fiction and can write with authority about their chosen topic, but some authors write and post book reviews of other books, all while linking to their blog or web site which promotes their own book. I'm sure you can see the benefit of "getting your name out there" on the Internet by providing articles featuring your writing skills and promoting your own web site, blog and book.

Other content providers include:

Suite101
Associated Content
Examiner
About.com (competitive, you must go through a trial period before they will hire you to be a "guide")
eHow (featuring "how to" articles

Some of these sites even pay you to provide articles for them. Granted, the pay is usually based upon page views, and the pay is small, but since you would be writing to promote yourself the pay is just an added bonus. The pay at About.com can be good, but unlike the other sites you can't just open an account and start writing. They must hire you after a trial period of writing, and a small percentage of writers are hired.

I haven't submitted many articles to Ezine Articles, but my articles have been picked up by several other blogs and web sites, driven traffic to this blog and have routinely been among the most-viewed and most-published articles in the "book marketing" category at Ezine. If I dedicated more time to it, I'm sure the results would be even better.

If you are looking for a way of creating a larger presence for yourself online, article marketing could be a good option for you.

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If At First You Don't Succeed...

Many authors have an idea of what it takes to become an overnight success. They slave away over their keyboard producing the next Great American Novel, then they get a literary agent or publisher interested in their work. The publisher immediately rushes the book to press and the book flies off the shelves on its release date.

Let me just say right now, this rarely, if ever, happens.

Many bestselling authors have worked for several years to become overnight successes, and they each faced their own share of trials and tribulations. Here are a few examples.

John started working on a novel while he was still attending college, but the writing was going so slow and he decided that the plot was so bad, he just abandoned the effort. The writing of his second novel went better, and he decided to contact literary agents and publishers with a copy of his manuscript. Each week, John received rejection after rejection in the mail. Finally, one publisher agreed to publish John's manuscript. However, they wanted him to make some changes to it, and 20 percent of the novel had to go. When the novel was finally published, a mere 5,000 copies were printed.

The novel? A Time to Kill by John Grisham.

Steve started writing article and short stories and sending them to magazines when he was just 14 years old. He was writing them, but nobody was publishing them. Each submission was met with a rejection slip. Undeterred, he kept on writing, even self-publishing his own newspaper called "Dave's Rag."

Eventually, a magazine published one of Steve's short stories, "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber." After completing his first full-length novel, Steve eagerly sent it off to a publisher. It was promptly rejected. Steve took the rejection badly, and filed the novel away. After graduating college, Steve kept writing short stories for men's magazines and worked at a gas station pumping gas for $1.25 an hour.

Steve eventually took a job as a teacher and started working on his next novel. After writing a few pages, he decided the story wasn't any good. He crumpled up the pages and threw them in the trash. His wife later found these pages and read them, and urged her husband to keep writing the story, which he did.

The book was Carrie, and the author was Stephen King. He eventually sold the novel to Doubleday for $400,000, and he quit teaching to write full-time.

Jack and Mark are classic case studies in dealing with rejection. They shopped around their idea for their book to every publisher they can think of, and they weren't just rejected a few times. Their book was rejected by various publishers 123 times. The authors were told the title was stupid, and that nobody would read the book. They were told it was an idea that wouldn't sell. Jack and Mark finally took their book to an American Booksellers Association convention, and shopped it around to nearly all of the 4,000 booths at the trade show. Finally, they found one company which agreed to publish the book.

The authors were Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, and the book was Chicken Soup for the Soul.

It can be argued that these are some of the most successful American writers in recent history, but their road to success was not an easy one, nor did success come quickly. In many cases, these writers worked for years before they found success. That is a fact that is often overlooked by aspiring writers who hope for the same level of success.

If at first you don't succeed, keep trying. You only fail when you stop trying.

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