Getting Word of Mouth Started: New Book PR Method

By:James Finch

Authors and business people often go to extremes to publicize their book or product launch. Sometimes, the most successful method can appear in front of them. Take for example, book publicity. It is the one of the toughest cases to crack. Each year, at least 50,000 authors are published in the United States. Tens of thousands of authors publish electronic books. Most fail to get noticed. Very few achieve any of their goals as authors – to build up readership.

Here’s a way to get the word out and polish off your book before it hits the stores: sampling. Major corporations utilize focus groups, pollsters and other marketing experts to build up their brand name. This is similar to planting seeds to get a garden or orchard to grow. The more seeds you plant, the better your chances to grow vegetables or apple trees. As an author, you can use sampling or “seeding,” to build up awareness of your book. During the publishing process, we discovered a clever way to attract readers, and at the same time, we can upgrade our book.

Having been through the publishing process for many decades, we experimented with what every author secretly fears: a peer review. But, we did it with a twist. Instead of waiting until the book is published to read the reviews, we posted the book on our website to accept all criticism in advance. We called this a “Public and Peer Review” of our book.

Before posting the first eight chapters of the electronic version of this book, we notified subscribers, several days earlier, that the book would be available on June 18th at 11:59 P.M for Open Review. In the email notification, we included a reminder to “tell a friend” about the book’s pre-publication.

By the time this book was ready to be electronically published, our large number of subscribers had jumped by nearly 10 percent! In less than one week, we had gained more new subscribers than we had in the previous few months. Our Alexa rating, for the week had also jumped ahead of nearly 1 million other websites. The one-week draw from the email notification had also increased the 3-month average by 267 percent!

This marketing opportunity provided us with greater readership. It might now offer us a broader range of opinions, helping us improve the book. Hopefully, there will be those annoying copy editor types, who will help point out grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. Previous tests, similar to this, have also drawn experts from the industry we have written about. This adds more texture to our research, and ultimately creates a better product for our readers.

Stay tuned for our next publicity surprise, after we review the success of our public and peer review. The key is to plan out a series of teasers to keep drawing visitors to your website and intelligently persuade them that your book is something they absolutely have to read.

Digg del.icio.us Blink Stumble Spurl Reddit Netscape Furl

Article keywords: Publishing, PR, publicity, sampling, marketing, book sales, advertising

Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

James Finch contributes to StockInterview.com and other publication. Sign up for your free copy of our book, “Investing in the Great Uranium Bull Market: A Practical Investor’s Guide to Uranium Stocks.” Just visit http://www.stockinterview.com for details.

Top Public Relations Articles
1). How to Become the Most Interesting Conversationalist Around By : Tim Wright Learn exactly how to become the most interesting conversationalist around - and attract people like never before!
2). Finding the Right Equipment Supplier Paramount to Success in the Restaurant Industry By : Kingston Amadan Most companies with any degree of overhead know that finding the right supplier of products necessary to run their business is of the utmost importance. For most businesses, it can mean a substantial savings and reduce the headaches often associated with searching for a reliable equipment dealer. For restaurants, however, finding the right equipment supplier can mean the difference between success and failure in the industry.
3). How To Turn the Spotlight On Your Company In a Top Newspaper By : Sharon Dotson Article tells readers how to get publicity by writing letters to the editor.
4). How to have lasting relationship with clients? By : CD Mohatta Clients are the most precious assets for a business. Without clients, there can be no business. With poor quality of clients, the business will be poor and if you manage to get very good clients and retain their loyalty, your business will only go up and up. This all sounds very exciting. But it is not easy to get very good clients and all the more difficult to retain them.
5). Public Relations - and what it means for your Franchise By : Walter Raleigh The First Rule for building a Successful Franchise Business is to establish a great PR operation. You need to build a good reputation and as quickly as possible. You have to understand the value and the overwhelming benefits that flow from having an impeccable, transparent and reliable reputation so make this a major goal, as the continued success of your franchise business depends on it.
6). Change Your Tone - Media Coverage Shouldn't Be Toned By Software By : Chris Morrison The world of PR is benefiting from dramatic changes in the way media coverage is being delivered electronically to your computer desktop or PDA of choice. Perhaps the nuisance of ink on your fingers is being replaced by a bad case of "BlackBerry thumb" -- but nevertheless getting your media coverage electronically has never been easier or more mobile.
7). What is Human Resources Consulting? By : Maureen Cook Human Resources: sounds depersonalizing, doesn't it, to describe workers in this way? It smacks of older attitudes to the workforce which are now seen as increasingly outdated.
8). Protection from Protectors By : James Hayes This article discusses the vulnerabilities and security holes introduced by security suites, the very programs that are supposed to protect a PC, not make it more vulnerable!
9). It's More Valuable Than Money - Your Community. By : Dannielle Brantley When you're enjoying dinner and dancing at your company's annual event or that Mojito at your associate's loft you are building something more valuable than your business bank account..."
10). Come Boldly! By : Ann Stewart Ask Him for whatever you need!

New Public Relations Articles
1). Guerrilla Marketing By : Jaci Rae How you can use guerrilla marketing, tips, tricks and ideas that will help you make money and sell online.
2). Your Expertise is Boring! By : David Avrin I see your lips moving, but all I hear is “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” I know it’s not what you want to hear, but quite simply, if you are a speaker, author, consultant or other "expert" I see being interviewed by the news media, your expertise just isn’t very interesting. Information is a dime-a-dozen and yours is no different. So in this age of round-the-clock, on-demand, blue tooth, on line, high def.
3). One of America's brightest leaders and thinkers By : eyelogic Marshawn Evans, J.D., has garnered a reputation as an inspiring, articulate and intelligent orator. In the same mode as multitalented trailblazing women such as Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric, Tyra Banks and Kimora Lee Simmons, Marshawn is a: media personality, distinguished entrepreneur, passionate youth advocate, inspirational speaker and up-and-coming litigator.
4). Are You Ignoring Your Customers' Requests? By : Willie Crawford Copyright 2006 Willie Crawford Many Internet marketing experts will tell you that the best way to find out what your customers want from you is to ask them. While that may be true, I believe that an even more accurate way is to just listen to what they're telling you, and to what they're asking you for. To illustrate my point, I'll use a couple of examples from one of my own niches.
5). Send Business greeting card this holiday season By : thomsonchemmanoor The holiday season is around the season. There are lots of cards and gifts being exchanged, with lots of money being spent in the air. This is the season to be jolly, and also to make others jolly through greeting cards and phone calls. When the holiday season comes, one starts deciding on whom to send business greeting cards to, and on whom not to send cards to.
6). How to Create a Better News Release By : Robert F. Abbott Many organizations and businesses want media coverage of their activities, and at the same time many newsrooms are looking for local (or even national and international) topics to cover. If you're belong to an organization that wants coverage, you can increase the odds of getting it by following a few simple news release (or press release) conventions.
7). Public Relations - and what it means for your Franchise By : Walter Raleigh The First Rule for building a Successful Franchise Business is to establish a great PR operation. You need to build a good reputation and as quickly as possible. You have to understand the value and the overwhelming benefits that flow from having an impeccable, transparent and reliable reputation so make this a major goal, as the continued success of your franchise business depends on it.
8). How to Remove Barriers To The Sale By : Bernadette Doyle Copyright 2006 Bernadette Doyle When a client is thinking about hiring you, two major questions in their mind are: ‘Can this person deliver what they say they can deliver?’ and ‘Will their approach work in our particular business?’ The trouble is no client can really answer these questions until after they have hired you. And that’s the catch 22. This is a major stumbling block which can delay if not totally grind the sales process to a halt.
9). Public Relations Strategies For Manufacturers and Industrial Suppliers By : Conrad Bailey By Conrad Bailey What you are about to read here is not what you would expect to learn about marketing industrial products via public relations, or what you would normally find from other PR sources. The reason is because the majority of public relations articles you'll find online are nothing more than hidden sales pitches from PR firms that offer advice based on what's best for their agency - and not the client.
10). Communication & Corporate Social Responsibility By : Robert F. Abbott In the past few years, the anti-corporate movement (including those opposed to globalization) has gained a bit of steam. What many people in the movement promote now is called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the idea that corporations should be responsible to all of society and the environment, as well as to shareholders. It's a shame they've gained momentum.