This document discusses strategies for authors to market and promote their books. It begins by contrasting the lifestyle of a writer versus a marketer. It then discusses setting publishing goals and building basic discoverability through websites and blogs. The key aspects of author discovery are outlined as getting found, feedback, fans, and becoming famous. Authors are advised to be present everywhere readers are through various online channels. Pricing and promotions are also covered. The document provides tips on storytelling, developing reasons to believe in one's book, strategies for discoverability, and considerations for pricing and promotion.

1. YOUR BOOK BY
YOU
GETTING FOUND!

2. THE TRANSITION FROM WRITER
TO MARKETER ISN’T EASY

3. AND THE LIFE OF A PROFESSIONAL
AUTHOR DOESN’T ALWAYS JIBE WITH THE
LIFE OF A PROFESSIONAL MARKETER
Professional Writer
• Wake up
• Eat Breakfast
• Write
• Take a Walk
• Write
• Eat Lunch
• Write
• Take a nap
• Write
• Exercise
• Write
• Eat Dinner
• Write
Professional Book Marketer
• Wake up
• Tweet
• Post on Facebook
• Check sales
• Eat Breakfast
• Tweet
• Pin on Pinterest
• Reply to discussions on
Facebook and Goodreads
• Blog
• Reply to blog comments
• Check sales
• Tweet
• Check Amazon rank

4. WHAT ARE YOUR PUBLISHING
GOALS?
Build a writing
Career?
Satisfy a lifelong
ambition?
Live off your
book sales?

5. IF YOU JUST WANT TO WRITE, YOU
STILL NEED A BASIC DISCOVERABILITY
WEB BUILT

6. 4 TENETS OF AUTHOR
DISCOVERY
Author
discovery
Get
found
Get
feedback
Get
fans
Get
Famous

7. TO BE FOUND DIGITALLY, YOU MUST
BE EVERYWHERE YOUR READERS ARE
Author
Discovery
E-mail
inbox
Search
engines
Book
distribution
channels
Niche
/genre-
specific
sites
Social
media
channels

8. WHILE AT THE SAME TIME ATTRACTING
THEM INTO YOUR WEB LIKE A SPIDER
TO A FLY
Your
book’s
buy page
Product,
price,
promotions
Website
Blog
E-mail
marketing
Advertising

9. IS YOUR DISCOVERABILITY WEB STRONG
ENOUGH TO PULL PROSPECTIVE READERS
TO YOUR BUY PAGE?
Your
Book’s
buy
page
Great
Product,
price,
promotion
Optimized
Website
Search
Engine
Optimization
Blogging
E-mail
marketing
Available on
eBook
distribution
channels
Presence on
Niche /genre-
specific sites
Effective
Advertising
Compelling
social media
activity

11. GET FOUND TOPICS
Your Story
Reason to Believe
Discoverability
Pricing and Promotions

12. GETTING FOUND
Your Story
Reason to Believe
Discoverability
Pricing and Promotions

13. YOUR BOOK:
WHAT’S YOUR STORY?
• What you are selling
• Yourself
• Your book
• What is the link between your personal story and your
book?

14. YOUR AUTHOR PROFILE
• Who are you?
• What activities are
you involved in?
• What are you
passionate about?
Sum yourself up in three
words
Your Picture goes here

15. YOUR BOOK’S PROFILE
Use single words to
describe your book:
• Provacative
• Titillating
• Amazing
• Page-turner
• Thrilling
Sum your book up in 5
words – this is like your
pitch
Your Book cover goes here

16. THE STORY: WHAT LED YOU TO
WRITE THIS BOOK?
Interview yourself
• What made you write the book?
• Why are you the best person to tell this story?
• Why should others read the book?
• What makes this book/story unique?
• How does it compare to other books like it in the
genre?
• Who do you look up to in the genre? Why?

17. GETTING FOUND
Your Story
Reason to Believe
Discoverability
Pricing and Promotion

18. YOUR BOOK:
WHY SHOULD ANYONE BUY IT?
Positioning defined: A unique place for your book
in customer’s mind, relative to the competition
• Who are your readers?
• Who is the competition (other books)?
• What’s unique about your book?
• How do you break-through?

19. READER ANALYSIS
• Who are they? Who would you like them to
be? Why?
• Where are they located?
• Who are they reading?
• Why do they read?
• How will you position the book for each
customer group you are targeting?
• Does your cover and back cover copy speak to them?
• Are your blurbs from writer’s they buy?

20. DEVELOPING A PITCH FOR YOUR
BOOK
For readers who love Stephen King and Anne Rice
<Target Audience>
My book is a supernatural suspense novel (genre)
<Summary Statement>
that will provoke, titillate, and thrill
<Customer Benefit>
[because] there is an ending they will never see
coming
<Reason to Believe>

21. GETTING FOUND
Your Story
Reason to Believe
Discoverability
Pricing and Promotion

22. YOUR BOOK:
WHERE WILL READERS FIND IT?
Authordiscovery fact: There is no clear format preference between
ebooks and print, although younger readers are leaning towards
digital reading more than older readers. Regardless of whether
reader preference is ebooks, print, or both, Amazon is the clear
leader in book procurement with over 65% of the book market.

23. SORRY, BUT OPRAH CAN’T HELP
YOU
There are nearly
300,000 books
published a year in the US
Oprah has picked a total
of 68books since her
book club’s inception in
1996

24. BOOK-SIGNINGS CAN BE HIT OR
MISS
Average sales at an
in-person book-signing
is 4 books

26. BUT FIRST,
YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE
Independent publishing “Assisted” self-publishing

27. SOME PROS AND CONS OF
INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING
Independent Publishing
Pros Cons
• More control over the publishing
process
• Need for strategic outsourcing:
cover-design, typesetting,
content-editing, copyediting,
proofreading, printing &
distribution
• Ability to set own prices and
therefore control profit margins
• Marketing/promotion is 100%
dependent on you
• 100% royalties • Have to manage inventory,
process orders, and pay taxes
• Control of production and
distribution
• Costs of start-up

28. SOME PROS AND CONS OF
“ASSISTED” SELF-PUBLISHING
“Assisted” Self-Publishing
Pros Cons
• Speed to start-up: just write the
book and write the check!
• There is a cost for convenience:
you could do most of what they
will do for less
• No inventory management, order
processing, and tax payments
required
• Marketing/promotion is still
100% dependent on you
• Higher royalties than “traditional”
publishing
• You will have no clue how many
books you are selling until you
get the report from your
publisher
• Get to rely on people with
industry expertise
• You give up significant control
over the process or have to pay
the price tag for the better
options

29. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
ROYALTIES AND PROFIT MARGINS
• Royalties are a percentage of net book sales paid by the
publisher to the author after subtracting printing and shipping
costs and discounts to wholesalers.
• If you have a contract for 20% royalties on a 200 page book that
retails for $10.00 with a wholesale cost of $5.00 your royalty per
book will be around .30 cents.
• Profit is the percentage a publisher makes after all costs
(printing & shipping, discounts, royalties) are accounted for.
• In the above example, the publishers profit is $1.20/book or roughly
4x what the author makes

30. THE (NOT SO) NEW
PUBLISHING MODEL
• Bookstore/booksnore: To sell your book in a bookstore you
have to give away 40-60% discounts, accept consignment
conditions, and lose control of your pricing
• No Inventory Allowed: With print on demand technology you
as the publisher never need to hold inventory unless you are
sending out signed copies of your books to readers.
• Demand is The Man: Your job is to drive traffic to your online
retailers so your book can be found.
• There is an Imbalance in the Force: Ebooks are fast
overtaking print books in online bookstores. This is a great
thing! Embrace this trend. It means more money for you at
the end of the day!

31. PERSONAL WEBSITE SELLING
FALLACIES
• I will drive a tremendous amount of traffic
to my website
• People will spend hours everyday
perusing my awesome content
• My promotions will catch everyone’s eyes
and will motivate them to buy my book on
my site

32. SOCIAL MEDIA SELLING
FALLACIES
• People care about my status updates
and/or tweets
• They care enough to pull out their wallets
and buy my book before the latest
youtube video of dancing cats distracts
them
• All of my 3,000 or so “friends” will surely
buy my new book and I will be an instant
best-seller

33. KEEP IT SIMPLE: SELL BOOKS
WHERE PEOPLE BUY BOOKS

34. WHERE YOU SHOULD BE SELLING
PRINT BOOKS ONLINE

35. PRINT DISTRIBUTOR
RECOMMENDATIONS (FROM WILLIAMSWRITING.COM):
CreateSpace, www.createspace.com
Pros: No setup costs. No costs to upload revised files. No annual catalog fee.
Amazon availability will be “In Stock.”
Cons: Independent bookstores may refuse to order from them. E-book distribution is
a separate service. Returns aren’t permitted.
IngramSpark, www.ingramspark.com
Pros: Automatic entry to Ingram catalog; CoreSource distribution available for e-
books. Publisher may opt to accept returns.
Cons: Setup fee of $49 per book. Annual catalog fee of $12 per book. Fee of $25 to
upload revised files. Amazon availability may be “Usually ships within 2 to 3 weeks.”
Lightning Source, www.lightningsource.com
Pros: Automatic entry to Ingram catalog; CoreSource distribution available for e-
books. Ability to set discount as low as 20%. Publisher may opt to accept returns.
Cons: Setup fee of $75 per book. Annual catalog fee of $12 per book. Fee of $40 to
upload revised files. Amazon availability may be “Usually ships within 2 to 3 weeks.”
Note: Ingram is the major book wholesaler. CoreSource e-book distribution makes e-
books available to more than 150 online bookstores.

36. 2 TYPES OF EBOOK
DISTRIBUTORS
Description Formatting Channel Distribution
Single Channel
Format for a single
device
Distribute to a single
channel (i.e. Amazon or
Barnes and Noble)
Multi-Channel
Format for multiple
devices
Distribute to most or all
ebook retailer (except
Amazon)

37. MOST POPULAR EBOOK
DISTRIBUTION PLATFORMS

38. THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE
UPLOADING YOUR BOOK TO AN
EBOOK DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM
1. Rights: do you retain your copyright once you sign the distribution
agreement?
2. Royalties and Pricing: do you set your own pricing? What are the
royalty implications of different price points. How often do you get
paid? How can you track sales?
3. Requirements: each ebook distributor has their own set of criteria for
inclusion into their digital catologue…read this information clearly or
your book may never see the light of day.
4. Reach: each ebook distributor has their own marketplace and reaches
thousands if not millions of potential readers, understand the reach
and contemplate this in your marketing plans.
5. Resources: what tools are available to interact with readers on the
ebook distributors site ? do they enable social media integration?

39. KDP SELECT HAS MADE THIS
A MUCH HARDER CHOICE
• Amazon owns >60% of
ebook market
• Barnes and Noble and
Apple troubles
• Provides an additional
revenue stream for
authors – pay for lending
• Built in promotional
mechanism with free days
• 90 day exclusivity required

40. GETTING FOUND
Your Story
Reason to Believe
Discoverability
Pricing and Promotion

41. YOUR BOOK:
HOW MUCH WILL READERS PAY FOR
IT?
Authordiscovery fact: Those who prefer ebooks appear to be
more price sensitive or conscious than those who prefer
other formats (could be reflective of diversity of ebook price
points).

42. FINDING THE RIGHT PRICE
Format
Sales Channel
Researched
Average List
Price (top 10)
Average sales
price (top 10) –
discount free
books
My book’s
price (less
than previous
column)
Paperback Amazon,
BN.Com
$23.29 $15.00 12.99
E-Book Amazon,
goodreads
$9.99 $6.99 4.99
Take the top 10 selling books in your genre by format and
complete the following table. Your books price should be in
line with or slightly less than the overall average.

43. INTRO TO AMAZON EBOOK
PRICING
Description Implication
Set your own price
Prices below $1.99
• Amazon takes 65% of each
sale
Prices above $1.99
• Amazon takes 35% of each
sale
Control* your price
Takes 2-3 days for Amazon to
adjust your price on the buy
page
Lowest price matching
Amazon will reset your books
price to the lowest available
ebook price for your book on the
web

44. INTRO TO SMASHWORDS
EBOOK PRICING
Description Implication
Set your own price
Smashwords takes 40% of sales
through iBooks, BN.Com, and
other e-retailers
Smashwords takes 15% of sales
through smashwords.com
Control your price
Prices adjust immediately on
smashwords but can take weeks
to reflect across all other
retailers
Lowest price matching N/A

45. YOUR PROFIT/EBOOK -
AMAZON
8.99 65% $5.84/book
Example:

46. YOUR PROFIT/EBOOK –
APPLE, BN, OTHER
8.99 40% $3.59/book
Example:

47. YOUR PROFIT/EBOOK –
SMASHWORDS
8.99 85% $7.64/book
Example:

48. YOUR BOOK:
HOW WILL YOU PROMOTE IT?

49. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT ONLINE
AWARENESS?
Your Website (s): how many
visitors/month?
Your Blog: how many
visitors/month?
Social Media:
• How many Facebook friends do you
have?
• Do you have a FB page for your author
brand or book?
• How many likes do you have?
• Do you have a pinterest page for your
author brand or book?
• How many followers do you have?
• Do you have a twitter account?
• How many followers do you have?
• Do you have a Google + account?
• How many in your circles?
• Do you have a youtube page?
• How many followers do you have?
E-mail lists:
• How many e-mails do you have?
• Have all these people opted-in to
receive promotional e-mails from you
Social Reader communities:
• Are you on
Goodreads/Librarything/Shelfari/Scribd?
• How many total friends do you have?
• How many groups are you in?
• How many people in the groups you are in?
Online forums:
• How many online forums are you a part of?
• How many people in these forums?

50. PROVEN WAYS TO AUGMENT ONLINE
AWARENESS OF YOUR BOOK
 Make sure your website is Optimized for Search Engines
 Set a regular blogging and posting schedule and communicate
via social media, e-mail marketing, etc.
 Distribute a free preview of a section of your e-book (Scribd,
Smashwords)
 Send out e-mail blasts to friends and family
 Conduct a blog tour on genre-specific sites
 Hold a Book Giveaway on goodreads
 Connect with Indie author communities (web, google +,
linkedin, facebook, twitter, goodreads) and let other authors
know you have a book coming out
 Send out a press release to local media outlets

51. PROVEN WAYS TO AUGMENT ONLINE
AWARENESS OF YOUR BOOK CONT.
 Request and conduct author interviews on genre-specific sites
 Promote your author or book page on Facebook to drive up
your “likes”
 Begin tweeting book or subject matter related tweets on a
regular basis
 Advertise on goodreads, genre-specific blogs, and websites
with good reader traffic
 Begin collecting opt-in e-mails and send out regular updates on
your book
 Integrate video and pictures into everything you do (video
interviews, book trailers, Pinterest pins, Vlogs)
 Win book awards and contests

52. TURNING A SAMPLER INTO A
BUYER
• Deliver irresistible content
• Your website, blogs, pins, tweets, book cover,
and book descriptions on e-book buy pages
should make readers itch to press the buy button
• Leverage the power of “social currency”
• Garner positive reviews from readers, bloggers,
genre-websites
• Continually increase the number of
Likers/followers on social media sites
• Earn blog followers, opt-in e-mail addresses, and
loyal fans
• Price strategically
• Reference the top 25 books in your given
genre/category and consider pricing your book at
a discount either temporarily or full-time
• Incentivize the purchase
• Give to get incentives such as, the first 100
buyers get something of value or advertise bulk
discounts to book clubs

53. WHY (GOOD) BOOK REVIEWS
MATTER
• Only non-sales way to boost
visibility on Amazon (the
Average customer review filter)
• Reviews get shared
(goodreads, facebook, blogs,
genre-specific websites, etc)
• Reviews provide “social
currency”
• The more people who “like”
something, the better it must be

54. MAKE BUYING YOUR BOOK EASY
• Targeted advertising linked to
buy pages
• Creation of buy pages on
social media sites and your
own blog or website
• Buy links on author profiles
and genre-specific websites
and blogs
• Leverage pricing promotions
across your sales platforms to
drive sales

55. PERSONAL RECOMMENDATIONS MAKE
A HUGE DIFFERENCE WITH BOOK
DISCOVERY

56. TAP INTO THE INFLUENCE CASCADE
Power
Readers*
Book bloggers and
genre-websites**
Book clubs, Social reader
communities***
StartfromBookClubsandmoveyourwayup
IdentifyPowerreadersandworkyourwaydown
* Read 90-100 books a year
** Review hundreds of books
*** Read a book or 2 a month as a collective

57. WHY YOU SHOULD GIVE AWAY YOUR
E-BOOK (TO THE RIGHT INFLUENCERS)
• Puts your book on their radar
• If they like the book, chances are they will share it
with others
• Depending on their level of influence, this sharing
could be with 10’s or thousands of readers who rely
on their recommendations
• Those readers know other readers and so on and so
forth

58. WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER
AMAZON’S KDP SELECT PROGRAM AND
USE THE FREE PROMOTIONAL DAYS
With an effective free promotion on
Amazon:
• Noise level around your book goes
up
• Engagement with your book goes up
• Amazon rankings go up
• Likes on FB go up
• Followers on Twitter go up
• Goodreads bookshelves with your
book increase
• Reviews go up
• Social currency goes up
• Sales go up (post promotion)

59. CHECK OUT THESE GREAT ONLINE
RESOURCES ON BOOK MARKETING
AND PROMOTION
Author Discovery
World Literary Café
The Creative Penn
The Pantheon Collective
Book Market.com
Book Marketing Maven
Be the Media
The Book Marketing Network

60. BUY THIS BOOK AND PUT DOWN IDEAS
YOU THINK WILL HELP YOU REACH
YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

61. BUY THIS BOOK AND PUT DOWN IDEAS
YOU THINK WILL HELP YOU DRIVE
WORD OF MOUTH

62. BUY THIS BOOK AND LEVERAGE YOUR
OWN POWER TO PROMOTE YOURSELF!

63. Authordiscovery.com
DISCOVERY RECOMMENDATIONS

64. EDITING IS NOT OPTIONAL
Readers don’t recommend books they don’t finish and they don’t
finish mostly due to dull storyline, slow pace, and typos
• Read this blog for some basics on editing

65. FORMAT FLEXIBILITY IS KEY
Consider offering print versions of your titles in addition to ebook
18%
ebook only
32%
print only read in both
formats
50%

66. MANIPULATE AMAZON’S GRAVITY IN
YOUR FAVOR
Having an optimized Amazon presence and using their best in class
discovery tools like KDP Select are essential to your success
• Read this blog to find out what you need to do and how

67. STRIKE THE WRITE BALANCE
Don’t overpromote a single title. Get back to writing and keep
feeding your readers more content
• Read this smashwords survey for the latest trends in selling more
ebooks

68. USE THE POWER OF FREE
Readers complete over 50% of free e-books they download
• Maximize your free promotions by using this approach

69. MAKE IT EASY TO PASS IT ON
8 ways of recommending books (in person, social media, writing
reviews are the top 3)
• Encourage sharing by using some of these tactics

70. DON’T SWEAT THE GENRE
All genre’s sell – your job is to write the best book you can.
• The Top 10 questions you need to answer are here

71. FINAL MESSAGES
1. If you find this content valuable,
please pass this information on
• Discuss, like, share, tweet, e-mail, text,
pin
2. Follow AuthorDiscovery.com
• Blog, Twitter, Facebook
3. Subscribe to the newsletter

72. CONTACT
• Website: http://www.authordiscovery.com
• E-mail: authordiscovery@gmail.com
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bookmarketing33

73. YOUR BOOK BY
YOU
GETTING FOUND!