The I-Don’t-Have-Any-Time Hour-a-Day Book Marketing Plan, by John Kramer

Here’s my I-Don’t-Have-Any-Time Hour-a-Day Book Marketing Plan:  Do one thing a day. Focus on creating relationships with high-traffic targeted websites (targeted to your audience or your topic). That’s it.

Week 1: Research

Each day this week, do some research to find at least one high-traffic targeted website related to your book’s topic. If, while writing your book, you’ve already discovered some such websites, find more of them. The more, the merrier. Or ask your friends what websites they like to visit or spend time on. What websites related to the topic of your book do they like to visit?. Or use Bing or Google to search for such websites and blogs. Ignore the Amazon, Wikipedia, and similar pages (unless, for example, you have a reference to your website on Wikipedia).

Most of these larger sites don’t really let you interact very well with the people behind the sites. Nonetheless, you can complete your Author Connect page on Amazon, make sure your book descriptions are actually selling your book, etc. Similarly, you can ask a friend who is an active editor on Wikipedia to create a Wikipedia page for you or your book. If they can’t create a page for you, ask them to cite your book or you as a resource in the listings of relevant topic pages within Wikipedia.

For the most part, though, you want to go for high-traffic targeted websites that already reach the audience you want to reach. Go for the websites that often use outside content (articles, reviews, interviews, Q&A, etc.), especially those that feature other authors and related books.

Time to carry out this task: 1 to 2 hours per day.

Week 2: Follow the Links

Most websites have links to other related websites and blogs. These links are often at the end of articles, on resource pages, on blogrolls, on directory pages, etc. Follow those links to discover other high-traffic targeted websites for your book, your topic, or your audience. Track down at least one new related high-traffic targeted website each day this week. In week 1, you discovered some high-traffic targeted websites. During this week, you’ll discover many more related high-traffic targeted websites.

Time to carry out this task: less than 1 hour per day.

Week 3: Locate the People Behind the Sites

Now take one website per day that you’ve uncovered and dig through the website until you find out who edits the website, blogs on the blog, or writes a column on the site that would be appropriate for your book. Try to find out their email address or phone number or other contact information.

Also note their Twitter handle, Facebook Page, Google+ profile, Pinterest boards, LinkedIn profile, and any other social networks they are on that you enjoy using (YouTube, GoodReads, Instagram, etc.).

By the end of Week 3, you should have the following information for at least seven high-traffic targeted websites: name of website, URL for that website, phone number and/or email address for one key contact, their social profile URLS.

Time to carry out this task: less than 1 hour per day.

Week 4: Connect with People

Each day, go to the websites you identified during Week 3. Comment on one of the articles or blog posts written by the person you want to connect with. Tweet their article. Like it or share it on Facebook. Pin their article or blog post on one of your Pinterest boards. Plus One their article or share it on Google+. Share it on LinkedIn. Blog about their article.

Also carry out a few of the following acts connected to their social profiles: Retweet their tweets. Favorite their tweets. Respond to one of their tweets. Like their Facebook posts. Comment on their Facebook posts. Share their Facebook posts. Like one of their pins. Comment on one of their pins. Repin one of their pins.

Comment on one of their LinkedIn posts. Do the same for Google+ and any other social network you share with them.

Each day this week, repeat and rinse. Spread out your comments and interactions over this week so the person gets to know you before you make your offer during Week 5. During this week, connect with 5 to 7 influential people every day via their content and their social networks.

Time to carry out this task: 1 to 2 hours each day (if you don’t lollygag on the social networks).

Week 5: Make an Offer They Can’t Refuse

Contact the people you identified during week 3 and offer them some great content. Note: High-traffic targeted websites love new content that targets their daily visitors. They need new content every day to keep traffic (visitors) flowing to their websites. Offer to write an article for them. Offer them an excerpt from your book that they can reprint on their website. Offer to do an interview with them (where they interview you): an Internet radio show, podcast, teleseminar, webinar, Skype interview, Google Hangout, or even a written Q&A interview. Ask if you can interview them for your blog. Offer them a review copy of your book.

Or think even bigger: Ask them if you could do a Q&A column for their website on a specific topic related to your book and/or expertise. If your topic is general, try to drill down to a specific topic that you could do a Q&A column on. Make this offer via a short email note or via a phone call. If calling, be sure to have an already prepared two- or three-sentence message you can leave if you get their answering machine. Be sure to start with your name, title of your book, and your phone number. Then leave a short pitch. A real short pitch.

Time to carry out this task: less than 1 hour each day. Write the email and send it. Or write the answering machine script, pick up the phone, and make the call.

Week 6: Respond Right Away

When they respond to your email or phone call with a positive request to see more or hear more, send them more. If they ask questions, respond to those questions. If they ask to see your blog post, write a blog post. If they want to set up an interview, schedule an interview. Respond that same day.

Time to carry out this task: generally less than 1 hour per day.

Week 7: Follow Through

Once they’ve interviewed you, featured your blog post or article, assigned you an on-going Q&A column, or whatever, thank them. Then share the news on your blog and social networks. Spread the word about your connection. Be sure to link back to your content on their website.

If you share what they’ve done for you, you will send more traffic to their website. That’s the beginning of a real relationship, where you both share each other’s content. The sharing sets the table for you to ask for another feature a month or two later.

Time to carry out this task: generally less than 1 hour per day.

That’s my I-Don’t-Have-Any-Time Hour-a-Day Marketing Plan. Simple, isn’t it? Now, rinse and repeat. That means start at Week 1 again and follow each step. This strategy will reliably develop your relationships with other people who share your interests. It will get you more links to your website. It will get you more traffic to your website. It will generate more Google juice (a better ranking on Google search results, better page ranks, and more traffic sent your way). And it should generate more book sales.

Alert: Any content you share with other websites and blogs must be top-notch valuable content. That’s the only way you’ll get Google love. That’s the only way you’ll be invited back to share more content. That’s the only way you’ll develop fans of your own. And that’s the only way people will come to your website hungry for more content from you. And that’s the key reason people will buy your book.

Now, isn’t your book worth an hour a day?

John Kremer

(Re-blogged with permission from an original article on John Krarmer's website)

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About John Kremer

John Kremer is author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, the Relationship Matters Marketing program, and many other books and reports on book marketing, Internet marketing, social media, and book publicity. For more information see John's websites http://www.bookmarket.com 

and http://www.bookmarketingbestsellers.com. You can also find John on Facebook and on Twitter @JohnKremer 

Book Review ~ Renatus by Ryan Link

The United States is no more. Over the course of the early 22nd century, it has dissolved into a set of hostile splinter nations; some have prospered, some have not. But Aldon Prandtel doesn't care about any of that. Years ago he lost his family, descended into despair, and ended up living on the streets of northern St. Louis. Now, his only objectives are to stay alive.

What he doesn't know is that those in power have plans for him

that aim to shake the new world order . . . 

Available on Amazon US and Amazon UK

Renatus is one of those imaginative dystopian novellas that has you hooked from the start and leave you wanting more.  In Ryan Link’s bleak vision of the world a hundred years from now, a scientist lives on the dangerous city streets, addicted to a strange drug, until he is ‘rescued’ for a secret mission of national importance.

I enjoyed every minute of it, from the convincing technical details you would expect from an author with Ryan Link’s background, to the well observed characters. I even felt some sympathy for the men guarding our hero’s door, as each has a hint of back story that makes them real.

By the time I was half way through I was already speculating about who should be cast in a movie version. There is plenty of scope for ideas in this book to be developed in the future, so I look forward to seeing a sequel. If you are want something fast-paced and thought provoking, I recommend Renatus. 

Tony Riches 

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About the Author

Ryan Link is is a native Texan who lives in Houston with his wife of eleven years and their two chihuahuas. He works as a modeling and simulation analyst in the energy industry and holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Houston. Some of his favorite authors and influences are Frank Herbert, Alastair Reynolds, George R. R. Martin, and H. P. Lovecraft.  Ryan has published a number of short stories in addition to his novella and is currently working on a full-length science-fiction literary-style novel. Find out more at his website and find him on Facebook and Twitter: @RLinkAuthor

Book Review: Lies Told in Silence by M. K. Tod

Paris 1914: Half the city expects war while the other half scoffs at the possibility. With knowledge gained from his role at the War Department, Henri Noisette fears that Germany may soon attack Paris. He therefore sends his wife, mother and two younger children to a small village in northern France. The novel examines love and loss, duty and sacrifice and the unexpected consequence of lies.

Available on Amazon US and Amazon UK

I have to start by ‘declaring an interest’. As a keen follower of the author’s blog A Writer ofHistory, I feel I know her quite well. I appreciate how much care and effort went into Mary Tod’s new novel Lies Told in Silence, so as I began reading, it was a little like being asked to comment on a proud parent’s new child.

I needn't have worried, of course. This is without doubt one of the most moving and engaging books I have read in a very long time. A sense of historical inevitability forms a backdrop to events throughout the book, yet although the reader may know about the decisive battles it is timely, in the centenary of the outbreak of hostilities, to spare a thought for the ordinary people of France, as well as the young soldiers from all over the world who came to their aid.

Taking the unusual viewpoint of an extended French family, we follow the ominous beginnings of the First World War and experience the life-changing impact it has on each member of the family. As a Canadian, Mary brings a certain authenticity to the involvement of allied soldiers in the defence of France, with an eye for convincing details brought together by a powerful narrative.

The title offers a clue to where the story could possibly lead, although I was taken completely by surprise by the turn of events. Lies Told in Silence is the perfect counterpoint to Mary’s first novel, Unravelled, and I hope both will be read by future generations as a way of understanding the human side of the 'war to end all wars'. Highly recommended.

Tony Riches

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About the Author

M.K. Tod has enjoyed a passion for historical novels that began in her early teenage years immersed in the stories of Rosemary Sutcliff, Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer. During her twenties, armed with Mathematics and Computer Science degrees, she embarked on a career in technology and consulting continuing to read historical fiction in the tiny snippets of time available to working women with children to raise. In 2004, she moved to Hong Kong with her husband and no job. To keep busy Mary decided to research her grandfather’s part in the Great War. What began as an effort to understand her grandparents’ lives blossomed into a full time occupation as a writer. Her debut novel is UNRAVELLED: Two wars, Two affairs. One Marriage. LIES TOLD IN SILENCE, her second novel, is set in WWI France and tells the story of Helene Noisette who featured in Unravelled. Mary has an active blog - www.awriterofhistory.com - which discusses all aspects of historical fiction and includes author and reader interviews. Additionally, she is a book reviewer for the Historical Novel Society. Mary lives in Toronto where she is happily married with two adult children. Connect with M.K. Tod on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Guest post ~ writing Altaica, Book 1 in Chronicles of Altaica, by Tracy M. Joyce

Her only hope lies in a foreign land, rich in tradition; ruled by three

powerful clans, where magic as we know it does not exist.

Instead what is here, in abundance, is a more primal power. 

Survival carries a high price. Welcome to Altaica.

Available on Amazon US, Amazon UK and Barnes & Noble

I’d like to thank Tony for inviting me contribute to his blog.  My name is Tracy M. Joyce and I’m an Australian writer of speculative fiction published by Odyssey Books.  Tony tells me that people want to know the source of a writer’s inspiration and how we go about our writing. Well, I shall endeavor to give you a glimpse into my chaotic writer’s mind.

Altaica is an epic fantasy.  The story centres around a young woman named Isaura.  She is born to refugees within a community that fears her kind and has few true friends.  Through a quirk of fate she becomes this village’s healer.  She feels trapped in this role, yet bound to it by a promise to her dead mother.  However war is coming and with it comes her chance to escape.  She and few friends flee the invaders and what follows alters her life forever.

Altaica is a rollicking adventure, but at its heart it deals with themes of racism, superstition, friendship, identity and belonging.  It highlights the fragility of human nature when pitted against the desire for survival and personal gain.  Altaica also examines how each of us deals with the difficult moral choices we must sometimes make; how we learn to live with those choices.

The initial inspiration behind The Chronicles of Altaica came from a dream of one scene which will take place the first book of a second duology set in Altaica.  That dream started an idea that would not leave my thoughts and I planned the main plot arc of that book in the following weeks.  After that I thought to myself, “Well, how did this world come about? How did these characters get here?  What is the history behind this?”

With these questions in mind, I began working on Altaica, Book 1 in Chronicles of Altaica.  The world of Altaica combines my love of horses, history and archery into a world of my own creation.  I have “cherry picked” much from various histories, folk lore and myth in my world creation.  However, in all my research I kept coming back to Ottoman and Mughal weaponry, which feature heavily in the story and I stumbled upon a Turkish myth of the Asena which fitted my story with little adaptation.  I read the term “Altaic” in my research which was used to describe the language family comprising the Turkic, Mongol and Tungus languages and from this I derived the title Altaica. It all just seemed to fit too well together, the weapons, the myth and the name.

I also love putting a lot of what I observe in the real world into my fictional characters.  I have a tendency to observe people around me – discreetly.  Nobody has yet noticed and filed a restraining order or anything like that!  I watch body language and reactions between people a lot.  We tend to assume personality traits based on the way someone appears and I love it when people I meet surprise me in this regard.  Things like this remind you to make your characters interesting.  So I watch and talk to people and file everything away.

I find it almost impossible to shut my imagination down.  Even when I am physically doing something else, I am often “writing in my head.”  Dialogue and scenes that I’m coming to, yet may still be several chapters away, will sometimes just pop into my head and I must write them down or at least scribble some form of note so I don’t forget.

It’s for these reasons I have a notebook with me at all times.  I even have a tape recorder beside the bed, because sometimes I wake up with a scene or dialogue in my head.  I’m a bit obsessive, especially when I’ve got a writing problem to solve.

I set aside time to write and I set minimum word limits for these times. (Some days I don’t make my word limit, but other days I exceed it.)  I use Scrivener for organizing my writing and Scapple for planning and “mind mapping”.  I listen to movie soundtracks when I write and classical music when I edit.

Writing for me is like watching a movie in my head.  Fortunately other writers tell me the same thing! I find if I can visualize a scene like this as I write then I have written something else others will be able to “see” as well.  (And there is nothing better than when your readers tell you they could “see” your story as they read!)  If I can’t visualize it like this, then there’s something seriously wrong with it and I need to re-write it.
Basically, when I’m writing, my brain obsesses about my current story.  When I’m not writing, my brain still obsesses about my story and about my world building for the next one.

Tracy M. Joyce

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About the Author

Tracy M. Joyce is an Australian author of speculative fiction and has long been a fan of the fantasy genre, She likes novels that deal with deep characterisations and that don’t flinch from the gritty realities of life. This and her fascination with the notions of “moral greyness”, that “good people can do bad things” and that we cannot escape our past provide the inspiration for her writing. Combine that with her love of history, horses and archery and you have Altaica. Tracy grew up on a farm in rural Victoria, in a picturesque dot on the map known as Glenburn. She spent half of her childhood riding horses and the other half trying to stay out of trouble - the only way she did that was by reading books and writing stories. She now lives in Melbourne with her husband, two cats and two (very) lazy greyhounds. With a BA (Hons) from Monash University, Tracy spent many years in a variety of administrative roles and never gave up on her childhood dream to become a writer. In her spare time she tutors students in English. Find out more at her website http://www.tracymjoyce.com/ and find her on Twitter  @TracyMJoyce and Facebook.

Book Review ~ 5 Star Selling: From Beginning to Excellence, by Lee Davis

Available on Amazon US and Amazon UK

I like to think of it as ‘influencing skills’ rather than ‘selling’ but, whatever you call it, we all need to do it well.  Career sales manager Lee Davis wrote this book for his son, Ryan, who was starting his first sales job and asked his dad for advice. Lee couldn’t find any sales books on the market found that quite fitted the bill, as most covered more advanced topics.

5 Star Selling: From Beginning to Excellence  is a great collection of tips and timeless basics aimed squarely at anyone new to sales, to offer them the best possible start. I liked the way each chapter is followed by a list of the key points and illustrated by Lee’s real-life examples from over thirty years of practical experience in the field.

I also liked the way his approach is based on positive values. He says, ‘People like to be around enthusiastic, positive people. Brighten their day by your presence. An unconscious habit of mine, when people asked how I was doing, was always to answer, “Excellent.” Even if things weren’t that good, they seemed better.’

I’m happy to recommend this book to anyone, not just those thinking of a career in sales and marketing, as it is really about how to communicate ideas and help meet people’s needs with integrity. Excellent!

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About the Author

Lee Davis’ successful career spanned over 35 years in selling and sales management for a Fortune 500 company. After retiring he began working and consulting in market research and sales training for companies that wanted to supplement their own efforts in these areas.

Lee is married with two children. Lee and his wife Jacque spend time between consulting and training contracts enjoying the scenic beauty of America and visiting many of the historic sites exhibiting our national heritage. Find out more at his website http://5starselling.com/.

Guest Post ~ Wrong Flight Home: I lived the life of Joshua Chamberlain, by Noel J. Hadley

It is the summer of 2008 and Joshua Chamberlain lives half of his life in a love story, the other half in an adventure.

Available on Amazon US and Amazon UK

Joshua Chamberlain is a lot like me. We’re both Southern California bred, are roughly the same age, we married our high school sweethearts, and each became nationwide traveling wedding photographers – successful ones at that. The only difference is this: I am real and Joshua, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his camera work during September Eleventh, is not.

But he might as well be real. I know Joshua all too well. I know all about the subconscious torments that drive him out the door each weekend, to wherever his work commute delivers him, and the woman whom he so desperately lives to please, despite the irony of a dysfunctional lifestyle that physically distances them. I myself spent the first decade of the twenty-first century traveling the United States as that very wedding photographer.

It was an honor and a privilege really, living out an unwritten Walt Whitman poem and becoming intimate with this great Republic of ours as I photographed the anthropology of brides and grooms from shore to distant shore, Maine to Alaska, Hawaii to Puerto Rico, and everywhere in-between, dozens of times over. Still, with all war stories come battle scars, and a cost. But I’ll get to that in a second.

I can’t even begin to recount how many nights I slept roadside, just as Joshua has, curled up in the trunk of my rental car alone to my thoughts, or riding the 1, 2, 3 train back and forth from the Bronx to Brooklyn with my camera bag for a pillow, or a regular regurgitated memory, sleazy hotels where paying customers seemed to come and go on the other side of paper-thin walls, and the bed board almost always pulsated against my skull. I’ll never forget talking to a neighboring prostitute late one night in the front of my motel (in-between customers) as that cigarette she was sucking on illuminated charcoal eyes and a scar that dominated her left nostril with shades of crimson red.

To strike up a conversation with someone who so freely granted all of her, physically speaking, and yet built impenetrable turrets around her deepest guarded emotions never left my minds-eye. It’s a scene that ended up towards the beginning of my first book, Wrong Flight Home, and so very important to the overall arching plot.

As a writer I’m not so concerned with black and white morality, where storytelling is concerned, as I am with the gray matter in-between; the close encounters and the war stories. And that’s where I am determined to send Joshua, in pursuit of the Holy Grail as it resides between the temptations and trenches of his soul. I am speaking about the sort of men who love a woman, one woman (as Joshua does); who desire nothing more than a monogamous end, and yet struggle to find a sense of identity in their spiritual faith while simultaneously swimming so endlessly against the current of moral depravity that dominates the freedoms associated with the open road. It’s like Arthur and his knights, one of them anyways, only this setting isn’t the pursuit of chivalry in long-lost Camelot. It’s in our own time and backyard, America being the mythology.

I’ve since retired from wedding photography – and travel, but not because I’m rich or anything. It was a fun ride, and I could have gone on like that forever, if I were single. Being absent from home sixty percent of the year doesn’t exactly promote ties that bind. There was that fork in the road, and anyways….. I saw it on the horizon, hung up the camera strap, and chose my family in the end. I say family because it’s not just that cute blond-headed girl that I met so long ago in high school who dominates my love and attention now, but the beautiful twin sons she only last month delivered at home in our bed. I often think about the possibilities, what might have been had I gambled my life for a much greater unforeseen prize, but lying at home in bed with the mother of my children, whom I once watched blossom into a woman, holding our two infant twin sons, I can’t even imagine a better outcome. Truth is truly greater than fiction.

It’s something Joshua would have done in a heartbeat, giving up his pursuit for the great white whale. Unfortunately for him that fork sprung up a little sooner than expected. That’s where Wrong Flight Home really takes off, when Joshua returns home after an east coast gig to learn that his wife, who’s working towards her doctorate in psychology, is tired of his absence (his emotional desertion, as she rightfully labels it) and leaves him for another man. It’s a nightmare for sure, one that dominated my dreams in those final months on the road, bed board penetrating paper-thin walls and pulsating against my skull. But it’s also a place I always knew I had to go with Joshua. It’s the springboard which drives a dimensional wedge in our existences, his and mine. But it’s not going to end there. Don’t count on it.

Wrong Flight Home is only the beginning of a much larger journey, with Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye being the recent second entry in the continuing series, and the Other Girl currently being written. Trust me, there’s a blueprint, and the master plan is coming together. Joshua is a survivor, and though our paths may have been dimensionally severed by unfortunate circumstances, perhaps even beyond my own control, they’ll meet up again in one way or another somewhere down the road. I’m positive of it. He’ll swim through the nightmare. How deep that nightmarish well of water goes, I can’t rightfully say at the moment, but he’ll come up on the other end a better man for having taken the journey. I swear to it, if I have my way, redemption will come for Joshua Chamberlain. Before this is over our paths will meet again.

Noel J. Hadley

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About the Author

Noel J Hadley is the author of the Wrong Flight Home series and several books of poetry, including Diagnosing a Dream and A Holy Intermission. As a wedding photographer, he spent the first decade of the twentieth century traveling the United States, sleeping on subways, in the back seat or trunks of rental cars, and often sleazy roadside hotels, taking lengthy pains to document the American wedding culture in both its diverse and universally intimate detail. He currently lives with his wife, twin sons, and dog in Long Beach, California. Find out more at his website www.noelhadley.com  and find him on Facebook.

The King's Curse by Philippa Gregory

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

From the author of The Other Boleyn Girl and The White Princess comes the story of Margaret Pole, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, and one of the few surviving members of the Plantagenet dynasty after the Wars of the Roses. Plantagenet, once carried proudly by Margaret like a crown upon her head, is now, at the end of the 15th century,

the most dangerous name in England.

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    About the Author

Philippa Gregory was an established historian and writer when she discovered her interest in the Tudor period and wrote the internationally bestselling novel The Other Boleyn Girl. Now she is looking at the family that preceded the Tudors: the magnificent Plantaganets, a family of complex rivalries, loves, and hatreds. Her other great interest is the charity that she founded nearly twenty years ago: Gardens for The Gambia. She has raised funds and paid for 140 wells for the primary schools of this poor African country.

A former student of Sussex university, and a PhD and Alumna of the Year 2009 of Edinburgh University, her love for history and commitment to historical accuracy are the hallmarks of her writing. She lives with her family on a small farm in Yorkshire. She welcomes visitors to her site www.PhilippaGregory.com