I want to introduce you to someone who writes clearly and often about how to sell books through speaking. Her name is Vickie Sullivan (www.SullivanSpeaker.com) and she and I have been working on a new training course for Professional Virtual Speaker’s Assistants. More about that in other communications.
Vickie wrote a wonderful blog post I recommend you read at: http://blog.sullivanspeakeronline.com/2011/02/03/different-shades-of-yes/. The post is about an author who did the hard work on personally connecting bloggers about her book. One of the things we’ve learned by talking to many authors is that the more the author is personally involved and reaches out himself or herself, the greater the chance of success in getting media or other attention on the book. This doesn’t mean the VAA can’t do a lot of this work, but the work is in set up and making sure the website is current. The VAA can also respond and schedule requests.
It is easy to underestimate the amount of time and just the sheer number of contacts that must be made to get real attention on a book.
The other thing you will notice if you watch any of the media outlets that promote authors is that is the author has “real” news, such as the results of an interesting poll, the author is more likely to be on. If you can help your author create a poll through Facebook or SurveyMonkey it can work in two ways. Just sending out notice that you are doing a poll or survey can help the author’s work get more attention. The poll should be of general interest and pertain to the subject of the book. Many bloggers and organizations will forward your poll link as a public service to members. It is important that the author offer a prize or two so that it will be worth the time of the respondents to take the survey and email participants with the survey results when you have them (you can send them a link to a report about the survey and what it means). This is also a great way of attracting people to your Facebook page.
There is no short cut for doing a poll or attracting bloggers but it is worth your time (and the author’s time) to do both well and create relationships for future book marketing.
The Virtual Author's Assistant 