Dear Michael . . .

You’re all ready to launch your book by doing a variety of online activities: webpage, Facebook page, blog tour, email blast, book trailers, etc. What are the two most important things you should know?

1) Consistency. Be consistent in your visual image across all your efforts. Make sure you “build your brand” carefully by consistently using the same author photo, the same logo, the same cover image. Don’t confuse the message you’re sending by being too creative with the images. Certainly, photos from a brick-and-mortar signing are fun to look at, but don’t use these photos in your publicity. Readers should see the same image everywhere, so they start to associate a certain book/image with you. If you do want to show other photos, create an album on your Facebook page and link to it. Better yet, use those photos in an updated promotional book trailer.

2) Call to Action. You should be very clear about what you want people to DO as a result of your efforts. Here are some ideas: buy a book, write a review on Amazon, tell a friend about your book, download and read a sample chapter, sign up for your newsletter, or enter a contest for a book giveaway. Be consistent across all your efforts and ask viewers/readers to do one thing. Only one thing. Be sure to ASK for the action you want them to take; if you don’t ask, they won’t do it. And make sure it’s very easy for people to do, or they won’t do it. Track the results of efforts by tracking how many times that one action was taken. Did you get 25 Amazon reviews? Fantastic! That’s a successful virtual book launch!

Darcy Pattison, Guest Editor for the Day

Author and teacher Darcy Pattison (www.darcypattison.com) writes about how to improve your fiction, DIY book publicity and book trailers (www.booktrailermanual.com). Watch a trailer for The Book Trailer Manual
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rogq93aYvkQ.