How to Market Books with Articles, Podcasts and Videos

My most recent guest bloggers have discussed how to drive traffic to websites and blogs in an effort to publicize yourself and your book so you develop an author’s platform and sell more books. Continuing on with this topic, today I’ve asked V. Michael Santoro, an award winning author and creator of the Author Intern System, to return with a second post. Yesterday he offered tactics for successfully getting noticed by the media; today he tells us how to market books with articles, podcasts and videos. He tells us how to do this while recycling the same information three times, and he explains how doing so drives targeted traffic to our websites.

If all this business-related information is causing you to suffer from the MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) Factor, as Ted Koppel likes to say, stand up and shake it off. You must learn these aspects of becoming a successful author. Only you can make your book successful. Only you can make you a successful author. Promotion and platform building are your job. As Linda Lee pointed out, you must be willing to do at least 3-5 things each day to meet your promotion and platform goals. Here are three you can do right now…

How to Market Books with Articles, Podcasts and Videos
By V. Michael Santoro

One of the best ways to brand yourself as an authority and increase book sales is to write articles and create podcasts and videos, and submit them to the major online directories, including EzineArticles, Itunes and Youtube. This approach provides links back to your Website as well as targeted traffic. Additionally, if you provide awesome content, your files can go viral, which will create a flood of traffic to your Website.

The key to maximizing your return is to use the same content to create all three formats. For example, you write a short article about your niche topic. You then read and record it as an audio file. Next you create a video presentation with voiceover. Once completed, you submit the article to an article directory, the audio to a podcast directory and the video to a video directory. This book marketing technique can be accomplished using free software.

Benefits

This approach provides the following benefits and should definitely be a part of your book marketing campaign:

• It helps your search engine ranking by providing three back links to your Website for the same content.
• Distributing in three formats can reach a larger audience within your niche.
• You can achieve multiple simultaneous “top-ten” rankings for your competitive long tail keyword phrases.
• Media reporters and producers can find your marketing material when researching story and show ideas within your niche market; being an author helps them to view you as an expert worth interviewing.

 

Eight Step Model

Use the following model to perform this effective book marketing technique:

1. Conduct keyword research to find the targeted low competition long tail keyword phrases that you can rank for in the search engines. You can begin by using the free Google keyword tool.
2. Use those keyword phrases to write articles (350 to 500 words) and include an effective resource box with the keyword phrase as anchor text in a link back to your Website.
3. Post the articles to the leading article directory EzineArticles.
4. Create an audio file of each article using Audacity, the free audio recording software. Include your Website in a call to action statement at the end.
5. Submit your podcast to Itunes (Tutorial).
6. Create a video file for your article using the free program Windows Movie Maker, or you can invest in Camtasia, the industry standard for Internet Marketing.
7. Submit your video to the video directory YouTube.
8. Once submitted, “rinse and repeat” by revising your article to be at least 50 percent unique. Then create your podcast and video files, distributing them to different directories. This provides three additional links for the same material and is now available to surfers who visit these other directories.

Conclusion

If you wish to sell books, you need to brand yourself as an expert first by providing excellent content. View your book as a credential that reflects your expertise and not as a product. When you build a relationship by helping others with your content, your books sales will soar because you build trust and a relationship. Articles, podcasts and videos need to be part of your book marketing strategy and this technique can triple your return.

 

About the Author

V. Michael Santoro is an award winning author and creator of the Author Intern System. Discover how using a student intern as your book marketing assistant can unleash your book’s potential. Sign up today for his free book marketing training course that covers the pros and cons of the various book marketing services and techniques available today. You need to complete this course before deciding to invest in these book marketing options.