Books (and effective product launches) on Twitter @ #140conf: Day 2, pt. 7

The book panel started before I could even start typing – these gentlemen had so much to say about launching books, building community, and “creating” versus “marketing”!

On the whole they were very incisive, and their recommendations extend far beyond just the realm of paperback bestsellers. Great points all around, but especially from Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week.

Book Authors Panel, as moderated by Iman Wagner (@imalwagner)

A lot of this is verbatim, but it moved so quickly that I couldn’t capture it as actual transcript.

Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week (@tferriss)

Aims to tweet 80% good content, 20% marketing

Know the customers you want in the first 14 days – 1st and 2nd week of sales. These are what matters the most when you launch

Find your target demo for early adoption, but know that “target” isn’t “market.” Know your second target, third, etc.

Identify the 5-10 single-author blogs you want to hit. Look for “2nd level” blogs, and blogs with less posts per day

Create a “surround sound” effect, barraging your audience in a short amount of time – create the perception (later, reality) of being ubiquitous

This will lead to offline coverage if you do it effectively

John Kremer, author and book marketer (@johnkremer)

Find eyeballs on YouTube

Joined Twitter in 2007, but not active until 2009

Doing 10 tweets a day increased his traffic considerably, and his website Alexa ranking went from 169k to 80k (a dramatic increase)

Michael Tasner, book marketing strategist (@tazsolutions)

The first time he’s launching himself (after launching other authors)

You need multiple streams of targeted traffic

Start by targeting streams where you already have traffic, but also find new streams to outreach onto.

Don’t ask them to market you – ask how you can market them. And when you ask them to market you, ask for unusual things – twitter, 2nd Life – get out of the traditional mindset of just asking for a blog post or an email push

Jonathan Mayberry, author of comics and novels (@jonathanmaberry)

Build positive, fun message – show the joy in your creation

Don’t be afraid to cultivate audiences in your different areas, it opens you to crossover!

The novel for Wolfman had success exceeding the success of the film!

“The community loves to share good news and fun news, and that’s the message I’m putting it. That cultivates readers and connects readers from different genres, to have fun.”

Tim (again):

Avoid time-wasters. If you create a product (book or other) and don’t market it, that’s a time-waster. Know your target before you create.

Tweet 80% useful content that doesn’t warrant a supporting post, and 20% behind-the-scenes.

Know your home base – the one tool you can use for conversions. Is that tool Twitter? Probably not, so lead them back to your blog, homepage, etc.

If you want a blurb, don’t go after famous people, go after credible people. “Allow the content to stand on its own legs, put up powerful excerpts” and let the content speak for itself.

Create sustainable behaviors – when you reach fame level you can no longer personally attend to everyone, so make sure what you’re doing to manage SM is sustainable!