Book Marketing for Nonfiction Authors Blog

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a book launch party for Norm Schriever, a client and friend, in Sacramento. The event celebrated Norm’s second book, South of Normal: My Year in Paradise, which is an intense, funny, and touching memoir about the year he spent in Costa Rica after selling off all of his

Publishing a book here in America is relatively easy, but achieving distribution to other countries is a whole different ballgame. Unless you have direct access to translation services, printing, and distribution in another country, it is typically far easier to pursue selling the foreign rights for your book to a local publisher. Deals like these

Over the years I’ve heard some authors complain about the fees from credit card processors, but it is simply a cost of doing business. Would you rather give up 3% of a $20 sale (about $.60), or not have that sale at all? If you want to sell more books, it’s essential that you accept

Shipping books is not something authors typically think about until their book is about to be released, but this question comes up a lot so I thought I’d share some suggestions. First and most important, you should start with a sales page for your book on your website. The sales page should include: The book

Today I’m delivering a presentation on blogging for members of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Whenever I give a new presentation, I upload the PowerPoint slides to Slideshare–which is a great social tool for sharing presentations. This free service also provides you with some simple HTML code so that you can embed a slide

Guest Blog Post by Norm Schriever Has your book ever received a one-star review?  Ouch, that hurts. It’s hard enough being an author these days without bad reviews to stunt our sales.  Already we’re shunned for being self-published authors, like it’s some sort of contagious venereal disease that you can get from water fountains, toilet

Of all the social media networks, LinkedIn is the most business-oriented. The vast majority of LinkedIn users are involved in business of some kind, and therefore can make great connections for authors who want to sell books in bulk to companies, speak at events, or otherwise connect with influential business leaders. Following are some ways

If you’re still struggling to find your footing with social media and trying to decide whether it’s worth your time, I have news for you: Social media is IDEAL for authors. In fact, if the rest of the world wasn’t already using it too, I’d argue that social media was created specifically FOR authors. As

Authors often ask me why their books appear on Amazon under the Used Books category, especially if their book has only recently been released. Not to worry! There are legitimate reasons for this. Most books are distributed through Ingram, the world’s largest supplier of books to bookstores. When new titles are released and available through

I just returned from speaking at the San Francisco Writers Conference, one of my favorite events each year. And this year there was a clear theme among the aspiring authors I spoke with. Many were writing books in different genres, and they weren’t sure how to go about building an audience. One of the wonderful