Generate More Traffic to Your Book

So you’ve self-published your book and are ready to share it with the world. Unless you already have a massive following on social media or on your website, chances are that you have no idea how you’re going to get your work into the hands of the masses.

.
What you are really in need of is a community. A group of people who share similar interests and who are likely to like your book, share it with their friends, and maintain a relationship with you. Oh, and these are also people who are willing to pay you for your book which is nice too.

When it comes to generating more attention to your book there is perhaps no better outlet than the internet for small time writers. This is why getting featured on the websites that your audience hangs out on can be your best asset for selling more books.

Today we are going to go over how to:

• Find Out Where Your Ideal Audience Hangs Online
• Network with Website Owners Who can Bring You Exposure
• Get Featured on Websites where Your Audience Hangs out

You may be asking “Why would I want to get featured on websites where my audience hangs out?” The answer is two-fold: first, getting featured on a website where your audience hangs out gives you the opportunity to quickly build your community. Secondly, because part of your networking goals are to get featured on popular websites, you’ll gain instant credibility that you wouldn’t have had you not been featured on a prominent site.

How to Find Out Where Your Ideal Audience Hangs Online

Before you can get in front of all those eyeballs that you’re after you’ll have to figure out where your audience hangs out online. You may already be aware of a couple of these sites but you’ll want to see if you can explore even more opportunities.

Before diving into that, you’ll want to define a few things:

• Age, gender, geographic location, etc.
• Personality type, needs, wants, desires
• Personal or work challenges (are you solving anything or them in your book?)
• What they are into – sports, politics, TV, movies, technology, travel, etc.

After you get a more focused idea of your audience, you’ll then want to create a prototypical buyer. Give them an age, gender, a job, a family, an income, cite their interests, write down their education level, their outlook on your book’s topic, and give them a name.

.
Now that you have accurately defined your customer and created what’s called a “buyer persona” you can really start your research. Here are some great ways to find people who will be ideal members of your community:

• Forums: While somewhat old-fashioned, forums are still a go-to place for people to go to get information, find advice, network and find a real sense of community. Just look at forums like Apple product support or any number of real estate forums. To find forums, go to Google and type in your keyword in quotes, a plus sign, and then forum. For example, if my keyword was real estate, I’d search the following “real estate” + forum.
  .
• Quora: Quora is like a forum site on steroids. It serves as a question and answer site where people can ask or answer questions based on their interests or expertise. Really good answers are up-voted by other members, bringing more exposure to individuals who spend the time (but also have the credentials) to answer questions with well-thought out answers. If you have a specific topic that is related to your book that you want to bring attention to you can see if there are any existing questions on Quora that you may be able to answer. For example, there is a question on there for “What is the best real estate investing forum” that might serve a real estate investment author well to address along with a link to his book.
  .
• Social Media: Social media, as you are likely well aware, is a great place to find communities of like-minded people. It’s too easy to just say “find communities on social media” so you’ll actually have to drill down into specific networks:
  .
  • Twitter: Twitter has a newer thing called Twitter Chats that happens when a group of users gets together at a specific time, using a specific hashtag (#), for every tweet that is contributed. A host will pose questions for participants to answer and everyone in the group is encouraged to get involved. Users can either host or join a chat and there are chats for virtually every type of community you can think of. To learn more about how to host or join one of these great resources, check out this post.
    .
  • LinkedIn: LinkedIn also has groups that function to discuss similar topics and interests. The thing with LinkedIn is that these are business-oriented. So while a topic like real estate investing would work, something on Lord of the Rings would not. Here’s a resource on how to join a LinkedIn group.
    .
  • Google+: Google+ communities, like Twitter, are more open in terms of interests than the business-centric LinkedIn. Here’s how to join a Google+ community.
    .
  • Facebook: Like Twitter and Google+, Facebook Groups are available for a wide range of interests and conversations. Heck, a quick Google search for “Facebook groups book marketing” reveals tons of them for authors just like you. Here’s how to join a Facebook Group.
    .
  • Reddit: Reddit is something of an online bulletin board social media network that allows community members to have ongoing conversations. Like Quora, users can up-vote comments. There are tons of sub-communities, called “sub-reddits,” where you can find conversations on any variety of topics or interests that you think your audience will be engaged in.

The next thing for you to do is visit all of these social networks and have a look at how big the communities are, how niche they are in relation to your book’s theme, and how you can get involved. Obviously, you’ll want to invest in groups or communities that are of decent size, active, and where you think others would be receptive to your thoughts..

.
Keep in mind you can’t just join these communities and promote the heck out of your book and expect a welcome response. Social media is a lot like building real-life business relationships; it takes time and you have to earn the respect of other members by contributing well-thought out, non-self-serving comments that benefit others. In time you’ll earn some credibility for being a thought leader and eventually be able to make a plug for your book or benefit from the exposure your profile (that mentions your book) provides.

.
Beyond social media, a good approach is networking with website owners with the goal of getting exposure to your book. Many influential people on social media also own websites and you’ll be able to determine that through quick profile views or through your regular interactions with them.

How to Network with Website Owners Who can bring You Exposure

We learned about how to find out where your audience hangs out online and how to engage with them to get some exposure to your book above. While social media is a highly powerful tool, I think the real meat and potatoes lies in getting featured on the websites where your ideal book-buyers hang out.

And when I say “get featured” I mean you write articles for these sites on topics you are an authority on and that are related to what your book is about. But more on what to write later; first you’ll have to learn how to network with these influencers to see if they are open to the opportunity of you writing for their sites.

When finding influencers that have clout in your niche, taking a look at their social media presence – which you have already done – is a great place to determine how influential they are. But it’s one thing to be active in a social media community and it’s another to have a website and be active in social media and be an authority in one’s field.

These website owners, the ones with a strong social presence as well as professional-looking websites, are the ones you’re after.  When you come across one that meets your criteria you’ll want to try and build an organic relationship with them. You can start doing this by sharing their content on your social media channels and letting them know you’ve done so. Note: if they are too big of a presence they likely won’t even notice so you may want to go for middle-of-the-road types to increase the likelihood that they’ll notice you sharing their content.

After you’ve shared some content you should try to have active, ongoing conversations with them on social media. Contribute meaningful advice, perspective, links, or other relevant information to the conversations on social media without overtly self-promoting. Over time you’ll look like an authority yourself and your influencer – and other community members – will notice.

After you have spent some time showing that you are an active part of their community, you should feel comfortable doing some direct outreach to them to see if they would allow one of two things:

1.    A guest blog post on their website
2.    Sharing of your content on their social networks

The first option may get better if you don’t have a website and aren’t publishing blogs and articles on your own site.

.
To inquire, reach out to them via email, directly through social media, or if you feel like having a real conversation, through a phone call. Asking if you can contribute a guest blog post is probably a bit softer of an ask than asking if they can share your content on their social networks so you may want to start there.

Of course, you’ll want to do the following when pitching:

• Have a good idea of what their target audience is interested in
• Present a topic that you are knowledgeable on that would benefit their audience
• Don’t self-promote when writing; your in-depth article and presence on their site will do wonders for your exposure without you having to tell people about your book

If you can do the above three things and somehow relate the topic to your book you will really be winning. For example, if I were to write a book on real estate investing and wanted to get featured on a real estate investing site, perhaps an article on “The 6 Best Commercial Real Estate Investments for First-time Investors” would be a relevant topic.

A lot of the above pitching and conversation between you and the website owner is best off via email (it’d be hard to tweet all this!) so you may want to try to take the conversation there. If approved, you’ll have to do what you do best: write!

Write Amazing Articles Your Audience will Love You for

Since you’re already an author, let’s assume that you can actually write pretty well. But the real pudding will be in the topic you choose and how well you are able to provide value to the audience.

If you joined a few social media groups, took a look at the questions on Quora and Reddit, and have a good idea of the articles that are on the website that you want to write for, you’ll probably have a good idea of what resonates with your audience. Plus, you have the buyer persona that you created initially to fall back on and really dig into what your audience likes.

Keep in mind you should always be trying to provide as much value as possible within your guest posting opportunity and again, avoid self-promotion. You’re exposure will come from your continued presence within the social media communities as well as from the staying power of your article on the authoritative websites you are featured on.

How People Buy Your Book from these Opportunities

The million dollar (hopefully) question! How do people end up buying your book from these social media and website opportunities? The answer is quite simple – through the links in your social media profiles or author bio. Linking out to your Amazon book page, Kindle purchase page, or the other digital checkout platforms you have will be how this all comes together.

If you can consistently get in front of a massive social media audience
and get featured on websites with 100s of thousands of viewers,
your book will get the attention it deserves.

Author Bio:

Eddie Lester is a personal trainer, serial entrepreneur and fitness educator in Manhattan Beach, California and is the founder of Fitness Mentors, a personal training education website that publishes content regularly. He can be found at the beach playing volleyball or surfing, or at the gym training for performance and drumming up new marketing ideas for his sites.