This year I've been working with book authors to help them understand the power of Web 2.0 as a marketing platform for their books. Whether it's blogging to show a publisher that you have a built in audience, or using social networking sites to promote your work, authors need to know their way around social media.
There are a few who get it such as Annette Fix, the senior editor of WOW! Women On Writing. She recently released The Break-Up Diet, a memoir that I reviewed at my food and diet blog, This Mama Cooks! On a Diet. Annette has The Break-Up Diet website, a Break-Up Story Forum, Annette's Break-Up Diet blog, and a Break-Up Diet MySpace page.
Another author who's tech savvy is Sherri Rifkin, a former TV marketing executive. She writes for a variety of entertainment and media clients including Bravo, USA Network and the Style Network. Her first novel, LoveHampton
, has just been published by St. Martin’s Griffin.
Sherri wrote a fantastic article, "A New Job Requirement for Authors" that gives some five free or inexpensive tips for promoting your book online
A New Job Requirement for Authors
by Sherri Rifkin, author of LoveHampton
Who knew that one needed to be so thoroughly tech-savvy to be an author?
I’m not just talking about knowing how to create chapter headers in Word (I don’t but I fake it well enough) or being able to change your printer cartridge. Nowadays, you have to know how to blog-vlog-flickr-twitter-facebook-wordpress-upload-youtube-blip.tv in order to be an author, that is, if you have some hopes of being a successful commercial author. It helps if you have nice friends who know how to do all this stuff (I have a Jeff, a Mary and an Anthony) but there are only so many times you can sweetly plead for their help and certainly a limit on the number the exclamation points you can put after “Thank you!!!!!!” in your emails. (Six seems reasonable; seven is just desperate.)
I’ve logged several hours, possibly equaling days at this point, uploading my book-related videos to the various viral distribution sites, creating the first of what is sure to be many photo albums on Flickr.com, adding a fan page on Facebook—and boy is my laptop tired! And I still have a “Book To Do” list two pages long.
Believe me, as a former cable TV marketer for Bravo and Oxygen, I am very grateful to be publishing my novel at a time when all of these free marketing tools are available–especially since I don’t have the same (read: any) budgets to spend on paid marketing placements like I did when I was employed by someone else. Short of walking around Manhattan with a LoveHampton sandwich board strapped over my shoulders, sitting in front of my laptop waiting patiently for my uploads to be complete seems like a far lesser evil.
But I’m fairly certain that once I’ve mastered the twitter-blip and the blog-vlog, there will be yet another technology for me to beg a tech-savvy friend to teach me how to do. (Note: In addition to multiple exclamation points, treating your advisors to a nice meal or an expensive bottle of champagne are good ways to show them your appreciation.)
Now that I’m pretty much all uploaded, I just hope the other kids on YouTube play nicely with LoveHampton21. I certainly don’t want to be forced to send my 206 Facebook friends—and counting if all my viral marketing plans work—after them.
My article, Remote Control: It’s O.K., Mom Said We Can Watch TV, is now up on Smart News, the enewsletter and blog for the Smart Television Alliance.
I met Mert through Blog Mastermind and a couple of social bookmarking "buzz" groups. In today's crowded blogosphere where it seems that everyone is writing about the business of blogging or how to blog, Mert does an excellent job. He's consistently writing great posts and promoting his content and site well. 
