Why don’t you engage and give me a call next week?

Next Monday, I’m launching Office Hours with Denise. For two hours each week, I’ll be sitting here by my phone, eagerly anticipating your phone call.

You’re invited to call me up and chat about whatever’s on your mind. We can check out your blog or website content together. Talk about your upcoming book or the articles you’re writing. Working at home, starting an online business, homeschooling the kids, or even about our dogs. It’s all fair game.

Really, I just want to learn more about the people I’m hooking up with online, and I want to give you the chance to get to know me better too.

The hours will vary each week, because I’m a busy mom and dog owner as well as a full-time entrepreneur. But you can find out about my open office hours each week by visiting my Facebook page.

I’m looking forward to talking (for real!) with you soon.

You’ve probably seen book reviews published in your local newspaper or in your favorite magazines. You may even have seen them on T.V. during news or talk shows.

Those are all good places to have your book reviewed, of course. But newspaper columnists, magazine writers and television hosts simply don’t have time to review every book that comes their way. And as popular as they are, their audience may not be the ideal audience for your book.

If you want to reach a lot of people with your book very quickly, try having your book reviewed on blogs that are popular with your target market.

Why Ask Bloggers to Review Your Book?

Bloggers and often overlooked but powerful social influencers. Well known bloggers have thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands, of loyal followers who read their posts daily. They then share those posts with their friends and on social media sites.

Lesser-known, tightly niched bloggers are influential too. If you can find a blog that’s not as popular, but that is highly relevant to your topic, it is worth asking if the blogger will review your book.

How to Find Bloggers to Review Your Book

What some authors do is just mail out their book to every blogger’s address they can find, and hope for the best. If that’s the approach you take, you will likely be disappointed. As well, an out-of-the-blue email asking a stranger to review your book will probably get a similar, unenthusiastic response.

Bloggers are busy people – the key word being “people” – who write to build connections with other people. To get their attention, you will likely need to do some sincere relationship building of your own.

When you find a blog that you think would be a good fit for your book, it’s time to slow down and do some research. Begin reading the blog regularly, reading the comments left by readers, and leaving insightful comments of your own.

Before you approach any blogger about reviewing your book, you’ll want to know:

Is the topic of your book highly relevant to the topic of the blog?
Are the blog’s readers looking for information like what you offer in your book?
Does the blogger review books or products?

Once you’ve established that your book would definitely be beneficial  to the readers, and you have established a rapport with the blogger, that is a good time to approach him or her about reviewing your book.

However, thanks to the many opportunities now available because of the Internet, that’s all changing. It has become much easier for authors to reach a broader audience with their books and develop creative ways of earning an income from their writing.

If you’re an author who wants to better promote your book and earn more money, here are some of the ways you can do so. If you’re working with a publicist or with a publishing company, these strategies will compliment their work too.

Three Easy Ways to Promote Your Book on the Internet

Advertise your book all across the Web. Writing articles on your topic of expertise is an effective and simple way to start to gain recognition for yourself and your book. You can publish them at reprint article directories and websites that are popular with your target audience.

At the end of the article, be sure to include a resource box that includes a link to your website where readers can go to learn more about your book, download a free chapter, or sign up for your newsletter.

Build some publicity for your book. Press releases are another tool you can use to build recognition and credibility for you and your book. Press releases are no longer written just for the media outlets. You can now publish your press release all over the Internet so they will show up in the search engine results whenever someone searches on the topic of your book. To build some extra buzz, tie your book into a special day or event and write a press release about it.

Become a professional speaker. You don’t need to travel the country to promote your book with speaking engagements. Instead, offer teleseminars and webinars on your subject. This is a great way to build interest in your book and become known as an expert.

Now, Turn Your Expertise into a Money-Making Machine

Once you have a published book and are known as an expert on your subject, people will pay you for sharing your knowledge with them.

Here are some ways you can use your book as a springboard for creating other paid products and services. The more different ideas you develop, the more income earning potential you will have.

Compile the articles you’ve written into an e-book or a special report and sell it. Because a digital book costs so little to produce, you can set it at a much lower price than your book.

Create a paid membership site. Use a membership program like Wishlist or Ning to set up a community that people can pay to join and access your expertise as needed.

Paid teleseminars and webinars. If you’ve been offering free teleseminars and events, it may be time to add some extra value and start charging for them. Or you can record your free sessions and sell the recordings and transcripts.
Become a paid consultant. Whatever your area of expertise, you can probably hire out your experience on a consulting basis.

If you promote your book consistently, and work at developing new income opportunities, you can become a well-known author and earn a good income from your writing.

It doesn’t have to be so. Here is a quick and dirty book marketing plan you can use right now. This doesn’t cover all the bases by any means, but following these steps will get you started in the right direction. And they might even inspire some ideas of your own!

You start by creating your business cards. Make sure you include your contact information, the URL of your website or blog, and the name of your book. For your title, you can say something like, “Author of…” If you have a quality printer, you can print your own business cards, but if possible, I do recommend having them professionally printed.

You could also have bookmarks made instead of regular business cards. While we might be tempted to throw away a business card when we’re cleaning out our wallets, your bookmark has a practical purpose, so we’ll probably hold onto it a little longer. Again, a professional print job is worth the extra expense here.

Now that you have your business cards or your bookmarks, it’s time to start giving them away. You can post them on public bulletin boards, leave them inside library books, give them to people you meet in your every day life or at networking functions.

You’re also ready to hold an event to celebrate the launch of your new book. Arrange a speaking engagement on the topic of your book, then invite the public. Once the event is arranged, send out press releases and announcements to your local media.

Most cities have a way to broadcast free events, so be sure to take advantage of those. In your press release, focus on the benefits people will receive when they attend your event… not the fact that they’ll be able to buy your book.

At the event, have your bookmarks or business cards on hand to give out. You can also hold a draw for a few copies of your books.

One way to hold a draw is to invite people to sign up for your newsletter, then draw names of the winners from the list. Also have copies of your book on hand to sell.

And now that you have subscribers for your newsletter, it’s time to send one out! The people who signed up for your newsletter are interested in staying in touch with you and learning more about your topic. You can help them by writing articles on your topic and sending them out in your newsletters. Make sure you include a link where they can purchase your book too.

Want to get more subscribers? It’s easy. You know the articles you wrote for your newsletter? Now submit them to the websites, blogs, newsletters, even magazines your target market reads.

At the end of each newsletter include your author’s resource box with information on how they can subscribe to your newsletter.

A lot of times people will send out one article, not get really wonderful results, and decide that article marketing is not going to work for them.

But the effects of article marketing are cumulative. It builds your credibility and your reputation over time. The more you write and submit articles, the more effective it is. Deciding after submitting one, two, or five articles that it’s a waste of your time, is premature.

Two other elements that impact the effectiveness of your article marketing are:

- the topics you write about

- the call to action in your resource box.

It’s important that the topics you write on are highly relevant to the service you’re selling. A lot of people don’t realize that. You will have more prospects and conversions if your articles are relevant to your audience.

It’s also important to include a specific call to action in your resource box. Make sure it’s low-risk and easy for people to do. Then there is a greater chance they will actually do it. Some examples of an effective call to action are offering a download of a free chapter, or inviting them to sign up for your newsletter.

First of all, you will need to know your audience. Regarding your book topic, what are they interested in? What do they need to know?

Secondly, you will need to know how you and your book help them. What unique need do you meet? What problem do you help them solve?

Put those two together, and you will know exactly who you’re writing to, and what you’re writing about.

It’s a perfect recipe for an effective blog.

If you’ve already started writing it, or if you’re still in the earliest planning stages, it’s not too early to start promoting your new book.

Wait, I can hear it now…

“How can I market something that doesn’t even exist yet?”

Well, it may not be in a form you can hold in your hand, wrap up and ship to someone. But your book certainly does exist.

Your book exists as an idea. Maybe not a well-formed one. And maybe not one you’re ready to share with anyone besides the cat just yet. But that’s all you need to start promoting it.

Let’s imagine you’re planning to write a book on weight loss. Now, once your book is written and I see it on a shelf and buy it, I’m not really buying a book on weight loss. I’m really buying the idea that you can help me lose the weight I want. If I buy your book on childcare, I’m buying the idea that I can raise happy, healthy children.

Really, books are nothing more than ideas in paper packages. Which means, if all you have is an idea, you’re ready to take it to market.

The most effective way I’ve found to promote a book before it’s written – or almost any other time for that matter -  is to start a newsletter on the book’s particular topic.

As people sign up for your mailing list, and as you send out newsletters that educate them on your topic, you’re cultivating a group of adoring fans who will want to buy your book as soon as it’s ready to sell.

1. Plan and co-0rdinate a blog tour to promote your new book, or renew interest in one that’s been around for a while.

2. Set up a newsletter or help you keep in touch with your current subscribers.

3. Write or edit a blog post and publish it on your blog.

4. Help you plan and promote a teleseminar on your book’s topic.

5. Research and organize speaking engagements for you.

6. Research and organize interviews for you.

7. Write a press release about your book.

8. Submit your press release to online publishers and media outlets.

9. Write a promotional article for your book.

10. Submit your article to the top article directories and publishers.

11. Create and manage an affiliate program for your book.

12. List your book on Amazon.com and other online booksellers.

13. Write and publish tweets and Facebook updates.

Contact me to chat about how I can help improve your book sales and your day.

With an affiliate program, you pay out commissions to your affiliates (i.e. people who sign up to promote your book for you) for each book they sell. You choose how much commission you’re going to pay, but the more you offer the more affiliates you will attract and the harder they will work for you.

So, there’s a little less for you out of each book sale. But when you consider that your affiliates are like your own dedicated sales force, devoted to selling your book, you probably won’t miss that percentage. In fact, your PayPal account could look a whole lot better with all the sales they’ll bring in for you.

There are several tools you can use to set up an affiliate program, but my favorite is an inexpensive (five measly bucks a month!) program called e-junkie.

I’ve used e-junkie with several different clients to set up affiliate programs for physical books, e-books, and even downloadable audio recordings.

If you want to set up your affiliate program on your own, their help files are very helpful and there is a members forum you can go to for support. When I’ve been really stuck and had to e-mail for some personal handholding, they got back to me within one or two days with the answers I needed.

The only real complaint I have about e-junkie is that it can cost a lot to e-mail your affiliates who sign up through the program. To get around that, and still stay in touch with my personal sales force, I set up a separate mailing list in my newsletter program.

If you need help getting the word out about your book, an affiliate program could very well be the way to go. While you will be paying out commissions, you’ll only be paying for sales that are made. And there will be a lot more of those than if you continue trying to sell it all on your own.