• Success Stories

  • “Although I am a three-time For Dummies author, this is the first time I have used social networking to promote my book. Before I even started writing the book, we set up a Twitter account, Facebook page for my business, and a LinkedIn Group. Later we set up a Facebook page for the book itself. We began posting updates as soon as I started writing and kept people informed about my writing progress throughout the next six month. As the book launched, we shared updates to keep people posted about media appearances, interviews, speaking engagements, and my book launch party. Simultaneously we approached our affiliates with blogs and newsletters as well as key (high traffic) career and job search bloggers to create a virtual book tour. At least two of our tour bloggers contacted me through social media to ask if they could write about the book.

    Over two and a half weeks, I provided guest articles, participated in podcasts, responded to email interviews, and answered questions posted by blog readers during my book tour stop. To give you a sense of the scope of the tour, I had 12 book tour stops for which I wrote 17 custom articles and interviews and answered over 50 questions. We worked with each blogger to create a mix of materials that was appropriate for their audience. Several tour hosts also wrote book reviews that they posted to their blog as a teaser for my appearance several days later. In addition to having our book tour updates retweeted by our host bloggers, their followers often retweeted our announcements. We are currently sending out 8 green career tips per chapter, through Twitter (using #greencareers), Facebook, and LinkedIn and will continue with this campaign for the rest of the first year after the book launch.”

    — Carol McClelland, author of Green Careers For Dummies

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Examples

Blogs & Websites | Social Networking | Videos & Royalty-Free Music | Online Publicity

Author blogs and websites

Visit these examples of great Wiley author blogs and websites. They are robust, engaging, and provide a great platform for their authors.

Brands & General Interest

Business

Crafts

Culinary

Technology

These authors did a particularly good job of leveraging their firms’ websites, making book promotion an extension of their online presence:

Facebook fan pages.

These authors have done a terrific job of building community through Facebook.

Learn how to do a podcast from your home.

Visit Blog Talk Radio for more information.

Twitter feeds worth following.

We think that these people do a great job of using Twitter and suggest you may want to follow them as you learn your way around:

@AliVelshi
@brianreich
@CherylBurke
@Chrisbrogan
@dmscott
@FreeRangeKids
@garyvee
@guykawasaki
@JoelComm
@kyleplacy
@MarshaCollier
@MicheleBorba
@NewMediaJim

Learn more about social networking from a fellow Wiley author.

Lon Safko, author of The Social Media Bible, has a website with many terrific resources, most available for free, and available for download. Find them by going to the Resources link on his website.

What you can do every day.

We love this list. It’s a very clear list of things that you can do to build your online community. It was developed by Wiley author Chris Brogan and is a fantastic resource.

Author videos.

We think that these authors have used video to great effect and think that they serve as good models should you decide to create your own author video.

Brands & General Interest

Business

Technology

Culinary

Royalty-free music.

These sites are good resources for finding royalty-free music to
use in your author video.

Send out a press release.

You don’t need a publicist to send out a press release! Just tell your story to your intended audience, post the press release to the web, and link to your website so they can learn more about you, read an excerpt, and buy the book. Visit PRWeb to find out how.

Author-organized webinars.

Brian Knight, one of our Wrox authors, has put together a two-week webinar series focusing on SQL Server and Business Intelligence. Each of the attendees receives a sample chapter of the book featured in the session with links to the “Buy the Book” page (www.wiley.com/buy/ISBN).