An ongoing article marketing campaign is a terrific way of promoting books and authors. Some of the benefits of article marketing for authors include:
• Generating direct links to your website or book sales page through the resource box at the end of the article.
• Establishing nonfiction authors as experts in their field and enhancing the author platform.
• Contributing to search engine optimization by providing incoming links to your website.
Here are some ideas for promoting books by leveraging content that you have already written:
• Compile a list of the best articles from your blog and ezine, along with short excerpts from your book that could be used as articles.
• Contact bloggers and ezine editors that cater to your target audiences and ask if they would like to use any of your articles as a guest post. When you send the requested article, include a low-resolution photo of yourself. If you use Word 2007, save your articles in Word 2003 format so that anyone can open the files.
• Submit your articles to a leading article site such as EzineArticles.com Plan to submit one article every week or two. Incoming links from the article directory sites are given low value by the search engines, due to abuse by spammers and scraper sites. But when a website or blog finds your article and reprints it on their site, you gain a link on a relevant site which can drive direct traffic to your own website, in addition to providing search engine optimization benefits.
• Join a blog carnival. Blog carnivals are a collection of links pointing to blog posts on a particular topic, or topics of interest to a particular group of people.
• Post articles on expert sites such as HubPages, Squidoo, eHow, and Google Knol. Keep in mind that some sites, like HubPages, require exclusive content that’s not published anywhere else.
Another way of promoting books with articles is to research the submission requirements of print newsletters, trade publications and consumer magazines that cover your topic or cater to your target audiences, and submit queries or articles where appropriate. Try Wooden Horse Publishing for magazine research.
Be sure to write a good "resource box" or bio to place at the end of your articles, which succinctly showcases you and your book and provides a link to your website and/or book sales page. Keep the resource box to 30 to 50 words, and be sure to include your book title and website address. It’s best to offer a free bonus to encourage click throughs to your site.
To get the most benefit from promoting books through article marketing, set up a schedule and post articles regularly. I recommend posting an article first on your site, then creating a somewhat different version to post elsewhere. This will help allow search engines to index the article on your own site first and also avoid duplicate content issues with search engines.
Wherever you post your articles, you’ll be promoting your books and leading people to your website through links.
Reprinted from The Savvy Book Marketer Newsletter.