Steven Lewis has four books on the Kindle and, through his website and blog, Taleist , he helps other writers become published authors. I talked to Steven about some of his top advice for authors.

What do you think is the most important thing an ebook author can do to promote their book?

I saw Michael Connelly at the Sydney Writers’ Festival recently. Even for a hugely successful traditionally published author, he pointed to word-of-mouth as being critical. Not all traditionally published authors get a decent marketing budget from their publishers, but Connelly would so it was interesting he singled it out as critical.

That’s good news for self-published authors because the playing field is leveled. We might not all have the money to put our books on the side of buses, but we all have what it takes to get word-of-mouth. And the best way to get it is to ask for it.

How do you ask?

There’s no room for an author to be shy about their work. You wrote your book because you thought the idea was good enough; you self-published it because you thought someone other than your mother should read it; and once you’ve done that you can’t hold back on talking about it and asking other people to do the same.

All of my books include my contact details, so I can gather any great feedback to publish on my blog. I also ask people to leave reviews, send a tweet or use Facebook to let other people know about the book. Why trust in the idea that a reader’s first thought will be to do that? It costs you nothing to ask and it puts the idea in their mind. Get them at the end of your book and ask them nicely.

It’s even easier now that Amazon has introduced the Before You Go… feature to all Kindle books. I explain how it works in In-Book Promotion. It’s a powerful word-of-mouth tool and, if you don’t understand it, you should!

What else should authors be doing?

It’s all about making it easy for your reader to help you. It’s great when you get someone to read your blog, for instance, but much better when you get them to persuade someone else to read your blog as well.

All my blog posts have a sharing feature at the bottom of the post. With a couple of clicks, readers can share what they’ve read with their friends and followers on social networks. And, if it’s good material, why wouldn’t they? Sharing it rewards the person whom they appreciate for writing the content in the first place; and sharing makes them look good in their networks as someone who circulates good stuff.

The reason they wouldn’t do that for you is that you haven’t made it easy enough for them. You should look at everything you write and ask whether you’ve made it easy for someone to pass it on.

So the “new” technology is vital?

This is the best time in history to be a writer. Michael Connelly was worried about his word-of-mouth falling off as bookshops decline. That shows me he just doesn’t get what’s happening. How many people can a single bookseller reach with a recommendation? One tweet from an influential reader can reach thousands of people in seconds. I’m as sad as anyone that booksellers are having a hard time but less word-of-mouth is not one of the downsides. Ebooks give rocket fuel to getting the word out.

You have to understand how these tools work, though. Authors owe it to themselves and their books to make sure they understand at least the big three: Twitter, Facebook and blogs. They’re not the same things, they work differently, and have different cultures. It will take an investment of time and learning to get to grips with them but ignoring them or not using them to their full potential is hurting your potential sales.

Time is money of course but how fabulous that the cost of entry to these media is zero or next to nothing. Facebook and Twitter are free; and there is some cost in blogging; but compared to what this sort of publicity would have cost you 10 or even five years ago…

I go back to what I said at the beginning: you wrote your book because you wanted people to read it. People aren’t going to read your book if they’ve never heard of it. You have to believe in your work and you have to back it.

With every little bit of work you put into that, you’re going to see a big payoff.

Steven Lewis has been a journalist and professional writer for almost 20 years. His work has appeared in newspapers and magazines all over the world. His site, Taleist, helps writers become published authors through its free blog and guides like the Kindle Publishing Roadmap, Kindle Formatting, and In-Book Promotion (using the Kindle’s built-in features to boost sales).

You’ll learn more about Steven and his work by visiting www.Taleist.com

Met with as much fury as the sales rank fall of “innocents”, is the new intended policy that will permanently change the ranking system for what Amazon deems “gay and adult themed books”.  

May I say Amazon PR nightmare, train wreck now?

In response to a request for comment, Amazon went on record with the LA Times and explained the disappearing book/sales ranks a “glitch”.

I hope that’s the truth since I have always seen and experienced Amazon as an ally and asset for book sales and author promotion efforts.  

Authors check your accounts immediately to be sure you were not innocently included in the sales rank fall and be advised, Amazon may take a while to address your concerns, if any. In my dealings with Amazon I’ve learned don’t have the staff to field and resolve real time author requests to say nothing of the overload this current public outcry must be creating. It’s best to contact your publisher if you have concerns with your titles, each  has an Amazon account rep. that can deliver more timely responses to your concerns.

Want to see the trend in action at Twitter? #amazonfail: http://tinyurl.com/cmg4vg

Here the LA Times story: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c630a53ef01156f202135970c

 Keep your finger on the pulse of your books, let’s hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.

UPDATE: 

4/13/2009 The New York Times updates the #Amazonfail story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/technology/internet/14amazon.html?_r=1&ref=business

The group Straight No Chaser lands an Atlantic record deal after posting a short video on You Tube. Then …CNN’s Shanon Cook interviews the group about their surprise success.

PR and the media aren’t changing, they have changed. Web savvy PR is the catalyst that brings you the level of success you deserve.

Take a minute to watch this CNN video-

Straight No Chaser lands an Atlantic record deal after posting a short video on You Tube

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