Arielle Ford, the force behind the 21st Century Book Marketing Conference is a best-selling author in her own right. Here are a few tips she shared with the 300 or so attendees she used to promote “The Soulmate Secret:”

Arielle Ford

1. Start promoting early. She built her website six months before the book launch.

2. Build your list by offering valuable content, such as a teleseminar, webinar or first chapter of the book. But get the name and email address of the prospect in exchange. This is known as the “squeeze page” tactic and the “ethical bribe.” It’s all very legit and it works great to build a list. If you need help doing this, email me and I’ll refer you to a webmaster who can do this for you quickly, easily and inexpensively. (dan@prleads.com) She created a telesummit featuring other relationship experts. 62,000 people joined the list.

3. Create a press room on your website. It should include your bio, contact information, articles you’ve written, a list of media you’ve appeared in and links to TV or radio shows you’ve appeared on, if possible. Don’t forget photos.

4. Amazon best-seller campaign.

She also noted what doesn’t work:

1. Video book trailers. “It didn’t work at all.”

2. The Today Show. “It used to guarantee a listing on the New York Times best-seller list,” she said. But no longer. Shows that have dedicated followings and where the host endorses the book (not merely conducts an interview) work best. The one common denominator she’s noticed among clients she’s coached who have reached best-seller status is: “They were on a mission to change the world.”

If you’ve ever sweated over the design of your book cover, or if you’ve paid a small fortune to a book cover designer to get it “just right” then you might not appreciate this book cover for “How Literature Works: 50 Key Concepts,” by John Sutherland. It is published by Oxford University Press. Maybe when you are Oxford, you don’t have to think about book design!

It is a wonderful book. I now realize that every book I’ve read on an airplane over the past 20 years would not be classified as “literature.” And they call TV a vast wasteland. <g> Those books sure were entertaining, though!

Tim Ferriss of “4-Hour” brand fame was called “the wildly popular self-help guru for young men” by the New York Times today (August 17, 2011) in an article which reported that Amazon will publish his next book, “The 4-Hour Chef.”

The New York Times does not bestow honors like this lightly.

Tim Ferriss

Congratulations to Tim!

We’re glad to have helped him get his start when he used PR LEADS to promote his first book, “Four-Hour Work Week.” He even encourages readers of that book to use PR LEADS to get publicity.

He is one of the true breakout stars in the publishing field with an honest-to-goodness bestseller that has been on the NY Times Advice Bestseller list for 84 weeks, according to the report. I’ve been following Tim since he beginning and I’m sure he’s been on one version of the bestseller list or another for close to 5 years. As readers of this blog know, that level of success does not happen easily.

Tim is clearly a person to be modeled.

My article on Publicity Ethics last week really struck a chord. I received many “good job” messages and only a handful of unsubs.

Vijay asked a good question. Could I provide examples of “co-opetition” the word that means how to work with your competitors?

Some of my best friends are “competitors.” That is, we all offer PR services to authors, speakers, coaches, consultants and small businesses. However, we all offer a slightly different part of the publicity puzzle.

I provide leads and press releases.

Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound, offers advice and training materials.
Jess Todfeld, Karen Friedman, Shawne Duperon, TJ Walker and Susan Harrow offer media training. They are all in different parts of the country, so I can match prospects with them based on geography and fit.

Jonathan Bernstein offers crisis communications counseling.

Bruce Freeman pitches the media.

Of course, I’m pals with Jill Lublin, Steve Harrison, Bill Harrison, Jim Bowman, Mark Harty, David Mathison, Nancy Juetten, Raleigh Pinsky, David Newman, Alex Carrol, Rick Frishman, Robert Stack, and a zillion other people who have helped me and vice versa.

While we are all in PR, we all do different parts of PR, so we can freely refer clients to each other knowing that we are helping our clients find the best person for the job.

That’s co-opetition.

We also might exchange small commissions (or not, depending on the relationship) and that sweetens the pot.

We also can pick up the phone and call each other to get feedback on our problems and insights into our ideas. I’ve killed many projects when my buddies told me the idea was stupid or already done. And I’ve had ideas made better with the suggestions of my co-opetitors.

There’s an old saying in the martial arts that you use your opponents force to your advantage. If he punches, you use that momentum to thrown him.

The same is true with co-opetition. If you try to fight your opponents, you waste energy and can get a fist in the face. If you use their momentum, you win, they win and the mutual client wins.

Try it.

Who are your biggest competitors? Can they turn into natural allies?

Lynn Robinson, Intuition Author

Intuition author Lynn Robinson credited the PR LEADS publicity service with helping her get a book contract.

“I just signed a contract with Jossey Bass (a division of Wiley & Sons) to revise and update my first book, ‘Divine Intuition: Your Guide to Creating a Life You Love.’  The fact that I’d received so much media attention was one of the factors that sealed the deal!” she said. The book will be in bookstores in late 2012. Her current books, including “Listen” and “Trust Your Gut” are available on her website and at Amazon.com

“Intuition is a gift from the Universe — from God, if you will — that will guide us unerringly to the realization of our hopes and dreams,” says Robinson, author of this uncommonly readable book. Using personal experience, beautiful illustrations, inspiring quotes, simple exercises, and stories from thousands of clients, Robinson demonstrates that intuition is a gift from the Universe that anyone can cultivate as an unwavering and reliable source of wisdom and guidance.

"Trust Your Gut," by Lynn Robinson

Thanks, Lynn!

Do you have a success story about how PR LEADS helped you get a contract, a client, a job, a speech or anything else that’s really cool? Tell me about it and I’ll tell the world. I’ll write a press release about your success so you can build your brand, get more links that will help your website visibility on Google and help your visibility in general.

I realized recently that if I don’t toot my horn, well, you know the story. So I’m collecting case studies and sharing them with the world.
What’s your story? Please email me: dan@prleads.com and tell me what’s up!

There’s no denying that Oprah can make a company successful overnight. The stories of her successful imprint radiate from the pages of Forbes, Business Week and many others to attest to the kingmaker position Oprah has played.

Now that her show is off the air, what are authors, marketers and PR people to do?

First of all, realize that Oprah was a lottery ticket. Like a lottery, many people buy tickets but only a handful win. The game isn’t rigged and the cards aren’t stacked. Oprah picks what she likes and we are all grateful she has exceptionally good taste!

For the people who didn’t win the lottery, there’s a lesson. It’s okay to play the lottery once in a while, but don’t put all your hopes and dreams in that one basket.

You need to have several marketing tactics in place that you perform month after month. While Oprah can point to hundreds of instant hits and best sellers, there are millions of success stories that got there the old-fashioned way: they busted their butts by doing a few things every day. Every day.

The authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books talk about how they were rejected by more than 100 publishers before they found one who would print their book. Then they had to create demand for the book, which they did by doing 5 things a day, every day, for a very long time until the idea caught fire.

While we all want to take the easy road, there’s no denying that slow and steady wins the race; and those that do several marketing tactics consistently will always outperform the person who does nothing or who jumps from one bright, shiny marketing tactic to another.

To create your own Oprah effect, I’d suggest you stick to the Chicken Soup effect: do five things a day. Find the five that work and never let up.

CNN did an unscientific poll Sunday of more than 200,000 people who visited their website and answered the question: Which do you prefer: E-books or paperbacks?

Given this was an online poll; I would have thought e-books would run away with it.

However, paperbacks won by an 80-20 margin!

I have no clue. Most sales reports show that e-book sales are skyrocketing.

In fact, CNN ran a story on the same day saying that e-book sales topped paperbacks for the first time!

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The publishing tide is shifting fast: E-book sales in February topped all other formats, including paperbacks and hardcovers, according to an industry report released this week.
E-book sales totaled $90.3 million in February, up 202% compared to the same month a year earlier, according to a study from the Association of American Publishers. That put e-books at No. 1 “among all categories of trade publishing” that month — the first time e-books have beaten out traditional publishing formats.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/15/technology/ebooks_beat_paperbacks/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

I prefer to hold a hardcover book or a paperback – especially in the tub! But I can see why people like an e-book to read on a plane or an exercycle, especially since you can make the fonts larger.

Why do you think that is?

If you’re interested in writing a book on Kindle, listen to my free webinar with Daniel Hall, which we recorded a few weeks ago. Here’s the link:
http://realfastbook.com/danjkindle.html

Everything you need to know to publish an e-book is in this webinar. Seriously.

Many people want to get publicity for their books into the most widely read newspaper in the US. But few are chosen.

I recently saw a front-page interview with a new self-help author so I decided to deconstruct the story to find out the publicity strategy used because I always like to give my book author clients tips on how to get publicity.

First, the person had professional credentials. She has a master’s degree in social work from NYU and was a therapist in Beverly Hills.
Second, the book was published by a major book publisher. The publisher was Voice, an imprint of Hyperion.
Third, her father was Tom Brokaw. He’s a former TV anchorperson of NBC news and a best-selling author in his own right.

I’m not sure which of these three factors played the deciding role in getting the interview with USA TODAY. Do you?

Only kidding.

Of course there was only one factor to consider: Her father was a celebrity.

Here is a link to the article.

I can name more than 100 clients who have the same professional credentials and publishing experiencebonafides. (I can even name 10 clients who are in Beverly Hills!) But I can’t name any that have gotten this kind of great publicity out of the gate.

For the rest of us, we have to keep on writing press releases, writing articles, pitching the media, and doing all the other things that sell books.

I am always reminded of Mark Victor Hansen telling me how he launched “Chicken Soup for the Soul” which was rejected hundreds of times before a publisher agreed to print it.

He would do five things each day to promote the book. They would be small things, like send a review copy to a celebrity, or call a reporter, or do a book signing. After a while (and it was long while), the book finally took off and launched one of the most successful franchises in publishing history.

So my questions for you are:
1. Do you have a famous father?
2. Are you willing to do five things a day for a very long time to make your book a success?

Book marketing guru John Kremer reports that one of his follows did a book signing at Costco.

The author thought his results were extraordinary.

“I sold 200 books over five days and earned $3.33 per book to be paid in 90 days so that is $666 divided by 5 = $133 per day. I added 26 people to my email list for future books. I signed up three book clubs that are future sources of sales at retail price. I removed six cases of books from storage and got them in the hands of readers.”

I don’t know about you, but making $133 a day sounds pretty horrible. If he made $133 a day for 200 work days a year, that would equal about $26,000. He didn’t include his travel expenses or publishing expenses in that number either. So he actually took home less.

I think cashiers at Costco make more money per hour.

Moral of the story?

Books are great way to get higher fees as speakers, consultants and coaches. But they are a rotten way to make money unless you sell a couple hundred thousand of them. And there are very few people on this planet who can make that claim.

Before you write your book, think of all the costs you will have and the results you hope to get. If it is worth it, then go for it.