Book Promotion Through SEO

If you have a Web site for your book (and you should), then maximizing your book's search engine rankings should be a core part of your book promotion campaign.

Promote your web site in the media, and potential buyers will go back to Google and other search engines. There they'll look up whatever they remember hearing, or reading, about your book -- the title, the author's name, or the key concepts. Even if you mentioned your Web site's URL on the air, people will still look it up in the search engines. Let's face it. If someone is driving to work and hears you on the radio, that person may be awed and eager to read more about you, but he or she is still unlikely to pull over to the side of the road to jot down your URL.

So be sure to optimize your presence in the search engines. One way to do that is to encourage other high-quality Web sites to link back to your Web site. And the simplest, and most effective way to do THAT is to offer other Web sites bylined articles that they can use as content, for free, in exchange for providing attribution (and, hopefully, a link back to your Web site).

When you're thinking about your book promotion campaign, search engine optimization may not be the first thing that comes to mind. You might be more likely to think about radio interviews, television appearances, feature articles, book reviews, and bookstore signings. But your Web site is available to you, too, to enhance your book promotion campaign. So be sure your Web site is optimized for search engines. And, in particular, be sure that Google knows who you are!

She Strips for Book Sales

Have you heard of Diablo Cody, author of "Candy Girl?" Well, you probably will.

You'll understand why Cody's book promotion campaign is going so well (she appeared on Letterman show and the front page of CNN.com) when you hear the subtitle of her book: "A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper." Cody's unusual avocation (combined, apparently, with her writing skills) net her a highly promotable book and all the media attention anyone could crave.

So how can you mirror Cody's good fortune in launching an incredibly successful book promotion campaign? Start with a shocking (and well-written) book, and then be stunningly beautiful, and then be an uninhibited entertainer who is willing to talk about anything -- anything -- in public.

And I suppose it would help if you'd be willing to spend a year stripping in nightclubs and then write a book about it.