You are an author with a great book. Now what? First of all, you should treat your book and your writing career like a business, an online business, where the most successful companies are located these days because the Internet provides a free platform and free resources for authors.
As an author, you should be on a constant search for ways to promote your book and find new ways to use technology to increase your public profile and income. What better way to promote your work, create a public profile and increase your income than by writing a series of press releases and articles on the Internet to use as promotions? The internet has changed the writing game and shortened the distance between writers, if you can afford to hire a press agent (which I can’t) to create and write your media campaign, or if you are willing to develop the skills to write news about your own projects (which you can).
This may seem overwhelming, but if you’re already a writer, producing your own written materials shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for you. Writing press releases and articles on the Internet will require you to learn some new skills, which you may not have needed to write print press releases. There are many resources that can be found in a simple web search that can guide you in the direction of becoming an expert in Internet press release writing, which differs from print press releases, in that, for the Internet, news they should attract search engines to materials posted on their websites, blogs, social media, and online news distribution services.
Search engine optimization (SEO) tools, keywords, and keyword phrases are constantly changing with changes in popular trends. As searches become more refined and specialized, keyword search tools must respond, and we must also respond in advance to changes in the language of the marketplace. When sending press releases to online distributors, take a look at the title suggestions for your topic. Most services have developed SEO tools of some kind that are designed to help you optimize your press releases and articles for your purposes. Be sure to research what they have to offer and use their helpful suggestions to show you what the distributor considers successful for the topic you are covering.
Nowadays, immediacy and updating of information are the rule due to the growing importance of blogs, social networks, Internet communities, collaborative platforms and web mobility. Technologies such as mobile phones and smartphones and online book readers increase our need to adapt SEO strategies to survive in the SEO game. Don’t forget, however, that you are ultimately writing for humans, so the words you choose should also make sense to humans searching the web for information. Understanding the relationship between human readers and search engines will help you produce press releases that create a strategy for you and your products to reach a target audience. Once you get the attention of the target audience, send it to your Blog or website to learn more about yourself and your books and services. Once there, you must convince your visitors to take an action:
- Hire you to speak to their group
- Request their drafting services for a juicy contract
- Place you in advance as a consultant
- Buy your book
The purpose of all press release promotion is to get your target audience to take action when you reach the destination you have prompted them to explore. Be specific. Don’t assume that visitors will know what you mean without instructions. Be sure to tell them exactly what you want them to do and to provide them with the means to take action. Give them a purchase link for your book; provide a description of your services; and leave a contact email address.
Your success in the area of action you want visitors to take will depend on the attractiveness of your site and the ease with which your visitors can move around your site and purchase a book or inquire about your services. Approach Internet press releases in the same way that you approach traditional print press releases, with the difference in the form of knowledge from search engines. In our quest to satisfy search engines, we cannot afford to forget important basic information.
- Biographical sketch
- Contact information
- List of your conversation topics
- Some important honor books
- Hyperlink to your blog, website or other pages
- Hyperlink to video of you in action
- Hyperlink to news coverage about your book
- Hyperlink to excerpts from his television appearances
Hyperlinks can provide your target audience with additional, detailed information about you, your book, and the services you offer without cluttering your press release. And if you have the opportunity to include images, please include an image of your book cover to promote yourself as a published author and a good quality photograph of yourself. Make sure the images are in jpeg format.
Having written press releases for both print and the Internet, I have learned that the difference between an Internet press release from an author and a printed press release, both intended to create the publicity described above, is the need for keywords in Internet press releases, which can be suggested by free or paid SEO services. Be sure to do a web search to find the most useful SEO resources for your needs. Internet press releases are tools that no author can survive without in this age of online marketing. For more information on this topic, read: Free Advertising or Your Book.
