One exciting thing about the internet is that everything you do builds on everything else. That makes the effects of your actions exponential. The more you do in each venue–social media, blogging, outreach via e-mail and traditional marketing–the more each one builds on the others.
Your promotion efforts on the internet are not fleeting, either–unlike TV coverage or a terrestrial radio interview, links and internet coverage stay around forever.
One often overlooked area for book promotion is awards. This morning, my friend and colleague Sassy Lady Michelle Girasole told me over a cup of tea that The Sassy Ladies Toolkit for Start-Up Businesses just (last night) won the award for 2009 Small Business Book by SmallBizTrends.com. The benefits of winning such an award are:
1. Credibility: pretty awesome to be in the top 10 list along with bestsellers Crush It, Trust Agents and The Constant Contact Guide to E-mail Marketing.
2. Exposure: You’ll reach a new audience. Readers of SmallBusinessTrends.com are not the only ones who will hear about this award–all the winners will be sending their fans to see the list and many literary, business and book sites will pick up the story as well.
3. Newsworthiness: Another reason to send press releases.
4. Connection: An opportunity to connect with fans and followers by e-mail, facebook, twitter, etc.).
5. More: And your friends will write about your book in their blogs 🙂
The Sassy Ladies Toolkit also won the Writer’s Digest International Award for Self Published Books. The beautiful gold award announcement looks quite sassy and spiffy on the cover–and the Writer’s Digest brand offers instant credibility to potential readers.
So, how do you go about winning an award like these? Sassy Michelle says, “First, you have to write a book worthy of winning an award. For this particular award one of our readers nominated us and then told us about it. After hearing, we went out to our network and invited readers to vote for our book. We used Twitter, e-mail, Facebook and LinkedIN to let people know about the contest. Everyone was supportive and excited.”
Says, Michelle, “For the Writer’s Digest Award, we needed to submit the manuscript. It wasn’t an open voting but a closed panel of judges. My co-author Miriam Perry subscribes to Writer’s Digest and participates in the online community, so it was part of our plan all along to submit our manuscript as soon as we completed it.
“Promoting a book takes hard work. Winning an award like these is a real shot in the arm and great for morale to keep you going.” Congratulations Sassies!
So, what can you do to promote your book through awards:
1. Research awards while writing your book. Search for book awards in your category and note their deadlines.
2. Write a book worthy of winning an award: it adds something new and needed to what’s out there and addresses readers’ current needs.
3. Create a book award submission plan.
4. Let fans and friends know about any award nominations they can support.
5. Shout it out, share and give thanks to your supporters when you win!
Good luck.
I hope readers of this blog consider submitting their books for awards. It is one of the most fun marketing tools I’ve experienced!
On another note, Lisa was recently on The Sassy Ladies’ radio show sharing tips for authors-to-be on how to get started. She was a phenomenal guest! Here’s the link:
http://bit.ly/6ufOsc
This is a helpful tip, something I haven’t seen somewhere. Although I believe that writing for an award is unnecessary but I also believe that it helps a lot as an inspiration.