If you’re the author of a business book, you may long to be quoted in the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times or Fast Company. Being quoted in a big, national news source is always good for a book and its author, but the truth is, you may sell way more books by being quoted in a media outlet that only your readers have heard of.

I’d never heard of Inman.com, yet that is the real estate equivalent of Bloomberg News for business. For Cathy Turney, author of Laugh Your Way to Real Estate Sales Success, Inman reaches the specific audience she wrote her book for and it is a much more perfect match for getting the word out to potential book buyers–leading to book sales, authority status and other opportunities.

So when Cathy’s publicist wrote to tell her that not only does Inman plan to publish one of her stories as a guest blog, but that they would like her to become a regular contributor, Cathy was, naturally, over the moon.

As you write your book, you may want to think about how you can include anecdotes or even short chapters that would make excellent excerpts for online news sources. Where does your target audience (or core readership) hang out online? What is their trusted authority for industry news (or health news or entertainment news or whatever it is you are writing about)?  Can you write a section that would make a perfect excerpt? Or perhaps a tip-list that media source might wish to re-print?

Have fun with exercise!