Looking for a creative strategy to promote your book? Look no further than your word processer and get prepared to write an article!
Writing articles for publication online can be a helpful promotion tool by providing pertinent, timely information to your target audience and getting the word out about your new book. Here’s how it works:
1. Write a brief how-to article about a topic of interest to your target audience.
2. Include an author bio of less than a paragraph that explains who you are, and includes your book title and a link to your website.
3. Submit the article for publication to websites and print publications.
4. Post the article on your website or blog.
5. Reap the benefits.
By publishing a single article to dozens of online and traditional publications, you have the ability to reach all kinds of new readers for your books and clients for your business. Since your bio includes details about your book and website, you are bound to gain new fans.
As an added bonus, posting your articles online adds links pointing back to your website. This is great for search engine optimization since Google wants to see lots of incoming links to your website. Do note, however, that Google will not display multiple websites with the same article. The search engine identifies duplicate content and will only display a single instance of the article, likely on the most popular site where it is displayed. However, each article doesn’t need to show up in search results to attract traffic from the various websites where it appears.
Generating Article Ideas
Every author can find topics for articles. For example, if your book is about finding the right career, you could write articles about job hunting, effective interview skills, negotiating salaries, and dressing for success. An attorney could write articles about business law, while a leadership consultant could write business-related articles for her target audience of business executives.
Submitting to Websites
Many websites operate on a limited budget and appreciate high-quality articles written by authors. Ideally, you want to offer your articles for reprint to websites that reach your target audience. The best way to accomplish this is to begin searching for sites on Google and build your own contact list. Each site should offer submission guidelines and if you can’t find them, contact the site administrator or owner to inquire. You can simply submit your articles for consideration or offer to swap articles with website owners and co-promote each other.
How to Submit Your Article to Print Publications
If you’re searching for new marketing strategies, here’s one: Try submitting an article you’ve written to a print publication.
Publishing articles in newspapers, trade newsletters, and magazines can be an excellent way to attract a new audience of book readers. Many smaller publications will reprint your article along with your bio and website link. Even though you may not be directly promoting your book in your article, readers will visit your site or investigate your book if they like what you have to say.
Trade magazines and neighborhood newspapers are an excellent place to start since they are often in need of writers. Consumer magazines can also be a source for your articles, although the popular magazines that you find on the checkout stands of grocery stores are the most difficult to break into. It is best to start with smaller or regional publications.
I have personally had tremendous success by submitting my articles to various trade association newsletters, smaller business magazines, and newspapers. In most cases you won’t even know the article was printed because you’ve already granted permission and editors are too busy to follow up. You will only know the article ran if you happen to see it yourself or hear from a reader—or notice a nice spike in book sales!
To get started, visit your local bookstore to find smaller magazines or conduct searches on Google. You can also search sites like www.newspapers.com or http://newsdirectory.com. Locate contact information for the editor in the publication masthead or website. Many websites offer writer’s guidelines where the editor will indicate whether she accepts submissions via e-mail and what kinds of articles the publication accepts. The most important item to note here is that you are submitting an article for reprint. The larger publications rarely accept reprints and in the journalism world, this is an important distinction.
Use the following format to submit your articles via email. Be sure to simply paste the article content into the body of the email since editors may not be willing to open attachments.
Resumes That Rock
By Edna Entrepreneur
Word count: 975
<insert article body>
<insert author bio>
*This article may be reprinted provided the author bio is included. Thank you very much for your consideration.
Edna Entrepreneur
<insert contact information>
