Review These “To Do” Book Marketing Areas

ByPhyllis Zimbler Miller

Book marketing is always ongoing for authors — new marketing efforts to undertake — and yet sometimes we need to circle back to previous efforts to check these efforts are still effective. Recently I noticed some areas for which I needed to circle back and I’d like to share these areas with other authors:

Kindle book descriptions on Amazon:

The descriptions that appear on a Kindle book page are written and revised in an author’s kdp.amazon.com account. Because over the years Amazon has changed what HTML can and cannot be used for this description, it may be necessary to revisit your Kindle ebook descriptions.

I was unhappy to discover that many of the descriptions for my Kindle ebooks were not as effective as they could be. Using the current HTML allowed by Amazon (click here for this HTML) I have been revising mine — and you may want to do this for your own books.

Book marketing on Pinterest:

I pin the covers of my books and ebooks on my Pinterest account and those covers, of course, have the book title and my author name on them.

But what about all the photos I pin from my blog posts and guest posts? Those photos, which are usually NOT of book covers, have no text on them.

That is where the advice of Pinterest expert Beth Hayden has come in so handy. She recommends creating what she calls “posters” to pin onto Pinterest. These are images (photos or solid backgrounds) that also have text on them — in the case of a blog post the title of the post.

As you can see on this post, I have created a “poster” with the site Canva, which I had already been exploring when Hayden suggested it as one of the online sites available to make “posters.”

The reason this is more effective than an image without text is that, as people on Pinterest quickly scan their Pinterest feed, the text is more likely to jump out at them.

Check out Canva.com yourself — it is free when you use your own elements while purchased elements are very reasonable. And the free design tutorials are terrific!

Writing reviews on Goodreads:

While this is not an area that needs reviewing for book marketing purposes, it is an area that may need clarification for authors who ask readers to leave reviews on Goodreads.

After reading Gary Webb’s new book BOOK REVIEWS THAT SELL I wanted to write a review of the book on Goodreads (which is now owned by Amazon). Although I have been on Goodreads as an author for several years, I usually only write reviews on Amazon. But because of the information in this book, I did want to try out writing a Goodreads review.

Lo and behold, even though I was on the book’s Goodreads page I could not find where to write the review! I emailed Webb for help, and I am sharing below what he responded:

To write a review on Goodreads for a book you have read:

  1. Click https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27774639-book-reviews-that-sell
  2. Enter the star rating below the book image.
  3. Just beneath the book image, a pop-up will appear that says: THANKS FOR RATING. WRITE A REVIEW. Click that.
  4. Enter your review. Click BOOKSHELVES/TAGS. In this case choose READ.
  5. Paste your review into the editor box. [Or write it directly there.]
  6. Enter the date you finished reading.
  7. Click SAVE.

After reading these instructions I know why there are often so many more ratings for a book than reviews on Goodreads. (On Amazon you must leave a review in order to leave a rating, which is not the case on Goodreads.) People rating a book on Goodreads may not even realize they can leave a review. (The words WRITE A REVIEW, which are a link to open the review box, are very small.)

In conclusion, although the above is by no means all the book marketing efforts that might benefit from being reviewed, it is a place to start. And in the comments below you can leave any other suggestions for areas to be reviewed.

Click here to read my blog post about Webb’s book BOOK REVIEWS THAT SELL.

© 2015 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including HOW TO SUCCEED IN HIGH SCHOOL AND PREP FOR COLLEGE and the romantic suspense spy thriller CIA FALL GUY. All of her Kindle ebooks can be read for free via Amazon’s monthly subscription program Kindle Unlimited. Phyllis can be reached at pzmiller@gmail.com