Over the last year, author Phyllis Zimbler Miller learned a lot about marketing a novel. Recently, she launched Queens of Book Marketing
to share her first-hand experiences. She also has a new company, Miller Mosaic, LLC, which constructs marketing-driven WordPress sites for authors.

Today, Zimbler Miller chats about what she learned while marketing and why pitch is critical to selling your manuscript.

Phyllis, you talk about the importance of pitching a book from a buyer's perspective – or the reader's perspective – rather than a writer's. Tell us about your experience pitching your book, Mrs. Lieutenant, that way.

If I were to pitch Mrs. Lieutenant from my perspective, I would emphasize that it preserves an important slice of women’s social history during the Vietnam War.  But I doubt that this would appeal to buyers of novels.  Therefore, I pitch the book as a story about the bonding of four very different women who must learn to get along with each other in spite of their racial, religious and class differences.



What can authors learn from pitching their story from the buyer's perspective?

By pitching from the perspective of buyers, authors are much more likely to hit a responsive chord in agents, publishers and reviewers as well as buyers.



How does this work into marketing?

This is the core of a marketing campaign for a book – providing what the reader needs to hear to be interested in your book rather than providing what you want to say about your book.

Did you handle your own virtual book tour for Mrs. Lieutenant? How did you work the buyer's pitch into your virtual book tour stops?


Oh, no, I didn’t handle my own virtual book tour – I would have had no idea how to do this.  Dorothy Thompson of www.PumpUpYourBookPromotion.com did my virtual book tour – and she did a terrific job.  Dorothy really understood the “hook” for Mrs. Lieutenant and she found blogs to whom this hook would appeal.


What were the top five key lessons you learned while doing this?


• The top five lessons are all the same: Just as you have to put your head into the mind of a potential reader for your book, you have to put your head into the mind of a potential blogger who might review your book or feature you.  The question becomes:  What can you do to help that blogger attract readers to her/his site? 
• Provide an extra book for a giveaway if people leave comments on the post about your book. 
• Reply in the comments to people who have left comments about your book. 
• Promote your tour stop on Twitter, Facebook and your blog or whatever social media platforms you use.


What were the top mistakes you made – and learned from?


The top mistakes were not doing the above steps soon enough.  As soon as a blogger suggested a giveaway copy to me, I jumped on that idea and offered it to my subsequent blog tour stops.


What advice would you offer authors who want to venture out into the blogosphere for promotion?


In my opinion the blogosphere is where authors should be if they want to get their book known in certain targeted arenas.  If authors don’t want to have their own blog, they should visit book blogs and blogs covering related topics (to their book) and leave thoughtful comments.  Engage in the conversation and then leave your URL (often done automatically for you) back to your book’s Web site.

And, yes, every author needs his or her dedicated book Web site.


You've mentioned before that you've seen several great author Web sites that simply aren't designed to sell. What do authors need on their sites to sell their books?

• Most important, a prominent home page “statement” announcing what genre and what the book is about – the “hook” to attract readers, such as:  In this YA novel a 14-year-old runaway must overcome her past to learn that home is where the heart is.  (Yes, this is corny; it’s just an example.)  Note that this statement makes it clear we’re talking about a novel for teens with an appropriate “lesson” in the story.
• A big BUY THIS BOOK NOW button on every page.  Many, many authors make it so difficult to find the buy button on their site.
• An excerpt of the book.  For example, if you’re writing a romantic comedy, you need to offer an excerpt that shows you can actually write funny scenes.

There are other elements that a good book author website should have, but these are the essentials that I often see missing from book author websites with beautiful photos on the home page but what’s the book about and how can it be bought?


Is it difficult to add these elements to a Web site that is already created?


It shouldn’t be difficult to add these elements to a Web site already created. 

And, let me add one more point here:  Clean and simple for a Web site is better than cluttered and complicated.  Thus you may have to lose some unnecessary elements in order to make room for these important elements.   
 


Give us the scoop on Miller Mosaic, LLC.

My company Miller Mosaic, LLC – which builds book author websites on WordPress.org so authors can manage their own sites once the sites are built – grew out of my own frustration from having to rely on a webmaster (and spending lots of money) to do everything. 

Plus, as I went on an intensive quest to learn all I could about internet marketing, I realized that most Web designers have not studied Internet marketing.  Thus, for example, I had to give my web guy the meta tags for search engine optimization because he didn’t know more this.  (And he’s not alone.  I have a little gadget on my computer and I go around the Internet checking the meta tags on Web sites.)

Our company provides book authors with the site I wish I’d known to have when I started out internet marketing for my book.  Plus we work with the author to develop his/her brand – a very important concept in today’s marketing arena.  (There’s an article of mine on this topic of author branding at www.BookAuthorWebsites.com/marketing-articles)

Developing an author’s brand means, on the most basic level, we work together to choose a domain name that may not be the book title or the author’s name.  And on a more advanced level, we can work with an author to develop a marketing plan for effectively using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and BlogTalkRadio to promote/market that brand, which in turn promotes/markets the author’s book.

It’s all about a coordinated approach to selling books.