Book reviews are the ultimate word of mouth and getting more reviews should always be a cornerstone of your book marketing plan as an indie author.

A 2017 Nielsen survey reported that the vast majority (more than 80%) of Americans seek recommendations when making a purchase of any kind.

Plus, the more book reviews you get, the stronger you’re represented by Amazon’s algorithm. This means exposure to more book buyers.

Reviews also affect the “also bought” book recommendation feature on Amazon. This is particularly lucrative for a new novel or an indie author who’s still building their following.

At the end of the day, each additional review you get bolsters your chances of catching another buyer’s eye. There’s no such thing as too many reviews unless you think there’s such a thing as too many sales!

Here are some tips for revving up that book review machine this weekend:

read more ” https://www.amarketingexpert.com/book-marketing-book-reviews/

Failure.

The word itself sends shivers down every entrepreneur’s spine.

But the cold, hard fact is that failure is real.

Statistics tell us that 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months.

And stories like this make us want to never, ever take the risk:

“I launched my eCourse in September 2016 and I didn’t sell a single spot. My husband was so mad at me for investing $1,500 in Facebook ads as a last-ditch effort to bring in interest. I couldn’t motivate myself to work on my business for nearly a month after that. The worst part is that I’ve lost confidence in myself. It’s as if this is a sign that I should just throw everything into the trash and go back to an office job.”

Sure, heaps of motivational quotes and inspirational memes will tell you that risks are worth taking and that it’s better to try and fail than never to try at all… but the reality is that not all of us can afford to fail.

Failing is expensive!

That is why it’s vital to spot the warning signs that you may be about to fail before you actually do. There are actually some glaringly obvious warning signs if you’re looking to launch an online program like an eCourse or a webinar that it may not attract big numbers.

It may sound like a grim topic to talk about, but it’s an important one. Here are 5 Warning Signs That Your Product Launch Will Fail Miserably and how you can turn them around.

How do authors come up with ideas for articles they can write for magazines, newspapers, blogs, trade publications, or leading websites?

Obviously, authors write articles with a purpose or goal in mind, namely, to:

• Help brand themselves.
• Build up their media portfolio.
• Get a certain message out there that helps others.
• Sell products, books, services.
• Increase web traffic.
Influence public opinion.
• Stroke their ego.

Based on any or all of the above reasons authors are highly motivated to get articles placed with publications, social media outlets, and digital sources.  They will suggest topic ideas that they believe they can write about and that will appear to be interesting enough for some media outlet to accept it and useful enough so that when it’s published it’ll help serve the goals of the writer.

Article ideas can reflect a writer’s knowledge, experiences, research or fantasies, including something:

Amazon is closing down their Customer Discussion Forum this Friday. The forums have been going strong for almost a decade and have been a gathering place for people to talk about  their Kindle e-readers, seek ebook recommendations and get tech support from within the community. It also served as a platform for Amazon engineers to post notifications on critical firmware updates.

Amazon is not the first company to shut down their user generated forums, last week Barnes and Noble shut down their own Nook forums. Amazon claims they want their users to gravitate towards GoodReads to talk about books.

read more https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/amazon-customer-discussion-forums-are-shutting-down

I don’t have enough time.

Do you feel the same way?

Do you struggle to keep up with all of your work, family, and home responsibilities and find time to write and market your books?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately (while showering, walking, or driving — it’s always a two-fer). I’m wondering if there might be some system I could create for myself that might help me better manage the short periods of time — 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there — before I have to jump on the phone, leave for a meeting, and so on.

Quick and easy book marketing tasks

read more: https://buildbookbuzz.com/5-book-marketing-tasks-in-5-minutes/

I’m sure you’ve heard of Google Analytics.

It’s a free web analytics tool that website owners can use to track and analyze their site’s traffic. It was released in November 2005 by Google, and is currently the most popular and widely used web analytics tool available on the internet.

It’s a smart move to use it to shape and strengthen your marketing strategy – in fact, some would say it’s essential.

Here’s how you can use Google Analytics to better understand and engage with your website’s visitors.

From The Digital Reader:

Content curation (or as I prefer to call it, “link posts”) is a great way for authors to help both their readers and other writers by one, pointing readers articles worth reading, and two, giving other writers public kudos by including their work in a post.

. . . .

I’ve ben doing this so long that I have developed hard and fast rules on what should and should not be included. Here are my guidelines for curating a link post.

read more http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2017/09/author-blogging-102-a-practical-guide-to-developing-your-weekly-or-monthly-link-post/