Promote Your Book Online with a Short Article

Dissatisfied with your book sales? With book signings, press
releases, book store sales?

So many authors spend a lot of time and money on promotion
that doesn't work. It's time to do what authors do best-write
a short article. Online published articles are seven times
more powerful than advertising, building your credibility as
the expert, and leading the flock to your book-selling site.

Follow these ten steps to write an article top Web sites and
ezines will clamor for with a link back to where your book is
sold.

Apply these Ten Steps

1. Choose a topic that relates to your book. Make sure this
how-to article has useful, needed information. One site,
which markets to professional speakers, published my article
"What Makes One Book Outsell Another."

2. Know your article's thesis. The thesis is what your article
will prove. It is the major answer for your audience's major
question. In the introduction above, the thesis is stated in
the last line, "Use these ways to write an article top Web
sites and ezines will clamor for with a link back to where your
book is sold."

3. Know your preferred audience. Just as your book has a target
audience, so should your article. "Sell More Books with a Powerful
Back Cover," and "Increase Web Sales Through Writing Special
Reports" articles are aimed at professional speakers, coaches,
trainers, authors and business people who want to write and
sell books fast.

4. Write a sparkling title and opening. Like a headline in a
press release, on your Web site, or on your book's back cover,
your title and your first sentence should grab your readers by
the collar, so they will keep reading. Include a benefit in your
title or subtitle. The opening could use a shocking fact, a
question, a benefit, or a compelling story right out of your
book. Make the opening a short paragraph, even a single line.
Readers want concise, digestible information, especially on the
Internet.

5. Illustrate a need. Whatever your book's topic, show your
readers why they need your information. If you have written a
book on listening for couples, then in your short article,
discuss how much is at stake for not listening, such as divorce.

6. Give a brief background of the problem or situation you
will solve. One book-coaching client has written a book, The
Cure for Multiple Sclerosis. In it she shares that over 2
million people worldwide with Multiple Sclerosis are diagnosed
incurable, that doctors are pressured to use pharmaceuticals,
and that the health industry is not about getting people well,
but about making money.

7. Share the problems that result. In The Cure for Multiple
Sclerosis, the problem is that most people rely on western
medicine, which does not have the answers. Big money is not
spent on alternative or complementary ways to prevent and cure
chronic diseases, so people with problems get drugs that
deplete the immune system.

8. Give the solutions. Your book offers solutions to problems,
just as your article must. Show your readers how to get
excellent health, how they can write a book, make more money,
or have better relationships. You may write a tips article with
numbered short tips.

9. Show them where to get the solution and how. The article,
"How to Listen at Work to Raise Career Success," needs to
suggest where to go or what to do next to learn the skills.
You may name a quality book to read (maybe your book!),
mention a seminar or training, or recommend a coach. You may
even mention a Web site address or 800- number.

10. Place your article on as many high traffic Internet sites
and ezines as you can. People are looking for free information
on web sites. That's the major reason they visit Web sites!

So, now that you know how to write a short article, put it to
work for you to promote your book.