Keeping up with technology is tough now-a-days, especially if its not your job.  As an author, my job is to sell  my books.  It gets more and more difficult as time goes on as new software is constantly coming out or there is some new website that helps make this task, or that task more efficient.  Selling books online is a constant struggle, that is why I wrote the book Social Networking for Authors, so authors can feel comfortable with the process.

I have been getting better and better at creating author promotion videos to help authors like you market your book.  By and large the author promo videos I see on many websites do more harm than good. They are nothing more than the author sitting in front of a scratchy web cam bragging about the book.  If you want to be professional, I would consider getting a high definition 3D author promo video.  I can create one (or more) for you. Not only will it help you sell more books, but a great video can get lots of hits on popular video sites like YouTube and Vimeo, you can actually capture interest in your book from people who would have never visited your website.

Please check out this website to see some samples of author promo videos I have done, you will be surprised at how inexpensive one of these projects can be completed for:

http://www.sellatonofbooks.com/author_video_promotion.html

Once your video is created and posted online, your book marketing job will be a lot easier.

If you want to learn how to sell books online, just get Michael Volkins new paperback Social Networking for Authors, it will be the best $18 you ever spent and it makes a great gift! Contact me if you want to learn how to write a book.

Below is a great article I found on ArticleBase today. It helps all those in the book marketing field. If you want to learn to market a book, check out the below article, it gives great insight on how to sell books online:

Can you guess what the big buzz is lately for network marketers? Social Networking! I will explain why but let’s take a quick look at how it started. At first there was MySpace and Facebook, two huge social networking giants. Network Marketers have joined them in order to market their opportunities through these sites. It is a great way for that extra free exposure even though the members of the networks aren’t entirely targeted.

However, the value of marketing on Myspace and Facebook is quickly dropping. This is due to the massive release of new and niche focused social networks. The fact is that this year alone I have seen an increasing number of professional social networks geared towards network marketers launching and becoming increasingly popular. To name a few: TalkMoola.com, Zenzuu, Friendswin, Yuwie, and Wowzza. A couple older ones are DirectMatches, AdLandPro, and even Ryze. Honestly I wouldn’t even be the least bit surprised to see a few more start-up this year – that is how much it is catching on! It is also obvious why they do become so popular among network marketers, because there is no better advertising than targeted advertising. Exposing your business opportunity , system, or product to other network marketers is simply the most effective thing to do. Once a network marketer joins you they already have had their foot in the door and are somewhat knowledgeable about the industry and can greatly help your business. However if a random person from MySpace sees and joins your business they are not nearly as valuable to you because they most likely have no idea what they are doing or what network marketing is even about.

So when network marketers are invited with the ability to join a social network full of network marketers it is almost a no-brainer. Just to clarify why I said “almost”… It is because not all network marketers have caught on to the power of social networking yet or how to properly use social networking to explode their businesses. But the ability to further expose themselves and their business to other like-minded people is extremely valuable and profitable for most. The old way of network marketing is out, and I see the future holding tight to social marketing through professional social networks. Even so, many of these new business social networks are offering incentives for those who join. These range from revenue sharing, direct affiliate commissions, and various MLM pay plans. Through this supporting these new business social networks they will experience the increased awareness and exposure that they deserve.

All professional social networks, however, are not created equal. Here are a few things you need to look out for when deciding which ones you will utilize in exposing yourself and your opportunities.

1) Somewhat Targeted or Extremely Targeted?

When looking over your social networks find out if the people involved in the social network are the type of people who would be interested in what you have to offer, or are like-minded to you. This means that if you are a network marketer looking to provide an opportunity to other network marketers then the people involved in the social network should be strictly network marketers. Does the social network you are considering include members looking for a date or love? If the social network includes this or niches totally unrelated to you then this weakens the potential of that network for you. However, if the social network is only network marketers or business opportunity seekers then it is an incredible source for you.

2) Are there limitations on contacting your friends in bulk?

Increasing your friends or contact list on social networks is the one major thing you must do in order to maximize your exposure and reach. This means accepting friend invitations from those within the social network and also seeking out other like-minded to add to your network of friends. The larger your list of friends the more active you will appear to be and the more people will take heart to what you have to say. It also means more people who you can send messages to through the social network. Some social networks limit the amount of people you are able to send a message to at once. Let’s say you have 200 friends but you are limited to sending to only 30 people per message and you can only send one bulk message per day. Well this is a very negative restriction and even more so if you have a much larger network of friends. On the other hand, some social networks will let you add unlimited friends and you can send them a bulletin or message to all your friends at once anytime with ease. This is what you should be looking for because whether you have 100 friends, 1,000 or even 10,000 you can send them all a message just as easily as if you were sending it to one. This means potentially huge exposure for you. If you want you can even consider it like an instant contact list of targeted prospects! However, I do warn about sending too much unwanted messages to your friends, you should try to connect with them and send them as much quality information as you can instead and then lightly introduce what you have to offer. If you consistently send what they would consider as spam messages they will just block you or remove you from their friends’ network, so using the social network properly is important.

3) Are the members free, paid, or both?

Another factor is the true quality of the member base. If the membership is mostly free then they are less likely to be purchase ready. However, if the membership is all paid and everyone is used to paying to be a part of the social network then these are the highest quality members you can get in touch with because they will have the money to invest in working with you. Mixed is fine though as this factor is not as important as the first two.

4) How are the other site incentives?

This is the least important but should still be mentioned. Other incentives could be the pay plan such as revenue sharing, affiliate commissions, or some type of matrix structure. It could also be other services provided with your cost of the membership such as training, tools, or other bonuses. Keep in mind, even if they do not offer great incentives but the rest of the above factors are positive I would still be excited to join.

Right now there is not a huge selection of targeted professional social networks but I am positive that the future will hold true for more and more becoming available. Personally I like to take advantage and join any social network because that is extra exposure for me, and any extra exposure is always a good thing. However when choosing to be most active in select networks you may want to consider the above factors. I have created many strong relationships, learned a lot, taught a lot, and profited a lot from those relationships within social networks. You should take at least some advatange of every professional social network available, even if it is just setting up a profile to gain some extra exposure. If they are a niche social network that have like-minded inviduals similar to yourself then you should definitely be more open to actively using that network. The benefits can be enormous.

If you really want to know how to market a book, you have to brand yourself and your book.  If you’re familiar with Twitter, you are certainly familiar with all the third party apps that enhance certain features of twitter (i.e. Tweet Deck, Monitter, etc). When you post your messages to Twitter, no matter which of the popular applications you use, did you realize that you’re giving away valuable real estate and backlinks to someone else?  If you use TweetDeck for example, every single tweet you post on YOUR page has their name on it, plus a link back to their website.  So, every time you tweet, you’re advertising them!  For search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, links back to your website are key to enhancing your website ranking.   Before this new handy Twitter application, there was nothing you could do to fix this problem.

The solution takes 10 minutes and then you’ll be able to brand your tweets with your own name, market your book, and insert a link back to your own website. Check out my tweet below:

Posted by NetworkAuthor

“I love marketing on twitter, and selling books online, check out how I can provide a link back to my website (below). Neat trick huh?”

Posted about 10 hours ago from www.SellaTonofBooks.com

Be sure to follow me on twitter, username is NetworkAuthor. The handy application I use to do this neat trick is Tweetbrand, you can sign-up for free at the end of this article. I have to admit, for a beginner, it’s a bit tricky to set up, but handy videos are available to walk you through the process step –by- step.

If you want to learn how to sell books online, just get my new paperback Social Networking for Authors, it will be the best $18 you ever spent and it makes a great gift! Contact me if you want to learn how to write a book. The below sign-up code will help you get started with your Tweetbrand account, it is an affiliate link provided by marketmettweet.

http://www.marketmetweet.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=134_2

As the book marketing world gets tougher and tougher and the economy continues to lag, authors have to find a way to get innovative with income. Just being able to write a book and put it on the shelves isn’t good enough anymore. I now sell my books via an affiliate program. An affiliate program is a software system you can install on your website that allows people to put banners or text ads on their website or blog.  Now, selling books online just got easier because you have other people selling books for you through their websites.  It also increases the back links to your website which helps your Google ranking.

If you really want to market a book, I would consider an affiliate program. You may not be an expert in knowing how to sell books online, but someone who is a part of your affiliate network may be, and that might be all you need to make your book a success.

Remember, market your book through affiliate channels to make your online selling experience a lot easier.

Michael Volkin is the author of Social Networking for Authors, his book can be found at www.SellaTonofBooks.com

Authors have a variety of activities. Not only should authors be selling books online, authors should have radio shows, speaking tours and other activities. Each of these activties could have a sponsor associated with it. Here is a great website:  http://www.getyoursponsor.com/Fundraising

For example, if you have an online radio show at BlogTalkRadio or TalkShoe, you could have sponsors advertise on your show.  If your going to market your book, you might as well have sponsors right? Book marketing can get complicated, and pricey, and a good sponsor will be there to support you.

Once you write a book, the fun starts and you get to learn how to market a book. If you want to learn how to sell books online, just get my new paperback Social Networking for Authors, it will be the best $18 you ever spent. I have a couple sponsors that even asked to sell my books for me! It doesn’t get any better than that.

I am always looking for neat new ways to sell my books and I just found a good one. Selling books online is my specialty and this new service only adds to my portfolio

Do you want a neat way to keep in contact with your customers and market your book? Do you want to learn how to sell books online? Try Oovoo.com, the newest experiment in my book marketing endeavors. Oovoo allows you to have video calls with up to 3 people (free version) and more people with a paid version. Best of all, you can easily install a widget on your website. When a customer comes to your website, they can simply click the Oovoo button and your live video feed appears on their computer. What a great way to provide instant customer contact!

When I decided to write a book, I knew I needed tools like Oovoo to sell the book. I can attribute Oovoo to a couple extra book sales per day. Would be web visitors who might have just left the site might be curious to click on the Oovoo video chat button. When they do, I give them the sales pitch and a smile and the book order shortly follows.

One tip that Oovoo users should avoid; always be dressed when answering a video call!

Michael Volkin is the author of the new hit book: Social Networking for Authors-Untapped Possibilities for Wealth. His book can be found at SellaTonofBooks.com

Do you want a neat trick on how to sell books online? Try Wufoo.com. Wufoo is an easy to use survey site with powerful statistics. I can easily market a book in 10 minutes with this user friendly platform. Check out this survey I put together that polls recruits to see if they are ready for basic training: http://ultimatebasictraining.wufoo.com/forms/are-you-ready-for-basic-training/

Simply follow what I did. Create a short 5 question survey.  Always offer a small prize for getting a certain amount of questions correctly. Once they fill out the form, grade the quiz, and send them a coupon for your book. If they don’t buy the book right away, its ok, you have formed a small relationship with a potential reader. At this point, you have their contact information, so just touch base with them every now and then.

Michael Volkin is the author of Social Networking for Authors, his book can be found at www.SellaTonofBooks.com. His latest book will teach you how to market your book online. Selling books online just got a lot easier with this new book!

If you want to market your book properly you have to understand what your clients want and need, and skribit allows you to do just that.  Learning how to sell books online is a meticulous process but if you can get feedback, not only from customers, but potential customers, it will make the process much easier.

Remember, our new produce is now available for only $5.95, its a marketing calendar. You will get daily emails of exactly what you need to do to market a book online.  I realized how hard it was to sell my books once they were published, but after years of experience, I am brining my knowldege to your email box on a daily basis for only $5 a month! Even if you want to write a book, this will be a great preparation tool for you. 

Michael Volkin is the author of the new book Social Networking for Authors-Untapped Possibilities for Wealth. Check out his book and book marketing services at www.SellaTonofBooks.com.

I am proud to announce I have created the first ever book marketing calendar. Basically, an author will sign-up for this calendar and learn about social networking via daily tasks delivered directly to the authors email. This is the easiest way to learn how to market a book. Even if you don’t know the first thing about computers or marketing, this calendar will show you how to expose your book to the world. Sign-up today at http://www.sellatonofbooks.com/buy%20now/onlinemarketing.asp

Michael Volkin is the author of Social Networking for Authors, his book can be found at www.SellaTonofBooks.com

I recently stumbled across a great website for book marketing called Friendster. It’s very popular in Asia, but is quickly making a presence in the U.S. The great aspect of Friendster is you can easily search for highly targeted friends. For example, if you are targeting friends who want to write a book, as I am, you can find them very easily.  When you do a friend search, you can even group people by age category.  The members on Friendster seem to be active as many members have 50+ friends. Connecting with friends is easy on Friendster but they also have another nice feature for authors. You can add a 3D profile. Pick a landscape such as a cubicle in an office and that landscape is added to your profile. You then can customize that landscape and insert pictures of your book or any other relevant information about yourself. Then, someone can take a virtual tour of your profile in a 360 degree view.  I can sell my books right in my profile by giving potential customers images of my book cover and even sample book pages.  This website makes selling books online much easier.

I suggest you do the same if you want to market your book online efficiently. Websites like Friendster give you a chance to open up to a whole new audience. Be sure to join the many groups they have available. If your book is on how to sell books online, as is mine, then join author groups or groups that writers would join.

For more tips and tricks on how to market a book, go to Michael Volkin’s new website SellaTonofBooks.com and purchase Social Networking for Authors-Untapped Possibilities for Wealth