If you've read Why A Book Promotion Network?” you know that when Chris Graham and I began assembling this website, I didn’t know a great deal about Internet book promotion. Searching out the various promotional opportunities for our links and articles sections was a terrific education.

But in some respects, it was also daunting, because the more I learned about Internet book promotion, and the more information I found, the more I realized how overwhelming it can be.

If you feel the same as you begin to explore this website, don’t worry. The wide range of Internet book promotional opportunities actually works to your advantage. There’s no need to feel as if you have to do it all. In fact, you shouldn't. Our extensive links collection means there's something here for everyone, but not every listed website is going to be appropriate for YOUR book. Every author's book is different, and so are their promotional needs. Instead, think of The Backspace Book Promotion Network as a smorgasbord. After you’ve read the articles to get a feel for the various Internet promotional possibilities and looked over the offerings, you can select the ones that are right for you.

How to Get Started

If you have a clear idea of a promotional opportunity you’d like to try, such as MySpace, you might begin by reading the articles from authors like Lisa McMann and Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler who've used MySpace successfully to promote their book. After that, take what you’ve learned about social networks and use The Backspace Book Promotion Network to search out other groups whose members might be interested in your book's topic. But don't stop there. There are many more social network sites than we've listed here - quite literary tens of thousands - so take your newfound knowledge to the world wide web and go exploring.

Perhaps you've decided you'd like to focus on book review websites. If so, read the article by reviewer David L. Montgomery to learn the dos and don’ts of approaching reviewers, then search The Backspace Book Promotion Network using your book’s genre or topic as the keyword to find appropriate websites. Don’t spam everyone on the list - that would be a waste of both their time and yours - but do look over the list of bloggers and review sites carefully and pick the ones that look like a good match. Also, don't overlook the smaller review sites – advertisers will tell you that a big fish in a little pond is more likely to get noticed!

If combing through hundreds of book review sites to find just the right ones is more time than you want to invest, you might consider hiring a marketing service or publicist to put their expertise to work for you. A good publicist has carefully cultivated relationships with reviewers, and will know which ones to send your book to for targeted results. As with any professional, consider carefully before hiring. The article "Working With an Ad Agency: How Much Should You Pay?" by adman Gregory Huffstutter can help.

Be Creative

We’ve included links to some websites that on first blush might seem inappropriate. But a website where viewers can edit, or ‘mash up,’ posted videos might be exactly right for your personality and your book. Most authors know they can post their book video to Google Video or YouTube, but did you know there are dozens of video sharing sites where users post how-to videos? If you've written a book on dog training, the potential of such sites will be obvious, but who's to say a novelist whose book features a dog can't do the same? There are video sharing websites that focus on sports videos, or funny/stupid videos. Creating something other than the standard book trailer opens up intriguing promotional possibilities.

At The Backspace Book Promotion Network, our goal is to provide useful information; we also hope the information we've collected will spark the ideas that help YOU sell your book!

Decide how to express exactly what you are searching for. Try to think of just a few words that uniquely describe the object of your search. For instance, if you search for "bookstore (CA)", your search will bring up all the California bookstores listed on this website. A more general search on "books CA" or "bookscan bookstore CA" will still return results, but it will include extra, and perhaps unnecessary links.

Enter a few unique, relevant words. Try to enter names, buzzwords (called "keywords" in Internet parlance), or other words that succinctly describe what you're looking for. Avoid common words such as "the," "but," and "where."

Revise your search and try again. If the results of your search weren't suitable, change your search words and try again. Too few results usually means you should fewer search words or less-specific ones. If you got too many results, or if the results weren't close to what you wanted, try again using more words or more-specific ones.

To search for words in a particular order, enter them in double quotes. For example, if you are searching for information about Will Rogers, entering "Will Rogers" will return only pages containing the words Will and Rogers together, in order - you won't get pages where Will and Rogers occur separately or in reverse order. Use this technique sparingly; you'll usually get better results without the quotation marks.

Simple is good. Capitalization and punctuation usually don't matter, so you needn't bother typing them.

Be patient. Good searching takes a bit of patience, but you'll quickly get the hang of it.