My apologies to Madi this should have been posted yesterday.
Today our guest is Madi Preda, author of yesterday’s book “How to Promote and Market your book”, here is a link to the book review http://wp.me/p2Eu3u-5u0
Let’s find out more about Madi,
1) Where is your home town?
I am living in northern Greece, in a little village called Rizia, close to the border with Turkey and Bulgaria.
2) How long have you been running your Author’s Promotion business?
Authors’s Promotion is the name of my blog and the business is called Authors PR Madi Preda. I started one year ago, when my husband published his second novel Judas Goat The Kennet Narrow Boat Mystery. In the beginning it was our aim to help him get more exposure for his books and then I thought I could help other authors too. I like to believe that I did.
3) Are authors finally realising that writing their book is just the beginning of a huge journey?
I am sure they do. Only some of them either don’t know how to do it or don’t like to. Many authors hate to be exposed in public or online or they see the publicity as being selfish and this I consider to be wrong. This is because if a writer has published a book, he wants people to read the story, otherwise why they bother to publish, have an ISBN or register copy rights? Why not just print the manuscript and give it to friends and family? So, they need to promote the book if they want to share the story .If an author can’t or doesn’t want to do it there are people specialized in book marketing who can do it for them, some of them at an affordable price and at a very professional level.
4) How much of the whole “Book Package” from the first idea of a book to the actual sales is taken up with the physical book writing would you say?
This depends, some authors have the story in their head for years and when they decided to put it on paper it flows easy and then the team of proofreader, editor and cover designer complete the work quick enough.With the modern digital technology and all the self publishing platforms I think it can be just a matter of a few months for a novel to be out on the market.
5) Will promoting and marketing cost a lot of money?
You made me smile with this question. I am known as a freebie person, so my book How To Promote and Market Your Book provides marketing avenues at no costs or with very little money and I can give you a good example. Recently I designed the cover for the latest novel written by my husband, Abduction – An Angel Over Rimini and I had a battle with the publisher platform requirements. On their site they recommend to edit the cover photo in photoshop or InDesign, both of them being quite expensive software. After a bit of surfing through the internet I found a photo editor program online, totally free, with the same features as the others, I edited the photo for the front cover with this one and surprise, surprise it was accepted as meeting the requirements of the publisher. So, it can be done at no cost at all.
6) Do you think the future of book sales is closely related to social media?
Not only, but social media plays an important role in book sales. The issue is to find the right social media contacts and the right audience.
7) What does writing a book have to do with running a business?
I think every writer who wants to be successful must treat a book as his business. A book is like a product and you have to draw a marketing plan, set up a budget, develop strategies to present the book, contact people in the publishing industry, radio producers and so on. So an author must learn how to sell himself as an author or in other words to build his author brand and learn how to sell more books. The only difference is that for a business there are many departments who take care of each step, in the writing process the author has to complete many of these tasks and for a self published author is a complete job.
8) Why should authors make book reviewers and book bloggers feel special?
Reviewers and Bloggers are special because they offer their unconditional support just for the love of books.They are the first ones every author asks for help and when I launched my book I was surprised to see people helping me even without asking, you were one of those people. So, thank you Rosie for your invaluable support, you are special for many authors.
9) Tell us your top 5 marketing tips.
– do research, a lot
– have a marketing plan
– establish a kind of relationship with your readers
-don’t think about your book only in terms of sales it is very important to think about the message you share with your audience and how you share it.
– every time that you have the occasion to present your book, come with new and engaging marketing content.
10) Where can readers find out more about you?
I am just about on all social media platforms
How to Promote and Market Your Book – Madi Preda
Find a copy of this book on Smashwords or Barnes and Nobel
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/MadiPreda
https://www.facebook.com/bookspromotion
gr.linkedin.com/pub/authors-promotion/78/9b9/2b5/
Thanks a lot,
Authors PR – Madi Preda author of
How to Promote and Market Your Book
Thank you Madi, this is a book I definitely recommend to authors.
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Rosie Amber 