Author Self-Promotion

Everyone know that the author controls the destiny of their book and whether the book becomes a bestseller of languishes on a back-shelf is in total control of the author. There is very little that the publisher can do to promote a book unless the author is motivated to participate in promoting their title through conference presentations, magazine articles, forum discussions and a host of other avenues.

This is a short guide to understanding promoting activities for your Rampant TechPress book. It describes what Rampant does to promote your book, but more importantly, it discusses what you need to do to ensure that professionals hear about your book.

What does Rampant do for Promotion?

Because the Rampant investors are all authors themselves, we are an altruistic publisher and we seek to maximize author revenue with the following promotional activities:

Advertising Budget - We spend thousands of dollars on book promotions for each title, carefully planned to stimulate online exposure and bookstore sales.
Free Promotional Copies - We provide free copies to raffle at author lectures, book-signings, media appearances, presentations and conference proceedings.
Publicity - We actively promote our authors and arrange technology-related exposure in media and news channels. We also arrange special book promotions with user groups and technical news web sites.

While Rampant makes every effort to get your book visibility in bookstores and online book sellers, there are many things that you can do to stimulate sales of your books. As your book approaches completion you will receive an author questionnaire that will help us target your advertising budget to maximize revenue.

Remember, book sales are driven by demand, and unless you actively help to promote your book (via presentations, conference proceedings, web discussions), our promotional efforts may be of limited value.

You, and only you, control the ultimate destiny of your book.

How can you help?

It is well-known that author self-promotion is the single best way to market your books. Let’s examine some ways to increase the sales of your book. In the Oracle world, word-of-mouth is the best sales tool. Many Oracle books (Oracle Expert One-on-one for example) get huge sales because of devoted fans telling other Oracle professionals about the high value of the book. Here are the main methods used in self-promotion:

Get Links - Place links on web pages, pointing to your book detail page
Get Reviews – All your friends should post reviews on Amazon & Bookpool
Get Online - Discuss your book in Oracle forums
Get your book reviewed on web portals
Present at conferences, seminars and user groups
Write articles that discuss the merits of your book

Let’s take a closer look at each promotion method and see how you can stimulate sales of your book.

Getting Web Links

If you know people at web portals and can get them to do a small banner ad, you can sell thousands of extra copies of your book. When placing links to encourage sales of your book, be sure to use the Rampant TechPress bookstore link. (http://www.rampant.cc/titles.htm)

Note that sales via the Rampant TechPress shopping cart will have a higher royalty margin (e.g. Amazon charges 55% of your sale price as a handling fee), so be sure to include a link to the Rampant TechPress bookstore. The Rampant bookstore sells the books at the same discounted price as Amazon and Bookpool, but you receive more revenue for each book.

Getting Reviews on Amazon & Bookpool

You will want all of your family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances and opinion leaders to praise your book on Amazon & Bookpool.

Having fans review and rate your books on Amazon, Bookpool, etc, increases the popularity of your book.

· Amazon: www.amazon.com

· Bookpool: www.bookpool.com

· Barnes and Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com

Discussing your book in Oracle forums

Encouraging others to look at your book inside forum discussions is a great way to drive-up your sales. The following Oracle forums are listed in order of importance:

Book Reviews for web portals

Rampant will provide free copies to book reviewers who will review your book for online portals. Normally, the author contacts the portal editor, sells the editor on reviewing their book and arranges the review. Here are some sites that do Oracle book reviews:

Builder.com.com
Computerworld Magazine
Software magazine online
SELECT magazine (IOUG)
Intelligent Enterprise
San Diego Oracle Users Group
Oracle Technology Network OTN

Presenting at Conferences, Seminars and User Groups

Speaking on your book topic at Oracle conferences is a great way to drive sales, and Rampant will ensure that your book is available at the bookstore of all of the major Oracle conferences. Rampant will provide 3 free copies to give-away for promotional purposes when an author is selected to speak on the book topic at an Oracle conference or group meeting. These are listed in order of importance:

Oracle OpenWorld
State and local Oracle Users groups (link is a long list)
IOUG Live!
Southeast Oracle User Conference (SEOUC)
Northeast Oracle User Conference (NEOUC)
Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group Training Days
Atlantic Oracle Training Conference

Promotional article publishing

Rampant TechPress allows authors to reproduce sections of the book (not to exceed 600 words) in national web sites. These can be articles that discuss the value of a specific book topic and contain a link to the Rampant TechPress bookstore.

Here are some popular online article portals to publish book-related articles:

DBAZine - www.dbazine.com
Oracle Magazine – www.oramag.com
Oracle Technical Network – otn.oracle.com
OraFAQ – www.orafaq.com

Remember, Rampant TechPress wants to help make your book popular and we are always interested in assisting with any promotional activities. PLEASE, contact us if you have any marketing ideas for your book!