Marketing My Book With No Money – Part 2

Since I wrote the last article I’ve sold between one to ten copies of my book Battleframe per day. Not bad when you consider that all my marketing efforts have cost exactly zero dollars. So what’s the next steps?

I’m doing a number of things, all of which are important and all are crammed into the time I have available while I keep on working in my company ParkLogic.

Grow the Content

Marketing is useless unless you are also growing the content on your website. You’ll find that michaelgilmour.com is constantly changing and being tweaked with upgraded graphics, new articles, forum posts and anything that would be of interest to a potential reader. I’m also encouraging people to sign-up to the website by providing free maps of key locations from the book, news updates and access to the forum area.

I’m the first person to say that I’m not an SEO expert but there is one thing I know and that’s Google loves regularly updated content. In fact, I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to SEO….just give Google what it wants and be done with it!

An example of some content is that I’m hoping to produce a short promotional video for Battleframe later this week. It should be fun and once it’s completed then I can use it over and over again.

Just on the content side….take a look at the “About Me” menu on michaelgilmour.com. If you select “Biography” then you will see that I have a:

• Brief Biography
• Full Biography
• Biography with Quotations

I’m trying to make it really easy for a journalist to grab some material and write an article.

Likewise, in the press and media area there are:

• Interview Questions and Answers
• Photographs
• Press Releases

Also, if any of you are willing to help out then there is a whole page filled with a variety of banners of different sizes. All you have to do is copy a banner and drop it on your site. If you let me know then I will then list your site as one of those that is a Battleframe Supporter. You can check out the supporters page here. It's a new way of doing a reciprocal link.

So there is lots and lots to do with the content on the site. You’re only limited by your imagination!

Spreading the Links

While I’m building out the content I’m also joining a number of science fiction forums and taking part in the conversations. I’ve made sure that my Amazon author profile page is completely filled out. I’ve looked at the discussion areas on Amazon but to be quite honest with you I’m finding them a little confusing.

It looks like this Sunday will see the first Battleframe chapter released on sciencefiction.com. I’ve roughly taken the first ten chapters and divided them up into ten episodes to be released every few days. I think that it will be a great event….but more on that later in the week!

What I’m really after is a sponsor. For instance, sign-up to a service or buy this product and you will receive a free downloadable copy of Battleframe. I’m also open to doing deals with signed physical copies. With a little creative thinking I believe it could work.

For instance, buy a ten domain pack and you will receive a free copy of Battleframe……sounds a little corny but then again show me a techy that wasn’t a scifi geek! Or it could be pitched at gamers…..buy this package and you get a free downloadable copy of Battleframe. I think that you get the idea.

If anyone out there is interested in throwing around some ideas then feel free to reach out to me.

What I’m constantly wanting to do is leverage my content. I have 380 pages of what I believe is high quality content and I know that there are other businesses out there that need what I have. So it’s a matter of finding the right fit from my list of contacts or those people that reach out to me.

So this brings me back to my list of contacts…..I’m no longer just crossing my fingers and hoping that some of them will buy my book. Thank you to everyone that has bought a copy! I’m now viewing my contacts as potential partners. What can I do for them that will help them in marketing their goods or services with my book?

For many of them the answer will be, nothing, but often that’s just because I haven’t thought about it enough. Let’s face it, the scifi market in the USA alone is worth billions of dollars a year and there are a lot of people out there that respond positively to new scifi content.

So now I need to really get my creative juices flowing….

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. He also recently published his first scifi book Battleframe.