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If you’re an author, I hope you’re prepared to make the Internet your best friend.

The reason comes from something I heard Michael Cader say awhile back. Cader is founder and editor of PublishersMarketplace and PublishersLunch, which together are widely considered the most informed daily source for information on the world of book publishing.

Here’s what Cader said in an interview with Beyond the Book’s Christopher Kenneally:

“If publishers had sat down 10 years ago and tried to figure out something that could connect them to their customers, share their information, allow them to develop deep, targeted, meaningful, individual relationships, and sell product with less friction all at the same time, they couldn’t have invented anything better than the Internet, which as a reading medium has given rise to an epistolary culture that we never could have imagined. …

“The Internet was designed for us [publishers and authors]. We couldn’t have made something any better, and I think precious few publishers have taken aggressive advantage of all the ways in which a good Internet strategy can spread the world about their products, bring them closer to their customers, and help them drive sales. Retailers tell us all the time, people find out what they want to read online.

“Every publisher [I would add, author] should be thinking of their digital strategy as really beginning with the Internet, and branching out from there.”

Yes, Michael, yes!

Authors are no longer limited to sales through bookstores. We are no longer limited to physical appearances at bookstores for book signings–we can do Virtual Book Tours and sell dozens of books at once. (I sold 124 copies of my book, Abundant Gifts, in six days on my virtual book tour.)

We can use blogs, article marketing, social networking, teleseminars … so many forms of technology, and all can be publicized through the Internet.

This is the BEST time to be an author … thanks to the Internet and other technologies.

I encourage you to learn what you can about these tools–especially electronic markeing-- and use them for your profit, and to get the word out about YOU!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Marketing Your Book, Resources, Writing, publishing, promoting books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.