Products sampled from this guide:
An increasingly popular way to get exposure for a book is by contributing to online article banks. One of the most popular, EzineArticles.com, has more than 45,000 participating authors. If it accepts your article, it will feature the piece at the EzineArticles.com site and make it available for reuse by other Web sites, blogs and e-mail newsletters, along with a “resource box” that has links back to your site.
Contributors aren’t paid, but they figure the added exposure is worth the effort. And it’s true that article syndication can provide great exposure, but you should be selective about the content you contribute.
Don’t offer any content that appears on your site without first rewriting it. Search engines such as Google constantly filter out “duplicate content” from search results. If an article from your site appears elsewhere on the Internet, one of the Web pages that offer it will probably be deleted from search results, and chances are that one will be yours. Search-engine experts call this the duplicate content penalty.
THE DANGERS OF DUPLICATE CONTENT
Here’s how syndicating an article to promote a book can backfire:
Let’s imagine you’ve published a book about pottery, and you publish a pottery blog to promote it. Last year on your blog, you wrote a nifty tutorial on fixing broken pottery. Word has gotten around, and now every pottery site on the Internet links to your pottery-repair page. Because of all these links, your page is the top Google result for “repairing pottery,” “fixing pottery,” and several related queries. That single page is your Web site’s crown jewel, accounting for half your new visitors and a good portion of the pottery book’s sales.
Now let’s imagine you try to squeeze even more traffic from your pottery-repair article. You post it to EzineArticles.com, without changing much, except that you add links back to your site. Meanwhile, you upload the same article to other syndication sites like GoArticles.com and IdeaMarketers.com.
Then you sit back and wait for the extra traffic. But what you see is the exact opposite—less traffic, not more. Since your article now appears on at least one bigger, more popular site, it’s likely that Google will send searchers there instead of sending them to your site. Google has made a quick calculation of which site is more authoritative, and because EzineArticles.com has more links than your site, it wins. Google doesn’t care that you wrote the article and have the Internet’s best pottery site.
KEEP YOUR VISITORS COMING
The lesson is, keep your most valuable content on your site exclusively. And if you’re going to syndicate existing content, change it substantially.
Google’s Adam Lasnik, the company’s “search evangelist,” offers two tips for avoiding the duplicate content penalty:
-- If you syndicate an article containing the same language as content on your site, or language that’s very similar, make sure the article includes a link back to the original version on your site. Don’t include only a link to your home page or some other page.
-- Minimize boilerplate language in all your content. For example, instead of repeating lengthy copyright notices at the bottom of all your Web pages, include a brief summary with a link to a page containing your full copyright notice.
No safeguard is foolproof, however. The only sure way to avoid the duplicate content penalty is by syndicating original material only, and keeping your best material exclusive to your site.
Steve Weber is author of Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors (2007, Weber Books).
Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors, Book Publicity through Social Networking
Here's some additional books I've read and can recommend highly:
Aiming at Amazon: The NEW Business of Self Publishing, or How to Publish Your Books with Print on Demand and Online Book Marketing on Amazon.com
Print-on-Demand Book Publishing: A New Approach To Printing And Marketing Books For Publishers And Self-Publishing Authors
Publicize Your Book: An Insider's Guide to Getting Your Book the Attention It Deserves
Guerrilla Marketing for Writers : 100 Weapons to Help You Sell Your Work
The Self-Publishing Manual : How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book, 15th Ed. (Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print, & Sell Your Own Book)
1001 Ways to Market Your Books (1001 Ways to Market Your Books: For Authors and Publishers)
The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't
Complete Guide to Self Publishing: Everything You Need to Know to Write, Publish, Promote, and Sell Your Own Book (Self-Publishing 4th Edition)
How To Publish and Promote Online
The Complete Guide to Book Marketing
The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days
The Savvy Author's Guide To Book Publicity: A Comprehensive Resource -- from Building the Buzz to Pitching the Press
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)
Christian Writers' Market Guide 2007: The Essential Reference Tool for the Christian Writer
2007 Writer's Market
2007 Guide to Literary Agents
2007 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market
On Writing Romance: How to Craft a Novel That Sells
Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing
The Making of a Bestseller: Success Stories from Authors and the Editors, Agents, and Booksellers Behind Them
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking |
Products mentioned include:
Customer Discussions about products in this guide
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Authors, listen up! Books wanted for reviews! | 33 | 24 days ago |
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Getting sales | 3 | Apr 5, 2013 |
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How does this compare to Sampson's book? | 13 | Oct 15, 2012 |
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Kindle Version | 0 | Jul 9, 2009 |
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The Frugal Book Promoter | 1 | Apr 14, 2009 |
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Don't wait any longer to publish your book - Make your own big break... | 0 | Dec 17, 2008 |
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Mine has a teal cover. Is it the same book? | 2 | Jan 27, 2008 |
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