Before self-publishing her first book, Stephanie Chandler decided to build an audience online.

The success of that effort led to book contracts with several traditional publishers, corporate sponsorships, major media coverage, product sales, and a variety of other opportunities.

In this content-rich presentation, she shares the lessons that authors can use to effectively build an audience online.

Do you wonder how to arrange your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn and blog marketing?

It's pretty confusing when you first get started with social media.

But what if you had a way to make sense of all those profiles, status updates and posts?

In this fast-paced and informative live webinar, you'll learn the "Hub and Outpost" method of organizing your social media properties.

In 2010, this webinar’s presenter released an updated edition of one of his award-winning books. Months away from being on Amazon or in bookstores, the book was released only to his ezine subscriber list. At that point, he was in the red to the tune of $12,500 for the design and printing of 6,000 copies of the book.

Within 45 days of the release date, he was in the black. And virtually every penny he’s made since then has been pure profit.

At the heart of this uncommon outcome is a four-pronged ebook strategy (and no, we’re not talking about Kindle here) that’s a natural for any non-fiction how-to book.

Your brand is not a single statement or clever quip but a multilayered, congruent story told across multiple channels, both online and off.

This webinar details the process of implementing the Modern Marketing Pyramid™ by creating a cohesive integration between social media, public relations, business development and best strategic marketing practices.

This highly engaging session explores the key elements of platform development, the essential actions of brand and buzz building and the content marketing activities critical for thought leadership.

Would you like to sell hundreds of books in the next two weeks?

Would you like to get thousands of new visitors to your website in the next month?

Would you like to learn how to connect with the top websites your potential buyers are already visiting almost every day?

Join John Kremer, longtime IBPA Publishing University faculty and author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Book, as he delivers the latest tips on how to get thousands of eyeballs online - so you can sell more books in the coming year.

Pinterest is a lifestyle brand that allows you to create a visual online pinboard, organized around topics of your choice, by category.

Launched March, 2010, Pinterest has grown 4000% in the last six months, it has 17 million users a month and is the 60th most visited site in the U.S. Pinterest drives more referral traffic than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn — combined.

But beyond these star statistics, this webinar will show authors, entrepreneurs, expert and small businesses how to set up and use Pinterest and ten ways to make the most of this new marketing tool.

These days, there isn’t a publishing company out there that can ignore ebooks. They are everywhere and they require a lot more work to create, distribute and market than publishers might realize.

So if you haven’t jumped on the ebook bandwagon yet, what can you do?

Should you go to a separate vendor for ebook creation, another for distribution, another for marketing?

Should you do it all in-house? And what’s involved in the ebook creation and distribution process?

View Adam Salomone, Associate Publisher of The Harvard Common Press, as he walks through the process that HCP used as a small publisher to get their 140 title backlist converted and distributed to all the major platforms. And also learn the decision steps that went into charting a course to successful ebook implementation.

Frustrated by too little traffic and little or no revenue at your blog? You need to know the tricks of how to make blogging really pay. Otherwise, it isn't much more than a time-consuming hobby.

Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, who has been blogging for seven years and making money doing it, will give you a treasure chest of ideas, tactics, tools and advice on how to turn your blog into an ATM machine--without annoying your readers.

If you are a current blogger, are getting ready to start a blog, starting an affiliate program, or want to ramp up your current program, this is the webinar for you.

So now you’re online and being “social” – what’s next? Well it’s time to gather your followers back to your website.

Whether you’re seeking fans, followers or friends… learn how to leverage the essentials of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for book success!

This class will take you through the important steps to not only get a presence on these high traffic social media sites, but monetize them as well. We’ll look at branding, messaging, and identify social media goals.

Facebook and Twitter are great, but if you’ve found that you’re not hitting your goals, or it’s taking too much time, let this course teach you how to interact with REAL people in real time and build a real audience.

Your audience is more than someone you hope to sell a book to - they will lead your book clubs, take your courses, and pay for you to speak to their companies. Your Audience should be a FAN base.

As an author and expert, the end game for social media is to engage your audience and build an army of fans who take you viral.

We’ll cover some key tips for Facebook and Twitter, and THEN we’ll switch to BlogTalkRadio and Meetup.com (plus a little YouTube coaching) to help you engage REAL people, face to face, create podcasts and workshops as you go AND get sponsors!

Once you are ready to launch your media campaign, you’ll need the tools to do that one or more releases, an author bio, some sample interview questions for broadcast media or online virtual interviews, a "sell" sheet and more. We'll talk about how to put together a media release that will get you the coverage that you want and deserve.

A good release doesn’t tell about your book, it tells a story that people care about. Unfortunately, nobody cares that one more book has been published. Unless you are John Grisham or Bill Clinton, you need a hook, their hook is their name. You don’t have that advantage, so you need to compel people who are interested in your topic that they must hear your story.

We'll explain the process in detail and give you replicable examples in the slides and key downloadable links.

Whether you are a brand new author or an experienced writer, this presentation will teach you 10 relatively low-cost opportunities for book promotion.

Topics covered include:

• Insider tips on how to get free media coverage
• Three ways to connect with reporters who are looking for experts in your field
• A four step process to get blogs to write about you and review your books.
  

Why not know before you write a word of your book if it will earn back all of the prep, printing, and promotion costs within about 30 days of its launching? Then reap about 50% profit, soon, so you can get other wanted products in those same buying hands?

How do you do that? Through a two-week, one-mailing test to a few hundred potential buyers who are actively involved in your targeted niche.

The cost? Very little compared to a print run.

The benefits? You'll know before printing where your buyers are, roughly how many will buy, whether they will respond to your title, and how much they will pay. In other words, bye-bye risk, sleepless nights, and hapless adventures.

While signing up for a LinkedIn account is easy, few entrepreneurs, authors or small and medium-size business owners realize just how powerful their LinkedIn presence and interactions can be!

This session will explore the best practices for levering your LinkedIn account as a marketing and brand-building tool.

Topics covered include:

• Using LinkedIn for opening the doors to new business partnerships
• Using LinkedIn to find new potential customers and readers
• Using LinkedIn for important information gathering on trends, customers and competitors
• Using LinkedIn as a brand-building and marketing tool

Join John Kremer, longtime IBPA Publishing University faculty and author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Book, as he delivers the latest tips on how to get thousands of eyeballs online – so you can sell more books in the coming year.

• How to use blog commenting to get your foot in the door for much bigger things.
• How to use Facebook to build up your fan base.
• How to create a viral video that gets watched – and passed on.
• How to syndicate articles to the right outlets.
• How to use Q&A columns to build relationships with key websites – and get key eyeballs over and over again.
• How, why, and when to send out press releases online.
  How, why, and where to give out your book free.
• How to become a regular guest blogger on high-traffic websites.
• How to create an Amazon bestseller – or something even better.
• How to podcast your way to fame and fortune.
  

Have you been unable to turn blogging into a bestseller?
Are you interested in blogs but don't have the time?
Are you skeptical whether blogs work for books, authors, imprints or publishers?

Join Steve O'Keefe, longtime IBPA Publishing University faculty and online PR columnist for the IBPA Independent, as he delivers solid information that will "surprise and comfort" publishers!

You will learn:

• How Google Rewards Companies that Blog with Top Search Engine Rank
• How to Become a Top Five Blog in 30 Days
• How to Use Google Alerts and Other Tools to Track the Performance of Your Blogs
• How to Build a "News Gator" that Gets More Traffic than Your Web Site
• How to Get Your Authors to Blog for You -- Without Even Asking
• How to Supercharge Your Social Networking with Blogs

Steve will show you the benefits of having a Top-Five blog and how to start one today

Note: Prices are reduced for this playback because there is some static on the audio.

"As many in publishing struggle to find ways to improve on an increasingly outdated business model, independents such as Akashic--which are more nimble and less risk-averse than major publishing houses--are innovators to watch." --LOS ANGELES TIMES

• "Which social media outlets work best for marketing fiction?"
• "How can I make my book stand out from the competition?"
• "What are the top tips for promoting fiction?"
• "What is the best way to find your audience with a fiction title?"

Join Akashic Press founder and publisher (and rock group bass player) Johnny Temple, winner of the Miriam Bass Award for Creativity in Independent Publishing and the 2010 Jay and Dean Kogan Award for Excellence in Noir Literature, as he answers these and as many of your questions as you can throw at him, in an informal and informative online program.

YOU have e-book questions! WE have Joshua Tallent to help answer them:

• What is the best way to convert a PDF into an e-book for use on the majority of readers?
• Can I make one e-book conversion and use it on all e-book platforms?
• How do we find an iPad developer?
• What is the best format and best device to use for a graphic-heavy book?

You will learn:

• The standard eBook formats, Kindle and ePub, and how they are used in the market.
• How images and other graphic elements work in the eBook formats and devices.
• The major eBook retailers, and how to sell your own eBooks.
• Thoughts on eBook production options, outsourcing companies, and in-house workflows.
  

Book publicity has evolved from traditional media (print, TV, radio) to the digital world at light speed. The scope of a publicist’s work used to include only reviewer/producer follow-up.

Today, social media, blogs, and a new crop of news/lifestyle websites make it possible to instantly connect authors and publishers with consumers.

In this session, you will learn:

• What are the best practices for social media?
• Should every author join Facebook and Twitter?
• Should every book have a “fan page” on Facebook?
• Best practices for approaching book bloggers.
• How blogs can play a role in publicity campaigns for non-fiction books.
• Book trailers: Do they work? Should every author create one?
• Author websites: What works and what doesn’t
• Finding where your readers live online.
• Press releases in the digital age.
• Timing: At what stage of publication should a digital publicity campaign begin?

The benefit to publishers is substantial, allowing them to leverage existing content and focus new content, to the point where they can become a major authority in specific content areas if they have the right focus. This content database then becomes a driver of more than just print and ebook sales, building brand awareness online with consumers and driving revenue through new kinds of digital partnerships.

In this webinar, Bruce Shaw and Adam Salomone, of The Harvard Common Press, will discuss what they’ve done to realign their thinking on acquisitions and content distribution, and what it means to be a niche content publisher in the digital age.

Discover 10 things you can do right now to enhance, improve, or optimize your online presence.

We would all love to get better search results and more exposure for our books online, but who has the time for a full-blown plan?

Though having and implementing a well-thought-out plan is ultimately the best approach, there are still things you can do in a just a few hours that can get you better exposure in a short time.

Author and publisher Deltina Hay discusses:

• Learning what distinguishes a bestselling, brand-building book cover from a cover that practically guarantees your book will never sell
• Creating an optimized Amazon Author Central page
• Using document sharing sites to get more book reviews
• Optimization tactics for your RSS feed
• Search optimization tips you need to start using today
• And more...
  

Confused about how to get the most from the Twitter phenomenon?

This practical, hands-on webinar helps authors and publishers begin, expand or improve their tweeting.

Tips and tricks will include how to:

• Create a 25%-100% increase in Twitter followers within a week
• Develop high content, low promotion tweets that people want to retweet
• Reach high profile individuals
• Utilize Twitter parties and other strategies to build an audience
• Make the most of your branding on Twitter

Question: What do Seth Godin, Heather Armstrong, and Stephanie Klein have in common?

Answer: They are all best-selling authors. But before that, they were all bloggers.

Whether you’ve published a book, plan to publish a book, or are simply interested in learning how to build a solid online platform, a good blog is one of the best tools you can have in your arsenal.

Think about it: If you develop a loyal, steady stream of blog readers, you not only have some built-in buyers for your future books – you’ve got built-in publicists.

This practical webinar will help you get started blogging, or improve the blog you have already.

This session will cover the way authors can use blogs to promote their books via blog tours, blog syndication and guest blogging.

You’ll learn how to find blogs that would be appropriate and receptive to your book or business and proven methods for approaching blogs and websites to pitch your book.

Topics covered include:

• How to locate blogs that would be appropriate and receptive to your book
• Proven methods for approaching blogs and websites to pitch your book
• Using social media to promote your virtual book tour

There's a lot of buzz these days about marketing through social media. In a recent survey, 94% of the authors and publishers said that they planned to use social marketing this year.

While social marketing can be a terrific way to promote authors and books, it can be a frustrating waste of time if you don't do it right. In this session, you'll get an overview of social media marketing opportunities and advice on planning for success. Then we will go into more detail about promoting successfully through social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Your book cover is more than product packaging. It's the most powerful marketing tool you have in your arsenal.

As an author and expert, the key question you must answer is . . . which book cover design is the right foundation for YOUR brand?

In this one-of-a-kind online session, you will learn what distinguishes a bestselling, brand-building book cover from a cover that practically guarantees your book will never sell

You’ll benefit big-time from this informative webinar led by returning speaker Penny Sansevieri of Author Marketing Experts.

Learn how to put your marketing and social networking pieces together build an amazing website that works for you!

Are you ready to leverage the latest and hottest social networking site?

If so you'll love this class. Twitter has taken the world by storm, 140 characters at a time.

This session will teach you the ins and outs of creating your own Twitter Success!

Generating more book sales and increasing the bottom line! What do you do now that the publication date has passed and the initial launch of your book is complete? Or you didn’t have a real launch with all the early elements in place…but the books are now off press and you need to get things rolling…fast!

You have worked hard and focused so much attention on getting the book on and off press and all those early details. Now what can be done and should be done to realize sales from these early efforts and those that will now follow. There seems to be so much that can be done…how do you choose which is right for your book and how can you do it all?!

These are questions that plague the independent and small presses both for their new titles and their back list.

Learn from seasoned Book Marketer, Sharon Castlen how the media and distribution work together to realize sales and how to go beyond the basics to increase sales and the bottom line. Learn the strategies for YOUR book and take away elements you can use immediately.

Bookstore Sales have declined each month since January 2009. And every year, more books are sold to buyers in market segments outside of bookstores than are sold in bookstores ­ more profitably on a non-returnable basis. Are you getting your share of these sales?

In this webinar you will discover how to find new markets for your current titles (nonfiction and fiction), locate new users for your existing content, find new uses for your basic information and increase your unit sales, revenue and profits.

Ebooks are the fastest growing segment in an otherwise stagnant book publishing market. How can the independent publisher develop a smart ebook strategy to profit from the rise of ebooks?

Fresh from a popular keynote presentation in New York at Publishing University 2009, where he also presented the one-hour “p-Books to e-Books” class alongside Dan Poynter, Mark Coker of Smashwords will help demystify ebook publishing, distribution and marketing.

Learn how to build a strong presence on the Social Web without getting overwhelmed. This class will show you how to set up and implement essential social-media tools like blogs, social-networking sites, media communities, and social calendars. Learn how to integrate them so that your workload is greatly reduced.

Discover how to blog once, upload a photo one time, enter an event in one place, and feed all of it into your social-networking pages, your blog, and your Website. Creating this type of dynamic presence is necessary for success on today's Internet. This process does not have to be difficult or ridiculously time-consuming. Careful planning can make it practically painless!

What’s Different When Selling Books into the Christian Marketplace? Can my Christian book also sell into the secular bookstores?

The Christian market can be intimidating with all its components. What book goes where and can they cross over from the Christian bookstore to the Church bookstore to the Secular bookstore?

What do you need to know to capture this huge market?

The basic marketing tools are the same but the players, pricing and strategy are different.

This webinar focuses on the essential tools and resources you need to penetrate this market and all its sections.

Last year, social media and Web 2.0 established itself as the present and the future of the Internet. So, if you did not established your presence in this new Internet arena last year, you had better do it this year, because it is not going anywhere! This webinar will focus on the essential tools you should implement in order to establish your presence in the “Social Web.”

Author, publisher, and developer Deltina Hay explains:

• what an RSS feed is, and why you need one
• how to start a blog that will not break your back
• the basics of social bookmarking and crowd-sourcing
• why you want to share your images and video in media communities in which social networking sites you should establish a presence
• how to use a social media newsroom to highlight your presence

You've written your book, and now you're ready to tell Oprah all about it. So, why haven't you been booked? Why are the producers not returning your phone calls? Because they know something you don't...yet. In this Webinar, two producers who've booked for Oprah and other major TV talk shows will tell you how to break the booking code and get yourself on TV to talk about your book.

Karen Melamed and Barbara Wellner will show you how to:

• develop a compelling broadcast hook
• zero in on the right person to hear your pitch
• learn which day of the week and time of the year to make the call
• hear how to pitch yourself to the producer
• find out what to say in those first 2 minutes
• tips on how to make the most of your on air appearance

If you are a publisher who strives to sell more books and gain national exposure for your authors, publicity is the answer. Advancing your business and the popularity of your books is about making sure people see your book titles everywhere. Once you learn how to harness the power of the media, your business and your authors will finally get the recognition they deserve. Isn’t it time you did something about your publicity?

Picking the right projects makes the difference between success and failure, especially for smaller publishers. How do you find the right ones? You can't rely on editorial intuition or marketing expertise alone. You need both, but then you also need to check each title and your list as a whole to see if it's the best available use of your scarce time and money.

Publishing expert Marion Gropen discusses how to estimate numbers you can't possibly know, how to blend the quality of a book with the number-crunching, and how to make sure you're getting the biggest impact for your efforts.

Are you harvesting all of your sales potential?

As the market tightens, publishers can’t afford to throw marketing dollars at books that aren’t carrying their list. Instead, looking in-house at revenue channels you already have in place and aren’t maximizing can enhance your bottom line, move more copies through your sales channels, and grow your publishing company.

Whether you have one book or dozens of them, learn to easily and painlessly turn those pages and ideas into an entire product line.

This session promises new filters for viewing what you've already done and have been considering doing. Discover products that have zero production costs, providing you 100% profit and minimal development time. Expand your entire product line into various formats and languages using your book content as a base. Customize your products for specific industries and organizations.

Unearth new markets and new revenue that's right under your nose.

You've heard the term "Web 2.0" but can it really help you sell more books?

You bet it can and this class will show you how. Packed with tons of
information and super simple things anyone can to do get themselves into the Web 2.0 marketing world, you'll walk away with fun ideas, simple tricks, and tons of helpful advice.

Successful publishing is more than just publishing the right books. This session will explain how to look in-house at revenue channels you already have in place and aren’t maximizing which can enhance your bottom line, move more copies through your sales channels, and grow your publishing company.

This session will give you some specific tips to generate more media coverage including:

• Using Google Alerts to track down new contacts
• Signing up with PRNewswire's ProfNet and/or www.helpareporter.com
• Media releases
• Print versus electronic is one better than the other, how to judge for yourself
• Newsletters, blogs deciding what is right for you and your book(s)

Learn how to use social media tools and the new, live Web for publicity, book marketing, and building readership. Topics include a simple guide to RSS feed and blogging technology, getting your message into the live Web via social bookmarking, social networking, media communities, news aggregators, and virtual worlds; building a social media newsroom; and using social media technologies such as widgets and mash-ups as highly effective viral marketing tools.

Learn how to use social media tools and the new, live Web for publicity, book marketing, and building readership. Topics include a simple guide to RSS feed and blogging technology, getting your message into the live Web via social bookmarking, social networking, media communities, news aggregators, and virtual worlds; building a social media newsroom; and using social media technologies such as widgets and mash-ups as highly effective viral marketing tools.

• Learn what distinguishes a bestselling, brand-building book cover from a cover that practically guarantees your book will never sell.
• Hear three amazing success stories of self-published authors who leveraged their book covers into blockbuster brands (one just sold her one-millionth copy!)
• See seven real-life case studies of ho-hum book covers that were transformed into brand-building marketing tools.

You'll leave this content-rich, fast-paced presentation with dozens of inspirational - and useful - ideas.

Got a niche book? Or a mainstream title that you can’t get the media to pay attention to? You might be a candidate for a more targeted online marketing approach. And because successful online marketing begins with the right mindset, this fast-paced session starts with a crash course in sales and marketing fundamentals, so you’re not dreading the process.

From there, you’ll learn an proven strategy for finding tons of reviewers happy to get the word out on your books (far more than you’d find with a traditional promotional approach); how to create a web site that’s easy to get around, wears dozens of different hats, and works 24/7 to maximize the potential of any site visit; how to launch an ezine to build your reputation and bottom line; how to create and use “article toolkits” to dramatically boost site traffic (AND how to create powerful "article resource boxes" and email signatures); how to get all that (and more) done and still have a life, and much more. Bonus: Learn a powerful and virtually no-cost strategy to add 50-100% more pure profit to the majority of your online sales.

Whether you have one book or dozens of them, learn to easily and painlessly turn those pages and ideas into an entire product line. This session promises new filters for viewing what you’ve already done and have been considering doing. Discover products that have zero production costs, providing you 100% profit and minimal development time. Expand your entire product line into various formats and languages using your book content as a base. Customize your products for specific industries and organizations.

Unearth new markets and new revenue that’s right under your nose.

Strong and creative publicity is essential to effectively launching any new book. This session covers book publicity basics—what, when and how to do it for best results.

Since timing is a key element in any successful pr campaign, we cover step-by-step the main tasks every publisher/author must consider as well as how to organize their media efforts for maximum exposure.

If you're not maximizing your exposure or promotion on the net, you're missing a boatload of sales. This class will teach attendees how to go from tame to terrific when it comes to virtual presence, promotion and making the most of Internet sales and traffic. We'll unveil what it takes to drive traffic to your web site and what a good web site should really look like.

We'll look at the secrets of how buyers surf and what it takes to make your site sing. We'll show how to become expert bloggers and how to syndicate their blogs. Plus, we'll show you how the Internet can help you build your expert status in record time, and sell more books and bigger ticket items like audio products and seminars. We'll discuss the latest trends in Internet promotion and how to tour yourself virtually without stepping outside your house.

You can make more money, eliminate returns and increase your sales when you sell your books in non-bookstore segments such as gift shops, catalogs and other lucrative segments. In addition, the buying and payment periods are shorter, and direct access to buyers will make your promotional dollars more efficient. But the purchasing process is different for each niche.

Learn the nuances, buying practices and selling techniques that will help you sell more books, more profitably in special-sales markets

During this session, you will learn the important factors in building a better book contract from Jonathan Kirsch, the Association's counsel since its inception. As an author, a columnist, broadcaster, adjunct professor as well as a publishing law attorney, Jonathan brings special insight into this subject.
Specifically he will cover the following areas:

• Five clauses that MUST appear in every book contract.
  The perils of using someone else's contract form, and how to avoid them.

• "Plain English" vs. "Legalese," and why simpler is not always better.

• "Stealth" contracts and how to avoid taking legal risks and obligations without knowing it.

• Why book contracts do not last forever.

• What to do with a book after it is signed.