Friday, October 11, 2013

Promoting Your New Ebook with Mark Rybczyk - The Travis Club (Book Tour & Givewaway)



Promoting Your New eBook

It’s a brave new world of publishing. The advent of eBooks gives us the opportunity to skip the publisher, sell our book for less and make more per book in royalties. But it also leaves us the responsibility to be our own publicist. I’ve read quite a few very helpful blogs on how to promote your eBook. Here are a few things I’ve found through personal experience to be helpful.

Blog

I consider this essential if you are a non-fiction writer and very important if you write fiction. If you are writing a book on the Civil War, do you have a blog that already features your work on the Civil War? What better way to get readers familiar with your work than to have a number of posting already on your blog.

A few years ago I wrote a story on my Metroplexing blog about a Dallas homeowner being swindled out of her mansion on 4949 Swiss Avenue. Little did I know that 20/20 was going to do a story about the house. I’ve had over 6,000 people read that post alone and over 80,000 read other stories on my blog.

While I enjoy writing about local history, I’ve discovered that my blog is a great way to promote my new book. Every post, past, present and future, now ends with a link to my book and the trailer. It costs me nothing and it reaches people who already enjoy my writing.

A great blog post can introduce the masses to your writing for years. Starting in 2009 with zero readers, I now average 3,000 readers a month on older posts alone. And every post is now an advertisement for my book, The Travis Club.

Make sure every story you post is tagged. Is your story about General Lee’s home becoming the Arlington National Cemetery? Then tag your story with the important points. People who’ve never heard of your blog will find your post based on those tags, who in turn will find out about your book.

Consider that you will be marketing your book for at least a year, if not forever. A blog that continues to grow in readership can be a continuing source of publicity for your book.

Business Cards

Yes, old fashioned business cards, with the book cover art on one side and the book info on the other.

Last week, a coworker asked about my book. The next day, he asked again because he couldn’t remember the title or how to spell my last name.


Promoting Your New eBook

I had the cards printed that afternoon. Now when someone asks about my book, I hand them a card. When I meet someone with a Kindle, I hand them a card. When I sit next to someone on a plane reading an eBook, I hand them a card.

Who doesn’t want to at least check out a book when they personally sat next to the author on a plane?

Link, Link, Link

Does your book have a webpage? Make sure you link your blog to your website.

Do you have a Twitter account? Make sure your blog and your website are linked to your Twitter account.

Do you have a LinkedIn Account? Make sure your website, blog and Twitter account are linked to that account too.

Everything on the internet that mentions you, Facebook, work bio page, etc., should mention your book and your book’s website.

By the way, the website for my book is www.TheTravisClub.com. My blog is http:// metroplexing.blogspot.com. And my social media accounts are:
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/HawkeyeOnAir.
  • Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HawkeyeOnAIr I think I may have just handed you my virtual card. 


Radio listeners in Dallas/Fort Worth may know Mark Louis Rybczyk better as 'Hawkeye,' the long time morning host on heritage country station, 96.3 FM KSCS. An award-winning disc jockey, Mark, along with his partner Terry Dorsey, have the longest-running morning show in Dallas. Mark is an avid skier, windsurfer and traveler. He is also the host of 'Travel With Hawkeye' a radio and television adventure feature that airs across the country. The Travis Club is the third book from Mark Louis Rybczyk.










Publisher: Self Published

Genre: Mystery
Release Date: June 17, 2013

In a cathedral in downtown San Antonio, just a few blocks from the Alamo, sits the tomb of Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and the other Alamo Defenders. Or so we have been led to believe. What secrets really lie inside the tomb and what has a group of misguided activists known as The Travis Club stumbled upon? How far will the city's power brokers go to protect those secrets?

What would happen if a group of slackers discovered San Antonio's DaVinci Code? Find out in the new book by Mark Louis Rybczyk, The Travis Club.







Excerpt One Short:

Chapter 1

Noel Black sharpened a pencil and placed it neatly back in the top drawer of his glass-topped
desk, right next to the other sharpened pencils. He glanced at the clock then straightened a few
paper clips and a calculator on the stark, polished surface.

11:08 p.m.

He knew he’d be leaving soon. So important to stay on schedule. Especially on a night like
tonight, when a life would come to an end.

Among the abstract paintings of his office was one unframed black and white print. A picture
of her. Not a picture of sentiment, but simply of record. A photo that would soon belong in a file.
Black fingered the yellowed photograph and could not help but think of childhood visits to
his mother’s father, his abuelo. He remembered spending the hot San Antonio summers at a
rickety west-side duplex much different than his parents’ ranch house in Dallas. Abuelo’s home
was filled with people, music, food and love.

As a child, Black would spend summer afternoons within earshot of the front window,
waiting for the rumble of his grandfather’s old diesel engine. Then the home would fill with
other workers, workers who were grateful to the old lady. All immigrants, they had left Mexico
hoping for a better life. The old lady offered them higher wages than the pecan shellers received.

With the promise of steady income came the chance to move into a house with plumbing, to send money home, and to send for other relatives. His grandfather loved the old lady and he did too.

More recently, Noel Black’s feelings about her had changed. She was a relic, an icon of a
past era. Now in her final years of the 20th century, the old lady had outlived her usefulness and
had no place in the modern San Antonio that he envisioned. She was in his way. She needed to be eliminated.

Of course, this kind of work had to be contracted out. He usually relied on a local contact
who understood the procedures. Anytime a life was extinguished, it must be done with precision in Noel Black’s world.













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