Write a Short Article to Promote Your Book Online

Dissatisfied with your book sales? With book signings, press
releases, book store sales?

So many authors spend a lot of time and money on promotion
that doesn't work. It's time to do what authors do best--write a
short article. Follow these ten steps to write an article top web
sites will clamor for with a link back to where your book is sold.

Apply these Ten Steps

1. Choose a topic that relates to your book. Make sure this
how-to article has useful, needed information. One site who
markets to professional speakers just published my article "What
Makes One Book Out Sell Another."

2. Know your article's thesis. The thesis is what your article
will prove. In the introduction above, the thesis is stated in the
last line, "Use these ways to write an article top web sites will
clamor for with a link back to where your book is sold."

3. Know your preferred audience. Just as your book has a
target audience, so should your article. My book, "How to Write
Your E-Book or Other Book Fast! is a short, easy-to-read,
step-by-step guide to assist professionals with writing and selling
their book.

4. Write a sparkling opening. Like a headline in a press
release or on your book's back cover, your first sentence should
grab your readers by the collar so they will keep reading. The
opening could use a shocking fact, a question, a benefit, or a
compelling story right out of your book. Make the opening a
short paragraph, even a single line. Readers want short, concise,
digestible information, especially on the Internet.

5. Illustrate a need. Whatever your topic, show your readers
why they need your information. If you have written a book on
listening, then in your short article discuss how much is at stake
for not listening such as divorce or lost business.

6. Give a brief background of the problem or situation you will
solve. One of my book coaching clients wrote a book, "The
Cure for Multiple Sclerosis." She shares that over 2 million
people worldwide with Multiple Sclerosis are diagnosed
incurable, that doctors are pressured to use pharmaceuticals, and
that the health industry is not about getting people well, but about
making money.

7. Share the problems that result. In "The Cure for Multiple
Sclerosis," the problem is that most people rely on western
medicine which does not have the answers. Big money is not
spent on alternative or complementary ways to prevent and cure
chronic diseases, so people with problems get drugs that
deplete the immune system.

8. Give the solution. Your book offers solutions to problems.
So must your article. Show your readers how to get excellent
health, how they can write a book, make more money, or have
better relationships.

9. Show them where to get the solution and how. The article,
"How to Listen at Work," needs to suggest where to go or what
to do next. You may name a quality book to read (maybe your
book!). Mention a seminar or training, or recommend a coach.
You may even mention a web site address or 800 number.

10. Place your article on as many high traffic Internet sites and
Opt-in Ezines as you can. Just as feature articles in newspapers
are seven times as powerful as advertising, so is your article.

People are looking for free information Online. That's the major
reason they surf!

So, now that you know how to write a short article, put it to
work for you to promote your book.