eMarketing for Writers Goes eLive

Summary: Biff Mitchell, author of eMarketing Tools for Writers will be featured on the Writers Chatroom on January 19. The topic of the chat will be Using the Internet to Market Your Book.

“One of the biggest problems facing writers, is not writing a book,” said author Biff Mitchell, “it’s selling the book. Writing is sometimes the easiest part.”

Mr. Mitchell’s first book, Heavy Load, was published as an ebook seven years ago. “Sales were dismal,” said Mr. Mitchell. “But I wasn’t doing anything to sell it. I thought that, once the book was written, my work was finished and people would just flock to wherever the book was available and buy it.”

“That has to be the biggest bubble to break in a writer’s life,” said Mr. Mitchell. “Since then, I’ve learned that nobody is going to flock to a book they’ve never heard of, least of all to be book written by an author they’ve never heard of.”

“Now, my time is split almost evenly between writing my next book, and marketing the ones I’ve finished,” said Mr. Mitchell. “Each day, I learn something new about marketing…a new book announcement site, a new technology for getting the word out, a new way to enhance my author web site.”

“I’ve learned to use the Internet to keep the costs of marketing my books low,” said Mr. Mitchell. “And I’m getting better at it. In the last year, sales of my books overall has gone up around 80%.”

“I took the best of what I learned about marketing on the Internet and put it all into a book called eMarketing Tools for Writers, said Mr. Mitchell. “It’s a collection of online tools available free on inexpensive that can be used by writers to market their books.”

The book is available as a free download at www.biffmitchell.com. “It’s not finished yet,” said Mr. Mitchell. “And it will likely never be finished. I’ve been receiving suggestions from other writers and incorporating them into the book. My plan is to update it once a month.”

“Glenn Walker invited me to appear at the Writers Chatroom,” said Mr. Mitchell. “The logical topic, given the recent release of my eMarketing book was Using the Internet to Market Your Book.”

“I’ll be talking about some of the successes and some of the failures I’ve encountered in marking my books online,” said Mr. Mitchell. “And the other writers in the chat room will have an opportunity to talk about their own experiences.”

The chat with Biff Mitchell will be held at the Writers Chatroom on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 starting at 7 PM Pacific Time. The chat room is free and open to all writers, but participants must first join the Writers Chat group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/writerschat/join. Membership is free.

The URL for the chat room is http://audreyshaffer.com/chat/chat. The password will be biff. Everyone is invited. More information about the chat is available at: www.biffmitchell.com.

Biff Mitchell’s novels, short fiction and poetry have been published in Europe, Australia, the United States and Canada. He is also the marketing manager for a software company.