THE ASSIGNMENT: Try at least two of the following suggestions over the next few months.

THE RESULT: Let us know what you tried and how it worked for you so we can share your findings with our own FRP social network of publishing clients via Table Talk!

OK—let’s get one thing very clear: In this day of technology it is becoming more and more imperative that you understand and harness the power of the Internet for marketing and selling you and your cookbook on line!

Don’t just take our word for it—here’s a recent Time magazine article that specifically talks about the importance of Twitter in the workplace and society in general: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html

During our recent FRP Cookbook University, we offered a Master Class in Internet Marketing, which was very well received. We don’t have the room to put all the details here, but I did want to give you 5 Things To Experiment With.

Please try at least two of the following suggestions (do all five and you’ll be on your way to a Super Internet Marketing Machine!), and let us know in a few months what you learned. Send all feedback and comments to: marketing@frpbooks.com and in the subject line write MY SOCIAL NETWORKING EXPERIENCE, so we can quickly pull those out for review and sharing.

1. Start tweeting!—Go to Twitter.com to setup an account—it only takes a few minutes. Be sure to upload a picture of yourself (or your product) and think about your “user name.” Don’t make it too bland, or too cutsie. This also applies to your e-mail address as well. You want to be viewed as a professional expert in your field of cooking. Once you have your Twitter account set up, start following people who have related interests—do a search on “cooking” or “food” and follow other people that they are following as well. Be sure to reply to anyone who starts following you—it is the courteous thing to do. Be sure to “tweet” at least once a week, minimum—daily is best.
2. Get to blogging—Go to Blogspot.com and set up an account—it only takes a few minutes. This is a bit more time-intensive to figure out and maintain, but if you are a tiny bit tech savvy, it’s easy. If not, grab any teenager around you to help you—believe me, they know how to do it! Post items of interest to your blog about things that you are doing and events you attended/conducted, share a recipe of the week, advertise a special promotion, etc., etc. Be sure to post an update at least once a week, if not more often, so you will keep your readers engaged.
3. Facebook…it’s not just for family anymore!—Go to Facebook.com and set up an account—it only takes a few minutes. You can use it to upload pictures of a fun book-related event; send out invitations to your Facebook friends for an upcoming event; and have general quick chats as well. Tons of fun stuff to do in this environment.
4. Amazon—Make sure your title is currently listed as IN STOCK; if not, get busy building on sales areas that will feed into Amazon. Also, if you don’t have three Editorial Reviews listed, gather up your three strongest reviews and have them posted on your book main page. In addition, solicit Consumer Reviews from all your members, friends, family, etc., asking them to go to Amazon and post a five-star review on your book! You’ll be amazed at what a difference these two things can do for your Amazon presence.
5. E-mail blast—Now that you’ve put all these social network areas in place, advertise them to all your contacts! Tell them you are now on Twitter and Facebook and have a blog going. This is the quickest way to get your current readership of followers to start communicating via these social networks…so use it to your advantage. You could tie together your Amazon e-mail blast requests for Consumer Reviews along with alerting them to your new social networking info. Be sure to make the e-mail engaging, and put a bit of color and/or graphics with it too. Include direct links in the content to the various areas so they can easily find you.

Of course, it is naturally assumed that you have a Web site already set up. If not, you definitely need to get that handled first since all things can flow from there!

I would love to follow you at Twitter, be Facebook friends, and be a blogger buddy! Here’s my info so you can visit and connect with me in each social area and see how I’m using each environment:

Twitter: CookbooksAreMe (Anne Pritchard)
Facebook: Cookbooks AreMe (note there’s a space between Cookbooks and AreMe)
Blog: www.cookbooksareme.blogspot.com

Guess you can see my trend as I’m positioning myself as THE cookbook person/resource for regional style titles and the best recipes around! I even went to my Amazon.com account that I’ve had for years and changed my profile name to CookbooksAreMe so that all my cookbook product reviews will show up under that persona.

Think about this when setting up your new social areas to develop yourself and your book as the professional expert in your field/region. Be sure that you always use your name or organization name in your contact info so people can easily find you even if they don’t know your book title.

Initially it will take a few hours to get everything set up and working the way you want it, but after that try to commit at least twenty to thirty minutes each day in one area to begin with, but once a week minimum to start with.

IF YOU CHOOSE TO TAKE THIS CHALLENGE…
I promise you if you’ll give a few of these things a try and do it consistently for at least every week for two months, you’ll find it fun, enlightening, and somewhat invigorating...the perfect way to breathe new life into your marketing plans!

So, don’t wait another day—start tweeting, Facebooking, and blogging away, and be sure to let us know how it goes for you.

Have A Delicious Day!
Anne Pritchard, Sales Representative
The Cookbook Marketplace, distribution division of FRP
apritchard@frpbooks.com

COMING NEXT MONTH:
1) Updates from YOU on your own social network experiences. Be sure to let us know how it goes.
2) How to create a “social buzz” using Twitter, blog, and Facebook tools