Question: What’s the one thing book publishers and authors have in common? Answer: A desire to sell more books.

The only way to sell books is to tell people about them. The more people you tell and the better you tell them the more books you will sell. If you’re already an established author with a large following, your job will be pretty easy. If you’re a well-known celebrity, making it in the news with a book won’t be hard either.

But if you’re a new author the road is a bit steeper. If you’re a new author with a low budget, it’s time to shift into a lower gear and get climbing the book-selling mountain. Yes, the climb may take a bit of work but once you see the view from the top as a best-selling author you’ll be glad of the effort!

I’d like to share with you a great book marketing strategy that few first-time authors use. It’s called news releases or media releases. Basically, it consists of sending a one page “newsworthy story” to the media. It’s been used a lot and you may think it is no longer effective, but surprisingly it is.

Major publishers and professional PR firms use news releases every day. They send them not only to print media such as newspapers and magazines but also to TV, radio, bloggers, and to hundreds of online news and information channels. They use them because they work. News releases open doors, they get print space in the leading magazines and newspapers around the country, they get reviews on top media shows and invites for personal interviews on radio and TV.

If you’re not using news releases to promote your books … you might consider this a very valuable tool to add to your book marketing plan.

Please join us for all five days of this free Wheatmark blog presentation series:

Sell More Books with News Releases.

Day One: Creating a strong call to action

Day Two: Sell your books with a hook, the art of making a story newsworthy

Day Three: Writing headlines that get noticed

Day Four: Putting it all together: a free media release template

Day Five: Where to submit your media release—free and paid sources

Here we go:

Day One: Creating a strong call to action

The call to action is what you want to happen when someone reads your story. You may want them to immediately buy your book, call for an interview or visit your website and sign up to join your mailing list.

In most cases the call to action will be the last part of the news release. But it’s important that you have it firmly in mind so that everything leads up to it. The most successful call to action will have just one step. Make it easy and worthwhile.

To make it worthwhile you may want to offer a reward for taking action. The bigger and better the reward the more response you’ll get. It could be a free chapter in your book, a tips booklet, a free audio, a workbook. It could be a weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletter with special offers, features and updates.

Hopefully as an author you already have a website that you can put the special offer on.

Create a separate page for this special offer, also called a “landing page.”

Link to the landing page from your news release for best results.

The landing page with the special offer page is important so put time and effort into it to make it good. This means writing at least 1-3 paragraphs about the benefits your free offer will give. Include a picture of your book and an easy way for the free offer to be downloaded if it’s a digital product, or a sign-up form if it’s for your newsletter.

Here are two sample calls to action:

Sample One:

You can find out more by reading: Title of Book now available at _______________

If you would like to know more about this novel or would like to schedule an interview write the author, email authorname @ website.com or call 555-555-5555

Sample Two:

Title of Book is now available at Amazon.com and at yourownauthorwebsite . com, where you can download a free chapter of the book.

Once your call to action is in place, it will be time to create a compelling story to grab the interest of your reader. Check back tomorrow for “Authors: Sell your books with a hook, the art of making your story newsworthy.”

Note: If you’re still writing and are wondering about the process of publishing a book, please download our free report, The Author’s Guide to Choosing a Publishing Service.