Using Google Alerts to Market Your Books

Guest post by S. E. Gregg

What I have done to market my book that works for me and will work for you is this: Sign up for Google Alerts via http://www.google.com/alerts.

When you sign up for Google Alerts, Google will email you whenever there is a topic, blog post, news report, or article about the keyword or subject you set up for them to alert you. Google will send your alerts to your email address.

This is just what I did. I set up search terms with Google to alert me when someone writes something about my book, The Christian Olympics. I also set Google keywords to alert me when someone mentions some of the topics in my book. The good thing about this is that you can set up as many alerts as you like.

When Google alerts me, they give me a link to that blog post, news report, or article where my keyword is mentioned. I just click on the link and read the article. Most of the time I can leave a comment and join in on the conversation if it relates to something that I can comment about. This is how I position myself as an expert on the topic.

If no comments are allowed, I contact the author of the article or blog post. If the author responds or mentions my book in a future post, it can give me exposure not just to those that are commenting, but to all the readers that do not make comments.

This simple free marketing tool makes others aware of me and my book and has resulted in sales.

It also leads to media attention: I once contacted a New York Times editor about an online article that he wrote about the Olympic Games. The upshot? The editor requested a review copy of my book.

The Christian Olympics: Going for the Gold Crowns by S. E. Gregg features the unveiling of the Bible’s comparison of the Christian race to the Olympic Games.

Check out her blog at http://www.christianolympics.org.