Book marketing using a social media press release on PR Underground

PR Underground clients and their publicists are always finding interesting ways to use our social media press release service, and the marketing of independently published and self-published books is no exception.

Almost anyone with the creative spark, drive, and time can publish a book these days and sell it through Amazon and other retailers. But how do you get the word out on a minimal budget? Positive reviews and working the charts on Amazon and Goodreads can help, a connected and experienced publicist can be fruitful, and building a fan base (and mailing list) on Facebook and Twitter can spread the word. And then there is the use of a strategic press release.

First off, a social media press release gets the authors name into Google News within minutes when it is in the headline. It can be exciting to see your name on the top of Google News. But using a few strategic keywords on your book subject can have even more profound effects.

For example, Alison McLennan’s debut novel Falling for Johnny is based on Whitey Bulger. They ran a release this month with the headline “Whitey Bulger Based Novel Wins Literary Award“, and guess what? Within minutes of distribution her release was showing up on the first page for anyone searching ‘Whitey Bulger’ on Google we search. Plus the release was sent out to Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and a dozen other social media sites. Weeks later it still is the top listing in Google News for “Whitey Bulger Novel”. Pretty cool for $20-$39!

(Her novel, Falling For Johnny, can be purchased on Amazon).

(Note: All Case Studies are intended to objectively show the actual ranking results and activity from a client press release on PRUnderground.com. They are not meant to be endorsements of either the PRUnderground service or the client’s business, but just an interesting sample of possible results.)