TIP: Google drilling into your subject

Finding your audience online is an essential element of any publicity effort for your book. Particularly for nonfiction titles. But lots o' luck finding, via Google or any other search engine, the discussion group, blog or site specific for your subject. Type in, say, coal mining tools, and you'll have to sift through sites for equipment, unions, history, and so on and on.

Here's a tip from Ms. Obie Joe: Be more specific. "Oh, really?," you'd say. Like this:
Instead of: "coal mining tools."
Try: "coal mining tools discussion groups."
Or try: "coal mining tools blogs."

Once you start to collect sites of use, bounce off each site's links, or blogroll. When you google, type in: www.(the link):the site.com. Or via Yahoo, it would be: www.search.yahoo.com, and then enter link:http://www.thesite.com.

Of course there's also the personal approach: e-mail the site's author and ask them for best links to sites that love...coal mining tools.

Saying how-de-do on Yahoo

Not all online book promotion techniques are shiny and new. Mr. Obie Joe continues to be impressed with using discussion groups for connecting an author with a niche of readers. Our favorite are the discussion groups on Yahoo.

Navigating the search for which discussion groups match your author's book take a bit of finesse. Yahoo is a bit creaky in its filtering creativity and capability, so expect a bit of time wading through numerous groups that seem like advertisements rather than authentic conversations.

Which reminds us to remind you to make your participation authentic, too. Don't limit your participation to a jump about your book, and then gone. Engage in the conversation, start a topic, and respond.

And don't forget to include your signature line at the end of each post. Your name is the first line, your book's name the second line, and the third your web site and/or blog.