Twitter can be a fantastic tool for promoting your book. But I see very, very few authors and publishers doing this well. They post some random tweets with no singular call to action and then wonder why their return on investment was so low.

Instead, Twitter can be a key marketing tool for driving sales and the bestseller lists. I have participated in both. BUT this only works if you take Twitter into account early enough in the product design and marketing process.

Publishers are increasingly using “book trailers” to raise awareness for their books. We are certainly using them here at Thomas Nelson. For some projects, they are very, very effective.

Yesterday, we held our Quarterly Team Meeting at Thomas Nelson. This is a meeting with all our Nashville-based employees. In the meeting, we report on our most recent quarterly performance, recognize our top performing divisions, preview a few of our “coming attractions,” and then hear from one of our authors. (Yesterday, we heard live from Emerson Eggerichs, author of Love and Respect.)

Since Google introduced its Book Search program, we have been fielding questions from authors and agents. They are concerned that Google has scanned their books and the results are showing up in Google search. The primary concern is that consumers will not buy books because. Why? Two reasons:

Recently I received a correspondence from someone who felt I over-promoted my writing. Here’s what the person wrote:

Allen Arnold of Thomas Nelson and and Karen Ball of B&H Publishing Group recently presented a morning track for multi-published authors at the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference. When Allen started talking about building a tribe and using Twitter and Facebook, I saw the color drain from quite a few faces.

Three years ago, we consolidated our twenty-one publishing imprints under one umbrella brand: “Thomas Nelson.” We believed then (as we believe now) so many imprints only served to dilute our brand, creating needless complexity and infrastructure for everyone.

At the time, we decided that we would go with our singular house logo on the spine. Believing that “less is more,” we took a page out of Apple and Nike’s playbook. No text. Not even a ® symbol to indicate a registered trademark. Just the house. Nothing more.

We are publishing a new book by Donald Miller this September. It is called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. In case you are not familiar with Donald Miller, he is the New York Times bestselling author of Blue Like Jazz. His free-flowing narrative style and authenticity have made him one of our most popular authors.

Part 1: Start with Great Content

This is the beginning of a series of posts I am calling, “Book Marketing 101: What Works and What Doesn’t.” I have wanted to write this series for a long time. There are so many opinions when it comes to marketing books. I certainly don’t have the last word on this topic, but I do have some experience.

I have been involved in the book publishing industry for 30 years. My career has included working at three different publishers, serving as a marketing director, marketing VP, acquisitions editor, editor-in-chief, publisher, chief operating officer, and now, of course, chief executive officer. I was also a literary agent for six years and have written four books, including one that was on the New York Times bestsellers list for 28 weeks. I am currently writing a new book called, The How of Wow.

A few months ago, we began an experiment. We offered a free book to anyone who agreed to post a 200-word review on their blog. We started with The Faith of Barack Obama [affiliate link] by Stephen Mansfield. We had almost 200 people request books and almost 70% of them posted book reviews.