With book coverage in print and newspaper sales declining, authors and publishers must extend their reach to the Internet if they want to boost book sales and publicity. Furthermore, authors are more involved in marketing their books than in the past as publishers can’t or won’t do enough.

Print publications still play a valuable role in books’ lives though the Internet offers many other advantages for promoting books:

• No need to rely on battery power, electricity, or a working Internet connection to read print.
• People leave finished copies of printed resources in doctor’s offices, coffee shops, and other public places for others to pick up.
• No shut down needed upon flight take off and landing.
• No taking it out of your carry on or briefcase to get through airport security.
• Fewer distractions and information noise as you don’t have links and animation enticing you away from your reading.
• Knowing where something starts and ends. The Internet consists of connected pages making it easy for someone to jump from page to page endlessly.
• Just open and read. No booting up, waiting for loading applications and pages, signing on…

Authors and publishers need to make the Internet their partner in marketing books. The Internet offers the following benefits:

• Cheap: It costs as little as $5 a month to have a Web site and $0 for a page on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Bookhitch. Plus, add the book to your e-mail and discussion board signature for noticing when people read your e-mails and posts.
• Search: Search engines and Web sites help people find books on topics of interest.
• Access: Contact reviewers and bloggers who cover your book’s topic offering to send them a review copy. Also contact sites that publish book reviews like BlogCritics. The Internet also provides a great way to connect with reading groups. Many reading groups invite members to submit questions for the author to respond or hold a conversation online through chat or a Web-based application.
• Network: Forums, online groups, and social networks allow you to connect and interact with potential readers and reviewers.
• Link: Contribute articles to article libraries, online magazines, and other online resources where you can have a byline that links to your Web site or book ordering page.

Start or boost online book marketing with help from the following resources:

• Steve Weber, author of Plug Your Book!, walks the talk with his blog and Myspace page on this topic.
• Christopher Diggins’ Marketing Your Book Online guide
• 101 Book Marketing Sites
• BookSistah Blog often covers book marketing. Sophfronia Scott also has book and writing articles in EzineArticles.
• SalesRankExpress has a tool for checking a book’s Amazon sales rank.
• Future Perfect Publishing blog often covers book marketing.
• 27 ways to sell more books doesn’t focus on online book marketing, but authors can integrate its tips with online marketing.

It’s no surprise we’re hearing a lot about Fact-Checking thanks to the book making big news (I need not name it and its author). I hope those college textbook fact-checkers get paid well because those aren’t easy topics to verify.

For some publishers, it’s not financially feasible to hire fact checkers and these publishers have no plans to hire them after the flap. After all, most books don’t sell enough copies. Think about how many books are released each day from the hundreds of publishers and how many make the top lists.

How often has a scandal like this happened? Not much. While librarians do catch errors, many authors post erratas on their Web sites and that’s a plus for publishing a book today. You can instantly post a correction.

On the flip side, how does the book flap affect Oprah’s Book Club? One thing is for sure, authors are going continue clamoring to get on Oprah in spite of the situation.

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I’m a member of an online book club and one of the neatest things — though I don’t participate — is the conference call with the author of the book we’re reading. Turns out our book club leader wasn’t one of the few who came up with the great idea as according to USA Today, it’s becoming popular.

These calls are a great opportunity for book clubs and authors. Book clubs get closer to the author and feel a personal connection while authors gain sales, publicity, and goodwill. HarperCollins makes it easy for readers and authors to connect with its Invite the Author.
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