The days of having just a traditional PR person pitching you as an expert are long past. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the old mass pitching methods of fax, spam mail, and phone do not see the uptake they once did.

More than 50% of journalists and bloggers are freelancers. It’s vitally important to remember they are actively on the hunt for the next great story because that’s how they’ll get paid!

That next great story could be YOU.

As a longtime journalist turned online visibility strategist I’ve seen many of my clients apply the power of their social media content to connect directly with journalists and secure media coverage.

Here are five tips on how to use your blog content to garner media attention.

1. Set up Google news alerts that match your expertise and respond to at least one major media article that comes through those alerts on a weekly basis. Link to the article in a blog post, and give additional insight from your perspective to the article’s topic. Don’t be snarky. Give actionable insight.
2. Subscribe to three e-newsletters from publications that cover your topic. When you get those e-newsletters, read through them to see if there’s a wonderful article you can cite in your own blog. Again, give your take on the article. (Extra tip: After you’ve made your blog post, go to the site where the original article appears and leave a comment. Always comment authentically, not just to get a link back to your site.)
3. Be a news breaker. Offline PR people spend hours scanning the news and trying to determine how their clients can comment on breaking events. You can do the same by monitoring media stories and using your blog to comment as things happen. If you’re a fiction writer, for instance, you might keep up with the latest sales in fiction and share your insights with your readers.
4. Don’t leave out the local and regional. Too often we’re focused only on national blogs, media, and coverage. Once in a while, blog “close to home” by sharing some local insight or linking to your local paper. You’ll begin to catch the local media’s attention. Imagine if your local paper is The Washington Post and the editor is scanning blogs for local folks to comment on business stories.
5. Stop waiting for just the right blog-bite. The longer you wait to start sharing your insight on your blog, the more the competition will outpace you. Take 30 minutes today and write up 10 things you know that you could effectively comment on to the media. Start building some content around those topics on your blog.

You will succeed!

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For more tips on how to use social media to promote your book and garner media coverage, join Highspot for a free teleclass with Nettie Hartsock on September 28. Full details and registration here.

Nettie Hartsock is a digital strategist and teacher who works with individuals and companies, helping them create and convey their messages to the online world. Find Nettie on Twitter at @nettiehartsock.

There’s a fascinating conversation happening over at the Smart Bitches blog that every self-published author should pay attention to. The question was posed to readers, “Do you buy self-published books?” The responses are a great peek into the minds of the reading — and buying — public.

Sadly, the predominant answer seems to be that readers avoid self-published works. Many readers complain of a poor experience with an awful self-published book that’s made them wary of all others. Interestingly, many respondents say they actually check to see who the publisher of a book is before buying so they can steer clear of indie efforts.

“I must confess to a deep prejudice against self-published books… Logically, I know there must be some good stuff out there, but my encounters with the breed have all been negative.”

“I did buy and read (part of) a book that I consider self-published. Boy, was I sorry I’d bought it.”

“I’ve not bought a self-pubbed book mostly because I worry at the quality of the work.”

Of those who say they do buy and read self-published books, most say they do so only when the book is recommended by someone they trust.

“I never buy self-pubbed stuff without some kind of recommendation… There’s just too much crap out there and I don’t want to be the one sorting through it.”

“Mostly the author has to be recommended from reviewers I trust or I have to find a sufficient amount of information to know I’m not wasting my time/money.”

“The only self-published book I bought I bought because I knew the author.”

There are two important lessons here. (Actually, there are a lot more than two in the 100+ comments on the blog but these are the two lessons I really want you to pay attention to.)

You Have to Be Better
1] The market is flooded with self-published books of a truly execrable quality. Readers know it. Reviewers and bloggers know it. My dog knows it. So is the stigma against self-publishing fading as more people do it? No way. If anything, the stigma is only getting stronger as more and more bad books push their way into publication.

If you choose to self-publish, you’ve already got a strike against you in the minds of many readers. That means you’ll need to work twice as hard to prove them wrong. Hone your writing. Check your facts. Invest in professional editing and design. Make sure your book, from beginning to end, can compete against anything on the New York Times bestseller list.

It’s About The Trust Network
2] Book sales come from word of mouth. This is true for all authors, but for self-published authors, getting referrals is do or die. Build your network before you publish and continue to nurture it as you go. If you’ve got a top-quality book (see point #1), your readers will help you spread the word.

What are you doing to make sure your self-published book is an outstanding experience for readers?

Sometimes being a sci-fi geek has its benefits. It’s often said that not everything written about in science fiction exists, but everything that’s discovered in science existed first in science fiction. Now, sci-fi is leading the revolution in book packaging that we discussed in a previous blog post.

A new book by Daniel Wallace, The Jedi Path: A Manual for Students of the Force, won’t be your usual reference tome. With a hefty US$99 price tag, the promise is a full-color interior, “missing” pages, removable trinkets, flashing lights, sound, and movable parts. Oh, and there’s even an actual printed book to read somewhere in the package. Clearly not your usual hard cover edition.

With all the new formats — e-books, vooks (video books), audio books, enhanced books, collector editions with special features — it can seem like a confusing time. Or is it just the most exciting opportunity we’ve ever seen for creating new ways of communicating with your audience?

Gino Wickman, business leader and coach, wanted to publish a book that shared his successful system for helping companies get what they want from their businesses. The ultimate goal was to increase implementation of his proprietary Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) by getting his message out to as many people as possible.

Gino drafted a manuscript that captured his passion for EOS and his determination to share its tools, model, and process with entrepreneurial businesses. His first thought was to find a traditional publisher—but after many frustrating months of shopping the work around and finding no takers, Gino decided to explore self-publishing as a way to bring what he knew was a valuable idea to the market.

Making It Happen

• Highspot put together a realistic assessment of the time, process, and budget required to take Gino’s manuscript and turn it into a finished book.
• Highspot then managed the entire project, from an initial edit to sharpen the book’s message right through to final printing and e-book production.
• Along the way, Highspot was available as a trusted resource for testing ideas and asking questions about book production, marketing, and distribution.
• For Gino, one of Highspot’s most valuable contributions was the team’s role in keeping him free to serve his own clients while Highspot handled the many details involved in getting a book to market.

Seeing Results
Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business launched as a hard cover book in November 2007 and as an e-book in 2008. Available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and other leading retailers, the book has sold over 10,000 copies.

As a result, Gino has seen an upswing in his business. In the last two years, he has added 20 new EOS implementers to his team and successfully helped more than 200 companies implement EOS.

“There’s no question about it,” says Gino. “We’ve leveraged our business model because of this book. Our long-term goal is to help 10,000 companies run on EOS. Every book we sell gets us closer to this goal.”

Gino is now working on a second book, excited to repeat his positive experience from Traction.

Download a PDF copy of this case study.