Generally ‘online marketing of books’ denotes utilizing the enormous power of internet to reach a bigger and highly educated clientele who uses the net to source all sorts of information and goods. Ajay Sharma of Prism Education, and Bernice Maria Paolozzi, developer of iPositiveNow present vast perspectives of its horizon.

As per Ajay Sharma, considering over ‘online marketing of books’, anyone interested in book publishing frequently poses three  questions: is online marketing of books necessary; what are its advantages; and how it can be performed?

Those who are already engaged in marketing of books in the traditional manner (publisher > distributor > retailer) are so engrossed in running their trade. However, it is a proven model of distributing books and making money but consumes a lot time and energy, causing the need to opt newer options which can not only ensure the saving of time and money but also enable to reach new buyers in a big way. Also, the changing behaviour of the targeted people to access information as well as advertisement tends to think beyond the traditional method of book marketing. The best example in today’s scenario is of Naukri.com where Sanjeev Bikhchandani took initiative to bring job advertisements on-line effectively rather than traditional channels of classified ads in newspapers, or of PVR changing the way for buying tickets of cinema (at least in metro cities today).

The advantages of marketing books online are many. It helps you to reach those book buyers who by default have to be educated and are so progressive and open to adopt new ideas (new books ) faster. Living a very targeted and focused life, the young generation wants to squeeze the best out of their limited time and so is increasingly demanding the initial information on any product or concept in easily and readily available form. They enjoy the freedom that internet provides them in searching new products and ideas. Along with the quality of content, the success of a book primarily dependents on how effectively you convey that quality to the buyers. If you can give the prospective book buyer the idea of quality of the content online, they won’t mind ordering it online also. The development of new secure online payment options and faster parcel deliveries will help you in converting the marketing into the sales.

Search engine optimization (SEO):

Search engine marketing (SEM):

Online partnerships:

Affiliate marketing:

Web 2.0 strategies:

Display marketing:

E-mail marketing:

Mobile marketing:

More tools will become available as more innovative applications are developed and on-line connectivity for everyone becomes readily available and the net is used in more different and innovative ways. This point can be better understood in the context of the penetration of mobile phones today. More services and features are available on mobile phones today than when they were launched.

Ultimately, one can go back in the past and visualize the time when the first commercially viable aircraft for intercontinental travel became a reality. The only other means for this kind of travel were ships and we know what select people made at that time, also think about the time when the Hindus were forbidden to even cross the seas and we know what options we made and where we are today. One of the industries where India stands as the leader is the computer software industry, where internet is increasingly becoming the hub around while it revolves, and if we wish, we can ignore it at our own peril.

While as per Bernice Maria Paolozzi, marketing has two goals: firstly, it lets people know availability of your products, and secondly, it makes people want to buy your product. Traditional offline promotion through business cards, stationary, promotional gifts, print, audio and video, advertising, catalogue, magnetic car panels and T-shirts, etc was the method for the time when the internet was not publicly available and the main point of a business plan was the marketing costs. Today, with the power, reach, popularity and growing nature of the internet, there are hundreds of methods to market, promote and increase sales of your book online… for free.

Relying on traditional offline marketing to promote a book in an overcrowded market is a waste of money. It feels like the right option to many first-time publishers to take the easy option and just pay for an ad or a mailing. After all, it feels serious, giving money to promote your book and it fits nicely into a business plan. But clearly, it’s not always possible to check the impact of advertising on sales, particularly if you actively market the book through many different ways. The internet gives the power to build exposure, list your book, share your writing, and get better search engine placement – all of which helps  market your writing and promote your books online.

It is very important that all online marketing is going to one place – your website – which should be a content driven website. There are hundreds of sites to which you can link to show thousands of people, but that serves no purpose if they are being directed to many different channels. Directing people back to one source – your website – will, in a structured manner attract thousands of people a day and send thousands of shoppers a month to Amazon or to their local retail store to request the book. The biggest sales channel for books can be regular book stores with sales coming from online book promotion, or word-of-mouth from website sales.

About the most important thing you can do is to title your page correctly for the main idea or subject that you’re addressing. Of course there are a lot of search engines out there, but most people use one of the big three: Google, Yahoo or MSN. Most other search engines use a mixture of advertisements, disguised as search listings, and results from one of the big three.

There are two ways to promote your books’ website link: (a) make sure a link to your page appears on a site which is crawled by the search engine (Search Engine Optimization); and (b) submit it yourself.

Search engine optimization:

With the position your site shows up in the search engine, results will change how many visitors are shown your site from the search engine. Your ranking for a particular key word or key phrase is based on a technical method based on the text on your page, the number of links to your page, and the content of those links into your page. In order to bring people to your site it makes a massive difference where your page ranks in search results. People are far more likely to follow the first returned link, than the second or third, let alone the 100th. Your goal then should be to have a site which appears in the top ten listing for popular search terms related to the topic/content of your book.

The key is to understand how search engines operate and planning ahead when you design your site. When designing a web page with search engines optimization in mind, it is very important to know what people are searching for, rather than just guessing. You will probably be quite surprised to see what people type into a search engine. There are two ways to do this kind of research for free. One is through the Yahoo keyword suggestion tool, which currently is available to the public at http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/srch/. Another is by creating a free Google ad words account at http://adwords.google.com/select/.

The most important factor in Google search results is a method called Page Rank. This method assigns a value to every page on the web, a value of 0 to 10, which shows sites by importance in calculating search engine results.

Manual submission:

Also, there are multiple ways to market and promote your book online to that global audience through manual submission without any costs.

There are over forty free book listing sites that you can use for book marketing and book promotion purposes. Forums are one of the best ways to market your writings and books. They are also great for contacting with other writers and authors, as well as for gaining information and learning strategies for what others are doing. Writing forums also give back links to your website or blog (via the signature link), and are another great way for boosting your websites rankings in the search engines. There are currently fifteen recommended forums for this purpose. There are also over 100 free websites for authors and writers to promote/market their books and writings online. Over 200 web directories are essential if you plan on being indexed and placed high within search engines. Giving articles to ‘article directory’ sites is one of the fastest, easiest, and most reliable methods of gaining back links to boost your websites page rank in the search engines. There are over 200 of these sites to boost the page rank of your website. Press releases on the book can be issued to 19 free press release sites for book marketing and author promotion. Another great way to get some excitement and promotion going for your book is to enter it in competitions for book awards. Winning an award for your book can go a long way in terms of positive excitement about your book. It is also an effective means of promoting and marketing the books. There are over eighty book competitions which can be entered.

All the above gives 654 links to promoting and marketing your book online which are easy, straightforward and free.

All About Book Publishing

Bernice Maria Paolozzi answers a few questions on how she lives her life

Eastern Culture found me in Ireland! In 1999 my ex husband and myself had a very successful media, printing and publishing company. When we separated my children were 2 and 7. I had to change my work and financial structure for work/life balance. So I had to re create myself. I began to do more project management.

I was asked to project manage an awareness campaign of a Hindu Royal Family High Priest from Indonesia Visiting Ireland. I was also asked to project manage an awareness campaign for a Prof. Buddhist Monk, Prof. Ringu Tulku www.bodhicharya.org visiting Ireland in 1999 looking to build a school and clinic for 2000 children in Tibet.

I had to study both Hindu and Buddhist methodologies in culture and medicine to be able to create the awareness campaign for the Irish culture audience and integrate both together. From those two projects I was invited to visit His Holiness the Karmapa www.kagyuoffice.org in India and the Hindu Royal Family in Mother Temple in Indonesia. I did both at Christmas Time of that year as Christmas Time can be a challenge for newly separated people so traveling supported my new growth in developing myself as a Single mother.

Natural breast enlarging serums, permanent hair straightening treatments, hair dyes that don’t damage the scalp, facials that soothe rather than sting; most people would think that such products could not possibly exist within a reasonable budget, but they can. “Is Organics” is a hair salon and beauticians on Dublin’s Capel Street. One step into the store’s calm, relaxing atmosphere and you’ll instantly feel at ease and ready to be pampered, and pampered you will be.

The main focus of Is Organics, and what makes the company relatively unique in Ireland, is its dedication to using only organic products. Owner Louise, who is originally from Malaysia and has been living in Ireland for the last twelve years, says the reason for her dedication to natural organic products is because they are much more healthier for the body than your average non-organic beauty product. “They (non organic beauty products) are not that bad, but this is much better. They won’t cause any allergies or do any harm to the body. Babies can even use them”.

The use of hair dryes has become an issue recently with reports that some hair dyes have been linked to cancer of the bladder. Is Organics use only organic dyes made from natural ingredients that do not harm the body. “The colours won’t harm your scalp; it’s one-hundred percent natural. The colouring we use is all from plants and flowers so it’s also ammonia free and fragrance free. Bleach hair colour is quite bad for your scalp... we have a very light blonde colour, but we don’t have to bleach your hair so it’s much better” Louise says.None can swear more by organic products and their benefits than environmental and well being enthusiast Bernice Paolozzi, a now regular customer at Is Organics. She says, “There are no toxins that you don’t know about in the ingredients going into your body. The toxins can build up and then they can poison your bloodstream and affect the body.”

Normal, non-organic facials can also be harmful to the skin and body with use over time, as toxins in the toners can break through the skin barriers and build up in the body over time. Louise says, “The toners don’t have alcohol. A lot of products have alcohol in the toners, but the organic ones don’t contain alcohol. They have flower waters so it’s quite pure for your face. There are no chemicals.” Bernice, who regularly uses organic facial products, says of the natural ingredients iin the toners, “It’s less invasive, it’s more softer. The results are the same but you have less acid going into your system”.From an environmental perspective the use of organic products can also have beneficial effects as their waste products are much more friendlier to the environment than conventional beauty products. “The waste product from them is better for the environment. So if the products that all the hair dressers and beauticians are using were less toxic washing down the sink then that means that that are less toxins going into the water system.” Bernice says. Is Organics also offer a permanent hair straightening treatment that can last from 6 to 8 months. The treatment, which is also sold at a very competitive price, can cut hair maintenance time in half as there is no need to blow-dry or straighten the hair. While the treatment is the only non-organic product used at Is Organics, the less frequent use of electrical appliances can also help you cut down on your carbon foot print. This not only makes it cost effective and time saving, but also very environmentally friendly.

Bernice, who has had the hair straightening treatment done says that it works wonders, and results are obvious as her hair is long and sleek with no signs of styling damage. “Ever since I’ve had it done it is so easy to keep my hair. It’s literally just wash, brush and go, which is brilliant.” The more you use organic beauty products the more likely it is that your skin will age less with time as the ingredients are not as harsh to the delicate skin on the face. Bernice started using organic beauty products ten years ago and says the anti-ageing effects are brilliant. “I find peoples’ reaction to me is that they are asking me what I’m using because I'm 45 this year and I tend to look younger. It’s really because I’m using organic products.”When training to be a beautician Louise, originally being from Malaysia, saw a gap in the market and decided to open “Is Organic” seven months ago. She says “For organic products I saw the potential. A lot of people have started to realise well-being, to treat themselves better and to use better products.” According to Louise her clientele usually consist of middle aged people and that most of the younger generation of twenty-something’s still don’t appreciate the benefits of organic products. “Older people are more likely to choose organics. They care more about what they are using.” says Louise. “I’ve noticed that from about 30 onwards people start to realise to take care of themselves. When they are young they don’t care as much.” she adds.

Organic beauty products are still relatively new to Ireland and are generally more popular in East Asia where regulations are different. “There are different chemicals in them (non-organic products) that are tested on animals and they’re very aggressive. In the Eastern world all of the beauty and hair products are usually based as much as possible on herbal natural products so they are much softer for our skin and they are less aggressive. So you know the way if we use toner or cleanser we feel a sting? That’s because there’s acid in it.” Bernice says.While you may not see organic beauty products in every beauticians in Ireland, but the number of people looking for them is steadily rising. “There are more customers looking for organic now. There used to be people just coming in and saying I want a colour but now people know the difference between the organic products and the non-organic ones” Louise says.

However, while organic beauty products seem to be gaining in popularity, will people consider health and well-being in this current economic climate? I asked Louise this question. “It’s quite difficult. With the economy now I find there is a little bit of pressure. Sometimes the business is ok, sometimes it’s going down and sometimes it’s picking up, so it’s not balanced like before. You couldn’t say ‘oh we’ll do a good week this week’ because you're not sure” Louise says. When asked if she had plans on expanding Louise said with a smile “It depends on how the economy grows and how the business grows. I don’t mind opening up one or two more.”

With our increasingly hectic lifestyles it can be difficult to remember to treat ourselves better and to use products that help our well-being. But with this increasingly hectic lifestyle it becomes even more important to use products that facilitate our well-being rather than products that could end up destroying it. Louise points out that even knowing you’ve shopped organic can make a difference to our well-being, she says, “You feel much better once you buy something organic. You feel like you have treated yourself better”.

For more information check out  Organic Hair and Beauty Studio, Capel Street, Dublin 1 or telephone 01 8783068 and 086 3389338

Skin Care Price List:

Phyt’s Soin Equilibre 60 euro

(1 hour)

Phyt’s Soin Anti-comedon 69 euro

(1 hour, 15 mins)

Phyt’s Soin Capyl 75 euro

For sensitive skin (1 hour, 15 mins)

Phyt’s Soin Oligo Vital 75 euro

Nourishing, anti-ageing

Phyt’s Soin D’O 80 euro

Reoxygenation for dull skin

Phyt’s Multi Vita 90 euro

Lifting and firming for fine lines

(1 hour, 30 mins)

Phyt’s Soi Energie Vitale 85 euro

For dull and tired skin

Do you want to know how to Burn Calories While you sit in front of the Computer or Sleep ?

Well read on or click to become a member of iPositive Now Health at www.meetup.com/ipositivenow-health

Did you know that …….

1 lb of muscle burns approx 50 to 100 calories a day.

The Majority of calories you lose are burning by your muscle.

Think of your MUSCLE as a FURNACE that keeps burning regardless of what you are doing, even if you are sitting at a computer or sleeping.

How Aerobics Can Make You FAT

Traditional low calorie diets and aerobic exercise cause you to lose muscle. The loss of muscle causes your metabolic rate (the rate at which you burn food and body fat for energy ) to slow down.

Once you come off a low calorie diet and stop exercising you quickly gain back all the fat you just lost, plus more. Most people panic and start this vicious cycle again, not knowing that every time they do this they are getting further and further away from their goal.

So rather than trying again to change a failed system, start learning new techniques that are getting results. Using your bodies Furnace which is Muscle which is scientifically proven that the best result benefit and solution is motivation, support, expertise and equipment.

Your Body Furnace is the Answer....So what’s the best way to exercise.........

Any approach used must have the first goal of increasing muscle tissue. A university Doctorate study examined these questions and came to a ground breaking conclusion.

The key important factor was the trainee’s mental attitude. The next factors were weight training, no resting between exercises, low –glycemic foods and some food supplements.

The research highlighted the fact that the more focused the trainees mental attitude, the heavier the weight they could lift. In turn, the greater intensity of effort was directly related to increases in muscle tissues.

2 out of every 3 people are now over weight and this is expected to rise to 3 out of 4 in the next few years.

The results over a 12 day period and a total of 4 hrs of weight training or 20 mins daily – were on average a gain of 3lbs of muscle and a loss of 7.5lbs of fat. This change of nearly 1lb a day would be enough to literally transform the average person’s body.

You must learn how to concentrate while exercising so you get a mental workout as well as a physical one. Having the correct posture and approach to the weights is important and you full motivation will get you the best results in every 20 mins work out.

Why should women gain muscle ?

The hormone balance between men and women is very different, resulting in different changes in the shape of the body after exercises. Most women avoid anything that might increase muscle for fear of looking masculine. Weak muscle in women can make them tired and weak and low motivation.

Muscle takes up less space than fat, so replacing fat with muscle can take inches off your waistline.

Muscle burns fat, making it easier to stay lean. If you gain 15lbs of muscle you are burning 750 calories a day and that only with one hour of exercising per week.

The other benefits for women are surprising. Collagen is a protein, and retaining this protein was a key result of muscle toning.

Your focus, concentration and well –being will all be transformed.