Please read parts 7 and 8 before reading this.
In the first section on marketing I told you how best to use Usenet Newsgroups for research and to obtain reviews. I even mentioned something called a SIG. You need to have a SIG set up for whatever method you use to post and yes, you must post. In your SIG you need to have at least a link to the Web site you created for your book. Don’t have a Web site yet? Get one. There are many services out there where you can set up a WordPress site using an “author template.” All you really need is a cover image and working title. It will be good enough for now. Be sure to add some description about the book, even if you haven’t written it yet. Perhaps this description will become your back cover text? At any rate, inside of a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon you can have this done. It won’t be flashy, but it will be good enough. Just be certain to own your URL so you can transfer it to a different service if needed. Some of the cheaper services give you a directory under their domain.
What do I mean about a URL vs. directory. Take this site, interestingauthors.com. That is our domain. We can move it to any hosting service we want. Our blog is located in a directory under our domain. If you create a Web site for your book and the package you purchase gives you a URL of CheapHostingSite.com/MyBook you can’t move that because you do not own the URL. If you have SIG files and marketing literature out there you are locked into them for the life of that book. If they go belly up all of your effort is for naught. If they suddenly become the most expensive hosting service on the Internet you are equally hosed.
One of the gems you will hopefully uncover when researching marketing niches for your book are Web sites devoted to the topic that have their own user forums. Now, these forums usually have some form of joining ritual which is designed to weed out spammers looking to fleece their flock so if you do not sound completely genuine you may be banned for life. I’m not telling you to lie, I’m telling you to be open and honest about your intentions for joining. It is difficult to keep a Web site going on a topic if there are not books and news stories about the topic appearing from time to time. Just look at how many books and movies there have been on the JFK assassination. If there are not things appearing in the normal media, it is difficult to keep a growing site in a dimly lit corner.
Forums have many different names, but they usually have different sections much like Usenet Newsgroups. These forums, however, exist only on the site and many are not indexed by search engines. You have to find the site and join the forum to find out what it contains. It may sound time consuming, but one or two decent forums combined with some Usenet time can be the difference between selling 50 copies of your precious work and selling 5K copies.
What are you targeting via this method? The totally immersed crowd. These are the people who will make or break you. Just a few of them engaging in a heated discussion about your book can generate sales for years to come. The discussion might run its course in under a week but it will be on that site for the life of the site. In the case of Usenet, most likely until the Internet ceases to exist.
That said, get your book professionally edited. Multiple rounds using different professional editors. If you drop a turd into the heart of the devout followers they will call it what it is and drum you out of the market!
Every forum will have a different culture and a different set of posting rules. The most problematic is necroposting.
Necroposting: adding a new message to a message thread which is months if not years old. Something viciously frowned on by some forums.
Necroposting: adding a new message to a message thread which is months if not years old. Something forced on you by many forums as they berate you for trying to create a new thread about an old topic.
You either have to read the rules or just watch for a while. Some sites, like StackOverflow, a site for geeks with technical questions which has moderators, force you to necropost. I have seen subject lines which only “seem” close to something else get thumped on by moderators as “asked and answered see message # nnnnn.” In many cases it is a different thing which only sounds the same.
One good indication as to how a forum treats necroposting can be found in the forum software itself. When you first enter the forum on the site if it sorts by “most recently active message,” usually a column with post date and time on the far right, they usually force necroposting on you. Reading the forum rules won’t always tell you the customary view on necroposting.
Reading the forum rules will, however, inform you as to what is and is not allowed in your SIG file for the forum. You definitely do not wish to run afoul of this! Some don’t allow URLs. Some allow from 1-3. You need to know this and create your SIG accordingly.