Use book blurbs to build buzz

During a recent free teleseminar on how to get the book blurbs of your dreams, we did some collective brainstorming on how to build excitement for your book’s release by sharing these pre-publication endorsements and testimonials with social networks.

One of the best ways to do this is with images. (Yes, that’s an image of my dream book blurb on the right. It’s a corner of the cover for the first book I wrote, WHY CAN’T A MAN BE MORE LIKE A WOMAN?)

Images built around book endorsements combine two things that get liked and shared the most on social networks:

1. Images
2. Quotations

When you overlay a pre-publication book blurb — also known as an endorsement or testimonial — on a photo or an illustrated backdrop, you generate an attention-getting image you can post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and elsewhere.

Because this presentation of your dream book blurb is visual, it will attract more attention and generate more interaction with you and your connections.

Tips for creating images with blurbs

During the teleseminar, we spent some time talking about two options for creating them — PicMonkey and InstaQuote — but there are many more. Get specifics on how to use these and other options from an earlier blog post, “How to create shareable images with quotes.”

Here’s one I’ve created in the InstaQuote app with a pre-publication blurb for Get Your Book in the News: How to Write a Press Release That Announces Your Book; the blurb is one of several showcased on the book’s sales page:

It took me less than two minutes to create. I spent more time playing with different fonts than I did anything else; if you’re more decisive, you’ll be able to do this in under 60 seconds.

Share your image!

Explore the options you can use to create your image on the how-to blog post mentioned above, then let it work hard for you by following these steps to share your blurb/image combo:

• Share it on the social networks popular with your book’s audience.
• Include a relevant comment when you share it. Maybe you want to tell people that you’re excited about this early feedback, note where on the cover you’ll use the blurb, or comment on the endorser’s impressive reputation. Is this your dream endorser? Say so!
• Whenever possible, tag the endorser in your comment accompanying the image so that person’s followers see the image, too.

Create a unique image with individual endorsements as they arrive in your inbox so you build a small image library of blurbs. On Facebook, collect them in a photo album; on Pinterest, create a board for them.

Interested in learning more about how to get influential pre-publication blurbs for your book? Listen to the recording of our free teleseminar online, then check out the endorsements for the Build Book Buzz training program, Blurbs, Endorsements, and Testimonials: How to Get Experts, Authorities, Celebrities, and Others to Endorse Your Book, on the course site.