Tell us a bit about yourself.

I am the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, webmaster at the top-ranked BookMarket.com, and developer of the new Ten Million Eyeballs online marketing events (www.tenmillioneyeballs.com). I'm also the founder of the Book Marketing Network.

As a consultant, my clients have included a self-published author who has sold over two million books, a new age publisher with 60 titles, and a $100 million publisher with a rapidly growing list of 1,000 titles.

What is the Book Marketing Network?

The Book Marketing Network is a social network powered by Ning that features more than 2,500 book authors, publishers, and promoters. It's very active with lots of wonderful people who share ideas, experiences, and tips.

What made you start this network?

I like to connect with people. Relationships are the key to marketing anything. The more relationships you have, the better you will be at marketing anything.

How can people join?

Just visit http://ning.bookmarket.com and sign up. It's really easy to get started. The network is now ranked #3 when you search on "book marketing" in Google. Of course, #1 and #2 are pages from my BookMarket.com website.

How important do you think it is for authors to network? why?

Very important. As I noted above, relationships are the key to marketing online or offline. That means making friends. The more friends you have (real friends), the greater your marketing reach. I've written an article on how to make friends. Check it out at http://www.bookmarket.com/relationships.htm

Anything you'd like to add?

In my Ten Million Eyeballs online marketing course, I teach people how to create lasting and effective relationships online. Those relationships are the key to any Internet marketing success. At my Ten Million Eyeballs website, I give examples of about 40 individuals and companies that became successful building relationships on online.

Tell us about Wizardly Web Designs.
WWD began as a small website design company. I am senior editor for an ezine for writers, Long Story Short, www.alongstoryshort.net which we started in 2003. I have a huge group of writers that I know and work with that have a certain trust in me. So I began approaching some of them about building websites for them and their published work and some approached me. Then last year, one of them asked me about doing the web marketing for her new book. I was working for a web marketing company, so I already had a knowledge base for the marketing. I began studying the Web 2.0 marketing strategy and developed a program for book marketing. Now I have 9 authors and another small retail business that I am marketing on the Internet.

How important do you think it is for a writer to use web marketing? why?
Web marketing is a kind of viral marketing. It spreads the word via blog marketing with strategic links back to the book website, networking among other websites and blogs which is achieved through Virtual Book Tours. VBTs are the self-published author's way of doing book tours, but without the travel, expense and exhaustion they entail.

What features do you feel a writers website should have to help them market their work?
The sites I develop include a book page with reviews, videos, book summary, sample chapters and links to radio interviews. I also post an events page with a calendar that shows all of the stops on the VBT and any radio interviews I arrange.

Can you give a few marketing ideas that writers could try?
I suggest trying to get radio interviews - there are many internet radio shows for authors. Once a comfort level with the medium develops, the authors can seek bigger stations. Create a blog and work it - post 3 times a week and link back to your site. Make contact with other website and blog owners and exchange links and info and finally, issue press releases and pay to have them mass distributed.

What kind of pricing do you have?
I try to work within the budgetary constraints of the authors and often tailor a program to their budget and goals.

Anything else?
I am also developing an exciting new system that will achieve massive distribution and book sales that I expect to launch this fall. It is a win/win plan that involves many authors in a joint venture for success. I would love to hear from interested authors. My website is www.wizardlywebdesigns.com