When I thought about the ‘grand opening’ of InkyBlots and who I would feature as my first interview guest, it only seemed right to interview the woman who got me started with online publicity and book promotions.

It is my immense pleasure to welcome my first official guest to the InkyBlots blog:

Dorothy Thompson

Hello Dorothy! Thank you so much for taking the time to virtually sit down to do this interview with me.

It’s a pleasure. Thank you for having me!

Could you briefly introduce yourself?

Sure, I’m CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion.

You have been running a successful virtual book tour company – Pump Up Your Book Promotion – for many years now. How did you first get started with promoting authors?

My beginnings as an online book promoter began when I became frustrated with offline booksignings and I turned to the Internet to see if I could figure out a way to bring attention to my book, Romancing the Soul. It wasn’t that I hated booksignings altogether, but I knew there were ways I could promote my book on the Internet that would reap more benefits for me.

One way in which I did this was through an experiment involving free ebooks and key search words. I wanted to see if I could take a product that you couldn’t even find in bookstores and have it rise to the top of the search engines, thus making a product once considered inferior to book buyers become a much more viable selling product.

My experiment lasted 24 hours and during that time, both three ebooks I tried on separate occasions rose to number one in the search engines. Why is this important? More and more people are turning to the search engines for information. In their searches, they are finding what they want in three page searches. If your information is not within those first three pages and preferably on the first page, your Internet surfer is going to go where the information they are looking for does show up.

This can work for anyone and you don’t have to be a SEO expert for it to happen. But what did happen was I got the attention of an author who wanted me to do the same thing for her book. I told her I wasn’t a publicist, but she insisted, so began my new career as an online book promoter.

That’s when it dawned on me to start my business, Pump Up Your Book Promotion, to help other authors promote their books online.

Did you ever envision that you would be where you are today?

Wow…great question. Did I think it would ever grow to be what it is today. You know, I think I did. It wasn’t one of those ‘OMG’ I started out with this idea, then it mushroomed into this bigger idea, but I really think I did envision this. I saw a need and I filled it.

What do you find most difficult about promoting authors in a virtual world?

The only difficulty I see in promoting authors in a virtual world is getting to those readers and book buyers out there who are unfamiliar with the Internet and aren’t comfortable using their credit card to make their purchases. But it just takes time for people to realize if they use a “safe” website such as Amazon, they have nothing to worry about.

Virtual tours are becoming more in demand and have been for a while now. What makes Pump Up different to other virtual tour companies out there?

Got an hour? Haha. On the average, we have about twenty authors a month on virtual book tour and people who are signing up are telling me they are finding us in searches (there’s the SEO working) and they like our prices.

When I first started out, there were only two companies – one stopped doing them and the other charged more. Now there are a lot more companies out there but (not knocking anyone down) I feel we do more for the author.

We now have a full staff and myself handling everything and it goes smoother. We’re just set up different from everyone else – the authors get not one but two tour pages and most of our blogs are syndicated into USA Today, Chicago Times, etc., and that doesn’t include just the online version but also includes the paper version, too.

One of our packages includes a book trailer if you need that and I believe the last time I looked only one other company offered that and that was recently. We’re a very people-friendly company who go the full nine and half yards for all our authors.

Do you have a fond memory related to author promoting that you would like to share?

You mean a woohoo moment? Whenever an author makes USA Today. ;o)

What is your advice to authors who would like to start promoting virtually but don’t know where to start?

For beginners, take my advice and take to the Internet and do some Google searching to find out anything you want to know. Study the craft; learn by your successors. Get the word out about your book, no matter if it’s on the front of USA Today or one of the smaller blogs because it’s a combination of all those efforts that makes a difference in sales.

If you want to know if something works, find out who has already done it and ask them. Don’t go into it blind. Believe in your book; cash in on the book’s platform and use that as your platform to become an expert in your field. Be different. Be unique.

I have an author coming up who was discouraged because she couldn’t find a traditional publisher and went self-published. So, she had a funeral for her book. Hi-larious.

I just had someone contact me about a tour a little while ago. She had written a memoir about spousal abuse. Yawn? Too many out there? Not when you focus in on something in the book that makes people stand up and take notice.

I took notice after watching her video. Had I not seen the video, it might have sounded like all those million other books out there that are about the same thing. Believe me, you’ll take notice. You gotta give people that wow factor.

What are your dreams for Pump Up?

Pump Up has fulfilled every dream I ever had for it. I can’t imagine where it will lead in the future but I can only wish it will remain firm to its belief that all authors deserve their day to shine and that no matter how big or small that star, it will shine just as bright as all the rest no matter where they came from.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I would like to take this chance to thank you, Jaime, for this very thought-provoking interview and to tell all authors that all they have to remember is that if it was easy to become a bestselling author, everyone would be one. It takes work and if you’re willing to go the full nine and a half yards, you’ll succeed in anything you set your mind to do.

Thank you so much for your time and for this interview. Best wishes and success to you in the future.

Thank you!

***
Dorothy Thompson is CEO/Founder of Pump Up Your Book Promotion with eight years experience in online marketing. What began as an experiment after self-publishing her promotional e-book A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook and 101 Internet Radio Shows to Promote Your Books turned into her thriving new career as an online book marketer.

She is also the author of the children’s book, No More Gooseberry Pie, the relationship anthology, Romancing the Soul, and the paranormal comedy novel The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost which is under the consideration of a playwriter in New York.

Dorothy has written hundreds of online marketing articles and has been quoted in the celebrity tabloid, OK! She has also appeared on dozens of radio shows including Lifetime Radio, Single Talk, and Achieve Radio with Fran Silverman. Dorothy runs several blogs including her marketing blog, Book Marketing Buzz, The Writer’s Life and Beyond the Books which are syndicated into USA Today, Chicago Times, Washington Post and other national magazines.

Dorothy resides on the beautiful island of Chincoteague, Virginia. Her offline interests include traveling, biking and sitting at the end of her dock and watching the sun go down. You can email her here.

Connect with Dorothy at Facebook at www.facebook.com/thewriterslife.
Connect with Dorothy at Twitter at www.twitter.com/thewriterslife.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 11.29 pm and is filed under Author Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.