MARKETING YOUR BOOK

Had a book accepted or plan to go the ebook route? Then you want to think about getting your marketing campaign organised. How can people buy your book if no one hears about it?

So what sort of things should you do? And where should you do them? Here are some ideas to get you started:

ORGANISE A BLOG TOUR

I found this the best route to go to increase book sales. I did my Blog Tour back in February 2011 and my sales numbers quadrupled. I know it’s a lot of work writing the posts and approaching possible hosts, but I believe, from the sales increase alone, never mind the name recognition it should engender, that it’s worth it. Put your Blog Schedule on your website so chance visitors can have the opportunity to follow the Tour, too.

ADVERTISE

I didn’t find this the best way to go. I’ve tried both Kindle Nation Daily and a banner ad on kindleboards and I can’t say I noticed  any increase in sales. Of course, you might be luckier and this is far from the definitive guide as I’ve tried such a limited area in which to place my ads. By all means try it. At least, if nothing else, you will be the wiser for it and who knows, it might pay off.

BOOK TRAILERS

It’s hard to see how much good – if any – trailers do. They’re fun to make and the cost isn’t prohibitive if you do them yourself using Windows Movie Maker. And they’re always available on your website, youtube and other sites for people to see. It’s a big help with planning which pictures to put where if you jot down a synopsis of the book. When it comes to getting royalty-free pictures, there are a lot of sites out there. I use www.istockphoto.com

BOOK GIVEAWAYS

These don’t have to cost a lot. You’ll get author copies free from your publisher or if you’re going the ebook route you can offer books free using a coupon at smashwords. Goodreads and LibraryThing also allow for book giveaways.

You could also offer books as prizes on your own website as part of a contest, though if you hold something like a short story contest with a critique, you must be prepared for a fair number of entries.

CONFERENCES

This is not a route I’ve ever taken as it’s rather expensive. But if you can afford it, conferences could be the way to go to get your name better known and to promote your new book If you sign up early you can get your name down for a panel. Just make sure you have something to say when you get there. You’ll want to have postcards and bookmarks ready to hand out, possibly business cards. And you’ll need to ensure there are books available for sale in the sales room. You should be able to organise this with your publisher.

REVIEWS/ARCs

With any luck,  your publisher will provide advance reading copies of your new release In any case, you’ll want to solicit reviews for your new release. If your book is an ebook there are many bloggers out there who will review your book, some of whom are widely recognised as providing a reliable reviewing service. Some specialize, so make sure you approach an appropriate blogger. ARCs are also handy to give away as prizes in contests.

NEWSLETTER

Try to collect email addresses every time you make a public appearance so that you increase the number of people to whom you can send a regular newsletter with your doings. I use www.tmynewsletterbuilder.com and send out a newsletter once a month. What do you tell people? Well tell them about the new release with the book cover, tell them about appearances and panels you’re on at conferences. Tell them how you’re doing on your Work in Progress.

PROMO  MATERIALS

Once you have your cover art, you can design postcards, bookmarks and flyers. You can have business cards designed very cheaply, with either the book cover or your author photo. You can create most of these cheaply yourself or you can take the professional print route.

WEBSITE AND BLOG

Don’t forget to post information about your new release on your website/blog. Don’t forget to add the youtube link to your book trailer. Post an excerpt so your website visitors can read your scintillating prose! Crease a Press Kit page with a picture of you, your book cover, a short bio of you and the reviews when you get them. Interview yourself about the book and add this to the page.

SPEAKING AND SIGNING ENGAGEMENTS

Never turn down a chance to appear in public. Yes, it’s anxiety-inducing, but the more you do it the better you’ll get at it. Never be shy when you have the opportunity to sell your book. Some groups, like the Women’s Institute, require you to do an audition as a speaker before you can get on their approved list of speakers. Daunting, but it’s just another of the many challenges you’ve already faced.

I can hear you thinking that this all looks like a lot of work. You’re right. It is. That’s why the sooner you start thinking, planning and getting stuff organised, the more you can cover. That way, when your publisher/yourself expects you to be working on the next book, you have the time in hand. An hour or two at evenings or weekends with get the work done. Just be sure to get the word out somehow.

Marketing For Writers

Your book's been accepted. How wonderful! Congratulations.

It's a terrific, feeling, isn't it, after all those rejections?

But now comes the real work. What? You thought you'd done
the work and that now came the pleasure? Ha! Think again.

Writing the book's only half of it. And if you're a techno-thickie,

like me, you'll be amazed at what you can learn to do; I certainly

was.

Everyone knows about the signings and the crowds of people who come to each. But everyone would be wrong. Unless you're very

well-known, you'll be lucky to get more than a handful of signings, if that. Think about it. Why would a bookstore manager want to

 
put himself to the trouble for a writer that no one's ever heard of? For a writer who's unlikely to sell more than one or two books (and one of these purchases will probably be made by the writer's partner)? What happens most often is that the writer sits behind a desk with a pile of his/her books and no one comes. That, believe it or not, is the harsh truth of most book signings. You don't need to take my word for it. Watch this video made by writer Parnell Hall and have a laugh while the sober truth sinks in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZoJ5OKmEJY.

So what can you do? There are other things. Libraries are always welcoming to the idea of your giving a talk. Ring around a few libraries, ask to speak to the librarian and introduce yourself and your new book. You should get an invitation or two to speak. No good at speaking off the cuff? Don't worry. It's perfectly acceptable to use notes. I do myself as my short-term memory is shockingly bad and I'm hopeless at speaking without a crib. You may even sell a few books.

There are also other things you can do to draw attention to yourself. I'm in the middle of preparing for a seventeen-date Blog Tour in February. It's a lot of work as you have to prepare posts to go on other people's blogs and you won't be too popular if you repeat the same blog on several people's sites. You're expected to be original and, as I said, originality brings a lot of work.

How did I organise this? I'm a member of a number of writing/book sites and I checked on the File listing of one of them: Yahoo Group's MurderMustAdvertise, for those members who were prepared to host other writer members and contacted each one. You'll need to be organised and create a Blog Tour folder on your computer where you can store the emails listing what you're to do. You should also set up a folder in Documents with docs for each of the separate posts you've been asked to make and note in your diary the names, email addresses, dates, blog addresses and what your post is to consist of. If you don't do all this you'll get in a hopeless muddle. I could have arranged more Blog Tour dates if I'd contacted members on other book or writing sites, but I thought seventeen gigs was as much as I could cope with. This is my first Blog Tour, after all, and I didn't want to over-reach myself.

I've written several question and answer sessions, prepared a few different excerpts of Deadly Reunion, my latest Rafferty & Llewellyn crime novel which comes out on 24 February, with links to the other excerpts. Deadly Reunion is the reason I organised the blog tour.


What else have I written? Another blogger asked me to produce a post about my writing 'Made it Moment'. LOL! Shows how deluded one can be! One asked me to supply my Top Ten Tips for writers. Another wanted me to write a post about my ebook experiences since I've published two of my Rafferty novels to kindle et al. They all wanted a short bio and brief synopses of both Deadly Reunion, my latest hardback, and Dead Before Morning, my latest ebook. Another blogger wanted me to tell her readers about how I set about making my various video book trailers. I did it The Hard Way, I thought! The first one was made from a basis of total ignorance. Boy, this marketing mallarkey is a very steep learning curve. I've also collected up the links to various reviews, to my youtube video book trailers, to amazon and, of course, my blog and website. I'm still working on some posts. But when I've finished, I'll put up a list of all my Blog Tour gigs and you can follow me through the Tour if you wish. You'll probably be asked to provide a few prizes. I think the most usual is that, at the end of the Blog Tour, a drawing is made of all of those people who have made a comment during your Tour. It's up to you to check on each of the blog sites for the comments and to note down the details of each so you can make the draw.

What else have I done? I've made a video interview of myself, using the webcam on the computer, with my poor husband acting as the interviewer. Here's the link if you want to take a look and have a laugh at our pretty inept efforts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoMLVcKxzBw This was about our fifth attempt, so you can imagine how poor the earlier efforts were. It was originally done for The Lit Chick Show, a video blog that hosts author interviews. But I'm going to do it again for the show and hope that both of us manage to project ourselves a bit better! Practise! Practise! Practise! The interview's not due to air until the 25 February, so we've got time to apply a bit of polish. You could do something similar and put it up on youtube, then at least you'll have something ready for your Blog Tour when you organise it. You can try to get radio interviews; local radio is generally pretty willing to host you and local newspapers might well feature you if you contact them.

I've explained before, in a previous post, that you'll have to provide your own marketing materials, like bookmarks, flyers and postcards, as it's unlikely that your publisher will do it. I've just altered the design of my bookmarks, but I've had a hell of a job lining up the two sides of the bookmarks. It's been very wasteful of my white card and my computer inks, not to mention my time. But fingers crossed, they're lined up now. My next printing will tell. Oh for the money to be able to pay someone else to make the blasted things! Hey, maybe next week, I'll have time to do some actual book writing!

Now. To market! To market!