How to Promote Your Book
1. Build a website.
In this grand age of technology, this is your least expensive and most powerful marketing tool. Even a free Angelfire page can gain thousands of hits from potential readers. If you want to look more professional, shell out the few bucks a month to purchase your own domain name. Make sure your site contains, at the least, a description of your book, its publisher, its release date, and your biography. Create an updates page or a blog where you can easily post news about your book as it nears publication. Plaster your website address everywhere – starting with your signature in each and every single outgoing email message you send.
2. Join writer’s groups.
Online message boards are a new author’s information cornucopia. You can rub elbows with well-known and not-so-well-known authors alike, gleaning tips and tools for getting your book out there even as you get your name out there. Other authors can suggest unique self-promotion ideas, publications and staff members to hit up for reviews and interviews, and even where to go for celebrity endorsements. All you have to do is play nice and be helpful to those less experienced than you are, and the world of published author information is yours. Oh, and most message boards let you attach a signature to all your posts. Put your website address in there, too.
3. Get reviews.
Chances are your publisher will be sending out preview copies of your book to gain reviews from reputable publications, but you can put some elbow grease into your good name as well. Do your research! Match your review requests with magazines that will actually be interested in your book, and address your request to the appropriate staff member. Send lots and lots of requests to lots and lots of publications. You won’t get anywhere near as many as you ask for, so the more requests you send, the better off you’ll be. Stuck for ideas? Enter “book reviews” into Google and search each site for a “submit a title to be reviewed” link.
4. Get endorsements.
This is a lot easier if you just happen to already be buddy-buddy with some big-name authors. Hopefully by now you’ve met a few on some of those message boards, and they’re more than happy to help you out. If not, you still have a chance. Most well-known authors are swamped with the same sort of request you’re about to send, so make sure yours is professional, polite, and geared toward authors who write similar material. Also, most big-name authors are next to impossible to contact directly, so do some more research and find out the names of their agents. Send your request through the agent first, and he or she will handle it from there.
5. Create a promotional packet.
Fliers, postcards, bookmarks, business cards, whatever – get them printed with your book cover, your name, your publisher, your ISBN#, and quotes from reviews or endorsements. Take them with you everywhere. Give them to everyone. Stick them in your outgoing mail. Even your bills. Now is not the time to be shy. You’ve become a product, and you must sell yourself to anyone and everyone you can.
6. Announce yourself.
Write a press release announcing the release of your book and send it out – to everyone. Send it to every newspaper, magazine, radio station and TV station in your state and the surrounding states. Send it to every friend, family member, friend of a friend or family member, associate, colleague, person you met in an elevator ten years ago. Send it to everybody. You’ll get a few irritated messages from a handful of people who don’t care about your worldly success, but you’ll also be amazed by the number of supportive messages you receive. And, more exciting, you’ll likely begin to see your release popping up in local media. You might even be contacted for interviews.
7. Set up book signings.
Yes, your publisher will probably set up a few signings for you. But you’re not the only author on the list, and promotional dollars don’t go forever. The bigger the part you play in your own promotion, the more sales you will earn. Period. So call up all your local bookstores and libraries. Find out who you need to talk to and what you need to do to set up a signing. Many communities are very supportive of their local artisians, and close to home, the process won’t be as intimidating as it may at first seem. But remember, the bigger the store chain, the more hoops you’ll have to jump through. Make sure you start the process with plenty of time in advance of your release date. Once you get in at a store, make sure you follow up periodically. It would be pretty embarrassing to show up for your signing and find out the manager forgot all about ordering your books.
8. Rinse, repeat.
If you’re serious about promoting your book, then you’ll never be done. Marketing yourself is your new second job. Promote your book everywhere, to everyone. Update your website frequently. Put your website address on everything that leaves your home or office. Frequent message boards and talk about your experience in getting published. Provide tips to other beginning authors. Create a name for yourself online, and make it a positive one. Continue to seek new reviews to post on your site or add to your promotional materials. Send new, relevant press releases as stuff happens, such as book tours or signings. Take out ads in publications your potential readers read. Link-swap with related sites. Promote, promote, promote. Never stop. The day you stop promoting yourself is the day your book dies. Don’t rely on your publisher to handle all the promotion. You’ll be sorely disappointed if you do.
