UPDATE: I changed the date on this so it would be bumped to the top. Georganna Hancock wrote a list of great answers (which are in the comment section) to my questions. I’m working on several of them.
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(originally posted 1/16/07)
Lori L. Lake, author liaison with Regal Crest, has some good suggestions for promoting books.
She has a list of bookstores that are lesbian, gay, gay-friendly, or any combination thereof. She makes postcards (via Vistaprint.com) of the book’s cover and sends the post card to the bookstores. One side is the cover image, the other has basic information on how to purchase the book.
I’m going to try that. I’ve been fussing over the layout of the postcard for a while. The cost isn’t too bad, but it is enough for me to hesitate to purchase. Once it is ordered, it is a done deal. Custom work is always a hit-and-miss deal. Lori is going to send me one of hers for me to see how she does it.
Georganna Hancock of Writer’s Edge fame, mentioned my book in her blog. Later, she e-mailed me and suggested I do “viral marketing”. I went to Wikipedia to look that phrase up.
Viral Marketing is, basically, word of mouth advertising. Someone tells someone about something who then tells someone else. And on down the line. Just like if one person has the flu and touches another person, that person is infected. They then touch another person and the virus continues spreading.
In this case, viral marketing is me having a signature in my emails that mention the book. Everyone who reads those emails is “infected” with the knowledge I have a book published. I mention it here on my website and everyone who visits it is “infected”. Georganna mentioned it on her website. People who read that post are infected. The idea becomes that those people then mention the book, or my site or her site or forwards my emails, then those people are infected. Any site I frequent, I should mention the book. I should frequent more sites just to mention the book.
Sounds gross, but apparently it works. So, mention my book on your website! Link to the BGCFA page which is https://paulaoffutt.com/fiction/bgcfa.
Anyone else have any other ideas or suggestions?
Buy ads on book blogs. Send review copies of your book to blogs writers. Or at least email them offering the book. Get the book reviewed in PW, Midwestern Book Review (you’d have to send them a copy). Get people to post reviews on the book selling websites like Amazon. Offer the book in Day Poynter’s marketing newsletter which matches books needing reviews with people willing to review them. Buy ads on blogs and pertinent websites. Join online forums and talk about your writing (and, yes, include the title and link in your signature.) Send news blurbs about the book to newspapers and other publications, offering copies for review. Line up some interviews on radio. I know getting to TV stations and travel in general is a problem for you, but radio talk shows are conducted via the telephone. Pant! Pant!
Add an ad to your email signature line. Then start forwarding jokes to everyone you know. Hopefully, the’ll be like my friends and never trim their email.
Even better – tell a funny story about the book.