Marketing YOU and YOUR BOOK ~ Part II

Hi everyone,

Now that you’ve had an opportunity to become familiar with how to market yourself from Marketing YOU and YOUR Book Part I that was posted on Tuesday, it is time to take a look at the various ways and forums in which you can use those new strategies.

Social Marketing

So much has been written and said about this phenomenon and I can tell you from experience that it works. I’ve been using Twitter for the past several months and the readership for Mystery Writers Unite has increased and I’ve met some wonderful writers and fellow bloggers. I strongly recommend that if you haven’t become familiar with this particular form of self promotion that you read R.S. Guthrie’s post on social marketing by clicking the following link: Social Marketing.

A couple other marketing ideas:

1. Offering a buy one get one free book offer if you have more than one title available.
2. Offering a free copy of your book to a limited amount of readers and asking them to post a review on your behalf.
3. Becoming involved in blog crawls so readers of many blogs get to know you.
4. Taking part in special events in your local community by either donating a free copy of your book or making an appearance to do a book signing or a reading or both.
5. Contacting your local library to find out if they have any regular book clubs that meet that you might be able to get in touch with to discuss promotion of your book.
6. Teaming up with other authors and offering a package book deal.
7. Reaching out to your local high-end coffee shop (for us here in Aylmer, Quebec that would be the Moca Loca) and see if you can conduct an author reading event.
8. Conduct an on-line forum (live via conference call) where readers can get in touch with you directly and ask you questions about your book and your process.

The list is practically endless but these are a few suggestions to get your juices flowing. What other types of marketing promotion can you think of?

Becky