Wednesday, March 28, 2007

How Do You Promote Your Books?


By Lynette Rees


I thought it might be an idea to share here what we do to promote our books.

I like writing articles, so that’s an easy way for me to promote. For example, I have a romantic comedy coming out shortly, so I’ve written an article entitled, ‘Crafting the Romantic Comedy’ and started circulating it at various article banks.

One article I wrote last year, just before the release of a romantic suspense novel, was entitled, “Seven Ways to Inject Suspense Into Your Novel”. A couple of weeks later, I was amazed to see it as the lead article in The World Wide Freelance newsletter, which has a circulation of 20,000. As a knock on effect, people contacted me after seeing the article via that newsletter and asked me to take part in live chats and interviews at their websites. They also asked my permission to publish the article as well.

I try to gear the promotional article up to suit the particular book coming out at that time and include a link to it in the bio.

If you are interested in trying this, here are some article bank links:

http://goarticles.com/

http://www.ezinearticles.com/

http://www.articlealley.com/

You can probably find many more article banks by use of a search engine. Of course, if you can go the extra step and get your article published in a relevant magazine, so much the better. Last year, I managed to get my article, “Five Reasons I Chose to E-publish My Novel”, printed in The Romantic Novelists Association magazine.

Another idea I’ve had is to have my book covers printed on postcards. I intend to send them out advertising my next book launch and/or to say where the book is available. A friend gave me the link to a reasonably priced online printer, who also supplies 250 free business cards, so I’ll get some of them printed the same time. Here’s the link:

http://vistaprint.com

Or how about putting out a press release, either in the local newspaper and/or online? See here: http://www.prwebdirect.com/

I’ve also started including leaflets to my books that are due for release in other books I sell, so the reader, if he or she likes my style, may consider purchasing the new book when it comes out.

I also involve family and friends who are marvellous promoters. My mother, for instance, likes nothing better than telling her friends at The Salvation Army and Age Concern about her daughter, the author! Several have bought not just one book but the follow up as well!

My husband has promoted my books both at the bowls club and at work and I’ve had several orders that way.

These are just a few ideas I use to promote my books, would you care to share yours?

Lynette Rees has two books due out with The Wild Rose Press this year. Return to Winter and It Happened One Summer. Visit her website here:

http://silverlady00.tripod.com

7 comments:

Carol Ann said...

Lynette, thanks for sharing such wonderful promotion ideas. I am going to give these a try. So far all I've done is promote through my blogs and website, online chats, and word of mouth through family and friends.

Lynette said...

Glad to give you some ideas, Carol. Promotion is more important than ever for authors these days with all the competition!

There's a great book on the subject by Carolyn Howard Johnson called 'The Frugal Book Promoter'.

Lynette

Sonja Foust said...

Good ideas! Visit my site at http://www.promo-ho.com for some more tips and ways I promote my ebooks. Hope that helps!

Lynette said...

Thanks, Sonja. I'll save it to my favourites! :)

Lynette

Sara Freeze said...

Lynette,
Thank you so much for sharing your ideas! Promotion is such a complex art, especially for new writers. My best tip is joining a site like MySpace to network with other writers and readers. Also, posting on forums is a great way to get your name out there.

Sara :)

Hywela Lyn said...

Thanks for sharing these tips Lynette. I am a real novice when it comes to promotion, so I will no doubt find these invaluable.

Lyn x

Lynette said...

I'm glad you found the post useful, Sara and Lyn! I think I might check out Myspace as I have heard good things about it. :)

Lynette