Promoting

I wrote a book!!!  I sold the book!!!! With A big WOOO HOOOO.  Here’s a picture of the cover.

I thought the hard part was done, time for a little lemonade on the porch.  WRONG, now comes the really daunting task – promoting.  I have found out it’s sort of like having a kid.  While birth is hard the really tough stuff starts after the child is born. 

Okay, I have shifted from writer to promoter for the afternoon.  I start what other writers are doing…I soon realize that lots of M&M’s and diet coke are needed for this. 

Below is a list of some of the things that I came across in my search….

Conventions – local RWA chapters will often post a request for promo material to distribute during their event.  RWClist is a great resource group for this type of thing. 

Writer’s on-line groups and reader’s on-line groups.  They often offer an excerpt days, promo days by genre and author host days. Castle In The Sky: Flight of Fantasy and Heartsafire are both for all different types of romance, while Classic Romance Revival is for non-erotic romance writers.  Allaboutmurder is a mystery suspense group.  There are a lot of groups out there, you need to decide which to join and then make the time to participate.  The more participation the better the results.

Contest – this one is fairly straight forward.  You give stuff away.

Facebook & Myspace & blogging & twitter – are the lastest rage, but they can also be major time drains. 

Trailers – again one of the newest trends out there.  But keep in mind that any music you use has to be bought. There are royalty-free sites where you can find decent music for reasonable cost. Royalty-free photos are available on the Internet as well. Once your trailer is done, load it up to YouTube and any other place that will allow you to upload a video such as MySpace.

Websites  – this is almost a must and not even considered promoting.  Most publishers will expect you to have an up to date website.

Bookmarks ~ quantity is the question here.  Where are you going to hand then out at?  As with all things professional appearance is important.  If you don’t have the equipment/know how to make slick ones at home, skip it for now.  It was recommended that for first time books start with 500 bookmarks.

Hosted chats  – Look for groups that are genre specific and see if they host chats.  Some are yahoo groups while some review sites do interview/chats. 

Reviews – are nice, but don’t generate sales. What they do generate is name recognition, and that’s what you want. You want people to see your name over and over again until they are compelled to buy your book. One free way to do this is to provide your book to a review site for them to read and post a review. Check with your editor/publisher first as to whether they have any sites they send to automatically.

 What things do you do to promote your book(s)?  What works the best for you?  And what has been a nightmare?