Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out?

kasteer · Sun Oct 09, 2011 3:10 pm

Hi all,
I have my first novel self published and available on Amazon, the kindle and the nook. I've reached out to a few local book stores, I've posted on Facebook and craigslist.

What do you find works best for you?

Thanks,
Eric K.

thekidd · Sun Oct 09, 2011 3:46 pm

Do you have a website? You might try Twitter also. Also book giveaways help generate interest in your book. Try Goodreads and Library Thing they both have giveaways. In exchange for the books the recipient provides a review of the book. These are some of the things I've tried. It's not easy to get the word out, but persistence usually pays off. Good Luck.

R. LeBeaux · Sun Oct 09, 2011 7:13 pm

Try posting on Smashwords. It's free, and they offer lots of ideas for electronic book promotion.

http://www.smashwords.com/

kasteer · Mon Oct 10, 2011 9:32 am

TheKidd - I have an author's website on Lulu and on Amazon. I always link to the amazon webpage. I haven't pursued a seperate website since these two already exist. I'm not convinced another site would benefit me.

LeBeaux - Thanks for the link! Looks great!. I'll register and post tonight when I get home.

thekidd · Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:54 am

I hadn't thought of Lulu. I'll look into that too. I feel the more avenues I try the better. I use my website to tell readers about myself, my book and to blog. I've only started keeping statistics on the number of visits the last two weeks but I receive between 150-200 visits a week. It doesn't sound like a lot but it's a start and the more people I have visiting the better the chances I'll pick up readers. Keep us posted on your progress and good luck.

kasteer · Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:22 pm

Talked to the manager of a small local cafe. He was very receptive of me setting up a table one Sat or Sun to sell/autograph books. Said they had an another author do that one and he sold 10-15 books.

I'm waiting for a schedule to set up my own table...

Karen Fisher-Alaniz · Tue Nov 08, 2011 12:54 am

Pick a few social media sites and do them really well. Post new material often on your website. Make yourself available. Start collecting email addresses and sending out periodic newsletters to that list - always let them know that is your intention. Only 50% of people are online, so make sure you're working just as hard on people who aren't online as you are for those who are. Figure out who needs/wants what you have to offer and offer to speak, read your book or whatever. Just keep pluggin' away at it and be willing to change your plan. ~K

kasteer · Tue Nov 08, 2011 10:59 am

Thank you very much for the response. I thought more than 50% of people are online nowadays. The problem is that they're so spread out online... some on websites like this one, some not on discussion forums...

Karen Fisher-Alaniz · Tue Nov 08, 2011 8:23 pm

It was 50% a few months ago - maybe it has changed. But you also have to figure in there, that there are a lot of people who only do email, or only email and Facebook or whatever. It's really all about knowing your audience. For my particular book, my target audience is baby-boomers and up into the WWII generation. But if your audience was younger or your subject more aimed at tech-savvy adults, it would be entirely different. I just think none of us can afford to only do one type of marketing. We still have to "get out there." ~K

kelstan · Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:27 pm

I've been in direct marketing for over 18 years. Although it is tempting and easy and inexpensive to focus your marketing efforts strictly online, my own experience, and many studies, show that direct marketing works. While paid advertising is probably beyond your budget, there are inexpensive ways to boost your exposure. The simplest would be to have people sign up to win a free copy of your book or something at your book signing - collect addresses as well as emails. Create a simple database so you can stay in contact with people interested in your work. Check with local libraries, community centers, etc. - perhaps they will let you come in for a book reading. Contact local book clubs to see if they would be interested in having you speak to them about your book. If your book is age appropriate, you could offer to do some reading at local schools. Send a press release to newspaper editors and make yourself available for interviews. Everywhere you go, be sure to collect sign ups and add them to your database, and then followup with an occasional newsletter. Get creative and you'll find lots of inexpensive ways to promote yourself. DON'T BE MODEST! And always, always, always end any promotion with a call to action, such as "Buy Astral at Amazon.com" Notice how that is a stronger statement than "Astral is available on Amazon"? You can make your book sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread, but if you don't ask people to buy it, they won't. You'll be surprised how often people will do something just because you tell them to.

kasteer · Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:53 pm

Kelstan,
Wow. Thanks! That's great advice. I dis plan to do a press release, but it's still on my to-do list. Buy the way, buy Astral now...

Thank you. I will be using your advice!

adriellemartin · Mon Nov 28, 2011 4:37 am

Promoting on your website, talking about it on social networking sites, making comparison to your book and to a best seller, having it reviewed by some good book critics or people who are avid readers, promoting on more than one selling platforms like Amazon etc. The best way is to promote it on your website and to show the amount of purchases per platform. Something like this:
Book:
Amazon: 162 downloads
EBay: 140 downloads
Zazzle: 47 downloads
Total: 349 downloads
Remember: Numbers follow numbers.

thwaters · Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:17 pm


	thekidd wrote: Do you have a website? You might try Twitter also. Also book giveaways help generate interest in your book. Try Goodreads and Library Thing they both have giveaways. In exchange for the books the recipient provides a review of the book. These are some of the things I've tried. It's not easy to get the word out, but persistence usually pays off. Good Luck.

Hello--I love the Goodreads website. It's more author-friendly than Library Thing, and I like it better overall. I did book giveaways on both sites & had roughly 60% of the Goodreads winners give me a review whereas the Library Thing review percentage was far less. I think some of those people (on both sites) may win the book for free and then sell it on-line without giving the author their fair review. It's a little frustrating. Another thing I really like about Goodreads is that after you do a giveaway and people post positive reviews of your book, their friends will mark your book as "To Read" and allow the author to track that statistic, which is really uplifting. I, myself, am still trying to find the magic key for generating more book sales and am hoping "The Kidd" is right and that persistence will pay off. All my best-- T.H. Waters, author of Ghellow Road Verefor Publishing

Gary Val Tenuta · Wed Mar 07, 2012 8:32 pm


	kasteer wrote: Hi all, I have my first novel self published and available on Amazon, the kindle and the nook. I've reached out to a few local book stores, I've posted on Facebook and craigslist. What do you find works best for you? Thanks, Eric K.

I already posted this in the other thread about successful promoting but I'll post it here, also.

For my first novel, The Ezekiel Code, I created a couple of 8.5x11 posters (printed on glossy stock) and put one on each of the side-back windows of my car. I also made an 18"x4" banner for the rear window. I have no idea whether they helped sell any books but, over a 4-year period, I know thousands of people saw them. :Eyes:

I also made business card sized promo cards with the cover pic, website, review blurbs, synopsis blurb, etc. I just dropped them off where ever I went. The local Half-Priced Book Store let me leave a stack of them at the check-out counter.

Other than that, I did all the typical internet promo, facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. For nearly three years I spent a minimum of 4 hours a day on the internet :bananen_smilies035:

doing whatever I could to promote the book. Oh, and don't forget about book trailers.

It took about a year for sales to really amount to anything but it slowly gained momentum. Eventually it became a "bestseller" on amazon and bounced back and forth between the top 10 to the top 100 for over 57 weeks. It was an amazing run but I had a terrific advantage. The storyline of The Ezekiel Code revolves around the 2012-end-of-the-Mayan-calendar thing. The niche market for that particular pop-culture phenomenon was really big, not to mention the boost my book got from the blockbuster "2012" movie. :clap2:

I should also mention the importance of "tags" on your amazon page. The higher the number of clicks on your tags, the further up the list your book will appear when people are using tags to search for particular types of books. With the help of a lot of other author friends (on an amazon forum) my tag clicks were somewhere around 120 as I recall. Whatever the number was, it was enough to put my book at the top of the list of books that came up when anyone searched amazon using the tag "2012". So, try to get as many people as you can to go to your amazon page and click the little boxes next to your tags.

Right now, for my latest novel, ASH: Return Of The Beast, I'm experimenting with business-sized promo cards that have a QR matrix code on them. Scanning the code with a smart phone will take them to my website where they will see the book trailer and the "buy" button to purchase the book. Of course, I don't have any way of tracking how successful this little experiment will be, but I figured it can't hurt. Exposure is the name of the game. Can't have too much exposure.

kasteer · Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:28 pm

Gary Val Tenuta wrote:


	kasteer wrote: Hi all, I have my first novel self published and available on Amazon, the kindle and the nook. I've reached out to a few local book stores, I've posted on Facebook and craigslist. What do you find works best for you? Thanks, Eric K.

I already posted this in the other thread about successful promoting but I'll post it here, also.

For my first novel, The Ezekiel Code, I created a couple of 8.5x11 posters (printed on glossy stock) and put one on each of the side-back windows of my car. I also made an 18"x4" banner for the rear window. I have no idea whether they helped sell any books but, over a 4-year period, I know thousands of people saw them. :Eyes:

I also made business card sized promo cards with the cover pic, website, review blurbs, synopsis blurb, etc. I just dropped them off where ever I went. The local Half-Priced Book Store let me leave a stack of them at the check-out counter.

Other than that, I did all the typical internet promo, facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. For nearly three years I spent a minimum of 4 hours a day on the internet :bananen_smilies035:

doing whatever I could to promote the book. Oh, and don't forget about book trailers.

It took about a year for sales to really amount to anything but it slowly gained momentum. Eventually it became a "bestseller" on amazon and bounced back and forth between the top 10 to the top 100 for over 57 weeks. It was an amazing run but I had a terrific advantage. The storyline of The Ezekiel Code revolves around the 2012-end-of-the-Mayan-calendar thing. The niche market for that particular pop-culture phenomenon was really big, not to mention the boost my book got from the blockbuster "2012" movie. :clap2:

I should also mention the importance of "tags" on your amazon page. The higher the number of clicks on your tags, the further up the list your book will appear when people are using tags to search for particular types of books. With the help of a lot of other author friends (on an amazon forum) my tag clicks were somewhere around 120 as I recall. Whatever the number was, it was enough to put my book at the top of the list of books that came up when anyone searched amazon using the tag "2012". So, try to get as many people as you can to go to your amazon page and click the little boxes next to your tags.

Right now, for my latest novel, ASH: Return Of The Beast, I'm experimenting with business-sized promo cards that have a QR matrix code on them. Scanning the code with a smart phone will take them to my website where they will see the book trailer and the "buy" button to purchase the book. Of course, I don't have any way of tracking how successful this little experiment will be, but I figured it can't hurt. Exposure is the name of the game. Can't have too much exposure.

Awesome post and Huge THANKS for the tips! I was trying to figure out how Amazon did their ranking. I thought it was related to what you view, as in "Other who viewed this book, also viewed these...". I'll get some people to click away on the tags.

I started business cards several times online, but haven't gone through with that yet. I should be getting a check form Lulu soon and I think I'll use that to reinvest in the book via business cards.

I've had a few sales and I think it takes a little while for Amazon to get the book thoroughly blended into its system... at least that was my thinking.

Good luck with ASH. It looks pretty cool. I'll send you ya signed copy of ASTRAL if you send a signed copy of ASH and we can post reviews/rating on Amazon for each other. Just a thought.

Thanks again!

Forum rules

Any ideas for marketing... getting the word out? Tweet This Topic

Who is online

Chat Room Always Open!