Summing up Things I’ve Learned About Book Promo – Part 1: stand-alone book site – Bad, stand-alone author site – Good, and, publishing a book means rarely having enough time to work on the next one.
They say (not sure who ‘they’ are) that to make money, you’ve got to spend money. Provided, of course, you have the money to spend. I’m talking specifically of advertising here. I can’t say I’ve done any of that for Stealing The Marbles. Not that I haven’t wanted to, mind you. I’ve certainly considered it but money is tight and I’m not really sure how much good it does.
Awhile back, I got a $50.00 coupon to try Google AdWords. This was well before the launch date of STM so I thought I would experiment using my non-fic book Secrets of the Golden Gate Bridge (available from Amazon and Smashwords). I let the add run for two weeks and I can’t say I saw any kind of jump in sales. I may try AdWords again with STM as well as placing a Facebook ad. I’m also considering placing an ad on Goodreads and Author’s Den. If I do, I’ll post something about my experience.
There are a number of Author/Reader sites out there. I’m currently with Goodreads, Author’s Den and Red Room. Not sure if this is helpful or not. They claim it’s helpful but, of course, they would. You can join these sights for free but if you want what they refer to as the full power of the site, you need to fork over some cash and it ain’t cheap. I may give that a try as well. If I do, I’ll post something about it.
Can’t say much about book signings as I live in the middle of nowhere with the nearest bookstore well over 40 miles away.
From what I’ve heard, and seen, there is nothing like word-of-mouth to get your book buzz. However, I’ve found that getting word-of-mouth is a tad harder than climbing Mt. Everest with your arms and legs bound together and an apple wedged in your mouth, especially if you’re with a small press. Author sites like those noted above can help, I suppose. Author interviews, guest spots on other blogs and reviews are the big word-of-mouth generators, especially if they come from readers. You need to push to the point of annoyance those who have read your book and get them to post a review on the site they purchased it from as well as other sites where the book is sold, especially Amazon.
Book blog reviews are great but, with all the newspaper and magazine review sections biting it faster than the Dems did in this midterm election, those smaller book blogs are overwhelmed with submissions so your wait time is going to be enormous.
Last but not least, do everything you can to drive traffic to your author blog or website and make sure there are links there for folks to purchase your book. You should post something at least 2 times a week. When you do post something, inform every social network you visit that a new post is available.
That’s it for now. If I come up with any other thoughts, I’ll post them here.
