Self Promotion

DO IT YOURSELF PROMOTION

You’ve sold a book, that’s great, enjoy the big “Yes, I did it, and everything’s wonderful” feeling. Bask in the joyous thought that you are a published author. At this very special time, it’s important to just savor the moment, because you’re about to experience another emotion associated with being “published.”

Mental Overload. We’ve all heard about—if not experienced—writer’s block. Well, if you ask me, writer’s block is fairly mild to what you’ll feel when you’re asked to participate in promoting your book—especially if you’ve never done it before. Another word for promotion is advertising, and another word for advertising is spending, and from there we can go to credit and on down to debt. Advertising can be a costly venture as well as overwhelming to the novice or inexperienced.

Nowadays, an author’s expected to give away bookmarkers, small gifts; nail files, sachets of sweet smelling herbs, chocolates with their logo on them and lip balms, a personal favorite.

However cool these little gifts may be, they all have a price. Therefore, the first thing to determine in self-promotion is how much you can spend. In most cases, I base what I’ll spend on my advance.

One of the very first things the newly published (as well as aspiring authors) should do is get a website. And, because this is a do-it-yourself handout, I’m going to give you information on free, do-it-yourself websites. Most of the search engines (Yahoo, Comcast, MSN and Google) offer free sites. Check them out and choose the one that best fits your needs. Hint: Friends with the “know” are always better than stumbling around by yourself, so ask your author friends about their sites.

Decide what you want ahead of time. View other authors in your genre and see what they’ve done. It will also give you a better idea of how much or how little to put on your page. Consider putting the following on your opening page: name, bio, clip art that would best fit your genre, most recent book cover, links to your favorite sites, etc. Don’t worry if you don’t have much on your page at first. It will fill up quickly once your book has been submitted for reviews. Many free sites allow multiple pages. There are many free clip art sites and free font sites available on the internet. What you choose will be a matter of personal preference, so plan to spend some time at your computer to check them out.

Reviews: Once you have your title and release date, you can start planning when you’ll have certain items available for promotion. One of the first things to do after you’ve created your website is to obtain book reviews. Ask your editor for a list of reviewers. All reviewers have contact information listed on their site, and it’s rare to find one that isn’t happy to help determine if they’ve received your book. Plan ahead. Many review sites have long waiting lists. Query them and find out when they want to review your book. Find out if they’ll accept PDF files, or if they want an advance reading copy (ARC or galley) and comply accordingly. And be prepared to wait. Query reviewers 6 months before your release date. Keep a list of the sites you queried, and follow up if they don’t contact you when they said they would.

Hint: Most review sites offer author interviews too!

Group Ads: Placing professional advertising in a magazine is expensive. The bigger the ad, the bigger the expense. If your budget allows, consider a group ad. These usually consist of five or six authors on one page, sharing the cost. Color ads are more expensive. Jumping on a page with 4 other authors isn’t so bad. The more the merrier…I mean cheaper.

Bookmarkers/Postcards & Business cards: I’m going to give you the best information of your life…well maybe not, but it’s sure to help you produce professional looking promotional material at a fraction of the cost. It’s Avery.com. There you’ll find a free program named Design Pro. This program contains everything the do-it-yourself author could want, and you can personalize what you make with your logo or your book cover. It has everything mentioned above including t-shirt/tote transfers, mailing labels, thank you notes and much, much, more. Stop reading this and go to your computer. What are you waiting for? It’s free!

Word Processors: Let’s face it, without Word and all the glorious functions it contains (spell checking) many of us wouldn’t be authors. Word is not just for typing manuscripts and screenplays. It’s a program made for the do-it-yourself author. It’s capable of helping you produce wonderful posters and bookmarkers, too.

Office Supply Stores: Even the do-it-yourself author needs supplies, and the best place to get these is your local office supply store. Most will carry a full line of do-it-yourself brand business cards, post cards, and mailing, book and CD labels.

Make an impression: When you submitted your manuscript to your publisher you had one chance to make an impression. This applies to the bookstores and libraries and readers you’re going to present with the things you’ve made. Office supply stores also make large, free-standing posters of your book cover that will sit nicely on a book-signing table for very reasonable prices. Hint: Put your book cover on thank you notes and send them to reviewers, bookstore managers and librarians—anyone who’s done something nice for you. Not only is the proper thing to do, they’ll remember your book and who wrote it.