Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Promoting And Marketing Your Book

By Annie M. Jennings


So, you have completed and published your first book. What do you do now? Well, it is time to show you how book promotion and publicity market your book. Although this may appear to be a daunting task, there are numerous opportunities for you to take this most important step.

Hopefully, you chose a topic that has mass appeal. If you did, then there are numerous methods to employ to get you the exposure you need to start selling books. You will need to use the same creativity that was used in composing your book, to market it and to get publicity, so people can find it. Your most effective method will be to do some guerrilla marketing and take it to the streets, yourself. This may sound a little scary, but if done correctly, you will be amazed at the results.

Although the most passive marketing concept is using the Internet, if you are computer savvy, you can launch a blog or a website to promote your book. Getting people to find you then becomes the difficult task and optimizing search engines to promote any particular site can get expensive. If you know someone that can help you here, you can get some outstanding exposure and you are obviously marketing to a very large audience.

The same process goes for local television. All stations are seeking a good story, especially if the person is from the local area. They are interested and usually very easy to work with and with all of the local programming, they are always looking for interesting people that have done something out of the ordinary.

If you live in a small town, you may need to take a short road trip. Find as many bookstores as you can and contact them. Explain the topic of your publication, why you have written it and how you think it will assist or interest readers. You will likely find several stores that will allow you to promote a book signing event. Most stores are interested in any ways to get customers to come in and with the proper marketing, in this process, you may get to do some live performances, in the form of a discussion group, to explain why they should buy your book. You will need fliers, posters and copies of the book, so get prepared and head out to the shops.

Every city has multiple Networking meetings. It is the newest way to expose your business to other business owners. They have developed into legitimate marketing opportunities and you may meet some people that can assist you in other marketing areas, as well. Just by meeting and discussing the reasons that you wrote your book and what you expect the readers to get out of it, will likely generate some sales and at least start a bit of a buzz, when used in conjunction with your other marketing efforts.

Most cities have daily or at least weekly Networking meetings. These are gatherings of local business people that are being creative in marketing their companies. At many of these meetings a guest will be chosen to be the featured company, so you may be able to present yourself to a sizable group of people, just by explaining that you have written a book and wish to get it in front of the buying public. In some cases, you may meet someone that has ties to the media and can assist you in getting to the right people to get you some media attention.

Lastly, if you are not a gregarious person and find these suggestions a tad scary, you can resort to just using the Internet. You can start a blog or launch a website to promote you and the book, but this can be more costly, time consuming and still will not guarantee that people find you. Unless you have been published by a known publishing house, your personal contact will be the most successful to get your product into circulation. Just as when you composed your work of art, spend some quality time to promote it. You will find that personal contact will be a great way to get you selling copies, meeting the readers and earning money, while sharing your experiences.




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