Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Promotion & Marketing

A lot of being successful in publishing is promotion and marketing, when you self-publish all of that falls on your shoulders. So what can you do and how much does it cost? You can do a lot, and as it turns out a lot can be done for free.

Since I am still new to all of this and I'm on the verge of self-publishing my first book I am overwhelmed by both promotion and marketing.... But I have a plan.

I am going to utilize the free social media sites I am already on:
Facebook
Twitter
and Google+

But I am still going to strive for the 80/20 rule. 80 % of what I post isn't direct marketing and the other 20% of the time I will be selling myself hardcore.

Another avenue I really suppose I should dive into is Tumblr. But I am still floundering in my ignorance of that site.

Next up are the book sites:
Goodreads
Smashwords
Shelfari
Booktagger
And I might check into some other sites like: Authors Den, and Internet Book Database.

I might even travel down the crazy road of Press Releases, there are a number of sites that have free press release distribution.

Cross promotion can be helpful too, I have seen it work well for several self-published authors. When my book, Waking Up In Bedlam, comes out I will be running some cross promotions with a fellow self-published author A.L. Kessler and with Alexandra. Cross promotion can run the gambit in terms of what you want to do, it can be anything from hosting giveaways on eachothers blogs, facebook pages, or even something as easy as hosting an interview, a cover reveal. All of our cross promotions will be revealed later.

Next up on my promotion and marketing list will be a blog hop, I am already signed up for it and it will run very near to the time with Waking Up In Bedlam will be released so it will be perfect. I've never done a blog hop and I am definitely nervous about it but I'm looking forward to getting my name out there a bit more.

Last but not least on my list is Book Reviews. This one makes my tummy flutter with ten thousand butterflies. It really did seem like an easy task, simply find sites to review your book, give them a copy in exchange for an honest review... But the more I looked into sites that I knew did book reviews I found most of them no longer reviewed Indie/Self-Published authors. I found myself back at square one, luckily I've found a few sites that review self-published authors and they review the genre of Paranormal Romance, which is what I write. One thing I've learned about book review sites is when you send them a request to review your book make sure to make the email personal, they don't like to get a blanket email that was obviously sent out to several sites all at once. So when I send out my requests it will personal emails only and then I will sit back and cross my fingers and hope for the best.

I'm sure after a couple of releases all of this will like second nature to me but this is without a doubt very stressful. I think I've gained some gray hairs from thinking and over-thinking all of this stuff. But if it helps me to reach readers that I might have not been able to reach than every gray hair will be worth it. I love my story and I want it to reach as many people who will hopefully love it just as much as I do. That is the goal, share my story.


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