Partnership in Promotion: Top Ten Tips

Long gone are the days when authors could write a book and then sit back and let it sell itself. Now, whether traditionally or independently published, authors need to spend some time marketing their books. I know many of you will feel this is a never ending task, and others won't even know where to start. Never fear, help is here. Or should I say help is near. 

Let me elaborate. Help is as near as you reaching out to others. It has been proven time and time again that working together with others can exponentially rocket your marketing efforts. There are a number of ways in which this can be done. 

1. Speaking engagements - I have joined together with two Scottish Crime Authors, Chris Longmuir and Jackie McLean to form the Dangerous Dames. We undertake a number of speaking engagements together. This increases exposure for all three of us as we chat about the events on various social media platforms. 

2. Start a Facebook group of authors with similar genres, or interests. Within this agree to share about each others books, or share marketing ideas

3. Host and/or interview on each others blogs. 

4. Join together to run giveaways related to various times of the year. 

5. This may be somewhat limited but I also interview authors on my radio show

6. Share each other's social media posts about your books

7. Share each other's books on your own website. 

8. Share each other's business cards/ and or postcards 

9. Join together to do pop up shops in malls

10. Join associations which deal with writing and/or your genre. I am a member of The Society of Authors, Scottish association of Writers, The Crime Writers Association, SCWBI, Sisters in Crime, The Association of Christian Writers, and Scottish Fellowship of Christian Writers. Not only do these help me to be a better writer but increase opportunities for support and mutual promotion. 

I will finish by saying this is well worth exploring and way more than just the sum of all its parts. It's time to get the word out there and sell more books. 

    

30 Day Book Marketing Challenge and 10 ideas to get you started

Good morning bookaholics, another cracking post for the writers amongst us today. As authors we are always looking for ways to be the word out about our books. Many authors feel like they are going nowhere with sales and others would like to increase their sales. Let's face it. Getting our books into readers hands can be challenging.

So today I am suggesting we all undertake a 30 day marketing challenge. We will all do one thing every day for 30 days to get the word out about our own books. I have given  you 10 ideas to get started and then we will use the power of the crowd to generate more ideas.u

1. Ask bloggers if you can do a guest post. To get you started, the first 10 people who contact me through my website wendyhjones.com will get a guest post on this blog. 

2. Send out a series of tweets about your book. These do not have to be buy my book but can be something interesting about it, or relates to it.

3. Use a different social media platform to get the word out about your book. How about vine? A six second video to tell the world about your books.

4. Do things differently. Download an app called Wordeo. Make a short video about your book, your character, interesting places in your books, anything related, with the cover of your books clearly in view. Share it widely. It's been proven that videos get way more engagement on social media than just words.

5. Get some postcards or bookmarks for your books. When they arrive (or if you already have them) leave them in different places - Drs Surgery, Dentist, hairdressers, art centers, libraries. I've even left some on the table in a car showroom. People sit there and drink coffee while waiting for a service. Plenty time to read about books they might like.

6. Explore Twitter advertising. Make this low cost e.g. £1 a day for as many days as you would like to do this for. You will need 3 tweets and 3 images. You can make images like the one above using a free app called Typorama. The words on the image cannot be more than 20% of the image

7. Look for local Fares and book a stall. This is summer so Britain is heaving with Fares. I am sure it is the same in other countries.

8. Collaborate with other authors to promote each other's books. I have joined with 2 other Scottish Crime Writers to form The Dangerous Dames

9. Contact your local library and ask if they would like you to give an author talk.

10. Do posters of your books and put them up in prominent places.

So a few ideas to get you started. This is where the power of the crowd comes in. Let's help each other out by putting more ideas in the comments below. If you need more ideas then my book Power Packed Book Marketing is crammed with them. 

That's it for now my Bookaholic friends. Let's get this party started and sell more books. 

Your Guide to Selling More Books

A couple of months ago I gave a talk at the ACW Writers Day in Bath. This was on book marketing and promotion. I will also be running a day of workshops at the First Page Courses residential course, Getting Away With Murder. What a fabulous tie in, murder and promotion. Not that I am suggesting you kill people to promote your book of course.

I had the idea to write a book to accompany the talk and Power Packed Book Marketing: Sell More Books, was born and launched into the world.  I learned a lot about marketing whilst researching for the book and it has helped me to move my own marketing forward exponentially. It is jam packed full with hints and tips on how to develop your own marketing strategies. You can use the ideas in the book as they are, or use them as a springboard for your own ideas. Either way it will help you to get started with, or move forward the marketing of your book. I have used most of the strategies in the book and I can guarantee that they have worked for me. My books are selling well in several countries and are growing every month. New countries are being added each month with the latest being Mexico. Exciting times for a writer.

If you put one of these strategies into place once a week for the next year you will have carried out fifty two activities to help move your book sales forward. Just think how much impact this could have on the numbers of books you are selling.

The time to start marketing your book is right now. You can grab the book right now from Amazon by clicking on the link on the side of the blog. It is also available on iBooks and kobo. This is the time for you to develop your own Power Packed Marketing plan and sell more books.

I wish you all the best with your own books.