How many of you have followed back someone on Twitter, only for the individual to send you a Direct Message to tell you to buy his book? For me, this is an instant #promotionfail. Every time this happens, I de-follow the individual and it’s guaranteed I won’t buy the book.
I’m a member of a support group for writers. It’s an awesome group, except for one problem. One individual, prior to the launch of her novel, spammed the Facebook site with daily reminders to pre-order it. Instead of creating excitement (and potential sales), she annoyed a number of the members. One even suggested a better way to do this, so to avoid our inboxes being filled with spam. The writer chose to ignore this, and continued spamming the site.
So what’s a better way to get your book seen among the onslaught of others?
Support Other Authors
I love what Susan Kaye Quinn did last week. Her self-published book, Open Minds (which I’ve read and thought it was great), was launched yesterday. Instead of annoying everyone with her “Buy Me, Buy me” message, she put a post together promoting upcoming (or recently released) books. These books are either self-published or published through a small press. Other authors have done the same, thus increasing their likability factor ten-fold. There’s something appealing about supporting authors who give to the writing community by promoting other books and not just their own.
Form a Support Team
The online banding together of several authors to promote each other books* is another way to help you promote yours. Face it, promoting your book is a scary experience. Working together as a team helps to give you a boost of self-confidence, because you’re not going it alone. This concept has also become popular with traditionally published authors involved in book signing tours.
Having a bunch of blogging (or Facebook or Twitter) friends is an awesome way to go. They are usually more than happy to get the word out about your book. It’s one of the many benefits to social networking (as if you didn’t already know).
Widget Love
One of my favorite marketing approaches, when it comes to promoting books, is the countdown widget, which you and your blogging buddies proudly display. Due to a blogger who displayed the above widget on her site, I became excited to read Jessie Harrell's book (I’m such a cover girl). Since I tend to skip over blog tours, this is a great way to grab my attention (if you have an amazing cover and widget).
What things annoy you the most when someone is promoting her book? What do you love the most?
(*note: this isn’t necessarily the same as a group blog)
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Be sure to check out Susan Kaye Quinn’s book launch. A great way to see what works is by studying what others have done. :)
