Creative Marketing Tips From Authors Round 1

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Welcome to another set of posts that we’ll be sharing with you over the next year. In this set, I’m looking at the various ways that authors can market their works. I’ve reached out to authors, publishers, and content marketers to get a wide range of ideas as to original ideas of getting the word out about your work.

You know, ideas that don’t involve spamming your Twitter and Facebook feeds that you want someone to buy your book.

Enjoy!

 

Buy my book

Take advantage of Amazon’s promotional pricing structure which helps with sales — both giving the book away for free or using a graduated pricing structure where for example it starts at .99 and builds each day until it’s full price again.

Use hashtags and trending topics on social media — anything that is relevant to your book — to bring attention to the book.

Jerry Mooney

Jerry Mooney Books

Jerry Mooney Books

Jerry Mooney is the author of three books, including his latest novel, History, Yoghurt and the Moon.

Mooney has also written a screenplay based on History Yoghurt and the Moon as a way for cross promotion.

I self-published my book last year by Balboa Press. Falling into Joy eight simple steps to allow your body to become your best friend. I decided to use their PR agency for 12 weeks.  I did get blogging and articles for related magazines. I was underwhelmed with my coverage.
I decided to write articles about topics in my book and use Facebook and Instagram for exposure.  Then I made videos that were about five minutes long on each chapter in my book.  They explored a more in-depth look at the simple steps to take care of your body.
  That worked really well.  I put them on my book website so I could send people there to view and use at anytime.
I’ve done monthly workshops related to topics in my book and anytime I can use as a give away at a networking meeting or as a free giveaway for events I do.
I speak at many Women’s events and I use my book as my calling card.  Instead of my speaking fee, I’ll have them buy my book for the participants.
I won’t say it has been easy at all.  I am committed to getting my book and myself out there.
Conni Ponturo

Conni Ponturo

Conni Ponturo is a leading authority in the field of pain-free living, which includes the harmonious connection of movement, meditation, and mindset. As an acclaimed and enthusiastic speaker, her greatest joy is sharing her knowledge and actionable practices to keep you living pain-free.

You can follow Conni’s work at http://www.conniponturo.com/

 

Surround yourself with fellow writers who share your genre and skill level. Promote each other’s work and build a community!

Kate Bitters

Kate Bitters

When I’m not working as a writing coach or editor, I write fiction. I’ve won a handful of awards, including one in which Neil Gaiman read my short story on stage.

You can follow Kate’s work at https://www.katebitters.com/.

I’ve been working with authors for the past 15 years, after a corporate career working for a directory publisher. Earlier this year, I released a book called An Author’s Guide to Online Marketing, available from Amazon.
The most common thing I find is that authors don’t even think about marketing BEFORE they write their books. That’s when they need to do some essential marketing research that can actually shape how they write the book.
In fiction, there are dozens of genres – even within the Horror genre, there are multiple more specialized genres. An author needs to know which genre their book fits into, then learn everything they can about that genre to understand where their book fits into the mix. How will it be different from all the other books being released at the same time? Why should people read it? Who will most likely want to read it? What things might entice more people to read their book? So my first tip on being creative with your marketing would be to do your homework before you write the book. That will open up all kinds of things you may not have considered before.
Here’s a second thought: I once ghostwrote a book for a client who wanted to tell the story of his childhood in rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. He told a great story and it was a really interesting look at what life was like for poor white people at that time in history. It also had plenty of laughs and tears. The title he had in mind for the book was Mississippi Boys. Descriptive, but not anything that would make people want to pick it up and read it unless they were from Mississippi. As we were getting toward the end of the book, he told a story about when he joined the Navy and went to basic training. Describing the way his CO looked at him, he said that guy thought he was just some dumb kid from nowhere, and I thought, “Zing! We have the book title, right there.” We named the book Just a Dumb Kid from Nowhere, and he used that branding for a very successful book. Everywhere he went, he told people he was that dumb kid from nowhere, and he’d sell every book he took with him to signings. So my second tip would be to be fluid with your book title and see what emerges during the writing process. Don’t be afraid to be a little outrageous to capture people’s attention.
Lynn Maria Thompson

President, Thompson Writing & Editing, Inc.

Lynn Maria Thompson

The author of An Author’s Guide to Online Marketing, Lynn Maria Thompson has been helping others tell their stories since 2003 and speaks about author marketing at conferences. Soon she will release The Feline CEO to offer a fresh perspective on leadership through the lens of cat behavior.

www.thompsonwriting.com

v

I saved what I felt was the most original advice in this round for last!
– Stuart

One thing authors could try doing when promoting their book is using Reddit and joining appropriate subreddits where their target audience ‘hangs out’. With Reddit being one of the most visited websites in the world, it can potentially be a great way to build awareness for their book as well as drive targeted traffic back to your website.

The key with Reddit though is that a writer needs to be willing to spend some time within the various subreddits and provide value before they try to ‘market’ or ‘sell’ to the community. While it’s a good idea to provide value on any social network, it’s even more important on Reddit as their users are good at spotting marketers. If an author is just blatantly looking to sell their product, at worst they’ll end up getting banned from the particular subreddit they’re trying to sell in… at best, their post will just be ignored.

So how can you use Reddit effectively? Figure out who the appropriate target audience is for the book that’s tried to be sold and then finding appropriate subreddits to join (this can be done via a search on Reddit or using a site like Snoop Snoo (https://snoopsnoo.com/subreddits/).

As an example, if an author wrote a horror book, a few subreddits that might be of interest:

Once an author has compiled a list of subreddits, they should take a few minutes to familiarize themselves with the rules.. For example, /r/suggestmeabook is for people looking for book suggestions, so if an author were to just create a post about their book it would go nowhere. However, it could be a worthwhile subreddit to become a valued community member of as there are probably people in the subreddit who are looking for books and would be interested in their book.

After getting familiar with a subreddit, it’s time to start the process of becoming a valued member of the community by providing insightful commentary on posts, upvoting other people’s posts, and providing valuable content that isn’t directly related to their book.

After becoming a part of the community, the next step is to try and identify the top time to post as well as how to style a post to match tone/voice that resonates best within the particular subreddit. This can be done by looking at each subreddit’s Top section and filtering by the past month.

Finally, when it comes time to post about the author’s book, to get the most engagement, it all starts with creating a great headline that relates to their particular audience and pulls them in. Then use the body of the post to discuss a bit about the book and why the people in the community would potentially be interested in reading it. Finally, the author should drop a link back to their website or place where the book can be purchased.

Josh brown

Sales & Orders

Josh Brown

Josh Brown is part of the marketing team at Sales & Orders which manages and optimizes Google Shopping campaigns for ecommerce businesses.

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