Bewildered?
Confused? Lack of time?
Want to know a
secret? Less is more, when it comes to book promotion.
Book promotion
can be a real drain, eating into precious writing time and with debatable
returns in terms of sales. So what do you do? If you are like me you try
harder; perhaps join a new forum or revisit old ones more often. But wiser
author's than me advise that the best promotion for existing books is to get
the next one out there…so what to do for the best? Write or promote?
It's vital for
an author to have visibility on social platforms, but it's all too easy for the
tail to wag the dog, in that networking can become all consuming, leaving less
and less time for actual writing. The trouble is there are so many
opportunities out there. Here are just a few of the sites that I joined:
Goodreads
Shelfari
LibraryThing
Facebook
(including numerous groups within FB)
Twitter
World Literary
Café
Wattpad
Kindle Boards
Kindle Users
Forum.
Coffee Time
Romance
The Romance
Reviews.
BookBlogs.com
Author's Den.
Bloggerdise
Pinterest
Free ads on
internet classified sites
Not to mention
guest blog posts and a ton of Yahoo groups.
The list goes
on…and on.
My low point in
terms of marketing was one Christmas vacation when I spent hour after hour
hawking myself round different sites, chatting and generally being pleasant in
the hope people would click on my name, find I was an author and buy my book.
Sigh. The result - a very sore bottom, stiff knees (from all the sitting) and
no increase in sales! Time for a rethink.
Now my strategy
is simple - Less Is More! My plan is to:
- Prioritise my WIP, only once I've achieved
my daily word count do I go online to
promote.
- Select a small number of platforms and post
on these regularly.
From me this is
twitter (which I love), FB and Kindle Boards.
People aren’t
stupid. They know when you're dropping in just to promote your book, but by
visiting regularly and chatting, you become part of the community rather than a
spammer. This has multiple benefits: I've been offered a co-author job, guest
spots, featured in newslinks, linked to other blogs… you get the picture. I hate the expression 'viral', but this it
what it amounts to - encouraging other people to spread your name for you!
By
concentrating my efforts I've made friends with visitors to these sites, and
(on twitter) several now automatically retweet my comments to their followers.
So if you are
struggling with promotion, why not consider focussing on three sites and making
yourself at home. Get on with your next book and don’t worry about missed
opportunities!
Guest post by Grace Elliot.
Grace Elliot leads a double life as a
veterinarian by day and author of historical romance by night. Grace works in a
companion animal practice near London
If you would like to know more about Grace
please visit her blog:
or website:
4 Comments
This is a very good point. I totally agree. One can go overboard with the promoting and have little or no time for actual "new writing."
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder! Good post!
very good point!! i spend way too much time on the internet
ReplyDeleteExcellent advice! It is a hard balancing act - doing enough networking and book promotion but also doing the thing you're supposedly doing the book promotion/networking for - being a writer! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for an excellent article. I spend so much time looking for ways to promote, the only writing I'm doing is blog posts for my own blog and for others.
ReplyDeleteI love to hear from you. So feel free to comment, but keep in mind the basics of blog etiquette — no spam, no profanity, no slander, etc.
Thanks for being an active part of the Writers and Authors community.