With careful planning you can market, promote, and get (free) publicity (publicity is always free) on a limited budget; you can take the cheap and easy way. Whether you’ve just published a a course in miracles or have a book that isn’t selling, now is the time to get to it; start marketing today! This article will provide you with easy, free, and cheap book marketing, promotion and publicity tips to get you headed in the right direction fast.
Send out the same press release to the editor of your local daily newspaper every week until you are called for an interview or are written up. Your book press release should not be written as you would a sales letter or flier, it should be written for the editor and tell about your book in a factual way, no opinion or glowing remarks. Make sure your press release spells out the ‘who, what, where, when, and why.’
Make sure you have at least one good press release, written in AP style that you can send out for the lifetime of your book. Mail a press release to all the trade journals in your field over and over again; you can use the same release. When picked up by wire services, a press release can easily end up generating hundreds of mentions for your book.
Press releases can generate thousands of dollars in sales when picked up by national trade or print media. Don’t underestimate the value of a good press release for making book sales.
Find a non-exclusive distributor with a good reputation to carry your book for the book store trade, as well as for other retailers. Contact any companies, corporations or organizations that might use your book for promotions; offer significant discounts for volume orders or for thousands of copies offer a specified amount above book production costs. Place free ads periodically for your book’s website on Craigslist in different categories to drive even more traffic to your website.
Contact non-bookstore booksellers and offer to leave books on consignment. Be your own publicist and send a press release along with a review copy of your book to publications in your book’s genre and to book review magazines. Offer to trade writing a monthly column in a trade publication in your books’ genre, in trade for display ads on the same page.
Your sales letter or flier should include an eye-grabbing headline, the benefits to the buyer, the book features, book sales information and testimonials. Remember to make sure your book is listed in Books-in-Print; don’t assume it’s already listed. Every day it’s important to focus on a variety of marketing approaches.
Make sure not to overlook the Internet; get yourself interviewed or profiled for sites both about writing, publishing and about the topics covered in your book. Market your book to your number one market first, and then go after the secondary markets. Try giving away one of your books in a raffle at a local function to get more book recognition.
Get as many testimonials about your book, as possible, from experts in the field relating to your title, not customers; use on your fliers and back of books. I’ve seen publishers lose a lot of money paying for expensive display ads, so beware if you do this; I don’t advise it in the beginning — get your feet wet first so you know what you’re doing.
Make sure to promote and market your book each and every day, both online and offline. Create an online contest and list it in online contest directories to drive traffic to your website.
Use your book promotion and book marketing dollars wisely; go after the free and cheap resources daily. Make sure to test, test, and test some more before you lay out large sums of money. The success of any book marketing effort depends on a good book and just plain hard work; its been done many times before and you can do it too.
