Low-Cost (or no-cost) Book Promotion

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Spend a little time around published authors and you’re certain to hear this common lament: Regardless of how you publish, it’s tough to get your book noticed. Once the launch window passes—generally within three months (or less) of the book’s release, reader and publisher interest wanes.

Authors are a tenacious bunch, committed to seeing a project through to its finish, drafting and revising and revising again. So it’s no surprise that we don’t give up on our books once they’ve launched, no matter how tough the going gets. We want a shelf life of more than three months for our books. There are readers out there who’d love to connect with our work—if only they could find it amid all the noise of new releases and celebrity titles.

In a desperate effort to get their books noticed, far too many authors throw good money after bad: Self-funded author tours in second-rate venues where only a handful of people show up for signings; expensive ads to the wrong demographic; for-hire social media campaigns that amount to little more than shouting into the wind.

It doesn’t have to be that way. During a delightful weekend with Susan McBeth of Adventures by the Book, we chatted about the many ways that published authors can promote their books long past the launch. Here, a few ideas that won’t break the bank:

Ticketed Book Events: Team with an event planner for a ticketed event designed a target audience eager to hear about you and your work. If your work is of real merit and you’re a lively speaker, the event planner will be able to set ticket prices in a way that covers her efforts. The benefit to you: book sales at such events are typically much higher than at plain-Jane bookstore signings.

Fundraisers: If your book is themed toward a cause that matters deeply to you, connect with a nonprofit devoted to the cause. If your book is of merit and you’ve got an engaging program, team up for a fundraising event in which you provide the program and donate a percentage of the book sales. (Click here to see what author Marivi Soliven did.

Annual Event: In 2010, I launched a simple plan through 49 Writers, a nonprofit I co-founded to support the artistic efforts of Alaska authors. We designated the first week in October (conveniently timed to coincide with Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend deposits) as Alaska Book Week, to remind readers everywhere about the incredible books written by Alaskans and about Alaska. That year and every year since, the Governor has issued a formal proclamation designating the first week in October as Alaska Book Week. And each year, authors are invited to complete a simple participation form in which they can express their interest in addressing audiences about their books. To complete this form costs nothing but a minute or two of the author’s time. The payoff: the author joins forces with other Alaska authors in a weeklong celebration of their books. Why not join forces with other authors to create an annual event to celebrate books like yours?

Collaborative Blog: Blog tours for your book can be tedious to organize and carry out, and most bloggers are only interested in your books when they’re brand new. As for your own blog—well, it takes time to build a strong readership, and in the meantime you may feel as though you’re shouting into the wind. But if you join forces with other authors and offer them opportunities to showcase their good work, everyone benefits from the increased readership. Through the well-read 49 Writers blog, we offer a Spotlight on Alaska Books feature, where Alaska authors can share their books, old and new. We also offer Alaska Shorts, a venue for authors to publish their creative work (or an excerpt from a longer project). And of course, we’re always interested in guest posts that are relevant to our readership. A collaborative online presence expands everyone’s reach and shows readers that you’re actively engaged with the literary community.

Before you utter another complaint about how hard it is to get your work noticed, make sure you’ve considered these opportunities to engage with readers. The only cost is your time - and not much of that!

Co-founder of 49 Writers and founder of the independent authors cooperative Running Fox Books, Deb Vanasse has authored sixteen books. Her most recent are Write Your Best Book, a practical guide to writing books that rise above the rest; What Every Author Should Know, a comprehensive guide to book publishing and promotion; and Cold Spell, a novel that “captures the harsh beauty of the terrain as well as the strain of self-doubt and complicated family bonds,” according to Booklist. Deb lives and works on Hiland Mountain outside of Anchorage, Alaska, and at a cabin near the Matanuska Glacier. 

Hall of Shame: Don’t Make These Book Marketing Mistakes

Inspired by Doggy Hall of Shame, I decided to blast right into 2015 with my own Book Marketing Hall of Shame. Sadly, I’m pretty sure this list represents only a fraction of the bad promotional moves authors make (can you say “desperation”?). Please, don’t every let me catch you doing any of these things:

·         The unwanted “gift”: A few weeks ago, an author I’ve never met emailed me a promotional code to his book. Six days later, he followed up with this message: It appears you are not going to redeem the iBooks store promo code I sent to you. Apple issues a limited number and each has a lifespan of only four weeks and then expires forever, so I am resending yours to Cat Channel to begin my effort to drum up some publicity for Christmas Season 2015. If you should ever decide you want to become part of the millions who will yet read this book, just let me know and I will check out another from of [sic] my quota of codes and send to you. Let’s start with the obvious: Don’t dump your books on people who aren’t interested in them. Don’t chide strangers for not using a “gift” they never asked for in the first place. And please. The millions who will yet read this book? Dear me.

·         The spam blog comment: Recently, Mr. Z.H. left a comment on one of my blog posts: a linked title to a book, along with this book description: Author [name deleted, for obvious reasons] shares his triumphs and trials and experiences as an entrepreneur, car dealer, statesman, father and husband of 25 years and teaches us how to do more with less during tough times. He teaches how to leverage, barter, negotiate & stretch your dollar. These tips and tricks can pay big dividends throughout a lifetime. Dear Mr. Author (and your hired lackey, Z.H.), let me tell you what does not pay big dividends: spamming another author’s website.

·         The false friend: One of my (real) friends got so fed up with over-zealous promotion on social media that she made this pronouncement: As a published author and current writer-editor who used to work at a publishing house, I am a very strong advocate for books and authors. However, when someone becomes a FB friend and immediately begins marketing their latest book and posting their book trailer and more on my timeline, I'm going to delete it and unfriend you. Here’s the deal, authors: It’s great to share your book news with your real friends. But be prudent. Think of how it looks on the receiving end, especially on Facebook where it’s tough to figure out why particular posts end up on our timelines. Facebook, by the way, is reportedly cracking down on posts that do nothing but push people to buy a product.

·         The fake review: Online vendors do their best to target fake reviews and take them down, but judging from some of the adverts on fiverr (“fast glowing review,” “I will post a verified book review in 24 hours,” “positive verified review very fast”), the bogus review industry is still alive and well. Don’t feed it.

Co-founder of 49 Writers and founder of the independent authors cooperative Running Fox Books, Deb Vanasse has authored fifteen books. Her most recent are What Every Author Should Know, a comprehensive guide to book publishing and promotion, and Cold Spell, a novel that “captures the harsh beauty of the terrain as well as the strain of self-doubt and complicated family bonds,” according to Booklist.

But How Will They Find Us? Book Marketing and Promotion

If you’ve been publishing for any length of time, either traditionally or independently, you know that there’s little money in books. If money’s your goal, sell real estate (but make sure you’re good at it).

So let’s agree that we’re not in this for the money. Still, we’d like to have readers. How can they find us?

The odds are against a reader simply stumbling upon your book. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and put your book up for sale on all the major platforms and see who notices.

No one.

Simple principles of supply and demand are at work here. Solid figures on titles published are hard to come by, but take two recent numbers from Bowker on US publishing alone—391,000 self-published titles in 2012, and 347,000 traditionally published print books in 2011. Do a little extrapolation and it’s not hard to validate a figure that gets tossed around quite a bit: 3,000 books published per day, worldwide.

And here’s the thing: books no longer go out of print. With e-publishing and print on demand, these books will be around forever. How can your book stand out when it’s competing with a million books this year, two million next year, three million the next year, and so on?

There are some very good reasons why the average book sells only 250 copies, and why most self-published books sell fewer than 150 copies. (For more on the numbers, check out these articles in Forbes, the New York Times, and Out:think)

My point is not to discourage anyone from writing. I believe in the power of the written word and feel privileged to have been a published author for the past seventeen years. My point is that if you want more than 150 readers, you either need to convince a traditional publisher that your book will generate sufficient corporate profits after their substantial costs of production, distribution, and marketing have been met, or you need to enter into this adventure of independent publishing with both eyes open and a strategic plan for building a readership.

This week, I’ll be moderating a panel at a statewide convention on the arts that brings together writers and also musicians to address this question of how our creative work finds its audience. Since their industry imploded/exploded a few years earlier than the shake-up in the book industry, I’m looking forward to discovering what musicians have learned about “discoverability.”

Already, in our planning session, my fellow panelists have offered these helpful thoughts on discoverability, to which I’ll add a few of my own:

·         Christy NaMee Eriksen, an independent artist of the spoken word, reminds us to consider which audience really matters for a particular work. She stresses the importance of accessibility and partnering though grassroots, intentional engagement.

·         Storm Gloor, once involved in music distribution and now a professor who researches how music is (and will be) distributed, notes that artists need to look at their products with the realization that what they sell is not the end-all—there are other products you can sell (workshops, appearances, for instance).

·         Dave Cheezum, independent bookstore owner, reminds authors to remember that they’re part of a brand and also part of an eco-system which, despite the revolution in publishing, still includes hands-on bookselling.

·         When I was selling real estate (good for the bank account, not so much for the soul), the experts used to tell us our product wasn’t a house—the product was us. That’s what branding and platform are all about: you and your relationships with your readers. This is why publishers love celebrity authors—they come with a built-in platform. My guess (since you’re reading this) is that you’re not a celebrity, but you can still build a platform, if you make an effort.

·         Sales breed sales. This is truer than ever in the age of the algorithm. You may sometimes sell at a discount—that’s one of the wonderful freedoms inherent in independent publishing—but if only other discounted books show up in Amazon’s “Customers who bought this book also viewed” section of your book’s page, you haven’t reached your real audience yet. The good news: the success of an indie book isn’t tied to the launch as it is in traditional publishing. If you’re not getting the readers you want, take a hard look at the data and make adjustments where you can.

·         Unless you’ve got large amounts of cash to buy a presence across media platforms, visibility depends on you as a person—a genuine, professional, engaged author, not a book-shouting machine.

·         While your book may not be your end-all, it’s the one thing you control, fully and absolutely, if you’ve opted for independent publishing. It needs to be polished and professional. It needs to offer what other books don’t. It needs to be a book that readers go out of their way to recommend to other readers. “I’m buying several copies for friends,” wrote an author in her recent endorsement of my forthcoming novel. Can you imagine how pleased I was? Your book won’t be universally loved. The odds are stacked against it being a trend-setting surprise. But as sales breed sales, true fans will bring more true fans.