Tuesday, January 19, 2010

How To Promote And Market Your Book

By Annie M. Jennings

So, you have completed and published your first book. Congratulations! Now the next couple of steps are as important as the content. You must have a plan, so book promotion and publicity market your book. Unless you have been published by a known company, a ground roots marketing approach can achieve getting you the exposure that you need to start selling copies.

With the many online companies that will help you self-publish, once completed, the tasks of promotion and publicity fall into your hands. Depending on the topic, you will be able to find many local options to get your book and your face in front of a potential buying audience. However, be aware of many companies online that claim that they can help you. They will offer you online seminars on the proper procedures and techniques to get your book out to the public. Just be careful as if you published this piece yourself, you may have budget constraints and all of this can cost you quite a lot of money. What they will attempt to show you, in many cases, is the use of common sense. You will be exposed to marketers that are more interested in selling you stuff, more than they are interested in helping you sell your book, or at least make people aware that you wrote something of value. So, beware.

Listen to the radio in your local market. You will likely find at least one station that has some talk show host that discusses similar topics as what you have written about. In every case, these hosts are always interested in having entertaining guests on their shows. It helps them develop a larger audience and you will get some good exposure. They are easy to contact and if you are local and have a good story to tell, they will love having you on their program.

Depending on the topic, there will likely be a local radio station that covers a similar topic. They are always looking for interesting guests and topics that may make their listeners more interested. Listen to your local stations and find someone that is normally discussing a topic at least somewhat similar to what you written. Give them a call or send them an email with a biography of you and the book. You will likely hear back from them and you may be on your way. If the topic is more mainstream, use the same process to your local television stations. Again, with the plethora of local programming, you may be able to get a slot on a local morning show or again, a show discussing similar topics.

How many bookstores are within 50 miles of where you live? Once you know that, contact them. Usually the best method is to make a personal visit and speak with the owner of the store. Again, assuming you have written about an interesting topic, you may get them to let you do a book signing. If you are really good, they may let you have a discussion group in the store explaining your topic and why you chose to write about it. Then you can meet with your potential customers, they can learn to like you and that generally creates some interest in buying your book. So, be prepared. You will need fliers and copies of the book. Try to set it up so you have a couple of weeks to advertise your visit. If you can tie that into a slot on a local radio or television station, you may be very surprised at how many people show up.

There are so many local radio shows that likely will have a potential slot for you, especially if their show covers any topics discussed in your book. They are easy to contact and are always interested in entertaining guests, as a way to gather more of the listening audience. Every television station and newspaper is looking for great local stories. Contact them, explain the who, what, when, where, why and how's of your composition and you may find yourself sitting on the stage with a local television celebrity.

Please remember that these are public events. You will need to take some time to get prepared. The perception of the quality of your book will go hand in hand with your personality in promoting it. The better prepared you are to discuss the topic, the purpose, your motivation for writing it etc., the better it will be received.

Lastly, there are companies that will try to help you. The problem here is that they are interested in selling stuff, too. They will offer books and seminars that are designed to help you market your book. Your challenge is to determine how interested they are in helping you or selling you their stuff. In most cases, you can take your product to the public with an entertaining approach. Be yourself and market that. If what you wrote about has any appeal, you can find people that will buy your book. Just make sure that you are prepared, professional and personal. Good luck.

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