The Mad Book Marketer

Mirella Patzer always comments on my range of marketing for my book, An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England. I thought I'd enumerate the ones I can think of in one sitting.

I started marketing my novel a year and half before it came out by starting my old blog, The Blue Lady Tavern. It was a fictional blog with stories about the characters in the book. I remember running a whole series of stories about my Irish bard, Shannon O'Neill, that got some fan letters. The idea clearly was to get people inters ted well before the book came out.

I am doing the standard stuff:

Bookmarks
Asking for reviews and interviews
My own web site
Am working on a flyer
Book giveaways on my blog(s)
Am working on a video book trailer too with shield wall action scenes

Some of the perhaps less typical things I have done, though I don't claim any are original:

Volunteered to moderate an Internet book club
Putting copies of my book on library for-sale shelves
Starting an Internet radio station to play music I love and is likely to attract folks who like the genre I write in
I took a few copies to a used book store that buys books

On top of that a friend who sells books on eBay is putting one of my bookmarks in all the books she sells. Thanks, Brandy!

I make a point of being active on blogs other than my own but of interest to the same people, leaving comments, offering link exchanges. This is all part of "networking", a concept I learned a lot about when I was writing employment articles for eSight Careers Network. It gives me lots of places to put my book title in front of people already primed for its general topic, and it builds a relationship with other writers and readers.

You will notice that many of the ideas bring in no money and in fact cost me more than I would get from selling one book. The point is, as the marketing types say, to create buzz. As an example, someone might notice the book, which has a striking cover, at the bookstore,not buy it that time, but remember it and decide to go ahead and buy it on Amazon.

I haven't gotten much done on it yet, but I also have a site with further stories about the characters in An Involuntary King, including what you might call some unauthorized ones. There is one where my Saxon king is in what looks like an episode of COPS!

When I was working as a volunteer resources manager for a nonprofit, I applied a tried and true marketing concept called "you are always marketing". In that case I said "you are always recruiting volunteers". The concept as I applied it was to strike up conversations at the supermarket and anywhere I was where I mentioned the organization I worked for. Most people want to volunteer but aren't sure how and where, so they would always ask me questions. I have taken the marketing concept back and now make a point of bringing up my book.. not in an annoying way, but just in passing, and never to the same person twice! Having a t-shirt with my book cover on it helps spark the conversation.

Another thing I learned early was to do favors. If you naturally like to help others and do what you can for them, you are bound to find your favors returned. I would do them anyway. I just like to be a resource. But it is, as they say, gravy when someone therefore well disposed to me then do me one back, like recommending my book.

The second I click on "Publish Post" I will think of several other things I do. But that is all for now.