How To Promote Your Book, Without Losing Your Shirt!

In Search of The Lost Ones

The purpose of book promotion is to get people interested enough in your book that they go out and buy a copy of it from whichever bookstore you sell your book.  If you have ebooks, you can point your readers to your Kindle copy on Amazon.  It’s a fast and free way of promoting your book to potential readers.  The same holds true with everyone In Search of The Lost Ones wouldn’t be selling if it wasn’t for a relationship with my readers.

Just posting links on social networking sites will only get you so far, and at some point you need to spend some time and thought to promote it properly — and that means you might need to spend some of your already hard earned money to do this.  You might spend some on purchasing business cards or getting a new wardrobe so that you look more professional, but you will need to think about one other important part of promoting your book…. without losing your shirt!

Writers need to have something to aim for, and you have to step outside of your comfort zone to promote your book, you also need to decide on a budget for your marketing plan.  A bear of very little brain once said that “You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you.” It might seem easy to move out of your comfort zone, but some people might think that they have to spend a lot of money.

You do not.

A good example of an inexpensive promotion tool is a book tour, within reasonable limits. Begin by simply going and speaking with your local bookstore and see if they would be interested in hosting an event for you.  From there you can go on to Facebook, and Twitter and let your friends and followers know about your book signing or event at that store.  Encourage these people to stop by and not only buy a book of yours, but also something from the store; you will make that store very happy and more willing to have you back.  It is about being professional, so plan to be on time, and pleasant to the staff.

You can start a blog for free, either using the blogger or wordpress platforms. Just start a blog, and get your name out there.  This will give you a larger public forum for your writing.  If you keep writing for more than six months, your work will gain some followers, and you will eventually see some people buy your books.  At this point, it is wise to consider paying someone to help with your blog because you will be busy, not only marketing your book, but with your blog as well.  It’s a smart way to market both parts of your writing.

 Another way you to promote your book is to write and publish another book.  Although this seems counter-intuitive, you have a better chance of being seen if you have more than one book out there.  It helps if it is not in the same topic. Writing another book is the easiest way to increase your readership.  The key is simply to think outside of the box, aim for local readers first, and go from there.  Networking is a good beginning and a good start to earning income with your books.