Humor Writer Tim Bete Stops By Home Biz Notes with 10 Promotional Tips
July 25, 2008 by Mary Emma Allen
Humor writer Tim Bete has been touring the blogosphere during July to promote his latest book, Guide to Pirate Parenting. Today Tim stops by Home Biz Notes with 10 Tips for Promoting/Marketing Your Book. Some of these are tips you can apply to home businesses other than book writing.
Let’s see what Tim has to say about book promotion:
10 Tips for Promoting/Marketing Your Book
1) Offer review copies to bloggers and Web site editors. If you can’t afford to send hard copies, offer a PDF file of your book for review.
2) Hire a blog tour service, such as Pump Up Your Book Promotion.
3) Create a Web site and blog for your book. Even if you already have a Web site, create separate ones for your book. Make daily posts to your blog and your search engine rankings will increase significantly
4) Promote your book to places other than book stores. For example, I targeted coastal gift shops and pirate events rather than book stores.
5) Consider a postcard mailing to possible resellers of your book. There are many online services that will print and mail a postcard for you. Put the cover of your book on the front, along with a few testimonials.
6) Send review copies to magazines for any schools/colleges from which you’ve graduated.
7) Set up a PayPal account so you can sell autographed copies of your book directly from your Web site.
Create a video book trailer and post it on YouTube and other video sharing sites. My book trailer has already had more than 2,000 views.
9) Offer free copies of your book to radio stations as giveaways during interviews or even if you aren’t being interviewed.
10) Enjoy the marketing process and have realistic expectations. It’s unlikely you’re going to have a best seller but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a little money and have fun!
For more information about Tim and Cap’n Billy, tune into Pump Up Your Online Book Promotion.
If you have questions for Tim, ask away in the comments below.
(Amazon image)
(c)2008
Thank you for hosting Tim, Mary Emma! Love 10 tips blog posts and Tim is right on the money. Did you see how many hits he got on a book trailer alone?
These are great tips, especially the one about realistic expectations. Promoting your book is a constant chore. It might not always be fun, but it’s a necessary part of the publishing process.
Cheryl is saying it like it is. We have many, many, many authors on tour with us as you know, Mary Emma. Some of them think that they don’t have to do a thing but write and I try to explain you can’t let your book die like that and you need to get out there and find ways to get the word out about your book and you should do this on a daily basis. It eventually adds up. I syndicate articles and I remember the editor from one of the supermarket tabloids calling me for a quote for their mag. Now if I hadn’t been out there promoting my “expertise” and at the time it was relationships, he would have never found me, I would have never been quoted and there would not be a big ol’ picture of this on my wall to remind me of my days of being an author about relationships. I can’t stress this more. The authors we had on tour this past month…one of them was out there plugging her stops and her key search words came out at #1 in google when she was just halfway through her tour and her Amazon sales were moving…I know because I was watching them. The ones who aren’t bestselling authors and have it a bit harder, this is the only way you’re going to survive.
The thing I’m most impressed with is the number of RSS feeds I’ve been picked up in because of the virtual book tour. The 20+ stops has translated into more than 75 places my book has appeared.