6 simple steps for authors to find Twitter followers
One of the easiest ways for you to build your digital author platform is with Twitter. Using simple search techniques you can find people who are actively engaged in your niche. Since they are already using Twitter, once you make a connection, you can be assured that some of them will help you spread your reach even further across the Internet.
As you set out to establish your online identity as an author or future author, it’s important to start building your Twitter followers as soon as possible. Maybe all you have come up with is the title for a book. As long as you have a basic idea of your niche, you can start making important connections on Twitter.
To get started, here are six ways to add followers:
1. Start by simply letting Twitter search your email address book and show you people on Twitter you already know. You may have forgotten to add friends and family to your fan base and these people are excellent choices to get you started. With Twitter, no one is obligated to follow you back, so adding someone is a pressure-free way to make contact.
2. Begin by knocking on doors and letting people know you exist! You are not going to sell them anything or push a flyer in their face. It’s much, much simpler and easier than that: every day find a hundred new people to follow. Some of these people will follow you back as a simple courtesy.
3. The secret to building a relevant Twitter follower base is knocking on doors that already have something in common with you or your book. To do this, you can use Twitter’s search feature and find other authors similar to you. Pick some famous authors in your niche. Go to their profiles and look at whom they’re following. These are people they think are important to follow. Simply go down the list and follow the people you yourself relate to.
4. Next, look at who’s following these authors. Follow their followers. Here you will want to be more selective. Some of these people have nothing in common with the person they are following. Some people will use programs that automatically follow a certain large number of Twitter profiles every day. If your book is on cooking, including folks who are selling on eBay or weaving baskets may not be helpful.
5. Use the search feature again and this time put in keywords that are relevant to your book. Use a hash tag before the word. Let’s say you wanted to find readers who like Westerns. Simply put #western in the search area. Once the list is generated, scroll down to add those who look like good niche connections.
6. Besides using the search box for keywords, search for the title of popular books in your field. This will provide a list of people who are commenting about books in your niche. This is a great source of readers to get connected with. Make a select list of those who are serious tweeters. These people may not only read your book but are likely to spread the word.
By using Twitter search you will find an almost endless supply of new people to connect with every day. While I have mentioned searching by keyword, author, and title, you can also search for events, geography, holidays, and news that relate to your perfect target audience.
Building a serious Twitter following does not happen overnight, but if you are consistent in following new people every day, you will be surprised how your list will grow.
Of course, this is only one part of becoming a serious Twitter user. Once you have made a connection you will want those you follow to follow you in return. This happens when you create a powerful Twitter profile, tweet regularly with interesting and valuable information, and respond to those who connect with you.
Canva: A powerful social media tool for authors
Canva is an amazing online program that allows you to create professional social media images for free with just a few clicks.
You can create invitations, advertising and promotional projects that include printed materials (up to 2,000 prints), product packaging, presentations, film and video presentations, commercials, catalogs, brochures, and probably anything else you can think of. There are some restrictions (do check out its “One-Time Use License Agreement”) but for the most part almost anything is free to use and free to share.
Melanie Perkins, cofounder of Canva, announced recently that “100,000 new designs were created every week by more than 330,000 users.” So far avid users have created more than 1.5 million designs using Canva.
With over a million free images, tons of professional templates and 100+ poster-ready fonts, there’s absolutely nothing to stop you from producing memes, photo collages, Facebook photos with call outs and social media banners and buttons. If that’s not enough, you can purchase additional professional layouts and images for just a dollar. Uploading your own images is also easy.
Get Started
To get started, go to the website, http://www.canva.com.
Start with the free tutorials. There are a couple dozen so far. The first five teach you a few basic procedures that take less than a minute to click through. The rest of them will train you to become a professional media graphics pro with step-by-step actions. No one will be able to tell that you didn’t spend hours in Photoshop or hire a $100-an hour graphic artist to create your image.
You can begin your project with a blank layout and work from scratch, adding circles, buttons, and text. A simpler way, though, is to select one of their templates and easily switch out the demo photos with your own. For instance, one of the layouts has a set of six different circles of various sizes. Each circle comes preloaded with an image to give you an idea and feel for what the finished project will look like. To personalize it, click on an image and replace it with the image of your choice. If you need to you can adjust your photo for the perfect fit.
A program like this makes updating your Facebook events a breeze. Use an image of Rover rolling in the clover, add a cartoon balloon button, type in some silly text and you have an instant meme that can go viral. Your friends will definitely be impressed. You may not want to tell them how easy it was, though!
For the social media strategist who likes to create a bunch of media images and space them out with timed releases onto their social media sites, Canva cuts the creation process by an easy 50% or more!
3 Simple Author Tips
1. As an author, you can take a quote from your book, add a picture and share it on Pinterest. Find 30 quotes from your book, search your files for 30 pictures and spend 30 minutes cranking out these power shots to add one a day for 30 days of book promotions.
2. You can create flyers for your book by picking a template, adding your book cover and a “buy now” button and include your website or Facebook page.
3. You can create banners for your next Facebook contest that are eye-catching and professional!
Try it. For easy book promotion, it doesn’t get much better than this.
You can add consistency to your author brand by creating social media banners, headers, and photos for each of your networks by matching colors, fonts and images. Canva has drop and snap templates for the leading social networks. Twitter banners, Facebook timeline templates and blog headers can all be created, tweaked and published in one easy session.
Once you create an image you like, you can save it to your computer as an image or PDF. You can send it with the click of a button to Facebook or Twitter.
It’s time to sell your book!
Once a book is published, the first time author may think the job is done. Unfortunately, there is still a lot more to do!
It’s time to switch from your author hat to your marketing one!
You may have heard that the best time to begin marketing your book is day one. Building a following does take time. But it doesn’t mean that it is too late to start marketing at any point in the publishing process. In fact, you can market a book that is years old and still find success if you apply yourself with enthusiasm and hard work.
This article is about creating the right mindset for selling your book. If you love meeting people, talking to crowds and have no problem with meeting strangers, you may think that selling your book will be easier than someone who would rather stay in the background. Surprisingly, though, with all the many ways to promote your book from home, the introverts have just as much book selling power as the extroverts.
The key to selling your book is very simple. Find out how you would best like to tell people about your book and do lots of that. Public speaking, getting in front of the TV camera and telling a hilarious story on the radio will definitely sell books, but there are also quiet ways that work as well.
Every author must find their own way to make connections with readers. That in a nut shell is simply what book marketing consists of — making connections.
The biggest factor you might have to work with in the beginning is not giving up because you try one or two methods that don’t work. Determine from the start that “quitting” is not an option. Then when one door closes or becomes too difficult to push through, back up, regroup and try something else. If you keep trying you will find the key that fits your personality, time, energy and your pocketbook.
I mention pocketbook because that may be one of the options that you will decide to take. At least in the beginning, if you haven’t a clue on how to sell books you might want to hire a publicist, a PR agency or someone to help you out. There is nothing wrong with this at all. In many ways it makes a lot of sense. Instead of spinning your wheels madly in sand and going nowhere use the expertise of a publicist to find out what is the “magic” that will work for your book. Once your book gains some momentum it will usually be much easier to continue on doing the things your publicist was doing.
Another option to explore is to hire a book marketing coach. A coach can help you navigate the different ways to sell your book and prevent you from going off in too many directions at once. This is one of the major hazards for the beginning author. There are so many ways to sell books that one might think one has to do them all. You don’t. A couple of ways that are done consistently will easily outperform hop, skips and jumps from one thing to another. Of course finding those one or two ways in the beginning may very well include a few hops and jumps. A coach can narrow down that search considerably by talking with you, reading your book and giving you thoughtful guidance and recommendations of what to do for your personality, knowledge and time that will best work for you.
If hiring a coach is not something you want to do or perhaps cannot afford, consider group training. Wheatmark offers an excellent program called the Authors Academy that consists of great articles and in depth interviews with successful authors. They also offer group calls and opportunities to ask questions and get feedback.
Whether or not you go with any of the choices above you will still want to do this next option and that is to find out as much information as you can about book marketing.
Wheatmark has an extensive list of great articles on book marketing that you can discover for free through this blog’s archives. There are also many other sites that offer free articles that you can find simply by searching for “how to market a book” and “book marketing” on Google.
Finally, I suggest that you buy a few books on book marketing and read at least a few pages every day. The more you read and explore how to market your book the more chances you will have to find the magic bookselling door that will work for you. John Kremer’s, 1001 Ways to Market your book is a great one but there are also many, many others that will help you to get out there and sell your book.
Help! Today I Have Nothing to Write About
I don’t think for a second that you’re struggling to come up with ideas for your next book or what to write about on your author blog and website. If you weren’t a writer, that would be one thing, but since you are, coming up with content for your audience comes more easily to you than to others. Quite the contrary: many writers suffer from writing too much.
There are, however, days when you feel like you have nothing of value to say, nothing to contribute to the Great Conversation that’s taking place in cyberspace.
In the Authors Academy, we drill into members the importance of regularly publishing quality content on your blog, so that your target audience (with ample help from search engines and social media shares) could find your message more easily.
As you build your digital author platform this way, by writing on your blog about your passion and your expertise, and sharing your blog content to social media connections and followers, you run the risk of appearing to talk only about yourself. Your own Twitter feed may be just a list of links to your own blog posts. That does sound a bit like the uncle at the dinner party who only talks about himself.
The cure to both having nothing to say and sharing only your own content with your audience is called content curation. “Content curation is the process of collecting, organizing and displaying information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest. Services or people that implement content curation are called curators” (Wikipedia).
Don’t just be a source of information about your expertise, be also the source of information about information. Be the source where people hear about other people’s expertise in your niche as well. This means reading and sharing what other authors, experts, and authority figures have to say.
Instead of appearing only to share your own content, share other people’s articles, books, videos, or blog posts with your followers. Instead of only posting what you think about healthcare, share with your followers what you yourself just read about healthcare. They presumably follow you because of your expertise. Why don’t you become a source of all useful information about healthcare, not just your own? Quote someone else’s blog post and link to the original post. Share or reshare someone else’s blog post on Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus, and add your brief commentary to it. Prove to your audience that you don’t just talk about what you yourself think, but that you’re a virtual library of thoughts on healthcare, taxes, basketball, history, westerns, or fantasy fiction writing.
I admit it’s overwhelming to think about where to look for quality content to curate for your audience. I recommend starting with feedly.com. Type in your topic and see the latest thoughts on it. Build your library of blogs to keep up with, and when you feel you’ve got nothing to share, or if you catch yourself talking too much about yourself, visit your Feedly library for new inspiration. Scan the headlines, read the ones that interest you, and share with the rest of the world the absolute best! That’s the kind of content curator your audience will trust!
An Amazing Resource: FriendsPlus.Me
Recently, we’ve been emphasizing Google+ and its versatility. Here’s another reason to start using Google+ immediately.
FriendsPlus.Me allows you to post an update or picture on Google+ and automatically have that post appear on your other social media accounts. Go to http://friendsplus.me and connect your Google+ account. Then, choose which social media sites—Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Tumblr—you’d like to repost to. You can also select whether you’d like your Google+ posts to be immediately reposted on other sites or schedule a specific date and time. You could even pick a time of day when there will be more traffic on a social media site and increase your engagement with followers. Posting a picture? No problem. FriendsPlus.Me will include the picture at an optimal size when it gets reposted on Facebook or Twitter.
The main goal in using FriendsPlus.Me is to start interacting regularly on Google+, instead of spending all of your time on other social media sites. Your readers and fans may be interacting on only one social media site. Therefore, sending a message to multiple social media sites means that readers and fans can connect with you on the site of their pleasing. If you are feeling overwhelmed with the various social media sites, then focus on Google+ and let FriendsPlus.Me do the rest of the work for you.
How to create a strong social media profile as an author
Part of a successful digital author platform is a consistent brand image and active participation in several relevant social media networks such as Facebook or Goodreads.
Your personal brand should be consistent across every platform. This means you use the same name, colors, images, and biography for each account. For example, you don’t want to use your name on Facebook and the title of your book as your Instagram account.
If you plan to write more than one book, it is especially a good idea to go with your personal brand and get your name out there instead of just your book’s title. This personal brand will carry you through different book titles, speaking engagements, book tours, and other projects that will happen during your entire writing career.
For your author website, choose a domain name that has your name in it., and not one that is your book title. Then make sure you use your name consistently for your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other accounts. Don’t be Michael J. Taylor, Jr. on one and Mike Taylor on the other; pick one and stick with it. Each social media page should also incorporate the same colors, photo, and biography so that readers going from one platform to another will feel they are making connection with the right person, the right brand.
Finding a URL for your website using your name may not be easy. New domain names are created by the thousand every day, thus the chance of getting your first choice is rare. You may have to be creative and add a word or two to your name to make it work. If your name is Tom Jones, obviously, TomJones dot com is already taken. You can add a word to the name and make it work, such as TomJonesWriter dot com.
Before you purchase the domain for your website, cross-check the other major social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest, to see if that username or account URL has already been used in these places. Providing a consistent brand name across every platform’s URL will build name recognition more easily.
You can use a site like http://www.knowem.com to check the availability of your username or URL choices across 25 of the most popular social media networks. In some instances, you may have to adapt your name slightly by putting last name first or adding a word or two if your name is available in most sites but not all and you really want to use that one.
To get started creating your consistent branding message, spend some time brainstorming what message you want to convey to your reader. What words can you use in your tag line or short bio? What colors come to mind to connect with that message and what emotion do you want to convey to your reader to complete that message?
Gather all the information you will need for each site, such as URL, biography, images, and tagline. Write your biography in two different lengths: long and short. Start with the long one and then shorten it as this will help you keep the same tone and message.
Get a professional photo taken and use this for each social media account, including your profile on Gravatar.com. You can use Photoshop, or a free online editing program like Pixlr, to create different image sizes.
By having a consistent brand image on the Internet you have the opportunity to give people the idea that you as an author are present in many places online. On the other hand, if you use a smorgasbord of different names, pictures, logos, and colors, your brand will not be as recognizable. By being consistent, your digital brand will slowly earn recognition and awareness among your audience.
7 pitfalls to avoid in writing your first novel
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simply sit down with your laptop or notebook and write your novel from beginning to end without any problems? Imagine waking up every morning with excitement to get a few more pages down and every week seeing the pages add up and the book coming together as easy as creating a favorite dish in your kitchen.
Have all the right ingredients? Check.
Have the oven on? Check.
Have the time to prepare it? Check.
When it comes to cooking, you’ve done it a hundred times and this time will be no different. You can already see the dish coming out of the oven and you know the pleased responses you will get when you set it on the table for dinner.
Just imagine what it would be to write a novel like that?
Have a good plot? Check.
Have time to write every day? Check.
Know exactly what you are going to do and how to do it? Check.
So what is the big difference? Why are you not on your 10th and 15th novel by now? Why are you still struggling with everything?
Perhaps there is more mindset to this game of writing than meets the eye.
Maybe you are thinking too much and doing too little.
After all when it comes to cooking you simply do it. Sure, you might have a few fumbles with a new recipe but it never stops you from getting something on the table every night. With this thought in mind, here are 7 mistakes that may be stopping you up from whipping up your next, juicy novel!
1. Thinking your book has to be perfect the first time.
2. Not starting because you don’t know where to start.
3. Quitting because the project seems too big, too hard and too complicated.
4. Stopping because you had no idea it would be this much work!
5. Hating everything you write and hating everything you write…
6. Feeling you were and are stupid to ever think you could write a novel! For heaven’s sake, what were you thinking?
7. Giving in. Giving up. Quitting.
Lucky for you there are ways to get rid of this mental crud very easily.
Apply these quick and easy remedies to each of the negative lemons and start drinking another cold, refreshing glass of lemonade. Your novel will get done. It will be the best you can make it. And when you are done with the first one, you will start on the second and the third and the fourth. You are a writer and nothing will stop you.
Let’s go!
1. Celebrate that your book does not have to be perfect to be wonderful! Think of it is as your first born. No matter how red, wrinkled and scrunched up looking that first triumphant finished book is, nothing is going to stop you from keeping it and acknowledging it as your own. You may have other books, better books, but this is your first and worth loving.
2. You don’t have to know where to start to start. Start anywhere and you are on your way. Write the end first if you want. Write what comes easy and flows. Keep writing.
3. No quitting. Simple as that. Don’t allow that option. It’s up to you to throw in the towel or not. Just refuse to do it. The book doesn’t have to be Shakespeare but for your own good it does have to be done. Lots of writers write first books that never get published. But they had to write that first one. So do you. Don’t quit.
4. Of course it’s a lot of work! But prop yourself up with visions of how wonderful it will be to actually be a published writer. Everything looks like a lot of work if you look at the whole project from start to finish. Instead, break it up into small enough, day-sized pieces and it’s doable.
5. Okay, on this one I can’t say that you will love everything you write, but I do know that as writers, we are not good judges of our own work, especially in the beginning. I do know that every day that we write we get better. It’s a learned skill and it does improve with practice and perseverance.
6. Of course you are not stupid! You are brave and wonderful to follow a dream and make it come true. When it comes to being a writer, it is up to you to make that dream come true. If you are a spiritual person pray about it and ask God or the Universe or whatever power above you that you can connect with to help you fan your talent into its most perfect state.
7. Same as # 2. Just don’t do it. Adapt, refocus, switch gears a bit, but don’t quit. Just keep at it and it will happen. The magic happens when we stay around long enough for it to germinate and grow!
How many words should a picture book have?
This is a question that many beginning writers have. How long is too long? And how long is not long enough? While every book can be an exception, you are far better staying within suggested guidelines for book length if you want your book to be accepted by publishers, parents and young readers.
Every book type has its own recommended length based on the age of the reader, education and book type. Obviously a thick paged picture book for a 3-year-old is going to be vastly different from The Mouse and the Motorcycle, a book for a ten year old to dig into for the first time.
Picture Books: Targeted for 2 to 8-year-old kids, this type of book typically has between 400 – 800 words. There are 5 basic types of picture books.
1. Young Picture Books aim for the 2 to 5-year-old. These are basic learning books that creatively teach colors, numbers or simple, fun stories for bedtime. Many of these books are written in rhyme or in a simple sing-song meter that is catchy and fun. Word count is between 200 and 400 words.
2. Basic Trade Picture Books as seen in most stores will typically have a standard set of 32 pages. These books are geared for children between the ages of 3 and 8 years old. Each page often has only one line to keep it simple and easy for a young child to follow. The word count to aim for with this type of book is usually between 500 and 600 words.
3. Novelty Books include pop-ups, puzzles, pull-tabs and other interactive features. In some cases, these books will have no words at all, such as for the very small child who likes to feel the fluffy cotton tail of a bunny or push the squeaker for a duck quack. If the book offers more complicated instructions such as for creating an origami bird or a fashionable paper doll, the word count can extend as high as 1,500 words.
4. Picture Story Books for older children between the ages of 6 and 10 include more text with each picture. These books can have as many as 1000 – 3000 words and may have pages without a picture. These books along with the chapter books (below) are for the child who is beginning to read and can follow word concepts without pictures. Often a parent or teacher might read the book aloud and then it is lovingly read again and again by the young reader.
5. Chapter Books are those magical books that transition the young reader from pictures to text. The chapters are short and simple with only an illustration or two per chapter. These books are for readers between the ages of 6 and 10 and can have as many as 3,500 words. Children often read these books completely on their own. Chapter books are often good for serials as children delight in one story and want more.
Word count is very important to writing books for young children. Publishers know this and often won’t even look at a book submission that is too long. Too many words are a warning sign that the author does not know how to write for the age group and that the book has not been edited seriously enough.
First time authors need to do everything possible to ensure their book gets a chance. Be professional and not emotional. Authors who think that their story is so good that a few extra hundred words won’t matter will find their manuscript on the slush pile. One glance. One look. Toss it.
Self-publishing authors will find that parents can be as critical an evaluator in making decisions for book length as any editor. The actual process of why they reject a book may not be as obvious to them but in most cases extra words mean the book is aimed at a higher level of reader than it is marked for. Take word count seriously and work within the accepted guidelines for the age group you are writing for. It’s only one point in writing a picture book, but it is an important one.
Want 15% of $26,000,000?
We’ve all received advance-fee fraud emails claiming that if we just allow the deposed King of Tannu Tuva to deposit $26,000,000 into one of our bank accounts temporarily, we’ll be able to keep 15%. At some later point we’ll be asked to lend $5,000 (the advance fee) very temporarily to allow the transaction to go forward. Ever wonder why the fraudsters don’t make these emails more believable? Why they claim to be from Nigeria when most people (correctly or incorrectly) believe that Nigeria’s the source of most scam emails? Why they don’t tell less farcical stories about why they need our help? Why they offer such absurdly large amounts of money for otherwise readily available, inexpensive banking services?
Because they only want to get responses from the very gullible. They want the somewhat gullible to weed themselves out, so the scammers don’t have to waste months in email and phone conversations with people who will, at some point, before sending any money, figure out that they are being scammed.
There are two powerful marketing principles here: First, marketing skills can be used for good or evil. (Please, use your marketing prowess only for good—to connect people with amazing books and services that offer them real value.)
Second, your marketing should not just attract people you want to engage, but also repel people you don’t want to engage.
Anyone in any business is familiar with prospects who take up ton of times but never buy, or customers who are endlessly difficult to deal with. You want your marketing to actively repel these types of people. This principle is especially important if you are marketing using a blog and social media. There are followers who comment frequently, demanding lots of answers and attention, without any intention of ever buying your books or service. There are followers who try to steer your following in directions other than what you intended, like to their competing books and services. You want your blog and social media presence to actively repel these types of followers.
The bottom line is: Good marketing attracts your best prospects and repels your worst prospects at the same time.
15 ways to market your book for less than a dollar
What’s stopping you from selling more books?
In most cases, it’s not money.
Authors tend to think that only if they had more advertising dollars they could turn their book into a bestseller. The truth is it’s more often an author’s mindset than an author’s checkbook that gets those books rolling out the door.
Spend your money on making your book the best it can possibly be. This includes a great cover, powerful editing and revising, tweaking, rewriting, editing, and revising again and then, when your book is perfect from the opening page to the end, you can use the following simple ways to get your book into the hands of avid readers.
1. Create an email signature and use it for every email you send out. Simple emails are often overlooked when it comes to book marketing, but personal notes actually have more influence than you think. When you include a simple link to where your book can be purchased, this informs your family, friends and contacts without being pushy or invasive. It’s there at the end of your note, no big deal. Most of your friends and acquaintances probably already know that you have written a book, give them a chance to explore further without pressure.
2. Once a week tweet some news about your book on Twitter. It doesn’t have to be a “buy now and get one free” sort of thing. Simply leave a comment about how your book is doing, what a friend said about it, or “Great news! The Browser Bookstore is now carrying my book!” As with all tweets, keep it short, interesting, and friendly.
3. Print off a postcard on your printer and mail it to someone. You don’t have to buy special postcard stock. Simply get a piece of 8½ x 11 card stock or heavy construction paper that will print. Divide the page into four equal sections and write a bit about your book. Include something of interest about it—a quote, a testimonial, a review. Then, add a link to where it can be purchased. Find an address to send it to and apply a stamp. In fact, if you don’t want to use a computer, you can simply handwrite your message for an even more personal approach.
4. Create a flyer for your book and keep them with you as you go about town. You can post them on bulletin boards in grocery stores, senior centers, and activity centers, and leave one in a barber or beauty shop.
5. Change the phone message on your answering machine to include a line about your book. “Hi, you have reached Joni Author. I can’t come to the phone right now; please, leave a message. Check out my new book, The Storms of April, on mywebsite .com, and let me know what you think!”
6. Get another piece of paper and create some simple bookmarks. Homemade ones will attract more attention. You can use a stick figure if you are not much of an artist. Include basic information about your book and then pop one into a library book or even in a magazine in a doctor’s office or clinic.
7. Don’t forget that word of mouth begins with you! Tell people about your book. Carry your book with you and if someone comments about it—tell them it’s yours! Have something fun or interesting to say about it that will create interest.
8. Take a picture of your book and post it on Facebook. If you are not a Facebook user ask a friend to do it for you.
9. Post a notice on Craigslist. It’s free and you can include a picture, information about your book, and offer to autograph it if you want.
10. Sell it on eBay! Lots of booksellers and authors do this. It costs nothing to place an ad and you might be surprised and make a few sales. If nothing else, you are giving exposure to your book.
11. Join online author groups and include your book title in your bio. If allowed, add a picture of the book cover.
12. Join an author support group and when it’s your turn to talk it can be about “your” book of course! Fellow authors are quick to support one another and even if they don’t buy your book, they may give you great leads as to how to promote your book.
13. Offer to give a free talk at a local school, church group or organization looking for speakers. The more people you meet and greet, the more exposure your book gets. Talk about how your book came to be written, the struggles, the joys and anything else of interest. If permitted, you may be able to sell your book at the back of the room.
14. Contact your local college, high school, senior center, etc. and offer to teach a course on writing. You may or may not be paid for it, but the exposure of having your book mentioned in the curriculum catalog or on the events board is great free advertising!
15. If you have a blog you can periodically mention your book to your followers. But even if you don’t, you can always read other book blogs and leave a comment.
When it comes to book marketing, being creative can get surprising results. Once you start the wheels turning in your brain for ways to spread the word about your book, opportunities will appear as if by magic. Be bold, daring and go for it. Nothing happens unless you do something! And once you do a little something, bigger opportunities often open up.