Authorpreneur Forum Your Marketing Ideas

Feel free to post your marketing ideas. We'll discuss them as you post them. Looking forward to hear what you have done or are planning to do in your marketing efforts.


Clary

I have an article on cheap & easy things you can do to promote your writing ...

J.M. Snyder
~ my writing
~ my blog

Thanks for the link, that is a great entry on how to go about promoting our work.


Clary
My Site

You can check out the Published Authors group for some thoughts on marketing too! ::biggrin::

Some others:

Radio interviews, if you can get them, seem to be a great way for authors to promote. Local television stations might be a great way to go too. There are challenges, though, if the book is self-published.

A marketing idea that will help support schools of buyers choice.
Bear with me as I do my best to lay out the blue-print for this idea.


This would probably work best for short story and poetry writers, but can be used to sale a book one chapter at a time.

$3.00 for short stories 3000 to 4000 words made into a booklet. Book chapters basically the same idea but word count, as we all know, will not necessarily need that many words and will sale for $2.00 a chapter. Poetry is a bit tough to put a price on, this would be left to the author�s discretion. Order forms and business cards will need to be included.

Now here�s how we support schools that buyers choose. Set out a table, as you would at a book signing, make it a book signing. (Yes I know it�s just a booklet, but you can sign it so that the buyer is proud to have bought the piece- Suggestion: I knew you when- Babbette. Make sure they know you are going to be a big hit, someday. ) but anyway , explain that a certain percent of the proceeds go to the school that they choose. Award the buyer with a token of your appreciation, maybe a paper cut-out of a book that says
( Name) supports (Name) school, and sign it.

Contact schools with names of those who chose to support them during your project. So that you can report to them names and amounts of cash intake, this means- KEEP RECORDS of everything. The school will appreciate your effort in raising money for them and maybe even help promote you for your efforts to raise money for them. Can you imagine the schools that might want to promote your project in exchange for your support.

Think about this idea, and if you will- please help polish and perfect it. I would like to give it a try, but I need your input. Who knows maybe someday we can sell each others work and our names will be known around the world or at least nation wide, one school at a time.

My project Name would be -AWE, Which stands for Aspiring Writer/Writers 4 Education, An AWEsome Project.

Yes, it�s crazy but it just might work.
OK, What do you think?

The single best marketing tool as far as I'm concerned is speaking and giving programs. I do an occassional signing, doing one saturday in fact, but I do much better at an event where I'm speaking or putting on a workshop or program. This is why book proposals that talk about a "speaking platform" catch the eye of agents and editors. There is no paid advertising or marketing tool that can compete with word-of-mouth advertising which can't be bought, but can only be acquired by getting books in the hands of people who will tell their friends. Of course paid advertising, blogs, speaking gigs, websites and online presence are all good strategies to attempt to get this priceless word of mouth advertising. My blog today on my webpage www.terryburns.net talks about who's looking at our online presence and what it means to us.

Terry
www.hartlineliterary.com

Babette this is a fantastic idea! I will have to analyze it a little bit to come up with even more ways to create this kind of promotion in schools.

For one, I found My2Stop.com which prints Rack Cards that I believe would be great for the poets. A whole poem can be printed on it and sold. Check out all their products as well they have all kinds of things that could be utilized.



Clary Lopez

Perhaps this is worth passing along, but I just had a very worthwhile experience in marketing that resulted from a donation.

Last week I donated an armful of copies of my novel, Burritos and Gasoline, to the Polk County Library Cooperative. Sixteen libraries are affiliated with the organization. Two are law libraries that do not accept fiction. But the 14 remaining libraries were offered my book free of charge to stock in their collections.

Aside from my belief that gaining new readers is a good thing, regardless if they buy the book or stumble onto it at the library (perhaps they'll buy a copy of book #2 or #3) this gave me a legitimate reason to write and issue a news release. That release went out to PR.com (thanks to a great suggestion from Nancy O. Greene) as well as a number of media outlets in Polk County, Florida - and a few outside the county.

The releases went out on Monday morning. By Tuesday morning a large AM station in Tampa had included the topic in their newscast, including my name, the title Burritos and Gasoline, and a mention of where it could be purchased. That afternoon I was featured on another radio station, in a 20 minute interview during their afternoon drive-time slot.

If nothing else comes of the news release effort, or the book donation, I'll consider this to be a very successful experience. But I have good indications there may be some print attention in the coming days as well, thanks to special sections in local newspapers.

Certainly, I believe in the original premise of donating books to a library system for no charge. But the value of the media attention that donation resulted in would make the outlay of cash equal to the cost of those books a bargain, even at twice the price.

And of course, any suggestions regarding how y'all think I might maximize that coverage for the next go-around would be greatly appreciated.

Hello All,
I work with a woman named Yvonne Perry who does podcasting for her writing business....she is always looking for new interviewees....I say someone from this group should contact her (tell her I sent ya!).

email: [email protected]
web: www.yvonneperry.net

Thanks,
Taryn

Thanks Taryn,

I'll contact her this week!

Clary

visit" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> actually taken notes on the author and creator of the website, john kremer...i would recommend his book "1001 ways to market your books" as a serious holy script on how to publicize, promote and sell books in the publishing industry.... ::cool::

Hello Clary...Hello All!

My name is Bobby Ozuna and my friend, Amy told me about this group. She and I just recently created a group called "The Hawk's Nest Literary Group." It is a group designed for self-published authors, like myself. I have been writing for several years and I have been published (the traditional route) in the past with regards to short-stories but I opted for the self-publication route with my novel, "Proud Souls" which I will release on July 1st of this year!

I posted a blog on my personal site on March 31st of this year entitled "To Publish or Not to Publish" and I shared my thought process on making the final determination--which wasn't an easy decision for me.

Since announcing the release of my novel under my assumed name--Ozuna Publications--I have had so many open doors and windows of opportunity present themself. I have become my own marketing campaign manager and I have since acquired a small staff of volunteers, helping to promote the book.
Here is a small list of things I have done to get the word out about the book. As a note, the response has been incredible thus far!

Created a new home page (www.BobbyOzunaOnline.com) with links to my Blog (blogspot.com), where I post a weekly, insightful blog about the writing process. I created a MySpace site (www.MySpace.com/Inotauthor) with the help of Maria Sanchez (www.SandiaFria.com), the artists behind the coverart on my novel, "Proud Souls."

I have a radio interview scheduled for this summer with a local (Ft. Worth, TX) radio station.

I have one preliminary copy of "Proud Souls" ready to submit to Midwest Book Review ( They are a company that specializes in self-published books. That leads me to another important step, Research! Research! Research!

I am trying to coordinate my first author podcast, so I can start creating a resume of interviewers, to help push a possible T.V. interview with local TV station, WFAA's "La Vida" program.

I am scheduled to attend the Texas book publishers and authors convention in September, where (for a low fee) I will host a table, with my books, a media kit and a smile.

I am coordinating a schedule for my first book signing, at the Rose Marine Theatre, in Ft. Worth, Texas (not a book store!) as bookstores don't give credit to self-published books.

I have created a newsletter on my site, to keep people informed of my weekly blogs, my merchandise (www.Zazzle.com/Inotauthor), where people can buy shirts or bookbags, etc, featuring the cover art to "Proud Souls" or "The Hawk's Nest", the bar within my story, "Proud Souls."

I have post cards with the cover art to my novel, and a small blurb on the back, which are ready to be mailed weeks in advance before the release of "Proud Souls" for those friends and family who don't prefer the Internet.

I have posters (11 x 16) that are going up in small (family run) businesses within my community of North Richland Hills, TX.

I am scheduled to attend the Seymour, Texas summer festival. This is the city where the story takes place, allowing people within that community to meet the author and get "first dibs" on purchasing the book in June, before the online release in July.

I am out of breath...but that's an idea...

I am using my business name, Ozuna Pubications, to create a local Fort Worth Independent School District, short-story anthology for Ft. Worth high-school students, where I will honor them with a complimentary copy of the anthology and have them read their works before freinds and family at the Ft. Worth Public Library.

So...this will all transpire between June and September of this year. There are many other prospective projects on the table...but this is a start....

Bobby Ozuna
www.BobbyOzunaOnline.com

Wow Bobby, you are doing great!
I've done a lot of the same things you have done and they yield good result. I will be checking your site. The very best to you.

Clary