excerpt: SELF-PUBLISH and MARKET A BOOK
SELF-PUBLISH AND MARKET A BOOK
by Hank Quense
The book marketing possibilities are endless, so which ones are the most important? This article provides such a list and it’s based on the author’s own experiences.
What if you can’t work on all the marketing tasks you’ve read about? After all, life has a way of butting into one’s writing and publishing work. Obviously, not all marketing tasks are created equal, so the question comes down to this: What marketing tasks should you concentrate on?
Here is my answer to that question. If you have limited time and or money to spend on marketing, make sure you do the following:
• Identify the customers for the book
• Get a webpage
• Develop a set of keywords
• Write a book blurb
• Join Goodreads
• Request book reviews in a few of the groups on the Goodreads site
• Join LinkedIn
• Request book reviews in a few of the groups on the LinkedIn site
• Write a short synopsis
Note: a book blurb and a short synopsis are not the same thing: they are two very different animals. I wrote an article about the differences. You can read it here on Medium.
A neat thing about this list is that, with the exception of the webpage, all these tasks are free. All they require is the investment of your time.
On the other hand, if you have a limited marketing budget, which marketing tasks should be on the bottom of the list?
• Get a trailer
• Commission a blog tour
• Hire a promotion company
This material is extracted from my book How to Self-publish and Market a Book.
For vacations, Hank and Pat usually visit distant parts of the galaxy. Occasionally, they also time-travel.
Besides writing novels, Hank lectures on fiction writing, publishing and book marketing. He is most proud of his talk showing grammar school kids how to create a short story. He used these lectures to create an advanced ebook with embedded videos to coach the students on how to create characters, plots and settings. The target audience is 4th to 7th graders. The book’s title is Fiction Writing Workshop for Kids.
Hank’s Amazon PageCreating a Story
How to Self-publish and Market a Book
Comments 5
Marketing is the order of the day for me at the moment, so thanks for this!
Even the website can be free if you use a blog instead. There’s a lot an author can do for free if he looks hard enough.
True, Alex. The problem is that many newbie authors don’t know where to look (or are willing to look hard enough)
Author
Thanks, once again, Hank, for the excellent advice. Have a great day.
You’re welcome, Joylene