Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Book Publicity And Promotion - How To Get It Done

By Annie M. Jennings

So, you have completed and published your first book. What do you do now? Well, it is time to show you how book promotion and publicity market your book. Although this may appear to be a daunting task, there are numerous opportunities for you to take this most important step.

With the many online companies that will help you self-publish, once completed, the tasks of promotion and publicity fall into your hands. Depending on the topic, you will be able to find many local options to get your book and your face in front of a potential buying audience. However, be aware of many companies online that claim that they can help you. They will offer you online seminars on the proper procedures and techniques to get your book out to the public. Just be careful as if you published this piece yourself, you may have budget constraints and all of this can cost you quite a lot of money. What they will attempt to show you, in many cases, is the use of common sense. You will be exposed to marketers that are more interested in selling you stuff, more than they are interested in helping you sell your book, or at least make people aware that you wrote something of value. So, beware.

Depending on the size of the closest major city, you can find multiple chances to put your composition out to the public. Hopefully, some of these ideas will help you with your launch. However, know this. Although you have written what you hope will be a well received piece of literature, how you market the book and yourself will go a long way in establishing your success.

Depending on the topic, there will likely be a local radio station that covers a similar topic. They are always looking for interesting guests and topics that may make their listeners more interested. Listen to your local stations and find someone that is normally discussing a topic at least somewhat similar to what you written. Give them a call or send them an email with a biography of you and the book. You will likely hear back from them and you may be on your way. If the topic is more mainstream, use the same process to your local television stations. Again, with the plethora of local programming, you may be able to get a slot on a local morning show or again, a show discussing similar topics.

Head down to your local bookstore. Everyone likes to sponsor an event. A book signing falls into this category. In some cases they may let you have a short discussion group explaining the topic and then have the opportunity to sign and sell some copies. It is possible that they will let you put up some posters and advertise your upcoming visit, so be sure to plan ahead. The idea of having a local author is usually good press, so you should contact all of the local newspapers as well.

Every city has multiple Networking meetings. It is the newest way to expose your business to other business owners. They have developed into legitimate marketing opportunities and you may meet some people that can assist you in other marketing areas, as well. Just by meeting and discussing the reasons that you wrote your book and what you expect the readers to get out of it, will likely generate some sales and at least start a bit of a buzz, when used in conjunction with your other marketing efforts.

Please remember that these are public events. You will need to take some time to get prepared. The perception of the quality of your book will go hand in hand with your personality in promoting it. The better prepared you are to discuss the topic, the purpose, your motivation for writing it etc., the better it will be received.

Lastly, if you are not a gregarious person and find these suggestions a tad scary, you can resort to just using the Internet. You can start a blog or launch a website to promote you and the book, but this can be more costly, time consuming and still will not guarantee that people find you. Unless you have been published by a known publishing house, your personal contact will be the most successful to get your product into circulation. Just as when you composed your work of art, spend some quality time to promote it. You will find that personal contact will be a great way to get you selling copies, meeting the readers and earning money, while sharing your experiences.

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