Marketing Tips for the New Author

I spent so much time writing and then even more time putting together emails for publishers hoping someone besides me would read what I was writing! Ultimately it all paid off, well, more or less. As a new author, unless you already know someone who is a famous author, you won’t get your dream book right off the bat.

You’ll get a no-advance advance and market yourself sort of a book deal if you want to be eligible one day for the big advance and the agent will market you for your package. Seriously, you have to build your name as an author and you have to get enough people to read and like your book that they want to read the next one and create enough interest with your publisher to make a better deal on the next one or get better publishers interested.

For the new author, hoping the first book is big, get online and get to work.

1. Search the internet for a list of all the major newspapers and then keep looking on their main home page until you find “contact us” and then keep digging until you get a book review, book editor, book section writer, etc. and make a list of all these email addresses. You will need them for your official press release. Never depend on a publisher who won’t give you an advance to do enough advertising for you, especially if you don’t have an agent you talk to every day.
2. Set up a website where you promote the book, the author, at least one character from the book, blogs, and social media. I use webs.com and I love them. It has good tracking so you can see if you are getting any traffic.
3. Use Facebook to tell everyone you know that you are now a published author and how to find your website.
4. Use Facebook to LIKE your publisher’s Facebook and any and all published writers, authors, etc. communities you can find on Facebook. Steps 3 and 4 together will grow your friends list and you should have your website blog set up to feed your Facebook page using a networked blogging site. Webs will offer it to you while you build your site.
5. Join EzineArticles and write, write, write! Great place to network and you can add the website location at the bottom of every article you submit no matter what it is.
6. Prepare the press release, announce the immediate launch of your website and the future date of your book, and send it to every free press release site you can find and every email address you collected in step one.

Wait and see what happens next! More tips in future articles and be sure to check out my website for helpful links on the login page.