What To Do When Your Book Releases (part 2)

My most recent Baby Blessing

This is the continuance of a previous post so please do us both a favor and scroll back to read Part 1 so we're both on the same page. Gracias. Donka. Gratzi. (My apologies for phonetic foreign language spelling to you linguists out there.)

Okay, once you've got your reviews flowing in and have reposted, retweeted, and regurgitated everywhere you can think of, you need to divvy your happy hunting grounds into two expeditions: near and far.

Near: Consider how to reach local readers. Ask friends to help you by posting your blurbs and sending their own fantastic reviews to their contact lists. A personal recommendation goes a long, long way in the book biz.

Think about having a book launch party at a local bookstore, home, restaurant, or business (any business will do but one remotely related to the topic of your book is best - for instance when my book, Mom NEEDS Chocolate came out, I had a launch party in a chocolate shop).

Offer to speak and sponsor contests with book giveaways to church groups, civic organizations, libraries, Bible studies (assuming your book is inspirational; I wouldn't do this if you write paranormal erotica). Plan on giving at least 30 books away one way or another for promotion - some will need to go to media folks you query for articles/interviews/radio mentions. Face it, they have to have your book to know what they're talking about, and most then donate the book to someone who is a candidate to become your biggest fan.

So don't think of it as a gigantic hole in your pocket. Think of it as an investment in your future.

My newest release

Back room book sales at speaking events are an excellent source of side income while you're waiting on your royalties to kick in. Most publishers offer significant discounts to authors (mine allows me to purchase my books at 1/3 their market value), so if you buy a book for $3.50 and sell it for $10 and multiply that by the 20 people lined up at your book table, you've got a nice little gig going.

Far: Internet is, of course, one of the fastest and most efficient ways to get word of your new book out to the far reaches of the galaxy.

Having no cyber-savvy of my own, I hire a publicist to handle this oh-so-critical aspect of promo for me. The fine ladies at Litfuse Publicity Agency have helped launch my past 4 books by organizing and implementing press releases, Facebook launch parties (where people from all over the world meet in a chat room at the same time on the same day for an hour of getting to know each other via laughter, a few tears, and best of all, discussing my book!), TV and radio interviews, a blog tour of 80+ sites, and a huge contest/Kindle and book giveaway that attracts hundreds of entries, which are then added to my contact list to receive my free e-newsletter.

Clever, huh? Publishers consider those 3,350 people currently on my list to be my fans and are thereby persuaded to consider me a good candidate for writing another book. Voila. Killed two raptors with one spear.

Here's the link to my upcoming 11/6/14 Facebook launch party for Too Loved to be Lost   https://www.facebook.com/events/827825463906082/. Click on the link and join now to be in the drawing for the Kindle and other cool prizes, then I'd love to have you join us BFF's (Blessed Friends Forever) at 8 pm EST on Nov 6. You can see how it works in planning for your own and have fun in the process!

So what promotional tactics work best for you?