Book Promotion on a Budget

Things I wish I’d known before I started out on the published author's trail, by Barry Eva

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As all writers know there are many places on the web that offer you various services to help you become the “next best-selling author”, and while many are there to help you, some are just there to make as much money as possible from any unsuspecting author.

Plenty of places are out there, plenty of emails, and contacts come your way. However, before you jump on the sometime costly bandwagon, just see what is there for perhaps less money or with a better service.

See what the best “BANG FOR YOUR BUCK” might be.

BEFORE YOU START:

Before you go anywhere remember these words….

Marketing and Pr doesn’t sell books - it gets you exposure!

As one of my fellow bloggers and radio hosts put it today…

Publicity=exposure
Exposure=name recognition
Name recognition MAY equal book sales

Don’t think that just because you have your book being published you will be the next J.K Rowling. There are not that many authors out there who actually make a living from their books. So in other words:

“Dream of the day… but don’t lose touch with reality”

SO YOUR BOOK IS BEING PUBLISHED:

Before the ink is out of the bottle, let alone dry on the pages of your book you should have some items to aid your book promotion already set up.

You should look to set up the following:

Facebook Page
My Space Page
Blog
Book Email
Twitter Account
Web Site

There are plenty of places out there offering services for such things, sometimes charging over $1000. So let’s break these items down and see what there is on offer.

SOCIAL NETWORKING:


Facebook, My Space and Twitter etc. are what come under “Social Networking”.

I recently read a major publisher is now proud to offer a “Social Media Setup Service” that will help an author into “the world of social media”

You Got:
A blog on the popular and easy to use WordPress platform
A Facebook profile for your identity as an author
A Facebook page for your book
A MySpace page for your book

This was available at a “Special Introductory Price of $999”

I also received information from a “Marketing and Promotion” company, which offers many such items and their charge for setting you up with these services was $149

Setting up these Social Networking options and locations costs “$0.00… Nothing… Zero”. Any person who has access to a computer can go on the Internet, create exactly what these companies offer for nothing, and achieve the same results in under an hour.

One of the other things I noticed with some interest is that the blog being offered was on WordPress, which though very good, quite often might require you to have some knowledge of HTML coding to change certain formats and styles. For a person who perhaps does not have such skills, I would recommend a person uses “BLOGGER” (www.blogger.com) as it is a far easier platform, similar to writing something in “Word”. It is equally as good for getting your information out on the web, and like WordPress “IT’S FREE”.

Twitter while the flavor of the moment, only gives you 140 characters to pass on your news, links or whatever.

There are many other “free” ways of passing on news VOX, XANGA, LIVE JOURNAL, MSN, AOL to name a few. You can even use the likes of http://ping.fm (again FREE) where from one location you can post your news to many locations.

Many writers/readers groups such as SCBWI have their own blog sections.

One other thing that is very important is to be aware of how much time you can dedicate to social media. If you sign up for 50 sites, but never update them, then they’re useless.

While PING.FM helps you update multiple sites at a time, it is still limited in what it can work with, so authors really need to decide how much time they have and only sign up for the sites you can commit to.

Don’t forget, the more you’re out there… the more exposure, name recognition and “possibly” sales.

This is the first part of Barry’s 5 day document on book promotion on a budget. You can read the whole series at http://acrossthepond-storyheart.blogspot.com

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Barry Eva (Storyheart)
Author of "Across the Pond"
Book Site:http://across-t-pond.com
Follow my daily blog at: http://acrossthepond-storyheart.blogspot.com
Follow my Blog Talk Radio Show at :http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Across-the-Pond
Amazon Reviews: http://tinyurl.com/o7sokp