People have asked me about how I became a writer and asked for assistance with tips and ideas about writing, editing, and publishing. I'm always willing to pass on anything I've learned if it will help others. I'm not an expert by a long shot, but I...
This is sort of a companion chapter to the promotion one. I'm writing this one because I was asked by another user about promotion. I covered some things in the first promotion chapter, but there is always more you can do. I'm sure there are promotional avenues out there I haven't even begun to think of.
A lot of book groups on Facebook do what they call takeovers. Many of these are book groups or groups hosted by book bloggers. What you do is literally take over their group for the prescribed amount of time. During your takeover, you basically promote the heck out of your work. Some authors play games, do giveaways for their books, or they give away gift cards. They talk about themselves, ask readers questions, and answer questions from readers. I enjoy takeovers because it's online, since I'm just not good in person this works well for me. I do better when I have a second to form an answer. Being on the other side of a computer gives me that time to think and keeps me from becoming a nervous rambler.
A lot of us also have teaser ads. We use these to post and gain interest in our work. You can use these on social media, or post them in takeovers.
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This is a teaser ad for book six of my Merlin's Chosen series. It has a quote from the book on it, an image representing the character who said the quote, the book cover, and of course my website.
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In this teaser, we have a book mockup. This one has my website and also the tagline from the series. You can put whatever you want them. I've done ones with quotes or just the author's website.
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You can create promotional images for your books as well. Above is the crest of the Chosen from my Merlin's Chosen series. I use this on the bookmarks for the series. I'd like to get t-shirts made, but that requires money. There are authors I know who have keychains made for the logos of businesses in their books, or a motorcycle club, you can do a logo for a lot of things.
Some authors have what they call writing buddies. One author has a knitted Yoda that sits by her computer, when she goes on trips she takes him with and posts pictures of him in different locations on the trip. Not everything you post has to be strictly about your writing. It just needs to keep people engaged. Another author had wooden moose that sits on his desk and he dispenses moosely wisdom. For some authors, their writing buddy is their pet. My writing buddies are my dog and cat. My cat, Boomer, has his own Instagram, the furball has more followers than my two Insta accounts combined, proof that cats rule the world.
People love to talk about their furbabies, so you really can't go wrong posting pictures of your pets and asking readers to comment and post images of their furbabies.
Another thing I did was create a board on my pinterest profile with things from my books. From the covers to promo materials, to quotes from the books.
Getting your name out there is always challenging. We have it a bit easier nowadays with the internet, you can reach people around the world in seconds. Yet, it's still difficult to get noticed because everyone else is doing the exact same thing you are. So, find what works the best for you and run with it. Know when something isn't working and be willing to move on to something, and most of all, have fun.
As always, if you have any questions feel free to ask me!
