{"id":5983,"date":"2010-07-22T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/?p=5983"},"modified":"2010-07-01T08:37:23","modified_gmt":"2010-07-01T12:37:23","slug":"thursday-tips-promo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2010\/07\/thursday-tips-promo\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Tips…Promo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday Tips is geared to the newly published\/contracted author<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Promo<\/h3>\n

When to start and what to do\u2026oh, now those are some questions for sure.\u00a0 And they aren\u2019t easy<\/em> questions.<\/p>\n

With print books, it\u2019s helpful to get the word out to booksellers and librarians and you need to do that about 8-12 weeks (roughly) before the book is released, but you need to start planning well before that.<\/p>\n

Months before.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a member of RWA, you can get your book listed in ROMANCE SELLS.\u00a0 I\u2019ve yet to use this, but it\u2019s an option and it\u2019s a relatively inexpensive one.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got an awesome cover, another fairly inexpensive option is getting a cover story trailer done with Circle of Seven<\/a> (disclaimer: yes I\u2019ve used their services and love them, but no, I get no compensation for recommending them).<\/p>\n

They cost $350 and Circle of Seven sends these out to a wide variety of outlets\u2026including bookstore sites, bookseller lists and librarian lists<\/em> that we don\u2019t have access to.<\/p>\n

You can view one of mine…<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/object><\/p>\n

Other options include getting some postcards-you get them cheap from Vista Print-make sure you don\u2019t sign up for services you don\u2019t want (watch the \u2018bonus\u2019 offers at the end of the purchase) and send them out to mailing lists\u2014I\u2019ll try to remember to touch on mailing lists in a later topic, but if I forget, somebody remind me.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a hint, though-when you\u2019re out at events or even just talking to booksellers online?\u00a0 If they seem receptive, get their info-ask if it\u2019s okay to add them to your mailing list.<\/p>\n

With ebooks, you need to focus your efforts to online promo.\u00a0 But online promo can be effective for print and ebooks, so if you\u2019ve contracted with traditional publishing, this stuff can still apply.<\/p>\n

If you are looking to do ads, start planning a few months before the book releases, and sooner if you can.\u00a0 As soon as you have your cover art and the other info, if possibly.\u00a0 Six months, if possible.\u00a0 For some of the bigger places, that\u2019s not soon enough.<\/p>\n

An effective way to get the word out is join some of the \u2018group\u2019 sites, but some of the bigger \u2018author\u2019 sites are pretty pricy, especially for newer authors and while they are certainly appealing, we all know that money is tight.\u00a0 You can focus on the smaller places and still get exposure.<\/p>\n

(Please note\u2026 this isn\u2019t an endorsement or recommendation-do your research and make sure you know where you\u2019re placing your money)<\/p>\n