I am over half-way through a short (approximate 20,000 word) book on surviving the holidays. It is going up through Smashwords as an e-book. Now I have to think about howto promote this book, taking into consideration that this is the first in a series of self-help books that I plan to put out there. Simple thought process here - if people like one thing that I write, it is in my best interest to offer them other things to read too!
That much I am sure of. The marketing itself - that I am not sure of. I am working (at least with my first book) with an almost non-existent promotional budget. But more than budget, I am thinking about where to market to reach my target audience - women of all ages that are interested in being the best that they can be. This is often a hard things to do, as by nature women tend to put others first. Setting that aside for a moment, what do I need to know about marketing an e-book?
I have defined my target audience, now I am trying to develop a written marketing plan. I could choose to go with Kindle's KDP program, but I am not going to, for a variety of reasons - the main one being that it limits me to promoting through that program for a specific period of time. Multiple streams of income sounds better to me. Things that I will do include creating a page for my book on Facebook, creating a page for my book on my personal site, and chatting it up on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +. I will also either have a book trailer done, or create a short animated video to put upon my site, and on you tube. I will be contacting other authors in the same self-help genre, and ask if they would review my book, if I were to send it to them. And I will have a give-away, as the book should be up by the end of November (I can push it for the holidays). I may also put out a free sample chapter from the book.
What else do I "not" intend to do? I do not intend to do any "blog a thon" activity, nor do I intend to do guest posts. These are time consuming activities, if done correctly, and they would not make me happy!
One more thing that I am considering is having a book launch party - or, rather, a book launch cyber party! I have friends with confetti and glitter that will join in ... that would be fun!
Off to do some more thinking!
