Promoting your book and yourself with technology. And puppets. (Puppets optional.)
Twitter:
- Maintain a list of independent booksellers specializing in your genre and category.
- Pay attention to sales and special events to tailor schwag to booksellers’ needs.
- Answer questions whenever possible.
- When promoting books, link to Indiebound or bookseller websites instead of Amazon whenever possible.
- Offer free online content, in easy-to-access locations.
- Provide offline or personalized content based on specific bookseller needs.
Website:
- Provide clear contact information for yourself, your publicist or your agent.
- Partner with booksellers on blog tours, to offer readers the opportunity to purchase signed books.
- Keep an up-to-date press kit available for download. Include high-res (at least 300dpi) author and book cover images, biographical information, book summaries, and title information. (Publisher! ISBN!)
- Always provide preferential placement for Indiebound and independent bookseller links.
Technology:
- Create a LiveStream account, to add online interaction to bookseller visits.
- Always provide purchase information on technology-enhanced visits with direct links to the bookseller’s website or online store account.
- Coordinate with other authors to create video interviews, podcasts, or remote readings that can be displayed on bookseller websites.
- Consider a Virtual Book Tour—create personalized videos for participating bookseller websites, and provide them with bookmarks, bookplates and other premiums ahead of time.
Marketing for Authors by Saundra Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
