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Birdie

The Art of Self Promotion

I’ll never forget my first writers’ conference. After nervously awaiting appointments to pitch my book, two editors asked me to mail them a proposal. What an adrenaline rush. In my attempt to sell my book, I had stuffed six proposal copies into my carry-on. I ignored the crushing weight gouging my shoulder as I walked through the airport. I was ready to promote myself. It never dawned on me that editors wouldn’t be collecting a mountain of book proposals to lug home.

After speaking with the editors, I learned that I needed to tweak my proposal to meet expectations specific to their publisher. They handed me contact information and a set of submission guidelines to be incorporated in the proposal. Among the stapled packets, questionnaires asked for a host of information. It reminded me of an essay test. As I studied the questions a few of them caught me off guard. Questions like: 1) Why should the manager of a bookstore place an order for your book? 2) List special features and endorsements, and 3) Ideas to promote readership.

With all the work I had poured into those proposals, I thought I had come prepared. Attending the conference and meeting editors face-to-face taught me another lesson in the art of self-promotion. Following the basics of putting together a book proposal are necessary, but in today’s market you need to be prepared to answer the question: “What would I do to promote the book?”

Me? Promote the book? Well, I had talked to plenty of friends about it. I admit, back then my naïveté led me to think authors wrote while publishers handled promotional aspects of book-selling. Since then, I’ve come to understand promotion of this sort belongs to a bygone era. For small presses and limited marketing budgets for large presses, advertising dollars are spent where they reap the biggest return, not on a first-time, no-name author.

With that in mind, it’s time for writers to teach themselves the art of self-promotion. How can a writer/author promote their work without spending a ton of money? This topic is vast, but for the sake of this article I’ll narrow the scope. A good place to start is at your fingertips—Internet Publicity.

Website
In this day of electronic communication, having a website to promote your writing is expected. When opportunities to share information about your books, articles or other news come into play, people will ask for a url (uniform resource locator) better known as your web address. In other words, where does your information “live” on the net?

Writers’ conferences, seminars and workshops provide fertile ground for the exchange of information. When attending, come prepared to promote your writing. Have business cards printed that include your url and email address.

When I attended a seminar on “How to Get Published,” during a short break, people balanced coffee in one hand and business cards in the other. They didn’t talk about websites; they talked about their books. Business cards pointed to websites offering more information to the public. The trick is to get them to your site by creating a need.

The days of people searching yellow pages and making phone calls all over the country have passed. Today, the trend is to go to the Web (an extensive user community) to gather information. If you’ve written a book, or are building a reputation as a freelance writer and someone wants to know more, that’s where they’ll look—on the Internet. It’s as easy as typing your name or the name of your book into a search engine.

Getting people to your site is the first step, but what will they find when your page comes up? While searching for information, if people find a helpful, informative website that not only provides what they seek but more, they’re likely to bookmark the page to return at regular intervals to see what’s new.

If you think you can’t afford a website, compare the cost to print advertising. For example, a tri-fold brochure to introduce your book would cost about $1,500. Distribution of the brochure would be an added expense without really knowing if the printed material will end up in the hands of an interested potential buyer or in the trash. A website can cost about a third of print advertising. Other benefits of having your information online include:

• Interested people visit your site
• Curious people visit your site
• None of your advertising goes to waste
• Updates and new promotions can be added easily without further expense

• book excerpts from your books
• testimonies from those who have read your books
• book reviews or a featured author
• contests
• requests for interviews
• news
• articles targeted for your audience (free content available at sites like Ezine Articles and Articles-Hub