Do You Take Advantage of Free Promotion?
This fellow indie author regularly tweets about my book, Kitten & Koi. I like RT with a comment, then I just RT it. Not all at once.
You don’t need a big budget, a lot of time, or expertise to promote your books. Here are 10 things you can do — for free.
- Ask your fellow indie authors if they are interested in interviewing you. Many have blogs and need content.
- Tweet and post about the interview. You can do this every other day for at least a few weeks on Twitter.
- Share and retweet the blogger’s promotions of the interview.
- Post a link to the interview on your own website. (Don’t have one? Read this.)
- Write a press release about your book. PRLog has a free option. Here’s an example.
- Promote the press release on Facebook and Twitter.
- Tweet about your book regularly. Use Hootsuite to schedule tweets in advance.
- Retweet other authors’ tweets. Most will return the favor.
- Post about your book (occasionally) on LinkedIn.
- Setup your author page on Amazon.
Here 5 contest entrants and 3 past Gittle List winners get free promotion. How many shared the newsletter?
The absolute easiest marketing you can do is RETWEET (not just like) and SHARE tweets and posts about your books.
You retweet so all of your followers will see it. Liking a tweet is just you telling the tweeter, “Hey, nice tweet.” Same on Facebook. Sharing tells all your followers (friends and people who like your page). Adding your own comments to the share or retweet is optional, but more powerful.
There are setup options in Facebook and Twitter to be notified if someone mentions you in a post or tweet. You login to your account, click on notifications, click on each notification to directly go to the post or tweet, then click the share or retweet button. Three clicks. Three free clicks. To get free promotion.
The Gittle List is an annual book competition I have hosted for the last four years. It is exclusively for self-published children’s picture book authors. A cornerstone of the contest is cross-promotion. I give the winners free promotion by including them and their books in marketing for the contest.
Since 2013, I have given many authors, artists, and others free promotion in the form of interviews, Facebook and LinkedIn posts, articles, press releases, and tweets. I have created an uncountable number of ads that include book covers, artwork, quotes, and publicity photos. Recently, I created a promotional video for all the 2016 winners.
Many of the recipients of this free promotion do little or nothing with it. Some say they are just not savvy with marketing or social media. If you do nothing else, learn how to share posts and tweets.
A unique feature of The Gittle List book competition is the chance for entrants to get free promotion. So, entering earlier would increase their chances. Yet, at least half of the entries come in during the last two weeks of the nearly year-long submission period.
Mariana Llanos took advantage of her Gittle List winner announcement post. She got 21 more people to share the post after the Facebook ad ended.
When the contest is over, I find that few of the authors share the many posts and articles that go out across several social media platforms. These same authors are frustrated at their low books sales.
There is no easy money in publishing. But, there is some easy marketing you can do. Take advantage of the work someone else did writing about you and your book by taking 15 seconds to share it. It’s so easy, even indie authors like us can do it.
Have a topic you’d like me to write about? Email me at GoToGittle@gmail.com or leave a comment here.
Aviva Gittle Publishing offers great stories for children in English and Spanish, including the Kitten and Friends / Gatito y amigos series. Aviva’s website, www.GoToGittle.com shares the stories of authors, illustrators and others who create books and creative media for children.
