How to promote my novel

It would help to have some information like:
Publisher:
Genre:
Format:
Price:
Distributors:
Tag line:
Cover art:

Do you currently have any websites, blogs, email lists, groups etc

Who is your audience?

What books are a bit like your book?

KyraDune said:

My first novel is set to come out in October and I have no idea how to promote the thing. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

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Check out the sub-forum Book Promotion Ideas and Advice in Publishing.

Have you discussed this with your publisher?

For starters, you'll need a website, a facebook page and a facebook fan or author page. And the advice above is spot on. This is a great site to discover and discuss book promotion ideas that work. Congratulations and good luck.

Michael Murphy said:

For starters, you'll need a website, a facebook page and a facebook fan or author page. And the advice above is spot on. This is a great site to discover and discuss book promotion ideas that work. Congratulations and good luck.

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I have none of the above.

I just have a blog and a Twitter feed. Recently I joined a group blog. I have also (reluctantly) started doing guest blogs and interviews - hate putting myself out there, but bleh, it's gotta be done. A couple of favourable reviews (whether solicited by author or publisher) can also cause an increase in sales.

As others have said, getting your name and your book out there is vital no matter how you go about doing it. You're an unknown author to the majority of readers and you have to find ways to make those readers either familiar with your work or at least willing to give it a try on faith.

Reviews go a long way so whether you get professional reviews from magazines or blogs, or reader reviews, it important that you get as many as you can and then make them as easy for the random reader to find as possible.

So sign up for all the social media services out there like facebook and twitter, request reviews from anyone you can find, and have promotions for free books. Anything you can do to get customer visability is going to help you in the long run.

The OP could join IBPA today and attend "Marketing Fiction - Q & A with Akashic Press’s Johnny Temple" tomorrow.

--Ken

scarletpeaches said:

I have none of the above.

I just have a blog and a Twitter feed. Recently I joined a group blog. I have also (reluctantly) started doing guest blogs and interviews - hate putting myself out there, but bleh, it's gotta be done. A couple of favourable reviews (whether solicited by author or publisher) can also cause an increase in sales.

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But Facebook is free and you can reach hundreds of readers in a short period of time and direct them to your blog. And you can link twitter and FB so your tweets are facebook posts. Tweets are nice, but they disappear quickly. FB posts hang around longer. Just a thought. Whatever works. Good luck to everyone.

I think that for a person starting out it is important to separate everything you can do, from things that will help you reach that book's audience. Which depend on the type of book.

KyraDune said:

My book is being published by Champagne Books, a Canadian Publisher. It's a fantasy and I think it will mostly be ebooks, though they do some books in print as well. I don't know yet about price or cover art or any of that, I haven't heard from them about that yet.

I'm on Facebook and Twitter, I've thought about a website but I can't afford anything I would have to pay for and I don't know where to begin doing something like that anyway.

My audience would be adults, though I suppose teenagers might like the book as well.

How do you get someone to review your book? Do you just send it to them and ask them to review it?

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Two of my upcoming novels will be published through Champagne. They will send your book out to some reviewers - you can send it to more. Did they assign you a mentor? They did me and mine has been very helpful with answering questions and such.

You can make a decent looking free website through Weebly.com. Here is a link to mine to give you an idea:

http://leeannwriter.weebly.com/

Facebook, Twitter, My Space, online groups, all can help get the word out.

I have a background in media so I promote everywhere - if you can get local media (newspaper, television, radio) interested to do a story, there's no cost but great exposure.

Michael Murphy said:

But Facebook is free and you can reach hundreds of readers in a short period of time and direct them to your blog. And you can link twitter and FB so your tweets are facebook posts. Tweets are nice, but they disappear quickly. FB posts hang around longer. Just a thought. Whatever works. Good luck to everyone.

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I joined FB twice before to see what all the fuss was about. There was too much shite on my homepage, people nudging and tweaking me all the time. It looked somehow plain but ugly...and fussy all at the same time. It's just not an attractive website and I despise everything it stands for anyway. I'd give my next royalties cheque for the pleasure of beaning Zuckerberg in the face.

scarletpeaches said:

I joined FB twice before to see what all the fuss was about. There was too much shite on my homepage, people nudging and tweaking me all the time. It looked somehow plain but ugly...and fussy all at the same time. It's just not an attractive website and I despise everything it stands for anyway. I'd give my next royalties cheque for the pleasure of beaning Zuckerberg in the face.

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Create a author/fan page. You then avoid all that.

KyraDune said:

I'm on Facebook and Twitter, I've thought about a website but I can't afford anything I would have to pay for and I don't know where to begin doing something like that anyway.

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You might like to read this advice by an AbsoluteWrite member, which I found fascinating. Basically, if you register a free blog with Blogger, for $10/year you can buy a domain name through them, ie. www.YourName.com, which will automatically redirect to your blog. You can add static pages to the blog, like an "about me" page and a "my books" page, just like with a regular website. This sounds really simple and above all, cheap! I'll be doing this when it's time to hit the query trail.

I also recommend Goodreads. www.goodreads.com

scarletpeaches said:

I joined FB twice before to see what all the fuss was about. There was too much shite on my homepage, people nudging and tweaking me all the time. It looked somehow plain but ugly...and fussy all at the same time. It's just not an attractive website and I despise everything it stands for anyway. I'd give my next royalties cheque for the pleasure of beaning Zuckerberg in the face.

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Too funn! All true, but I find it to be a necessary evil.

Your readership us not just all people, it is the type of person who would buy your book if they knew about it. Then you think about where that specific type of person hangs out and what messages will reach them

scarletpeaches said:

I joined FB twice before to see what all the fuss was about. There was too much shite on my homepage, people nudging and tweaking me all the time. It looked somehow plain but ugly...and fussy all at the same time. It's just not an attractive website and I despise everything it stands for anyway. I'd give my next royalties cheque for the pleasure of beaning Zuckerberg in the face.

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Ha, exactly my opinion of Twitter -- the 21st century CB radio. To each his/her own, I suppose.

colealpaugh said:

Ha, exactly my opinion of Twitter -- the 21st century CB radio.

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Ha! I like that.

Congratulations. I think goodreads is a great place hang out. I think promoting your first book is as much selling yourself as selling your book. Make connections by reading other blogs and replying to them. Just don't advertise your book at every blog. Let people who like what you say find your information if they want. That's why you should have a web page, FB page, ect. For a free website, you could use wix. To have it for free, you have to have wix in the domain name but the site helps you create nice looking pages.
Good luck.