Since I did it for practically nothing, yes, I consider it a good investment of time if new people know my name. It takes the average person 7 times seeing something before they remember it - like a name. It takes 21 times before they'll buy something, I think was what the reasearch said. So doing interviews, getting reviews and doing a virtual book tour just puts your name that many more places. I also have a MySpace, which I think is another good marketing tool - if nothing else, it's free.
If I got a bunch of new people to come to my website, and say a third of them bookmarked it, I've got new readers. As long as I keep them coming back, with new content, or contests, new releases and get them on my newsletter mailing list, it will translate into sales, and hopefully into word of mouth sales.
You have to build a base, just like any other product you want to sell. That's part of figuring out what works and what doesn't, and what you pay for and what you don't. I wouldn't say go all out and spend a bunch of money on online marketing, espcially if you don't have to. But every little bit helps.
Like I said, I can't specifically link it to sales, because I don't have the sales number in front of me. It was the month the book was released, so of course a few copies sold on Amazon, but I don't know about my publisher's website. If I asked my publisher if I sold more copies in July than in August, I could give you the information, but I don't have access to them until I get my royalties for the quarter when I did the promotion. Increased website hits (and I mean MARKED increase over previous months) is the only correlative evidence I have at the moment.
I sent out postcards too, to every single library, elementary school and middle school in my county. It wasn't expensive because I waited for Vistaprint to have a sale - the first batch I got for the price of the upload of the graphic (actually half-price, that was part of the sale) and the second I got for the price of shipping - 100 free postcards that time. I think I spent less than $20 for 200 custom postcards. Blank back, so I can also use them to sign and give away as promotional gifts, like a cover flat, and I print the backs out on my printer. They also have my website url, of course. I have a full brochure for my school visits on my site as a downloadable .pdf.
Doing postcards, not just for the new book but also to promote myself as a speaker, is something advocated by almost every children's author around. I took a course from Anastacia Suen, one of the best-known picture book authors in the biz, about how to do school visits. I also make my own bookmarks, but I don't give that many away. They're nice to have for school visits so you have something to sign for kids that didn't get the book, and to tuck inside a signed book at events.
Again, I'll know more about what's worked when I see the numbers on the royalty check, since many of the library and book sales would come through Baker and Taylor.
