I’ve been blogging with the author and freelance writer in mind for over six years. I’ve posted 1,341 times. That’s an average of a post every day and a half. I started out posting a few times a week and soon got up to speed and created the habit of posting daily.
Here is a slight rewrite of one of my first posts way back on December 10 of 2005
Question: When is it the right time to start promoting your book?
Answer: The minute you commit to writing it.
It’s true! Promotion starts way before you actually have a book to sell. You might ask, “How can I sell a book that doesn’t even exist?” Well, you probably can’t, but you can certainly start planting seeds that may develop into eventual sales.
Start by building a mailing list of potential customers. Who is a potential customer? You should know exactly who you are writing the book for—who you are addressing in the book, who you hope to delight, help, inform or educate through your book. Start there. But don’t think too narrowly. While your audience might encompass a specific group of people, your customers may cover a wider scope. You might be surprised who will buy your ethnic recipe book, a book of poetry or your workbook for realtors, for example. You can’t tell by looking at someone whether they are interested in your book topic or whether they have several friends who are. But you sure can find out who is a good candidate for your particular book by talking to people about it and by going where potential customers hang out.
This brings us to our second most important prepublication promotions activity–talk about your book everywhere you go. When someone expresses an interest in your book topic, ask for a card or make note of their email address. When the book is ready to sell, you’ll want to notify everyone on your mailing list.
While you’re working on the book, take time every week or so to locate potential book reviewers, appropriate showcase sites, websites and radio talk shows dedicated to your topic and magazines and newsletters related to your topic where you might submit articles to promote your book or get your book reviewed.
Once you’ve finished the book and while it is with the publisher or at the printer, you’ll have more opportunity to do some prepublication promotion. This is a good time to contact everyone on your mailing list to announce the coming of your book. I like to offer a prepublication discount to folks who will purchase the book during this period. If you’re self-publishing, this is a good way to pay your printing bill.
At the time I wrote this post (in 2005), I was preparing to launch the first edition of my book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. As of this post (in 2011), that book is with a publisher who is preparing it for the third printing under the title, Publish Your Book, Proven Strategies and Resources for the Enterprising Author. This new book will be a perfect companion to my recently released book, Promote Your Book, Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. According to the folks at Allworth Press, the new book will debut in February, 2012. I’ll be making the big announcement around Valentine’s Day.