It truly is a time for giving and that also means donations. One way to promote a book is through donations. I recommend donating copies to organizations within your community that are running live and silent auctions. Everyone at the event will see your book either lying on a table for several hours with a bidding sheet or being held up and spoken about during a live auction.
Sometimes donated items are listed in event programs, the local newspaper and/or at the organization’s website. Other times, the donation doesn’t get a lot of public attention, so what are the benefits in this case?
The organizers and volunteers will become aware of your book as they handle it and direct it to the right recipient. The recipient is certainly aware of it as is anyone he or she talks to about it. It is impossible to know how many people this is. It could be one or two or the total number of people who hear about or see your book as a result of one donation could be in the dozens, hundreds of thousands.
As an additional benefit, this is a write-off on your income tax. And it makes you feel good when you give, whether it is to an individual at holiday time, someone in an assisted living facility, an inmate, a guest or resident at a homeless shelter, a child, a library system or someone who happens to place the highest bid on a gift basket containing your book.
Dallas Woodburn, a graduate student who is also teaching writing and runs an organization for young writers, operates a book drive for children in an attempt to promote literacy each year in this month. This year, I purchased books from Karen Lee Stevens, author of “Animals Have Feelings, Too” for Dallas’s book drive. (The illustrator for this book is SPAWN member, Terri Rider.) http://www.allforanimals.com/book.html
To donate books to the book drive, go to http://writeonbooks.org Click on “Holiday Book Drive.”
I am also giving copies of my unpublished novel to about a dozen friends and family members this year for Christmas. No it isn’t published, yet, but we have a comb binding machine, so we created a cover, printed it out and bound it to wrap as gifts. FUN!!!! The novel is part of the Klepto Cat Mystery Series. It’s called “Catnapped.” I just finished another rewrite am really pleased with how it shaped up.
I once sent a whole crate of my metaphysical book to Louisiana after Katrina. They were asking for books for those who would be in shelters a long time.
How do you use your book as a donation or a gift? How does this benefit you? Leave your comments here.
By the way, this is just one idea from my book of over 250 ideas for promoting your book—Promote Your Book. Order your copy now at Amazon.com and most other online and downtown bookstores.