Are your book sales dwindling? Have you been busy with other things and you’ve neglected your job as marketing agent for your book? Maybe you feel you have put in your time with your book and it should be selling on its own by now.
That’s not going to happen. Your book will sell only for as long as you are willing to promote it. What does this mean? That you can’t ignore your book. You can’t do a blast of promotion and then stop. If you want to continue attracting readers—to keep making sales, you must keep promoting. Here are 10 things you can do this week to boost your book sales.
1: Carry your book with you everywhere you go this week and show it off every chance you get.
2: Stop in at one or more bookstores or appropriate specialty stores and ask the managers to carry your book. If you have it in these stores already, check to see if they need more copies.
3: Hand out promotional bookmarks or other materials to everyone you see. Leave some scattered here and there for people to find.
4: Offer a discount for Father’s Day or for Summer Reading and send a notice to your email list.
5: Call a few friends, acquaintances or colleagues to remind them of your book or email them a special message.
6: Send promotional material with your bill payments and mail one in all of those return address envelopes you receive in the mail this week.
7: Arrange to speak to your audience. Is there someplace you haven’t made an appearance yet—where your audience congregates? This might be before a church group, businessmen’s or women’s club meeting, service club meeting, at a local school, etc.
8 If your book would make a good Father’s Day gift, visit with a neighbor and suggest it.
9: Leave books in the lobby of local hospitals, doctor’s offices and/or the lunch room at large companies. Include ordering information.
10: Sign up for a booth at a book festival near your home or someplace where you’ll be traveling this summer. Locate festivals by using keywords, “Book Festival” and the city/state.
Bonus Idea: If you don’t blog, set up a blog site this week. If you have a blog, promote your book through your blog all week.
For additional book promotion ideas, order your copy of my book, “Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author.” It’s at Amazon.com in print, Kindle and audio. Also order it here: http://www.matilijapress.com/PromoteYourBook.html