I get a lot of emails about how to market fiction; today I got one specifically on how to market paranormal romance. Coincidentally, I’ve been brainstorming for hours on the same topic: my first novel Shearwater is in final edits and I’m planning a big launch. I’m going to do a lot of things that should work and a lot of things that may not work.
The best book marketing for all genres seems to be:
1. Networking with other authors in your genre and getting them to share your launch.
2. Building a targeted email list of your own of interested readers.
3. Make the launch exciting, with prizes, competitions, etc.
For #1, I built a Thunderclap campaign; and I’m hoping to reach 1 million people and get 100K free downloads on launch. If you write in similar genres, I hope you’ll check it out. BUT I hate to ask for things unless I’m giving more than I’m receiving; so I’m trying to find ways of rewarding you for supporting my book launch.
Reward 1: I will put up a “thank you supporters!” page on a few of my high-traffic sites. I’ve also set up both www.edwardcullensucks.com (for paranormal romance) and www.UrbanEpics.com (for urbane fantasy), which you can co-opt to your advantage (we can do an author interview, you can review other books in the genre, or a guest post on writing tips for the genre). Yes, you should be doing that stuff on your own blog as well, but you want a wide net of content linking back to your main blog or page, for increased traffic and SEO. Many other sites charge for stuff like that; I’m only asking for one Tweet.
Reward 2: I thought about running a giveaway, like a $2500 marketing package – where one of you would win a custom author platform overhaul (new website, new cover, improved author bio/mission/book summaries, and some content marketing). I could do it as a random giveaway, though I’d like to do it as a prize for the person who makes the biggest contribution to my book launch (hard to track though).
Reward 3: I’ll also be needing some quick, early book reviews before launch – if you have time to post one, you can download the full ARC here; I will in turn review any book you want me to. I’m not suggesting “trading 5 star reviews” – just sharing honest ones that genuinely help readers. If you think my writing sucks and doesn’t deserve more than 2 stars, that’s fine; I appreciate your feedback and will take your comments seriously.
I’m in a tricky position, in that for years I’ve been against spammy and self-promotional book marketing tactics, like “Twitter Blasts” – and I want to avoid it as much as possible by doing classy, fun, novel things to market my books. I’ll be sharing the results of my book launch through guest posts and podcast appearances in October, so you might see me around the interwebz.
If any of this sounds interesting and you want to be involved, please sign up at my other list on the book launch page here:
http://urbanepics.com/shearwater/
PS) Do you know any other PN romance or urban fantasy authors who could use book marketing help? Please share this with them.
WORK IN PROGRESS...
