Tag: book promotion

An Intro to Cold Coffee Café

Charlie RayGuest post
by Charlie Ray

As hard as it is to write a book, it’s even harder to market it once it’s written. Advertising your book is time consuming, and can be expensive. There are, however, a number of ways to promote your work without having to spend too much time or money.

In fact, I recently discovered a site that allows you to promote your work widely, and, while there are promotional packages for a fee, you can also promote your work for free. Cold Coffee Café, Cold Coffee Press Site, allows you to set up a blog site where you can put links to purchase your books, book trailers, excerpts of works in progress, or just about anything else you’d like. Go here to sign up. Getting up and running is easy, and in the end you’ll have a personal page on the Cold Coffee Café site as well as links to other authors and author services. Continue reading “An Intro to Cold Coffee Café”

When is FREE not free? Answer – when you do a Free book promotion.

Pete Barber
Pete Barber

Guest post
by Pete Barber

On May 17th, 2014 I offered my self-published technothriller, NanoStrike, free for five days on Amazon. My novel was downloaded 39,000 times. Perhaps my experience can help others.

Step one–I freshened up my novel, which I self-published in 2012 but never promoted. I retitled, recovered, rewrote, and reedited. If you’d like to know why, I recently wrote a blog post about this for Big Al’s Book & Pals.

I withdrew the old novel from all distribution channels except Amazon, waited two weeks, updated the title and cover on Amazon, then enrolled in KDP.

I was ready for my promotion. Continue reading “When is FREE not free? Answer – when you do a Free book promotion.”

Getting Book Signings and Interviews

1492162_10152125585440546_1133363978_oYou’ve written that first book. You’re so proud of it. Now you want to make sure your public hears about it. What can you do to get some exposure in the ‘real world’ as opposed to on-line via social media?
Let’s talk about two that worked for me; book signings and interviews on radio and TV.

Book Signings:
I live in a relatively rural area, not a big city, but I think that this can work even in cities. When my first book came out I took some with me and travelled about to all the bookstores I could find within an hour’s drive. At each one I would gather all my courage and ask to speak to whoever was in charge about doing a book-signing. I soon learned that the person with the authority to make that decision is not always present. Lesson number one; call or e-mail ahead for an appointment with the owner or manager. It will save a lot of time and frustration. Also make sure you know the owner’s name and can address him/her by name when you meet. In a way, this is a job interview. Treat it like one. Continue reading “Getting Book Signings and Interviews”

Real Writers Have Thick Skins

Walk it offYou don’t have to spend a lot of time on social media to see plenty of examples of jackassery. This is not especially true of authors, but authors are people, so it is just as true of authors. Seldom does a day go by that we are not exposed to some kind of little drama – petulance, whining, back-biting, or fervent appeals to action over some imagined injustice. What a buzzkill.

When ignorance (don’t know) combines with apathy (don’t care) and arrogance (I’m special), you really have the makings of mega-drama. One of two things is usually at the center when this vitriolic mixture bubbles up to the surface. Either some author did not like a review they just got, or somebody’s book or guest post got turned down. Continue reading “Real Writers Have Thick Skins”