Tricia O’Malley – How to Market Online to Promote Your Book.

How to market online to promote your book

by Tricia O’Malley

Listen. I get it. You are a creative genius. Your book should just call to people. Believing in yourself and your book is step one. Marketing is step two. An un-marketed book will quietly gather dust like those ugly tube socks in the corner of Walgreen’s.

Don’t let your book become those socks. It’s time to step up and commit to daily marketing. Spend an hour each day on the following activities:

Think outside the box.

Is your lead character a fashionista? A floral shop owner? A computer nerd turned super hero? Go to where those people spend time online. Reach out to flower shop owners and talk to them about carrying your book. Go to online chat communities (they are everywhere) and talk to people about your genre. Look for bloggers that cover any topic in your book, reach out to them, and pitch them for a book review.

Look for the blogs of major magazines.

Many major magazines update their blogs frequently. They need a constant flow of information to post about. Look at their writer submission guidelines. Most magazine blog articles are written by freelance writers. Query them on submitting an article regarding a topic that you are knowledgeable about. The topic doesn’t have to just be about your book or what is in your book. What you want is the byline. And that lovely paragraph at the end that says: “Tricia O’Malley is the author of The Stolen Dog and…” Boom. Another plug. Then you update your own website showing how your articles are on magazine websites.

Use HARO.

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is an excellent FREE resource. When you sign up, you’ll receive three emails a day with queries from reporters looking for information on articles that they are writing or radio shows that they are producing. Read them every day. If there is a topic that you are knowledgeable about or if there are queries looking for authors to weigh in – reply to the email. These are time sensitive, but an excellent way to get placed in articles.

Use Facebook.

Search keywords related to your book topic. Find pages that follow your topic and email the owner of the page. Offer a free book in exchange for them sharing your link. Keep searching variations of your topic. For example my book is about our stolen Boston terrier. But I don’t limit myself to just looking up Boston terrier groups. I look for animal lovers, dog lovers, lost dog groups, rescues and so-on. You never know who will be interested in sharing your book.

Do a giveaway.

Once you’ve made some connections, offer to do giveaways. Obviously, you can do a Goodreads giveaway. But, if you start connecting with bloggers or Facebook pages – check their stats. Look at how much they interact with their audience. Do they have a thriving, interested audience? Do a giveaway. Do they rarely comment and/or have comments on their posts? That means most people aren’t even seeing their posts. No giveaway.

Be funny.

On your own social media channels – use pictures or memes. Funny stuff sells. Make sure it has a link to your book. Look at George Takei – he has a gazillion followers and he shares funny stuff all day long. Then when he wants to make a point or make a sale – he does so in a second. Don’t feel too constricted or niched out by having to be only in your genre. Have fun, have a personality, and be involved.

Ultimately, the best thing you can do for networking online is to seek to establish true, authentic connections. Follow up with people, be nice, and always ask people to share your book. I wrote a review of Guy Kawasaki’s book, APE, and sent it to him. He promoted it to 1.2 million of his Twitter followers. You don’t know if someone will help you if you don’t ask. The worst that can happen is that they will say no. No harm – no foul. Put yourself out there and hustle!