Who remembers the old shampoo commercial “You'll tell two
friends, and they'll tell two friends…”? The principle is that you expand your
reach and spread the word to promote yourself. In other circles it’s called “creating
a buzz”. No matter how great your book may be, if people don’t know about it,
it won’t get sold and may just wind up being a beautiful UNopened book sitting
on a dusty shelf in some book store, assuming it makes it into the book store
at all.
Writers need to use creative ways to spread the news about
new books, events, milestones and achievements. While it may feel difficult to
brag about yourself it is necessary — to a point. It’s better to let others do
it for you, but you do have to start the ball rolling. Very often friends and
family will want to “help”, but they need direction and something worthy of
passing around. Street team’s are a
group of people who 'hit the streets' promoting an event or a product. You and
your books are THE product; appearances, book launches, and new reviews are
among the noteworthy events to publicize.
Organize a group of people who will pass the information you
want out there to their friends and help to get everybody talking about you. Social
media is an invaluable tool to form and coordinate Street Teams. Several
authors I know have formed “secret” groups on forums like FaceBook where
members of their team can share info with the author and each other. Here are
some of the things I ask of my team members:
·
Talk about my books with friends in person.
– Blurbs for each book can be found at Smashwords
·
If you read (or have read) any of my
books, reviews (honest & hopefully good) would greatly be appreciated
(Amazon, GoodReads, blogs, etc). If you publish a review, please send me the
URL so I can publicize it.
·
Distribute bookmarks and other promo
material (supplied) to potential readers; distribute sales sheets to
libraries/bookstores with ebook capability.
·
Go to your local library
and/or bookstores and offer to moderate a book discussion on any of my novels.
(Discussion
packets are available) – Let me know if you arrange a book
discussion so that I can send you supporting material.
·
Online support – join/like my Author ChelleCordero FaceBook page, like, share and comment on Author Chelle
Cordero book-related posts.
·
Visit blogs where I have a guest
post and leave comments. Promote these posts via Twitter, Google+ and FaceBook.
·
Post a trailer about my books on
FaceBook and personal blogs. Include buy links.
·
Use book title hashtags on Twitter,
on FaceBook, and Google+
·
Speak to local bookstores and
libraries about stocking books (titles available wholesale to booksellers
through Amazon)
·
Share ideas how to promote with the
rest of the street team.
While your friends may want to help you out, and perhaps
family feels obligated, eventually no one wants to feel used. Give your team
members incentive to promote you and your work. Offer the occasional freebie
just to your team members. Share news with them and ask for their opinions so
that your discussions are interactive. Tell them often how much you appreciate
their help. Let them know that they are a “part of it” and share your successes
with them. Participants can be virtual (spreading the word through social
media) or in person (visiting book stores and libraries with bookmarks and
more). If your team members are foot soldiers think about sending them team
T-shirts, hats, key chains or other personalized gifts to help unite them with
an identity.
Writing
Exercise: Write ten Tweets (each between 100 to 140 characters TOTAL) that
would help promote your book (it doesn’t have to be a finished book, you can
work with your WIP). It’s a good idea to include one to two hashtags (#) in each
tweet. [a word used to identify and group messages preceded by the # symbol]
Writing
Prompt: Make a list of all the places you go to find good books to read. How
would you spread the word about your books there?
Challenge
Assignment: Write a ONE-page press release about an upcoming book launch (it
can be a theoretical launch). Use the following format: Title/Heading;
paragraph 1) What the event is (ie: book launch), include only the important
specifics such as book name, genre, author name, and publisher; paragraph 2) a
brief blurb about the book; paragraph 3) about the writer, include expertise if
any and experience (brief); finally paragraph 4) Where and when the launch will
take place and where the book will be available for sale. If a venue is being
used include a sentence about the venue and its location.
