Blogger: Kathleen Y’Barbo, Publicist
Location: The Woodlands, Texas PR Office
Weather: Cold front brought the high temp down to 91…brrr!
Word of mouth is still the most effective way to reach readers. If you haven’t read Tribes, I suggest you snag a copy and read it with a highlighter handy. Generating buzz is an ongoing exercise of interacting with those who already have read your books and reaching those who as yet have not.
If you have $3000 to spend, by all means do as Wendy Lawton recently suggested and invest in an amazing website. Kelli Standish at Pulsepoint Designs, did mine, and I’m thrilled with the results. I’m already getting emails from new and prospective readers, and the site’s only been up a short time. Be sure to include features that will not only lead visitors to your books but also will cause them to return.
How do you do that? Fresh content. The best and easiest way is to use social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to bring updates to the site. Blogging will also bring new readers, but I would suggest you employ the Trifecta of blogging principles: write often, write concisely, and write about something of interest to your readers. Sounds simple. It’s not. It is, however completely free in most cases, and can bring a much needed zing to your campaign.
By far, mailings are the most costly publicity choice (outside of paying a publicist, that is). Books can go out media mail only if nothing else is in the envelope. If you’re sending a letter or some other sort of publicity materials, you will end up with a more costly rate.
Many blog tours require books be mailed to bloggers for contests. Interviews on radio or television also likely include free books for the interviewer and listeners.
Benefit vs. the cost is always the big question. Unfortunately, there is no hard-and-fast formula for getting people to talk about-and buy-your book.
Have you ever created a marketing budget for one of your book’s? What elements did you weigh in choosing where the money would go?
Question: Some blog sites give away books in a contest. Occasionally, I get free books in brand new condition from our local church library. I was thinking of offering them as a prize in a contest. What are your thoughts on this? I figure it might help bring in more traffic.
Book giveaways are always a great way to increase traffic to a website. If the books you’re considering for prizes are not new, be sure and let the contestants know.
I’m reading it right now for the ACFW conference. Fast read and good insight.
Fabulous post, Kathleen.
And what an amazing thing, to have a large budget like that for book promotion!
One thing I do want to clarify, just so no one misunderstands: PulsePoint Design’s web site packages start at $900, not $3,000.
That $900 package includes a full year of web hosting and domain registration, design from concept to completion, and six months of web updates at no extra charge.
So, unless an author needed many, many pages, or advanced technical programming, they’d still have thousands left in their budget after working with us:)
Cheering us all on,
Kelli
Thank you, Kelli, for making that clarification! I certainly didn’t intend to infer PPD’s websites would consume the entire budget. The point I intended to make is that a fabulous website is the best first choice for spending publicity dollars in any budget.
I think giving away books is one of the best ways to spend your budget. And a lot of places will accept electronic copies now for review and so on.
Also, my website is a customised WordPress template that I’ve been building for myself over the last three years, enhancing it as I learn more. You can start with a very simple blog site and build up as you go for pretty much nothing.
Good article – the ongoing buzz build is the most important part. And harder than writing the books!