Guest Post: Four Effective Pointers to Note for Book Publicity by Alana Woods

I would like to welcome Alana Woods to the backwoods! She will be sharing some ideas about book publicity. I hope you enjoy!

Photo Credit: Google

As an author, if you want to promote yourself and your book, then you need to get up from your comfort zone and knock the right doors and press the right buttons. I’m not telling you to knock each door and hand out your book for a price. This only means you must find the right avenues to promote your book in the best possible way to the most no. of readers, in the least possible time and with the least cost.

If you want to promote your books in the simplest possible manner, follow these tips and make sure you come across as a known face only few months after your first book is published. If you do not want to go the way of hardcore promotion and wish to avoid spending too much money, you must make personal efforts in order to step into the limelight and be liked too.

Identify and Promote Your ‘It’ Factor: Read and analyze the works of famous book authors and find out what their special characteristics were that readers found most interesting. You may not be the next bestseller on the market yet, but just like everybody has a different personality, your writings could have something that can act like a hook for readers’ interest. You ‘It’ factor can be anything from a humorous tone in a philosophical message or satire mixed with romance. Whatever it is, it should have the capacity to appeal to the readers and keep them glued to your works for long. Create and highlight the It factor effectively through your promotional tactics if you don’t already have one.

Don’t Impose Yourself on Readers; Just Promote: There’s a difference between promoting yourself and thrusting yourself and your works on others.  You must adopt a more amiable and subtle approach to book marketing to make sure that your message penetrates into the minds of readers. However, being forceful may backfire as your readers may not accept your way of bombarding them with constant email marketing messages or being all over the place. Readers are intelligent people; you should try to impress them with your title and book cover alone and the rest will be taken care of. So, make sure you don’t cross the thin line between promoting yourself and imposing yourself.

Adopt Subtle Means of Promotion: If you are straight away talking about your book without providing any background or struggle story that led you to write about it, it shows you are publishing your book only to gather monies. Book publicity is best done when you talk about it as part of something bigger or of greater importance to all. For instance, talking about book fairs and then coming down to your book, or highlighting a dire social issue and how your book has effectively conveyed the sufferings of the victims is a good way to market your book indirectly.

Make a Humble Beginning: If nobody knows you as an author and you go attend an international book fair to promote your book, it’s not going to work. Start with local libraries and organize a small event where you can address to readers; target one group at a time like college students in one show and then move on to the next. This way you will garner publicity and will be able to gain confidence gradually. If you emerge out of the blue and start blabbering about your book, it’s going to shock readers, and this may not work to your advantage.

It’s a natural human trait to crave for a bit of publicity for one’s work, and as an author, you would want to be recognized widely for your books. But, do not run after publicity; enjoy your work, be smart in promoting it and publicity will come running to you.

About the Author: Alana Woods is a writer with rich experiences in writing books, blogs, and articles on a wide range of topics. She has full faith in Combined Book Exhibition services to do justice to the book promotion. You can visit the Frankfurt book fair in October this year. It will be an exciting and maybe breakthrough experience for your children.