Promo or Perish? It’s a topic I’ve talked about during several workshops and I’d like to share just some basic ideas for what you should do to get the word out about yourself if you’re either pre-published or published.
But first — my own bit of goods news! Some of you may know from reading the main site that I accepted a two-book offer from Grand Central Publishing (formerly Time Warner Books) for some new romantic suspense novels with a paranormal element. What kind of paranormal element? The heroine is a cancer victim who is developing superhuman traits as a result of a genetic engineering treatment. Worse yet, she has to battle to keep her humanity while being hunted down for a murder she did not commit! The first book will be out in 2010.
Some other good news! I’ll be doing a Silhouette Nocturne Bite as part of THE CALLING series. Silhouette Nocturne Bites are dark and sexy short stories and are available at eharlequin.com. Look for my Nocturne Bite sometime in late 2009!
Now back to today’s Tuesday Tip — Promo or Perish. If I had to list the top things an author can do to get the word out about themselves, here’s what they would be:
Whether published or not, have a website, social network page or blog where people can meet you, learn about you and reach you. Make sure to keep it current with some recent news about what’s going on with you. There’s nothing worse than visiting a page and seeing that the last time it was updated was a year ago.
There are tons of sites on the web that allow you to do press releases either for free or for a nominal cost. If something really good happens, a contest win, new contract, etc., send out a press release. Also make sure to get the contact details for local papers, television and radio stations. Local papers love featuring a “local person done good” story and those kinds of grass roots stories are wonderful.
Are you an expert on something? Can you write an article about that subject? Did you recently travel somewhere interesting or do something different? Can you write an article to share your discoveries? Of course you can! We all have interesting things that we’ve done or information that we can share. Write an article and post it to one of the many sites that will publish it on the Net. Make sure that whatever site you use let’s you keep the copyright in the article.
You have a website/blog, I have a website/blog. Let’s get together somehow. Exchange links with friends, fellow authors or sites that would be of interest in connection with what you are doing. For example, I’m on a number of romance, paranormal, vampire and Latino sites. If you’ve got a blog, do a blog tour or guest blog at someone else’s blog. Invite people to blog at your place!
Hope this helps you with getting the word out!
Copyright 2008 Caridad Pineiro Scordato www.caridad.com