Friday, November 30, 2007

Marketing Your Book


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I found this question on LuLu Forums:


[quote="Alex Martin"]I'm 15 years old, and I need some help with ideas with marketing, even though I'm doing pretty well promoting in school.

The book is science-fiction, called 'SHADOWS: THE NARLAN WARS'.
Tons of action and suspense

-Alex Martin[/quote]


Here is my answer:


A thing that works for me and several other writers I know personally, is to print up about 10 copies of your book, and than giving a free copy to each library in your local area.

O.K. First off... be sure to include a page in the back of your book, that lists the selling price and your LuLu.com storefront URL so that anyone who reads your book in the library will know how to buy themselves and their friends a copy of it.


Now, just walk into your school library and hand your librarian a copy of your book and tell him/her that your would like to donate this book to the library's collection. Be sure to give a copy to each of your school's libraries (the elementary school's library, the middle school's library, and the high school's library), and give one to your town's local public library. These tasks are simple, you just walk in and say you'd like to dionate a book to the library collection, hand them the book and you are done.

But don't stop there.

How many towns boarder your town? One? Two? Three? More? Each one of them has a library too.

Expand... find out how many town's there are in your state county, each one of those town's has a library: print up at least one copy for each library.

Send at least 3 copies to the state's library.

Are there any local colleges? Colleges all have libraries... send out a copy to each one.

Now.... this may sound like a daunghting task, but you do not have to actually visit each of those libraries. All you have to do is get a local phone book, and look up libraries in the yellow pages. Count how many libraies are in your part of the state: that is how many books you will need to print up.

Type up a letter. One page. Keep it simple. State your name. Say that you are a local author and that enclosed is a copy of your latest book. Tell them that you are donateing this copy to their collection. Include your mailing address in case they want to contact you. (they may want to order more copies from you or they may want to set up a book signing... libraries love to get local authors to come in and talk to readers.) Print up one copy of the letter for each library. And that's it. You are done.

Now, you will need to run out to WalMart or Staples or OfficeMax or some other such place and buy a box of bubble-mailers. 12x15. They come in boxes of 10, 25, 50, ect. Buy as many as you need. Put one letter and one book in each envelope. Address one envelope per library. Now go to the post office and mail them. It's going to cost about $4 each evelope, more or less depending on the weight of your book. Be sure to ask to send it by "Media Mail" as this is the cheapest way to send books. (Otherwise you're looking at $7- $8 per book).

Anyways, you'll be mailing out 10 - 30 books free of charge, and in the end (not including the cost you paid LuLu for your books) this is going to cost you $50 - $100. However, it will get your book into the hands of 30,000 - 500,000 people depending on how big your local towns are. Most people who see a book they like in the library, try to find that book for sale so they can buy their own copy of it.

I know this seems like a lot to do up front, but remember too, that you do not have to mail them all out at once. You can do it a little bit over the course of a couple of years even. Say, mail out one book to a library each month. Doing it that way is slower, but only costs you about $4 shipping, $1 for the evelope, plus the cost of the book. At a rate of one book per month, you won't break the bank and you'll keep word of your book out for a longer period of time.

I hope this helps.










What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!



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