I Live in the Middle of Nowhere, How Can I Promote My Book?

Tip of the Day: Trying to decide between ePublishing and Traditional Publishing? Download the free excel worksheet on this site (click on "simple spreadsheet" in the 2nd paragraph), enter your info, and see how much money you could make from each route.

I ask myself this question all of the time. I'm not a big name author so I'm not travelling around the country on a book tour each time a new book releases. I don't get heavy promotion like ads in magazines or online ad space on busy web sites. I don't live near NYC or LA so I can't attend a lot of the big author events so many other authors are always talking about. And it's hard to get a book faced out at the book store for more than a couple of months. So what can I do?

1) I can do everything I can locally. That is go to schools to visit classes, attend school reading nights (I'll be at the Barnes&Nobles in Oakbrook, IL this Thursday @ 6:30pm for the Westmont Junior High Reading Night), attend author fairs, local conferences, and group book signings (it's always more fun in a group!).

2) I can offer free skype visits to schools that I can't travel to.

3) I can offer signed bookmarks and swag to bookclubs that read my books and skype with them during their club meeting.

4) I can be as present as possible online, that is blog/facebook/twitter.

5) I can make a book trailer and put it on youtube. Here's mine for The Espressologist.

6) I can participate in blog tours and answer interview questions for various web sites.

7) I can send stacks of bookmarks to teen librarians to put in their teen section at their library.

8) I can send signed bookmarks to YA book bloggers to put in their giveaways.

9) I can send out postcards announcing new books to independent books stores and libraries. Need to find addresses? Here's a great link to independent bookstores and their mailing addresses. And if you want to find library addresses check out worldcat.org. Click on Find a library and enter a place (like Illinois) and you'll get a list of all the libraries.

So there is stuff I can do out here in the middle of nowhere! Can you think of anything else I might have missed?

Kristina, Miss Author in Action