It’s time for another theme week at Queer Sci Fi. This time around, we’re talking promo. :)
If you’re an author, you’re gonna have to promote your work at some point. And if you’re like me, you’re fairly new to the whole process, and the thought of it strikes terror in your bones.
Fear not – we’re hear to help. All this week, we’ll be talking shop, asking questions and sharing info.
Here are our topics for the week:
Promotions Week: Where to Get Started – making a schedule
Promotions Week: What to include – Guest Post vs. Announcement vs. Cover Reveal
Promotions Week: Keywords and categories
Promotions Week: Online Promo – Social Media, Reviews and Guest Posts
Promotions Week: Physical Promo Options
Promotions Week: Contests and Giveaways
So here we go!
Day One:
Where to Get Started / Making a Schedule
I’m setting up a blog tour for my first two stand-alone works, and so I had to get my arms around this whole promo thing in a hurry. The first thing I did was to open a new excel spreadsheet to keep track of everything (Angel will tell you about my OCD spreadsheets; I think she prefers napkins).
Then I contacted my two publishers and a few author friends and asked whom I should contact to promote the books – which blogs would take announcements, guests posts, cover reveals, etc.
When my list was complete, I visited each of these sites and contacted the blog owner, recording their emails, contact date and other notes in the spreadsheet. It doesn’t matter if you use excel or a notepad or the back of a subway sandwich flyer – the important thing is that you are organized.
Now I’m putting together standard packets with all the basic book info, and shortly I’ll start preparing my posts for each blog.
So for discussion today – if you’ve done all this before, how do you get started? How do you keep things organized? And what tips do you have for us newbies?
And if this is all new to you, what are your questions for getting things rolling with your first book promo?
Come join the conversation.