Post-Publication Book Marketing Activities By Rick Chesler

Back on December 8th, 2009, Rick Chesler did a post for me entitled,Pre-Publication Book Marketing Activities. His novel, Wired Kingdom was scheduled to be released the following May. I thought it would be a great idea for him to do a 2-part post for me, one that focused on marketing his book before publication and a post focusing on his marketing activities after publication.

Well, his new book is out and he has been marketing it. Today, he will share his post-publication marketing activities with us. I hope you enjoy this unique perspective that Rick brings to us by juxtaposing these two marketing plans during the pre and post publication process.

Now, on to Rick's post, Part 2...


Hello again, Tony, and readers of Mr. Eldridge's excellent author marketing blog! Thanks for having me back. As promised, I've returned to discuss my post-publication marketing activities for my new thriller, WIRED KINGDOM, released on May 25 of this year by Variance Publishing / Deviation Books.

For those who may be joining us without having read Part 1 of the post, allow me to give a brief description of the novel:

When a blue whale tagged with a web-cam as part of a television nature program broadcasts a brutal murder at sea, an FBI agent with a fear of water finds herself in a deadly race to reach the animal before an unknown killer can destroy the digital evidence it carries.

So the book's been out almost four months now, and no, I don't yet have actual sales figures by which to evaluate my marketing efforts, but I can talk about how my promotional activities have shifted since the novel's release date. Keep in mind that although my novel has been published, it still doesn't mean that I "know" what works or doesn't work when it comes to marketing it. I'm just learning as I go along and sharing with you what I've actually done so far. You'll have to be your own judge as to how effective these efforts have been, and how they may or may not work for your own projects.

The most obvious change that occurs on that magic day—publication—is that an author goes instantly from saying "I have a book coming out," to "My book is out." This is no small distinction. After talking about something that was going to happen for so long, the change takes a little bit of getting used to. This puppy has been born! For starters in my own situation, all instances of existing online promotional copy had to be tracked down and changed from "pre-order" to "order," the book graduated from "coming soon" to "in stores now," and buy links sprouted up around the net. Once the book released I engaged in a steady stream of activities designed to keep it on the radar, since the early months of a book's life in particular are vitally important. I'll discuss each of these activities briefly below:

Guest blogs / interviews: Since Wired Kingdom released I've engaged in numerous 'guest blog' appearances, where I'm invited to write a post on some topic related to my book that will run on a scheduled day. Another variation on this is the blog interview, where the blogger gives me a set of questions that I answer, and that subsequently appear on the blog (sometimes edited, sometimes not). For a complete list of my blog appearances, see my own "blog" that I put together in order to keep track of my guest appearances and other news items about the book:

http://wiredkingdomnews.blogspot.com/

When it comes to setting up these blog pieces, sometimes I approach the bloggers, and sometimes it's the other way around. I made an effort to schedule them so that they were reasonably spaced out from each other, with not too many crowded into the same time period. Also, although I know that some writers tend to recycle the same answers (there are, after all, only so many ways to answer questions like 'how long did it take you to write the book?', etc.), I do make an effort wherever possible to avoid using 'canned' responses, and I've found that this is warranted since most bloggers do have their own unique approach in presenting guest authors.

Review requests: I made an effort to let some of the major print reviewers as well as book blog reviewers know about Wired Kingdom by sending an email with key info about the book (sometimes a full press release – more on that in a bit), asking if they'd be interested in a review copy. In a few special cases, I sent unsolicited copies of the book to major industry players. Reviews done that I know about are collected on my news blog.

Press releases: I made one of these for the publication of Wired Kingdom and sent them to a list of media outlets including newspapers in areas I had lived and in locales in which the book is set. PR's also went to local TV and radio stations. I had limited, but not zero success with the press releases. The ones that did work tended to contain a personal angle, for example where I pointed out that I had grown up in the same town as the paper, etc.

Media kit: I found out right away that it pays to have some standard items always at the ready. These include author photos and book cover images in different sizes (small, medium, large), buy links to the book, author web links, author bio, ISBN, and publisher info. Most of these things are also available right from my website.

Amazon page: One sweet piece of online real estate I can now lay claim to that I didn't own prior to publication is my Amazon author page. I made my book trailer and author photo available here, as well as an RSS feed of my above-mentioned news blog.

Contest giveaways: I've run a handful of contests to give away signed copies of Wired Kingdom to readers who engaged with the book in some way online. Some of these readers later left online reviews of their own on Amazon or BN.com. You can check out the giveaway I'm currently running in conjunction with social-networking-for-books site Goodreads.com. Don't forget to enter while you're there!

Special activities: These are random things that don't come up too much, but occasionally I either do them or at least consider doing them because they are suggested to me by other people. These include live online chat sessions with writers groups, looking into the feasibility of in-person book signing events at libraries, stores, festivals, etc. I also produced a small number of Wired Kingdom bookmarks to distribute when I'm about and about, as well as custom bookplates. I think the bookplates have been more effective than the bookmarks.

Paid advertising: I have a (pathetically) small budget for paid online ads, but even so I do believe they can be effective. I have taken ad space out on sites that target underwater enthusiasts, for example, since my novel is an underwater thriller. Also, I've purchased some placement from Google / Youtube for my book trailer. They allow you to set daily or monthly spending limits. Also, my web hosting company offered free coupons for advertising on sites such as Facebook, which I took advantage of.

E-books: Wired Kingdom was released in two formats: mass market paperback ($7.99) and Kindle e-book ($6.39). The fact that it's an e-book means that it can be promoted on certain e-book enthusiast sites, such as kindleboards.com and many others.

Publisher efforts: I'm not working completely alone, here. I think it's important to add that that my publisher, Variance / Deviation, has also been actively involved in promoting my book, and we do sometimes work together to brainstorm publicity ideas. Besides the myriad behind-the-scenes publisher's duties they handle, they created the two-chapter preview and made it available on their own web site, as well as giving it to me so that I could make it available; they also formatted the e-book version of the novel for various reader platforms in addition to Kindle, which you can see available here on Smashwords.com, and they continue to host and promote the book trailer they created for Wired Kingdom. It does help to have an "author-friendly" publisher.

Interacting with readers: Last but definitely not least, I continue to develop relationships with readers along the lines of what I outlined in Part 1 of this post. Particularly on Facebook and Twitter, I discuss news items related to the subject matter of my book, current events, other author's books, and publishing industry news and developments.

Well, so far that's been about the extent of my marketing efforts, but I'm always considering new ways to get the word out about Wired Kingdom and my future thrillers. If any of you would like to weigh in in the Comments section of this blog as to how effective or not any of these promotional activities have been for me, and for yourselves as well, please do so. Also, I'd like to hear if you have any ideas that maybe I haven't considered yet at all. There's no one "right" way to market a book, and I continue to be amazed at the ingenuity displayed by some of my fellow authors when it comes to marketing their work. I'm happy to continue the discussion in the Comments. Once again, I thank Mr. Eldridge for having me as a guest author on his blog, and once again, I thank you for reading!

Rick Chesler
http://rickchesler.com