Paid Vs Free Book Marketing Activities

There's a healthy conversation going on as to whether free marketing activities or paid marketing activities are the way to go for authors, especially in our time of tremendous technological advances. I'm not here to settle the debate, but I will bring up some pros and cons that you'll need to consider as you create your plan.

Let's start with free marketing.

We live in a great time to be an author. Never in the history of mankind have there been so many tools and resources available to help writers promote their books. You can have an international audience in less than a day without spending a dime. I have talked with authors who are making six figure incomes without paying someone else to market their books, so it is definitely possible.

Here are some pros of free marketing:

• Well, it's free!
• Free marketing activities are available to virtually anyone
• There are plenty of resources to help you master any free marketing activity you come across
• They really do help you find readers for your book

Here are some cons of free marketing

• The learning curve may be steep
• Trial and Error may drag out the time it takes for you to start using free marketing activities effectively
• What works for one author does not always work for another author
• There are so many free activities to choose from that you may end up diluting your effectiveness if you try to do too much
• You run the risk of missing out on a huge payoff by giving up on a free marketing activity before you give it time to mature
• You run the risk of wasting too much time nurturing an ineffective free marketing activity rather than switching to a more productive activity

Now let's look at paid marketing activities

Paid marketing activities can be services you pay to someone else to do to market your book (i.e., you hire someone to run a blog tour for you) or a paid service that helps you market your book (i.e., you buy an advertisement in a popular newsletter or magazine).

Here are the pros of paid activities:

• Hiring someone will help you can leverage your marketing activities
• Hiring someone can give you more time to write
• Paying for a marketing service can dramatically shorten your learning curve
• Paying for marketing allows you to tap into an expert's established network
• Paying for marketing activities can often help you see success much faster than doing it on your own for free
• Paying for a marketing service can mean that you avoid all the pitfalls you might make if you did it on your own

Here are some cons of paid activities:

• It costs money, often more than it generates through the activity
• You may hire someone who sounds better on paper than they really are in action
• You and the service provider may have different ideas of what constitutes success
• Because of the money investment, you may be forced to narrow your options dramatically 
• You may pay a premium for a service and still not know how to use it effectively.

As we look at the paid versus free marketing debate, my advice is to know what you're getting. How important is return on your investment to you? If you choose to hire someone to help you market your book, then good for you. Don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't. In fact, here are some very valid reasons to hire someone:

• You don't have the time to do all the marketing yourself
• You want to spend more time writing than marketing
• You don't want to learn new technologies that you can pay someone else to do for you
• You have the money to spend on marketing

That said, there are a lot of free things that you can do with a little investment of time, elbow grease, and education. This blog spends a lot of time highlighting these activities as well as identifying fee-based marketing services from time to time. In the end, you make the choice but hopefully, this will help you better weigh the options available to you.


Contest Update:

The Twitter contest is now over. I will choose and contact the winner this week. The winner will have 7 days to claim the prizes before I choose an alternate winner. I want to thank everyone who participated in the contest and especially the sponsors who have donated these amazing prizes.

I will announce the winner of the contest on this blog, so keep a lookout for the winning announcement.


Related Posts:
Brainstorming Non-bookstore Sales By Joel Friedlander
Business Cards Aren't Boring -- Or Inconsequential By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
8 Tips on Starting Your Own Grass-Roots Campaign For Your Book
Buying and Selling Services In This Economy


 -------- Tony Eldridge is the author of The Samson Effect, an action/adventure novel that Clive Cussler calls a "first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure." He is also the author of the Twitter marketing book, Conducting Effective Twitter Contests.