Promotion Plan

I've written about the type of promotion a writer does for his or her book before. But it is clear to me now so I thought I'd go over it again.

To start there are personal appearances. These are the book launch and author readings and other appearances you might make at a convention. There are reader and book conventions and probably genre specific conventions you can attend.

Then there appearances in newspapers, TV, and radio. Newspapers still carry weight is a portion of the reading public so it is important not to overlook these. I'm hoping to network myself into an interview or two with some of the smaller newspapers in the area.

I'm also planning to have my author reading covered by the local access TV station so I can use the video online and distribute it to other access TV stations in the area.

And of course you need an internet presence. A web site and presence in different forums where you make connections with others who in turn and help guide you and hopeful support you when your book launch comes. My main focus has been here but I'm starting to branch out to other venues.

I'm also trying to attract an audience now with my free short stories. My hope is they will put down money for my book when it releases if they have liked my other stories. There is no guarantee of this. In fact, given the amount of free reading material available now, it may be possible to never pay for a book or a story again.

But free stories are like free software. Some are good and some are not. You get what you pay for and putting down money almost always guarantees a quality story because so many people have been involved with bringing the novel to market. That's not true of self-published work and especially not true of free stories that are self-published. So you can buy wholesale, so to speak, bur you may be very disappointed. Caveat emptor.

Keep writing everyone.