How can I promote my book online?

April 30th, 2006 Jackie

I am interested in web-promoting a book soon to be released. We are working with limited budget and would like to pinch every penny wisely. Any suggestions?

Well, without knowing anything about the book or how you plan to promote it offline, I’d say the first thing you should do is put up a Web site about the book if you don’t already have one. Do you have an existing Web site (not specific to this new book) that gets any amount of traffic? What is the book about? A web site that specifically promotes the book could be optimized for search engines (low-cost if you do it yourself, but time consuming) and/or the focal point for a paid search campaign.

Self-promotion via the use of press releases, online forum posts, interviews and articles that can be posted online and email marketing to a house list (do you have a house-list?) or a rented list would seem a good way to go to promote a book. I also think you’d benefit from tying any offline marketing efforts into online efforts. For example, putting the Web site address on the jacket cover of the book, letting people know that the book is available online at book signings, perhaps giving away a sample chapter online and/or a discount to people who purchase the book from Amazon or directly from your site.

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