Book Promotion Ideas: Fun, Creative, and Proactive Ways to Promote Your Book
Beginning this week, I will feature one buzz-worthy, motivating, not-too-intimidating idea for marketing and/or promoting your book. I find myself inspired by authors, booksellers, and fellow publishers daily, and I want to highlight their good ideas so that we can learn from, adapt, and build on them. Book promotion is in its most exciting phase (if you ask an optimist, which I am), with a plethora of new tools and outlets. While it’s easy to drown yourself in how-to-break-through-the-internet-din arguments, it is more productive (and enjoyable) to continue thinking, brainstorming, creating, and most important, doing.
While attending the Publishing Institute at the University of Denver, I learned a crucial lesson about book marketing: the more creative, the better, and even if it’s not immediately achievable, dream it until you perfect it. With each marketing plan we submitted, we had to include one knock-out idea, without second thoughts about budget or plausibility. We had free rein: penguin parades, scavenger hunts, hot air balloon tours, star charts, cocktail party book signings, and more. Once we started dreaming up ideas, we couldn’t stop, and eventually we would land on one that was just the right fit—the perfect balance between plausible and remarkable.
(I also learned that marketers almost universally love jazz music. This led me to believe that the best ideas are brewed over a syncopated sax).
This post from The Atlantic is a great starting piece. In the first section alone there are several killer ideas (online quizzes, product reviews, you name it). Check it out, and let me know what you think. Are these too gimmicky, or are they just unusual enough to work? Which idea is your favorite?
For more savvy book promotion ideas, check out my earlier post, How to Promote a Book Without a Killer Marketing Budget.
To hear from an Orange Frazer Press author with more creative ideas, check out our author insider with Susan Levine.