Friday, November 19, 2010

Developing Contacts to Promote Your Book - Part V

Final installment! I was one of the presenters for The Muse Online Writers Conference, which included a week-long forum workshop, Developing Contacts to Promote Your Book. Each day had a specific topic and the participants really got into building their contact lists.

For the first four installments - Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV

The whole point of these exercises is to get your brain working. You want to develop these lists while you are writing if at all possible! And as participants in the forum discovered, I’m a stickler for specifics. Generic answers (like ‘everyone’) don’t fly with me! If you are to effectively promote your book, you need specifics and details!

You can share some of your ideas below or copy & paste and work on your lists on your own time. But sharing a few ideas is fun, because it might help out someone else!

Establishing Other Contacts -

The plan is to make a list of all options and begin networking many months prior to the release of your book.

Reviewers

Make a list of potential book reviewers - top reviewers, magazines, newspapers, online reviewers and sites, book bloggers, etc. Don’t limit yourself to places that just review books, either. Remember to coordinate with your publisher’s efforts.

Media releases

Media release options - paid and free services, news media, AP offices, magazines and websites, businesses, etc.

Fairs, festivals, & shows

List all regional book festivals, specialty fairs & festivals, and trade shows.

Personal contacts

Develop a mailing list of all personal contacts - snail mail and email. Consider all personal and business contacts.

13 comments:

Jemi Fraser said...

Great list! Another site of yours I've bookmarked for future reference!! :)

Golden Eagle said...

Helpful advice! Those are great places to start networking to get the word out.

Thanks for the post!

L. Diane Wolfe said...

Thanks Jemi and Golden Eagle! I wanted to complete this series before Thanksgiving and realized I was running out of time.

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

More great tips, Diane! Thanks for a great series. :)

Lydia Kang said...

I will bookmark this for future reference, becauase I am eternally dumb about these kinds of things.
;P

Arlee Bird said...

More great info. Marketing success finds its limitations in the limits of creative and imaginative thinking. A cooperative effort is less burdensome than trying to do it all on your own. The points you have brought out in your series should be a great help to many.

Lee
Tossing It Out

Talli Roland said...

I've loved this series - thank you. And I wouldn't have thought of fairs and festivals!

Nancy J. Parra said...

Great series, thanks for sharing. One way I collected e-mail addresses is at local conferences. I would put up a basket with one or two of my books and some other goodies for raffle-with a box in front so that they could simply slip in their business card or e-mail address, name, etc. and I pulled a winner. Then sent the basket to the winner's room or shipped it to their address. Then I added all the cards to my e-mail list for newsletters, etc- with an opt out button. If they hoped to win your book, they might still consider buying it. Cheers~

Chris Phillips said...

This is a good reference list.

Jenners said...

I think it is great that you shared this hard-won informaation ... and I know someone I plan on sharing it with and I hope to use it someday myself!!

Bob Sanchez said...

Thanks for the great info, Diane!

Unknown said...

Thank you for the great tips! I will start using some!

Draven Ames
http://dravenames.blogspot.com/

The Words Crafter said...

I need to back pedal and check out the other installments. That said, I'm going to bookmark them. I'm going to be needing this advice! Thank you for posting and sharing it!