A couple of weeks ago, epic fantasy author Lisa Shearin wrote a couple of good posts about book promotion and what has and hasn’t worked for her. The posts really resonated with me, since I was in the middle of stuffing envelopes full of Venom bookmarks at the time. LOL. So today, I thought that I’d talk a little bit about what I do as far as promotion goes, since this always seems to be a popular topic among authors and readers.

No matter which publisher you sell your book to, a lot of the promotion will fall on your shoulders as the author. Sure, the publisher will send your book out to major reviewers like Publishers Weekly or Romantic Times, and the publisher might buy an ad or two (if you’re lucky). But beyond that? Well, unless you got a huge advance, are a best-selling author already, or your book gets picked as a lead title, you will have to do a lot of the promotion yourself. In other words, the more the publisher spends on your book, the more they will push it so they can make their money back. The less money they spend, the less they will promote you — unless your sales numbers come back and your book looks like it is about to break out.

Like most mid-list authors, I would say that I do the lion’s share of any promotion that gets done for my books. Here’s some of what I do:

1. Bookmarks and flyers: Every time I have a new book coming out, I design bookmarks and promotional flyers for it. One, because I just like doing that kind of graphic/design work. Two, because I can use these things in several different ways, and it’s all about getting the most bang for my buck.

For example, I can give the bookmarks/flyers to everyone from readers to librarians to booksellers. The bookmarks/flyers have my latest book cover on them, a catchy line or two from the book,the book’s  IBSN numbers, some info about the Elemental Assassin series, and my website, among other things. Plus, it’s just cool having bookmarks for my books. 😉

I’m not going to kid you, though. These things can get expensive — up to several hundred dollars, even if you have your own color printer. I save a little money by doing the designs myself, but there’s no getting around the printing/ink/paper costs. And I order a lot of bookmarks — usually about 15,000 per title. It all adds up pretty quick.

2. Mailings, mailings, mailings: I do a lot of mailings. Tons and tons of them. In fact, I’d say that one of my biggest expenses as an author is postage. The people at all the local post offices know me well. In fact, some of them visibly shudder when they see me coming through the front door with a sack full of envelopes to mail. LOL.

Who do I mail? Lots of folks. I subscribe to Pat Rouse’s list of romance-friendly bookstores/reading groups. Every time I have a new book coming out, I pull out that list and send every single bookstore that is interested in urban fantasy and/or paranormal romance a packet that contains bookmarks for the folks in the reading group, a flyer with all my book info on it for the bookseller, and a signed cover flat or two if I have them.

I also do the flyer and bookmark mailings through Romantic Times’ Bookstores that Care program. Basically, you mail 500 flyers and 500 packets of bookmarks to RT, and they distribute them to stores in the program. This is actually pretty reasonable to do — between $110 and $125 for each program depending how much stuff you send in — although it is time-consuming and tiring to individually wrap up 500 packets of bookmarks. But it needs to be done, so I suck it up and do it.

Also, I do lots of book contests/giveaway, which means more mailings and more trips to the post office.

3. Guest blogs and giveaways: I do tons of guest blogs (most with a book giveaway), especially around my release dates. I would estimate that I’ve done at least 50 so far this year and have several more already lined up for Venom in late September/early October. I know some authors hate it, but I really like guest blogging. It lets me interact with different folks and answer reader questions. Plus, I usually get some book recommendations from other folks out of it too. And I am always on the lookout for new authors to try. 😉

And, of course, the great thing about this is that it’s free. All it costs me is a little time to do the post and a couple of bucks at the post office to mail the winner’s book out after the fact. I really do think that guest blogging is one of the cheapest and most effective things you can do as an author.

And yes, I am always open to guest blogging. If you want me to come guest blog on your site, all you have to do is send me an e-mail and ask.

4. E-ARCs: I send out e-ARCs to tons of review sites — basically, everyone who’s in my e-mail list who’s ever reviewed one of my books. And I’m always on the lookout for new reviewers and new places that I can guest blog. Do I expect everyone to love my books? Of course not. But again, this is something that I can do for free through e-mail — and free is always good.

If you want an e-ARC, send me an e-mail. Note: I only send these to legitimate book reviewers — people with dedicated book review sites and blogs. Don’t e-mail me if you just want to read the book for free. That is not how this works.

5. Online ads: I buy a few online ads, mostly at places like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books where I know the audience is into urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Yes, these can be expensive too, but on the bright side, they are almost always cheaper than print ads, and I think they are far more effective. With one click, someone can find my Excerpts page and read samples of my work — something that they just can’t do with a magazine ad.

6. Social media: I’ve been a bit of a late bloomer with this. But this year, I’ve started a personal Facebook page, a Facebook fan page, got on Twitter, and started posting book reviews on Goodreads. All put together, I’d say I have a combined network of about 750 or so people.  That’s not much compared to some other authors, but I get a few new folks every week, so it’s slowly growing. I try to post a mix of book news, reviews, and just fun stuff on all of my social media sites. I also use these sites to direct traffic over here to the blog whenever I have a new post up.

I also do an e-newsletter every month with my latest news, reading recommendations, a recipe, and a contest for subscribers. Right now, I’ve got more than 800 subscribers, and I’m hoping to hit 1,000 by the end of the year. If you want to subscribe, fill out the form on my home page.

7. The personal touch: One thing that I think some authors overlook is adding that personal touch to things. For example, every time I mail a contest book out, I take a few minutes to personalize the book, obviously. But I also include several bookmarks for the winner and personalize those, as well as including my latest book flyer in with everything else.

Why? Well, I think it’s the polite thing to do. If I was a reader, I’d want a signed bookmark to go along with my signed book. But more than that, I think it makes me a little more memorable to readers — that I took the time to go the extra mile. At least, I hope that it does — and that they remember me on their next trip to the bookstore.

So there you have it. Some of the many promotional things that I do. Got questions? Ask away in the comments.

Coming up on Wednesday: More on promotion.