Mardi Gras Tuesday! How to do Frugal Promotion!

Mardi Gras Updates

The winner of Monday's Daily Prize drawing is ...

Jemi Fraser!

You win a LOT of Meg Cabot books (3 Hardbacks and 1 Paperback): Sweet Sixteen Princess, Pants on Fire, How to be Popular, and The Boy Next Door.

Please email me your address. Congratulations and thanks so much for following me and participating.

Reminders on how to Enter
There are 3 different ways to win! You must Follow me and Elana (who is also giving away agent critiques!)to be eligible for any prizes

1. Daily prizes - Comment on each daily post (random drawing, awarded daily)
   
2. Follow Prize - Follow me by Thursday night 12 PST (random drawing, awarded Friday)
   
3. Two Grand Prizes (1 agented, 1 unagented): Answer Scavenger Hunt question on FRiday and Fill in Friday's form.
4. You can get extra entries by doing these things.
5. For rules and schedule, go here.
6. You do not need to email me or comment and include all the links you are doing for extra points. Be sure to come back on Friday and fill out the mandatory form to be included in the Grand Prize Drawings. BTW - This is on the honor system.
7. These prizes are for agented authors AND unagented. You both can win!
   

Note: To all winners of this week's contest as well as The Fabulous Follower Contest held last week. All prizes will be mailed out by the end of NEXT week.


Frugal Marketing for Authors (Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of The Frugal Book Promoter)

Remember:

• A big prize will be awarded to a post commenter (you must also be a follower): A copy of her two ebooks: The Frugal Editor and The Frugal Promoter. You must comment by 12 midnight PST/3am EST.
  
• Clue #2 for the Marketing Scavenger Hunt will be hidden in the post

Hi Carolyn! Thanks for joining our Mardi Gras Party this week. Tell me about yourself and your books.

I'm really a fiction writer and poet at heart, but I started writing my HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers because I wanted other writers to avoid the same potholes I fell into.

I run The Frugal blog that provides tips on how to do your marketing frugally as well as a Sharing Writers blog that was named one of "Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites".

I am also the author of The Frugal Promoter (How to do what your publisher wont), The Frugal Editor, and my new book, A Retailer's Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions just hit stores in paperback.

THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER tells authors how to do what their publishers can’t or won’t and why authors can do their own promotion better than a PR professional. It gives authors hundreds of nearly free promotion ideas; they may then pick and choose those that fit their pocketbooks and their personalities.


Can you fill us in on your top 5 practical tips on how authors (nonfiction and fiction) can best market their books without spending a great deal of money?

That's easy. Online. Online. Online. Online. And #5 is publicity. Publicity is what you get free from newspaper editors (primarily) when they need material for current events or feature stories. It is not...ahem! PAID advertising.


What made you decide to advocate “do-it-yourself marketing and promotion”? Why do you feel it is important?

I mentioned those potholes. I fell into them in spite of marketing and journalism backgrounds. That is, I knew what editors want, what they need. All that stuff. What I didn't understand were the kinks, creases and folds of book marketing. The biggest, ugliest wrinkle was that publishers don't do it for us authors anymore.


How can an author successfully manage time for both creative writing and marketing? What is your advice on how they can do a little marketing a day to save time for writing?

Do a little at a time. Small doses. But keep at it. Publicity and promotion build. Persistence is a magic word.


If you were only allowed to give one piece of advice to a writer about marketing or promotion, what would it be?

Persistence. Oh, you want another one?

Don't listen to all the stuff other authors tell you about book promotion on the Web. Well, OK. Listen. But evaluate the source. What do they know about marketing? Is what they're repeating hearsay or from practical experience? How might they have misinterpreted their experience?

I'll give you an example. Many authors are mad as h--- at Amazon and will have nothing to do with them. Consider this. Amazon provides lots of opportunities for writers. Be mad at them. But if you want your book to be taken seriously, it had better be on Amazon. By the way, there is a chapter in The Frugal Book Promoter on using Amazon to your advantage. Some say it is easily worth the price of the book.

Here's another one.

You'd better know enough about editing, format and the pet peeves of gatekeepers that you can do a great query letter, one that won't tick off an agent, publisher or, host or editor. You'll learn how straight from the mouths of helpful agents in The Frugal Editor.

(Clue #2 - the word is "Your")

What advice do you have for authors doing their own marketing and having a tough time during the low points?

Quit thinking of marketing as selling books. Marketing is about building your career. Don't judge the success of a promotion on how many books you sell. Promotion is cumulative. People don't buy much that they haven't seen or been introduced to about seven times.

Thanks for joining us today!

Thanks Shelli!

Don't forget to comment on today's post to be entered into Tuesday's Daily Drawing!