Marketing on a Budget (Elana Johnson, author of Possession and Surrender)

Elana Johnson's Surrender released last week and let me tell you - it is as good - if not better - than Possession.

Since I have a special place in my heart for Elana, comment on today's post and I enter you in a drawing for a copy of both Elana's books, Possession and Surrender. I know awesome right? :) I will buy them and ship them straight to your front door.

Forbidden love, intoxicating power, and the terror of control…

Raine has always been a good girl. She lives by the rules in Freedom. After all, they are her father’s rules: He’s the Director. It’s because of him that Raine is willing to use her talent—a power so dangerous, no one else is allowed to know about it. Not even her roommate, Vi.

All of that changes when Raine falls for Gunner. Raine’s got every reason in the world to stay away from Gunn, but she just can’t. Especially when she discovers his connection to Vi’s boyfriend, Zenn. Raine has never known anyone as heavily brainwashed as Vi. Raine’s father expects her to spy on Vi and report back to him. But Raine is beginning to wonder what Vi knows that her father is so anxious to keep hidden, and what might happen if she helps Vi remember it. She’s even starting to suspect Vi’s secrets might involve Freedom’s newest prisoner, the rebel Jag Barque

As part of her Surrender blog tour, she stopped by to talk to us about her marketing tips.

Here she is....

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Okay, so I have two books out now! Woot. POSSESSION came out last year, and SURRENDER came out last week.

Marketing a book is something akin to building an ark before a flood. Okay, I haven’t actually done that, but I have planned some marketing strategies for my books. On top of that, I’m a schoolteacher, so I don’t have money coming out my ears, and today I’m here to tell you that you can market your book to the best of your ability with very little money. Okay, no money.

I believe that a large part of why people buy books is because of the author—especially in the online community, which is where a lot of our marketing efforts are focused. As a midlist author with a medium-tier marketing plan, most of what I can do personally has to happen online.

I imagine that most of you reading this today are in the same situation, asking yourselves “How can I market my books better online?”

I believe the answer is this: You don’t market your books, you market yourself.

1.     Be you. Just you. Don’t try to be someone else, with their sense of humor or their tics. People want to get a feel for the real you, and you can do it without naming your children and putting up pictures. It’s all about selecting information you don’t mind if everyone knows about you (like how many of you know what my favorite breakfast food is? Whose picture did I take to my stylist and say, “Cut my hair like this.”?) and play to those things.

When people feel like they know you, and they like you, they’ll buy your book.

2.     Be available. If people tweet you or email you, tweet and email back. Sure, it can take you a couple of days, but act grateful that they contacted you and be positive in your response.

As someone who gets hate mail about my books, I know it can be easy to either not respond or to respond negatively. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap. Remember that people will remember you the next time you have a book coming out.

3.     Be kind. This sort of goes with how you respond. But be kind. Be promotional of others and their work. Put on your happy pants before you get online.

4.     Be helpful. A lot of my fans are fellow authors, either published or aspiring. I’ve been a participant in online forums and blogs for over four years. Every time you help someone, that’s another contact. They’ll remember your kindness and helpfulness when it comes time for your book to be released.

For me, I get a lot of email and fandom from those who’ve downloaded and read my query e-book. I’ve read and critiqued hundreds of queries. I can’t guarantee that all of those people will buy my books—or that they liked my critique!—but I can say with certainty that because I’ve been helpful for years, more people buy my book.

5.   Be a participant. A large part of the online community is the participation of those in it. It’s so easy to let this slide, especially when deadlines come due and you have forty thousand things to do on your plate. The blogging community is very forgiving, but they’re also very forgetful. One of the best things you can do for your marketing plan is participate in the online community.

And that’s it! Everyone can market their books simply by taking a few more minutes each day to tweet and email those that tweet and email them. Be happy and be authentic. Remember that before anyone sees or hears about your book, they see and hear YOU.

Any other tips to market yourself/your books online? Lay ‘em on me!

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This week, as part of the SURRENDER blog tour, you can win one of three $15 Barnes & Noble gift cards and become a winner winner, chicken dinner! All you have to do is fill out this a Rafflecopter giveaway widget with what you’ve done. NOTE: One of the options is to blog about a time you didn’t surrender. Go here for full details on this, including how to sign up for your free swag package!

You can find Elana hanging out online at twitter and her awesome blog of 411.