For years, I’ve been advising authors to promote their books through articles. This is highly recommended for nonfiction authors. What better way to get your name out there in front of your potential readers and to become known in your field or topic. Whether your expertise is quilting, gardening, cat behavior, storytelling, baking, investing, animal rescue, photography, technology, decorating, marketing or communication, you can gain additional credibility in your field by writing articles for magazines, newsletters, the web and so forth. And don’t you know, that credibility will mean sales.
I’ve also advised fiction authors to use their writing skills to promote their novels and children’s books. How? Here are a few ideas:
- For a children’s book, submit articles or stories related to the theme of your book—kindness to animals, sleepovers with friends, understanding money issues, etc., in magazines or on websites for children. You can also write informational articles for publications read by parents, grandparents and educators—the importance of teaching kids money-awareness, for example, or how to monitor a sleepover for kids of various ages, or tips for bringing a pet into the home where there are small children, or how to dole out and manage responsibilities for caring for a pet.
- For a novel, write about your experiences writing the novel, what goes into the research for a novel like yours, etc.
- Expand on some of the events, eras and places you’ve used in your novel to create interesting educational/informational articles for your potential readers.
- Write short stories for literary and other magazines and websites to get your name out as the author of books in this genre.
- Establish a blog and post often. Use some of the ideas above to create fresh material. Perhaps write your next novel through blog posts—let your readers help you write it. Run a contest to determine the name of a new character for your series, for example.
One author I know keeps readers interested by sharing little known facts about the people and the times depicted in her western novels. As the author of a mystery, write short mysteries for readers to solve—audience participation.
As you know, I am now writing novels after 40 years of writing nothing but nonfiction. I’ve done many things to promote my novels so far—perhaps I’ll share some of them in a future post. One promotional activity is writing articles. I’ve come up with about half dozen articles so far for writers. And, as we all know, writers are also readers. So not only am I, perhaps, helping writers in some way, I am also promoting my revved up cozy mysteries, Catnapped and Cat-Eye Witness.
If you’ve written a novel and you want to write more of them, you absolutely must embrace the huge task of promotion. Unless you promote, promote, promote, your novel will likely stay very private. No one will know about it, so no one will buy it. What a waste of a brilliant piece of work.
I’m Patricia Fry and I’m the author of several books for authors, including Promote Your Book, Over 250 Proven, Low-Cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. Is this book designed for novelists as well as nonfiction authors? Absolutely!!! Order your copy at Amazon.com. It’s in print, Kindle and audio. Also available at most other online and downtown bookstores for $19.95.