5 Things I’m Not Doing to Launch My Book—Plus What I’m Doing Instead

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From  Deanna Cabinian via Jane Friedman:

The gist of all marketing advice for authors essentially boils down to: try everything and see what works. I’ve tried a lot of tactics over the last year [to launch and] market my debut YA novel.

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I’m launching One Love, my second novel, there are some efforts I’m not going to spend any time on.

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2. I’m not paying for trade reviews.

With One Night I purchased sponsored reviews from Portland Book Review and Midwest Book Review. Because it was my first book I felt I needed some industry blurb to help me market my book. Here’s the thing, though: I can’t prove that either of these reviews led to a purchase. And as a consumer, I can say that a trade review has never been a huge factor for me when it comes to deciding what books to read. They might pique my interest, but there are plenty of books that review publications like that I don’t and vice versa. For my second novel I’ll be using blurbs from the blog contacts mentioned above.

3. I’m not accepting any and all event opportunities.

As an independent author it’s tempting to accept every publicity option available because few venues are willing to have us. But after doing several events I’ve learned that single author book signings are generally a waste of time. If you analyze the number of books sold versus the time and effort you put into it, the ratio is not a good one. Instead I am only doing multi-author events, events with guaranteed foot traffic (such as festivals and farmers markets), or speaking opportunities that have a built-in audience (for example, school visits).

Link to the rest at Jane Friedman

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