Stephie Smith's Promotion for Writers

Click on a subject in the below tables to go to a particular section. Promotion Resources

Advertising	How To Articles	PR Agencies
Blogging Tours/Interviews/Chats	Mailing Lists	Promotion Tips
Book Review Sites	Video Trailers	Website Stuff
		Workshops/Online Classes

Advertising

Glass Slipper Web Designs creates banners and flash ads. You can buy art work for the banners through iStock.com
Romance Sells, a Romance Writers of America (RWA) publication. Note: You must be a member of RWA to advertise in this magazine.
Most of the Book Review Sites listed below offer some sort of author promotion, including print ads, ad space on their websites, flash ads, and author spotlights.

Blogging Tours / Interviews / Chats

Anna Kathryn Lanier is a romance writer, published in both historical and contemporary, and she is a number one best seller at The Wild Rose Press. Every Monday on her blog Chatting With Anna Kathryn, she hosts a romance author as guest blogger. According to those who have guest-blogged, she has a great turnout. Email her to get on her calendar.
Dear Author has a column called First Sale where you tell about your circumstances surrounding your first sale as an author.
Petticoats & Pistols...Romancing the West is a blogsite for western authors. You can contact them about guest blogging by clicking here.
Click here to submit a request for a chat date on Joyfully Reviewed. There are currently no fees for Author Spotlight Interviews or Chats. If an author wants a specific date/month, she should contact them two or more months ahead of time. They will schedule chats and interviews closer to publication date that than, but the earlier you schedule, the better chance you'll have of getting the date you want.

Book Review Sites

How-to Websites, Articles, and Books

Romance & Fantasy Author Lori Devoti has an article called How to Build an Arc, which gives step-by-step instructions to make an ARC of you manuscript so you can email it out to reviewers (instead of sending the actual book through the mail)
The Book Marketing Buzz website blog is dedicated to bringing you the latest in book promotional techniques to help you market your book. Book promotion tips, ongoing promotional series geared toward the published author to help them market their books, and even a few SEO tips thrown in to help you optimize your author website or blog. Lots of fun stuff! Book Marketing Buzz is brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion, an innovative public relations agency specializing in online book promotion.
Bookhitch.com is a new, free marketing alternative for authors and publishers. With the free listing, you can list your book by title along with ISBN, five key search words, a 60-word description and a link for buyers to purchase the book.
Author House has a wealth of info on Book Marketing including "Putting Together a Press or Media Kit," "Creating a Marketing and Promotion Plan," "Book Signing Tips," and other great topics for the new author.
Published since November 1995, Web Marketing Today is the "largest circulation Internet marketing e-mail newsletter in continuous publication" and they have a "free version each Wednesday to help 100,000 e-mail subscribers stay abreast of Internet Marketing developments."
Books
- How To Publish and Promote Online by M.J. Rose and Angela Adair-Hoy.
- The Self-Publishing Manual: How to Write, Print, and Sell Your Own Book, 15th Edition by Dan Poynter.
- Plug Your Book: Online Book Marketing for Authors, Book Publicity through Social Networking by Steve Weber.

Mailing Lists

Pat Rouse has a Romance Readers Groups List of romance friendly bookstores and readers groups that are eager to receive promotional mailings from authors. She charges a very reasonable annual fee for this list, which she updates and emails out to subscribers quarterly. For more information, please email Pat directly at

PR Agencies

From the website: "Communication Outreach Strategies Via The Media. Book Promotion, Radio, TV, Print & Internet Media" "Over 25,000 Book Authors, National Experts & Firms Trust Annie Jennings PR with Their Internet Marketing, Publicity & Book Promotion."
From the website: "Author Sound Relations (ASR), the new and smart alternative to working with large public relations firms." Services include online media relations (reviews, spotlights, chats, e-newsletters, banners and ads, etc.); publicity and media events (book signings, press releases, promotional materials to conferences & reader functions); admin assistance (proof reading galleys, copy edits, sales letters, website content and monthly updates, maintaining MySpace, Facebook and other sites; contest prize mailings, promotional product design for bookmarks, postcards...). Clients include many best-selling authors. Click here for pricing info.
From the website: "Our success record includes two of the seven selections for the "Kelly Ripa Book Club" on LIVE! with Regis and Kelly and we are proud to number several New York Times best-selling authors among our clients." You can check out their rates, their client list, or read the excellent articles on the website about author branding, putting together a press kit for your publicity plan, and my favorite, the promotion schedule checklist (at the bottom of this message point page) which tells you month by month what you should be doing in the way of promotion as you count down to your release day. Contact Theresa Meyers, president of Blue Moon Communications, for more information.
Recipient of The Southern California Book Publicist Award - Best Publicist of the Year, Milton Kahn gives this advice to authors: "A solid national public relations campaign targeting all of the key media in television, cable, radio, newspapers, magazines and wire services is the most important factor in determining the success of a novel. While everyone dreams of getting on major television shows such as Oprah, a variety of key radio shows is really critical to building a successful national publicity campaign for a book because it allows the author a much greater block of time to promote his or her book."
Pump Up Your Book Promotion: "Full Service Public Relations Agency Specializing in Online Book Promotion."
Topaz Promotions offers a Standard Promotion Package by the month (or 3 months), a Single Title Special to promote one book, and "At Cost" Add-Ons.

Promotion Tips

Romance author Melissa Mayhue runs contests for free copies of the ARC for her latest book. A lot of authors do this because it's one way to get a word-of-mouth buzz started about your book before publication date. But what I like about Melissa's contest is that to enter, you email her about where you go to find out about the books you want to read next, i.e., the websites, blogs, magazines, review sites, etc., that you're in the habit of checking out to find great books to read. This is a win-win-win situation--2 wins for the author and a win for the contest winner. Your contestants win an ARC to read (and start a buzz about), and you (the author) find out popular sites for blogging, requesting reviews, etc., for your book!
As part of Desert Rose RWA's The Romance Writing Guide, Theresa Meyers has a 4-parter on Mastering The Media: Publicity. Stage 1: Getting Your Message, Stage 2: Getting Noticed, Stage 3: Successfully Leveraging Your Interview, Stage 4: The Truth About Booksignings and Book Tours. Included is info on press kits, pitch letters, press releases, Q&A sheets, and TV and radio interview tips.
Award winning historical romance writer Donna Rosenbloom suggests compiling a list of all local newspapers and free automatic mail distribution newspapers in your area. Contact them to do an article on you and your book right around release time. Same with local radio stations. Perhaps you could arrange to be a guest on the "morning show" with the DJs as people are driving to work. Great way to promote your book on the air to commuters. Same with local television stations.
Multi-published author JoMarie DeGioia says to call your local book stores as soon as you have an approximate publication date. (The following info from JoMarie is specific to Barnes & Noble stores, so independent book stores may operate differently.) Ask for the Community Relations Manager (CRM) and find out what's needed to have your book carried in the store. Unless your book is to be published by one of the major publishers, it will need to meet certain requirements, and the store can provide you with a list of those. Generally if the book meets them, the CRM can make arrangements for a signing (she might have to get approval from corporate if you're published with a major house though). S/he will need enough time to put the event in the monthly store calendar as well as to order promotion signs. Defer to the CRM at your store for a timetable. S/he can tell you how far in advance you need to schedule a booksigning and when you should drop off your press kit, including an author's photo and a thumbnail of the book cover. With advance notice, B&N usually supplies the signs for the booksigning and they will have your books in stock to buy. On the night of the booksigning, bring any promotional materials you are giving away--such as bookmarks, and if you have your own "Autographed Copy" stickers, bring those. A bowl of candy can often draw people to your table!
Author Evangeline Collins says to check with your online chapters, which usually have space on their websites for member book releases. Be sure to contact your chapter's web mistress and have your book cover added to the site. Also list your book release in your RWA chapters' newsletters. Some online chapters (such as Hearts Through History and Passionate Ink) even have separate public newsletters that are available to non-member readers.
Romantic Suspense writer Cameron Jacobs suggests setting up a google alert (http://www.google.com/alerts) for your pen name and book title. Google will email you every time any blog or news article mentions those words. It's a great way to find out who's reading you. You can then go to the blog or article and add info or thank them, which gets your name out there again, or you can just stay up to date on what's being said about you.
Penelope West suggests setting up your website with PayPal to take advantage of price specials for the launch period of your book. You can offer a special service on your website – autographed books and personalized, if requested. Be sure to request Media Rates when you take your packages to the post office.

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Video Trailers

This article at TechLearning.com tells you how to make trailers using the free downloadable Microsoft program, Photo Story 3.
This article on Brenda Coulter's blog explains how to make your trailer using Windows Movie Maker.
Another article about Windows Movie Maker. Jill Elizabeth Nelson also uses it to upload trailers to You Tube.
Ghost Writer Extraordinaire will give you a "high-quality video trailer for your book, posted at over 40 popular video sharing sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and AOL Video, and a DVD copy for your files" all for only $150
At Circle of Seven Productions, you can view their client-publishers list, watch the videos they’ve made, read testimonials, and look at costs, which range from $300 to $4,000. See what they did for Lisa Kleypas, Kayla Perrin, Christine Freehan, Heather Graham and more...
At Watch The Book you can check book trailers for every genre to help you decide what to do with yours!
Here you’ll find Sarah Weinman’s recent article at Poets & Writers called Book Trailers: The Key to Successful Video Marketing
In return for the use of their free royalty free music loops, Partners In Rhyme ask that you please link to their website using one of their copy 'n paste html codes.
Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com asks for a $5 donation per piece of his original royalty-free music per his FAQ page.

Website Design

Wax Creative Design has designed websites for many authors. Their designs can include blogs, contest page, members only section, monthly book club newsletter, plus matching bulletin boards and social networking pages.
Atomic Cherry Design Studio will design your website from budget packages to full blown content. Web forum, bulletin board, blog, newsletter and mailing list, picture gallery, audio and video integration.

Workshops and Online Classes

"Louise Knott Ahern is an award-winning journalist with more than 12 years of experience as a reporter, editor and PR specialist in some of the biggest news markets in the country. When she’s not chasing down freelance articles or working on her own novels, she coaches authors on how to master the media and promote their books. She’s the instructor of the popular online classes PR Boot Camp and Pitching the Press and several live workshops, including, 20 Questions to a Killer PR Plan and How To Talk to a Reporter." Check her website for news about online classes.
Jennifer Estep has a workshop titled "How to be a Shameless Hussy – Working the Media like a Pro" where she covers topics such as 1) Dos and don’ts for dealing with journalists 2) How to create a basic press kit 3) How to create extra, book-related materials for readers on your Web site 4) Commonly asked interview questions 5) Some tips on what to wear to an interview. Contact Jennifer through her website (click on Contact on any page) to find out when her next worskhop will be.
John Foxjohn, known by his peers as the king of self-promotions, teaches an interactive class on inexpensive, but effective ways to promote the author and their novels. Foxjohn covers most aspects of promotions from media releases to obtaining radio and TV interviews. Also covered in the class are the do’s and don'ts of book signings. Contact John through this page on his website to see when his next class is.