Promoting with Invitations, Giveaways and Media Releases

Janet Goliger is back with our booth for her second year. She is a master promoter. Here she shares with her fellow booth participants but also with others who may be signing at a book fair. Here, she says, is what she has done so far "in a nutshell."

Now is the time to promote for the 2009 L.A. Times/UCLA Festival of Books. Press releases need to be submitted to online sites now for search engines to pick them up. Once the search engines get them, they will be available for viewing almost immediately and will also run for a good year. I still find some of my old press releases when I Google my name or book title that were submitted over a year ago.

Many of these online sites are now charging a fee, however, there are still a few like 24-7pressrelease.com/ and http://free-press-release-center.info/ that are free to use.

Another great way to network is to send your fair invitation to everyone you know. In the message, ask them to forward the invitation to their friends and colleagues, post them at their place of business and maybe even make copies to give to others. I sent mine to about 60 people, many of whom are in different fields of work, and within 1 hour I received 12 responses, all positive. The point is, you’re not just letting your friends know about this, but by the time they each send them to their friends, and so on, you have literally sent out over thousands of invitations for free! And who knows? Your invitation just might get into the hands of someone who can do more for you. If you have your own Web site or blog, get it all updated now.

No matter what you do to promote your book and our book fair booth, be sure to include the names of all authors associated with our booth. The more we do this, the more publicity we all get!

Now one more tip. Go to VistaPrint.com. They offer so many FREE promotional materials that by the time your done, you only end up paying a small shipping fee. I do this once a week all the way up to the date I need them. I have already ordered free promotional post cards, door magnets, calendar magnets, posters, pens, hats, t-shirts and more, all for only minimal shipping costs.

Good luck to you all and I’ll see you at the fair!



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Blogging by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Learn more at Carolyn's website, www.howtodoitfrugally.com. Her blogs are also content-laden:
www.thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com
and a Writer's Digest Top 101 Website:
www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com

And the New Book Review is at your service: www.thenewbookreview.blogspot.com. (Follow the submission guidelines in the left column!)