Joint promotion
Last week, we talked about promotion, and the amount of time and money it takes. But I also said it was a catch 22, meaning you have to promote your book if you want people to know it's available.
Joint promotion - authors helping authors - makes this catch 22 easier. It brings together a group of people to share responsibilities.
Multi-author blogs, such as the Crime Sistahs, is a perfect example of authors helping authors. In multi-author blogs, each author is assigned a day to post. This way, the site remains fresh and new without the responsibility falling to one person.
Group booksignings is another example of easing the stress of promotion. While one author contacts stores to set up the signings, a second author sends press releases to promote the event.
Group signings also provide opportunities to network with other authors, sharing information on the publishing industry, writing craft and career opportunities. It was by networking with other authors that I was able to participate in The Power of Love anthology, a project that benefits a battered women's shelter. Additional information about this anthology is on my Web site, www.PatriciaSargeant.com.
Multi-author anthologies also are a form of joint promotion. Several authors share the task of producing a book, and the finished product introduces the participants to each other's readership.
Do you have other examples of joint promotion? Or can you share your positive experiences with joint promotion?
Patricia
6 comments:
Great post, Patricia! I know of many authors who have taken the joint book signings to another level by going on joint book tours. The Femme Fantastiks come to mind. They tour military bases. And last year a group of authors went on the Soul Expressions book tour and signed at Wal Mart stores from Indiana to Chicago.
I love talking about PR! Some other examples of cross- and co-promotion include exchanging reciprocal links (adding links to each other's Web sites from your own Web site); joint ads in magazines like Romantic Times BOOKreviews; having a unique page on your Web site -- e.g., Cerridwen Press author Paige Cuccaro's Web site’s popular “Writer’s Cave” page (http://www.paigecuccaro.com/html/the_cave.html), where she posts both links and photos of other authors’ offices; joint MySpace pages -- like the Ohio Romance Authors' page: http://myspace.com/romanceauthors; group panel discussions or workshops at conferences; scavenger hunt contests that take readers from one author's Web site to another's and so on; joint fundraisers, like Brenda Novak's May online auction for diabetes research; and joint mailings to booksellers, librarians and readers.
-- Marcia James ;-)
www.MarciaJames.net
These are some really great ideas. I've also seen authors getting together on yahoo loops to host a special day with readers - usually it's been the authors of a particular publishers but there's no reason it couldn't be done by genre or someother classification.
Angela, hi! Thanks so much for your compliment on the post. The joint book tours sounds like a great idea. I wonder if the Crime Sistahs could do something like that? ;)
Marcia, wow! Thank you so much for taking the time to share so many examples of joint and cross promotion. Tons of great information! And thank you for stopping by. Always great to see you.
Eugenia, hi! I love the idea of a multi-author Yahoo loop to host authors. Thank you for the suggestion, and for posting a comment. Best!
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