Patricia Harrelson

The book launch for Between Two Women was one year ago this past weekend. It was a fabulous party and wonderfully validating. And it was my first promotional event!

In the year since, I can’t say I’ve been a highly successful book promoter, but I’ve learned a lot, and it is quite clear that book sales rise in direct proportion to book promotion. That’s a fairly obvious conclusion, and it points to the fact that promotional efforts have to be given full attention and lots of time and effort. My attention has been sporadic. Like my exercise program this year, there have been bursts of enthusiastic effort followed by thinking and not doing.

In my more energetic moments, I’ve found some excellent resources, including the following books:

• The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard Johnson
• Plug Your Book: Online Marketing for Authors by Steve Weber
• Speak and Grow Rich by Dottie Walters & Lilly Walters
•  Sell Your Book on Amazon by Brent Sampson

My absolute favorite, however, is Freocious Promotion for Timid Authors by Hope Clark and Gwynne Spencer.  I like this book because these women understand that book promotion feels like a chore and it’s scary. To that end that offer practical, easy to implement and inexpensive practices.

Whenever I start feeling down in the dumps about what a lousy promoter I am, I grab this book, read a few pages, and suddenly I’m re-invigorated. I start scribbling notes about things I can do immediately to get my promotional efforts back in motion.

Then I set the book down and get to work!

Make sure you get Ferocious when you start thinking about book promotion.