A Blog Conversation about Book Promotion . . .

 Our last discussion here ended due to a lack of reader comment; though, it broke a local record—longest conversation since this blogging format began back in late February.

There were ten posts in that record-breaking conversation about “Rules of Writing“…

Plus, we’ve already had short discussions about Book Promotion which you can find here, here, and here…

I’m attempting to get another conversation going about promotion because I’ve personally, and many others I’ve read have also, suffered greatly trying to do Book Promotion; and, even if you don’t self-publish, the big publishing houses are notorious for (unless you’re riotously famous) doing little and/or poor promotion and letting a book wilt in stores for a few months, then quietly die…

I would be a poor blogger if I didn’t mention a particular book called Be the Gateway by Dan Blank.

I share that book because, if you have no idea what book promotion entails, and you go looking on Uncle Google’s search engine, you could be led to hell and back by tons of writing “gurus” who think they know what promoting a book means…

Naturally, searching Google might lead to a few bits of good advice; but, in my seven years of attempting to develop a program of activities to promote my writings, Be the Gateway gets it all Right…

Another reason I mention that book is because one of the most important guidelines I’ve discovered about book promotion is to begin at least a year before the book is published.

This may sound completely hare-brained; but, there is deep wisdom in that axiom…

Especially wise to start early with promotion if it isn’t some form of brazenly beating people over the head with blatant screams of BUY !…

Especially wise if you want to engage folks in the process of creation so that, when it’s born, there’s a family to share the news…

Yet another reason I tout the virtues of Gateway is that it isn’t a list of Rules for promoting—it deals with the broad ideas that underpin a solid method of inviting people to share your dream; yet, you must take the ideas presented and craft them into Your program of invitation…

But, to be rock-bottom honest, I’d rather some of the readers of this discussion share comments about other methods of book promotion that may not have worked very well, since it seems humans learn best by either suffering from their mistakes or by reading about others who suffered…

And, it may be helpful to consider the Etymology of the word Promote:

“late 14c., ‘to advance (someone) to a higher grade or office’, from Old French promoter and directly from Latin promotus, past participle of promovere ‘move forward, advance; cause to advance, push onward; bring to light, reveal’, from pro ‘forward’ (see pro-) + movere ‘to move’ (from PIE root *meue- ‘to push away’). General sense of ‘to further the growth or progress of (anything)’ is from 1510s. Related: Promoted; promoting.”

So…

What have you done in the way of Book Promotion…?

What do you already know for sure about Book Promotion…?

Who could you recommend who knows how to promote books…?

Why do books need careful and devoted promotion…?

Where should books be promoted…?

Does it takes a lot of money to promote books…?

Does an author have to hire others to successfully promote a book…?

Care to share some of your experience with Book Promotion…?

Want to be the first to share a comment so this conversation can continue…? :-)
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→ Our Blog Conversations are on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—the rest of the week, I share valuable posts from other blogs…
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