Marketing Books: Do it Yourself

Congratulations! You have just published your amazing book you've been working on for SO LONG! Now its time to put it into your readers hands. How? I'm still learning that every day, but here is what I know so far:

Social Media
There are a lot of things you can do without spending money. There are so many social media things that do not require a fee that work wonders!!! Places like Facebook, GoodReads, LinkedIn,
Pinterest, websites, blogs, and so much more. Check out these sights for examples. All you need is a following so that, when people share what you are promoting, others will see, then more will see your work, and so on and so on. There are ways to sign up for these sites so that you are labeled as a business, which is what you want. Always be posting, commenting, sharing things so that your sites won't go stale. Always remind people you have a marvelous story you cannot wait to show them!

Bookmarks
I love to do everything myself because I like being the boss. But! That can cause a lot of problems when I don't know what I'm doing. So always be learning and know the first time around, it will be difficult and take longer then you expected.
With that said, I, again, like to do everything myself. That is why I use UPrinting for creating my bookmarks. They have several other marketing materials, like banners, fliers, and so on, but I haven't used them. I go somewhere else for that, which I will talk about in a moment. UPrinting is AWESOME because they do exactly what you say. So, if you order junkie bookmarks, it is because you did not do it right. (I did that. Not fun.) For 250, 2x6 " bookmarks, it would cost about $45, which is cheep! They have so many options and, once you select the size and specifications of your bookmark, you can design it online. You can upload your own PDF files of the bookmark, or use UPrinting's own, free images to create one from scratch. It is all very easy and, as I said, you are the boss. Love it!

Posters/Business Cards
You have to have both posters and business cards to promote your work. I use Vistaprint, a very user-friendly, low priced, high quality promotional services. They have everything from T-shirts to stationary, banners and posters, to websites and marketing assistance. They have everything! You want your book's title on a pencil? No problem! You want a picture of your characters on key chains? They've got that too! They don't have bookmarks though, which doesn't make scene to me. I love Vistaprint and they will always get my business.

Book Trailer
I'm going to have a book trailer soon (YEAH!) for "Hearts of Glass: Shattered Lives". What I did was go to the community college in my town and ask the film prophesier if he knew of anyone interested in filming a book trailer. He directed me to a student, who happened to be one of my friends, and, after a lot of planning and hard work, we shot the film and it's being edited right now.
The first thing you need is a screenplay. Don't think you can write a screenplay? Sure you can! You just wrote an epic book! You can condense it into a short story depicted by pictures instead of words. It is a lot of fun to write screenplays, you'll like it too!
First, download Celtix, a free screenplay writing software. Screenplays are formatted in an odd way, but Celtix makes it a lot easier.
If you don't want a film crew, look up royal free videos online. I have not fully researched into this because I have not needed them yet. But, I have watched a lot of the royal free videos and found some sites to be very good quality and interesting! There's always something out there, you must look for it first.

Book Signings
These are essential for selling books. I have had close to ten signings by now and have found that when I speak about the book first, people are more apt to buy it. People want to know you, to have a connection on a personal level. They don't want to see someone stand up and talk in a factual, script kind of way about how excited they are and how much they love stories. No! Get up with a grin on your face and tell them what's on your mind! Tell them the adventures you have in store for them and show them you are a person worthy of getting to know. Worthy of buying a book from.
Leading up to the book signing, promote it over and over on your several sites. People need to be reminded about the reminder reminding them to remember the book signing. Get the picture? Have fun with the signing and don't have expectations. They always get in the way.
As you plan out your book signing, make sure you scheduled it during the best time. Have it on a weekend or a time the most amount of people will be free to come and see your book. Make sure its not a holiday, with people out of town, or that there is another event going on at the same time that will pull potential buyers away from your books. Research, know what's going on, and be smart.

Give Away
Don't be afraid to give your books away or dock down the price lower then what you first had in mind. The best advertising is word of mouth. Because of this, when you give away books, people tell their friends they won such and such a book from you and that you are an awesome writer who is very nice. They may stay in contact with you to win other things as well.
Dock down the prices because the cheaper the book is, the more people will buy it, and the more people will tell their friends how great your book it. Word of mouth, always keep that in mind.

So there you have it! That's all I've got for right now, though in a month or so I may learn something else I need to share. There's endless resources out there, radio, TV, YouTube adds, and so on. Don't limit yourself. Go out and conquer!