Promoting a Book

I am amazed at the response I have had recently while promoting my novel Love Hurts. Although it was produced by an independent publishing company, they are only very small and therefore cannot devote too much attention to marketing any particular book. So I took the initiative and have been doing what I can on a non-existent budget.

It is actually progressing very well indeed. I have managed to secure interviews with several newspapers in the Staffordshire and South Cheshire area where I live. They have all been very receptive and extremely pleased to feature me, a young local author. From these stories I have captured a large readership so now I hope to see a peak in book sales as a result. I have also found that people who know me as a casual acquaintance are very excited to see me in the local newspapers.

Just in the last week I have even managed to have my book featured on the bookshelf page of glossy lifestyle magazine Cheshire Life. This is a very exclusive publication, and when I originally approached the editor I wasn’t expecting a response. But they were very happy to include me, and I will be in the magazine’s October edition.

Similarly I have also just done another newspaper interview, this time for a publication that covers the Staffordshire Moorlands area. Here is where I have diversified. My hometown of Cheadle officially comes under the city of Stoke-on-Trent, but it is also a part of the Staffordshire Moorlands district. So the newspaper in question were happy to feature me as a former college student in their town.

One thing that I found intriguing was that this particular newspaper would not have featured me if I had been self published. I had to explain that mine was a partnership publication, and that I had to be accepted by the editor of Mirador in order to be published. So there is a word of advice to any potential self-publishers: consider your advertising plan and how and where you will market your book. While most local newspapers are happy to promote their authors, some can be more choosy about the way in which a book is produced.