If you’ve been following the last four blogs, by now you have 60 different ways you could be helping your friend with getting the word out about his or her new book.
Remember it doesn’t matter if you buy the print, e-book, or audio book version of this new book. It doesn’t even matter if you buy it or you go to the library and borrow it. And of course it’s even better if you read it as well as buy it, but buying it (or borrowing it from the library), is a key start!
Your author friend will definitely appreciate you showing a sincere and sustained interest in this book and continuing to spread the word about it. That’s the greatest gift you can give your friend/family member/ colleague, the author.
Still looking for some additional ways to show you care? Here are another 15 ways to do just that, bringing it up to a grand total of 75 tactics to beat the drum about your friend’s new book:
1. If you have talents in the filmmaking area, make a book trailer for the book. Show it to the author and get his or her permission to post it on behalf of the book. Or you could hire a company to create a book trailer as a present for the author with the author and his/her publisher having final approval of the book trailer before it’s posted.
2. Suggest to the author that he or she post a short excerpt from the book with the necessary permissions cleared and a copyright notice clearly stated. If you have a blog, post the excerpt in it or, if the excerpt is short enough, include it in your Facebook status update.
3. Tell the author about John Kremer’s upbeat and informative site Hug an Author. Recommend a visit to that site where he/she will finds lots of intriguing examples of how authors turned their books into bestsellers that might have some ideas to try out.
4. Share about the book at the newer social media platform, Medium, or at Stumbleupon.
5. Create a hat out of the front cover or title of the book and wear it.
6. Create a tote bag out of the front cover and use it all the time.
7. If you know any film or TV agents or literary lawyers, if you think the book is a good candidate for a movie or TV show, send it along to your contact with a note explaining why. (Most producers or studios will not accept unsolicited materials; it has to go through an agent or lawyer.)
8. Check out the article,”50 Ways to Help a Book Author You Love” by John Kremer, which I discovered at Kremer’s content-rich website. Kremer shares that he was motivated to write his article on this topic by a blog post on this theme by Eileen Flanagan, author of The Wisdom to Know the Difference.
9. Tell your friend about Caitlin Muir’s article, “89 Book Marketing Ideas That will Change Your Life” in case there are any additional ideas that you or your friend will find useful.
10. Remind yourself how grateful the author will be that you’re touting the book so he/she doesn’t have to seem like a one-person self-promotion machine.
11. If you know any celebrities or respected opinion leaders, send along a copy of the book with a note about why you think it’s worth reading and telling others about it.
12. Write an op-ed piece for your local or a national newspaper, inspired by the book, mentioning the book and its author in your article.
13. If you know other new book authors, suggest a review exchange: if they review your friend’s new book, you’ll review their books.
14. Authors, especially if their new books are in a similar genre, such as several thriller authors or non-fiction self-help writers, might band together for one event or a co-sponsored author tour. You could offer to help organize the event or the tour.
15. Last, but not least, consider asking your friend, the author: “Is there anything in particular that I can do to help you with your new book?” There might be something that the author would appreciate you doing that you have never even considered (and it’s not one of the 75 ideas that you’ve read about in these five blogs). If your friend’s request is comfortable and feasible for you to do it, that would certainly reinforce how much you appreciate your friend’s accomplishment as you put forth whatever effort you are able to spend to help your friend’s book grow in popularity.
There are just so many books out there that every new book needs help to get noticed! Just how many new books? Publishing industry giant Bowker, which compiles the annual Books in Print, estimated that almost 350,000 books would be published in the U.S. in 2011. (Source: “Publishing Market Shows Steady Title Growth in 2011 Fueled Largely by Self-Publishing Sector” )
The 75 suggestions I have shared in this and the previous four blogs have shown you multiple ways you can help your friend’s new book to get launched and noticed. Your help will give your friend’s book a better chance of finding an audience rather than being reduced to obscurity.