You may love marketing and have no trouble with it, but for me telling others about my books is one of the hardest parts of being a writer. For one thing, it takes time away from my stories. I'd much rather be creating characters and scenes than searching for places to promote my books. Nevertheless, the truth is if we want readers to know about our novels, we have to tell them. So today I thought I'd share some of the places I haunt ... um visit ... to get the word out about my work. You may be familiar with some, or even all, of them. But here they are, in no particular order:
1. Free Book Friday: http://www.freebookfriday.com/
The site is exactly what it says. Free books are given away every Frieday. I won one time. They have four sections: Fiction, Romance, Teens, and Indie, where they do author features and interviews. I'm the featured author the first week in April for the Indie section.
Free Book Friday was created by Jessica Brody, author of two adult novels and her brand new young adult novel, THE KARMA CLUB, about three girls who decide to take Karma into their own hands by getting revenge on the ex-boyfriends who broke their hearts. To view the award-winning book trailers and read excerpts, visit her website at:
http://www.jessicabrody.com/
2. Another site I enjoy visiting and advertising my books on is Teens Read Too.
http://www.teensreadtoo.com/
At this site, the creation of Jennifer Wardrip, you'll find book reviews, author interviews, monthly contests, author directory, a book club, and so much more.
3. Then there is Teen Reads. http://www.teenreads.com/
You can subscribe to their newsletter, read features, reviews and see the opinions of teen reviewers about the latest books.
4. Young Adult Books Central has tons of great stuff.
http://www.yabookscentral.com/
Kim can tell you more about this place. She reviews books for them. You can spend a whole day there, they have so much interesting info.
If you're interested in agents, try:
5. Query Tracker: http://www.querytracker.net/
6. Agent Query: http://www.agentquery.com/
7. Also the American Library Association has news about favorite books and contests, plus other things. http://www.ala.org/.
8. And if you want to learn how to become a millionaire writing eBooks, see Amanda Hocking's blog: http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/2011/03/some-things-that-need-to-be-said.html
And: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article1948078--how-a-failed-author-made-2-million-from-e-books
The latest news is that she's signed a deal with a major publisher.
Now this should keep you busy. Oh, don't forget to write a little too.
Any more places to add?
Interesting sites that I'll have to explore. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteTHANKS for the links! I tend to get bored quickly with promotion and am always itching to write stories. I will take a look at these. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, JL and Michael. I noticed I left out some words in my article, or perhaps the gremlins stole them. That's what I get for writing late at night when I'm half asleep. :)
ReplyDeleteBev, sure I can tell you all more about the fab YA BOOKS CENTRAL. I'm one of the reviewers there and LOVE it!
ReplyDeleteYou can check out what I'm looking for here:
http://www.yabookscentral.com/cfusion/index.cfm?fuseAction=home.about
I'm Ixtumea.
You can contact Mandy, our fab YA Book Goddess for book giveaways. Or email me and I'll help see what we can do for you.
Thanks, Kim. I knew you had the answers. :)
ReplyDeleteOoo! Not heard of some of these. So thanks for posting them. Looks like YABooksCentral will be a place I hit up once "Price of Mercy" gets released (hopefully sometime in early April!). Woot!
ReplyDeleteGreat, Gloria. Glad to help. :) Congrats on your upcoming release.
ReplyDeleteI'm late, I'm late! What a great list, Beverly! I had a book reviewed by YABooksCentral and was very happy with it. But a lot of the other places are new to me. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDelete