Fun Sites and Marketing Ideas

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?