When to Start Marketing Your Book

How about an information overload?  One quick search on the internet for tips on when to start marketing your book and you'll get hundreds of different answers.  The more answers you get, the more questions that come up.  Launch week?  Hard launch?  Soft launch?

I prefer to stick with the easy answer when it comes to marketing my books.  I start immediately.  It doesn't matter if I have written one word or a complete novel.  It is never too early to start marketing yourself as an author and your work.

When writing, I keep two notebooks handy.  One for notes regarding the story itself, and another just for marketing ideas that pop into my head.  I try to market during every stage of creation, but it really gets easier once I have my cover art designed.  There is just something about having a visual that makes it easier.

So, what sort of marketing can you do before your book is finished?  Well, let's see.  You can build your followers on Twitter and Facebook, you can blog about the current progress of your work, you can update your website to show you have a new project underway, and you can tell everyone you know about your new book.

What about after the book is published?  All of the above, plus more.

See why it's a good idea to get started early?  What are some of your favorite marketing methods?

A New Twist on Marketing

JA Konrath has discovered a wonderful way to reach the elusive top 100 at Amazon.  He offered to donate $500 to the charity First Book if his novel Origin made it into the Amazon top 100.  Guess what?  It worked and now he has a top 100 book and that lucky charity is $500 richer.


He's doing it again, this time with his Jack Kilborn novel Trapped.  If it reaches the top 100, he'll donate $500.  A new twist is that if his book hits the top 20, he'll donate another $500.  This could mean $1000 for the First Book charity.

So, while some may say that this is self promotion that takes advantage of our desire to help others, others will say that since both sides are benefiting, who does it hurt?  What's your opinion?

Check out JA Konrath's blog Newbie's Guide to Publishing.