The term free book marketing is self-explanatory, but words like “Goodreads” and “LibraryThing” — book marketing tools — are not. Here’s an excerpt from our helpful free book marketing list:
- Blogger/WordPress/Tumblr: It’s important to have your own blog. You should write quality content relating to your book(s). For example: If you’ve written a fantasy novel, you could blog about fantasy writing, review comparable books, interview other fantasy authors, etc. Make sure to include book ordering information on your blog as well as subscribing options and icons linked to your social media accounts.
- Facebook: Read this post–Facebook For Authors by Cindy Ratzlaff–to understand the personal profile, the fan page, and the benefits of using the leading social network as an author. Over 1 billion people use Facebook nowadays, so it’s not a tool you can ignore!
- Goodreads: The #1 social networking site for book lovers. This site, from an author’s perspective, is all about targeted marketing and networking. You can network with tons of fans from your genre; include your book in Goodreads’ giveaway program (which they promote to their members for you!); customize your author profile after signing up for the free Goodreads Author Program; launch a targeted ad campaign with self-serve advertising (not free); and more!
- LibraryThing: Much like Goodreads, you can run a giveaway on LibraryThing.com (LT), but the LT giveaway program is superior. Here’s why: You can give away e-book downloads, which cost you absolutely nothing but help you gain readers and reviews. Each author also gets a free author profile like on Goodreads.
- EreaderNewsToday: If your book is available as an ebook, you should consider reaching out to an ebook blog such as EreaderNewsToday.com. They allow you to promote your bargain ebook or free ebook to their segmented subscriber list. The website consists of thousands upon thousands of email subscribers covering 25 different reading categories. The site also has a very active Facebook page where they promote the ebooks as well. The fan count there is 462,000 (approx.).
You’ll have to become an author of MindStir Media book publishers to receive information on our full list of free book marketing tools & strategies. As part of the mentoring service included in all self-publishing packages, bestselling author J.J. Hebert will point you in the direction of free marketing tools & strategies proven to sell books. These are generally the same tools and strategies J.J. Hebert uses to market his own highly successful bestselling books. We are not aware of any other book publishing company that does this!
DISCLAIMER: This is not a book marketing setup or management service. J.J. Hebert will not setup or manage the free book marketing tools for the author. Author must be willing to work hard with the marketing tools presented to him/her. If the author is not computer savvy or lacks the time or desire to market his/her own book online, the author should consider hiring a Social Media Publicist (available in our Diamond & Platinum book publishing packages).
