Because self-published authors don’t have a publishing company to help them promote their work, it’s important to take the initiative in marketing. Connecting with your fans on a personal level is a great way to market. This can be done through attending conferences as well as interacting with them through your blog, facebook or other social networking.
Face-to-face interaction, however, is one of the most effective ways to market. If you have the budget, time and freedom to do so, I highly recommend attending conferences as a vendor and/or book seller. Readers and potential customers appreciate the opportunity to speak with an author and to have their books signed by the author herself.
For the first six years of my career as an author, most of my book sales occurred at live conferences (see photo) I attended as a vendor. (Now, Kindle sales make up 80 percent of my writing income). I typically attend four to five conferences a year. I normally sell anywhere from 30 to 100 books per conference (depending on the length and attendance of the conference.)
The goal of any author is to find those readers who will not only buy your first book, but will keep coming back for your future books. Attending conferences is a great way to have interested readers coming back for more.
For example, I have attended the Journey to the Father Youth Conference as a vendor every summer since 2005. The JTTF attendees, workers and volunteers know me and most importantly, there are many at this conference who will not only buy anything I write, they will buy excess copies.
Another approach to personal marketing is to always reply to a comment on your blog, on Facebook and/or Twitter. This develops a rapport with your readers and you can also make a lot of great friends too!
One last approach to personal marketing is to participate in Skype or teleconference calls with book clubs. This is a fairly new (and ideal) way to connect with many readers at once.
The personal approach to marketing can help to promote your books to those readers who will return time and again to purchase your books.
copyright 2011 Ellen Gable Hrkach
Ellen Gable Hrkach is the vice president of the Catholic Writers Guild. She is the award-winning author of In Name Only, a Catholic historical romance and now an Amazon Kindle bestseller (top 100 Religious Fiction). Her new book is Stealing Jenny, which is a contemporary pro-life suspense novel. She can be found blogging at Plot Line and Sinker. She and her husband and five sons live in Pakenham, ON Canada.
Ellen Gable Hrkach
Ellen Gable Hrkach is an award-winning, Amazon bestselling author. Her five books have been downloaded over 620,000 times on Kindle. Currently, she works as the Marketing Director for Live the Fast, a non-profit Roman Catholic apostolate based in Boston. She does freelance writing and editing for a variety of other websites, she blogs at "Plot Line & Sinker" http://ellengable.wordpress.com and is also self-publishing book consultant and a publisher. She and her husband are the parents of five sons ages 16 to 28 and live in Pakenham, Ontario. In her spare time, Ellen enjoys playing board games with her family, watching classic movies on TCM and reading on her Kindle.
Thanks for your comments and for sharing your experience, Brother Joshua!
Thanks. Excellent insight and tips. I think a number of authors have venues in the natural course of their lives which they may or not realize. I have a ready made venue; I have a Catholic Parish Book exhiboit almost every weekend at different parishes. Posters, shop printed yard signs and post cards are my main promotional items. I have a few speaking engagements, my books are mentioned and displayed.