I'm so excited I can't sleep! Marketing fun.

So I'm off to Armageddon, which is New Zealand's answer to comic con, where I'll be dressed up to the nines in a steampunk outfit and promoting my latest book. One of the things I'm doing to prepare besides buy an outfit is setting up my promotion material and that made me think of how even though marketing can be difficult you can also make it fun. Here is how I went about my marketing. Whether it will work but these are all things that have been tried by others, mostly, and has been somewhat successful for them.

Step One: Reveal the cover. I make my own covers so I get super excited about them. I make up mock ups and I print off the final one and frame it and put it on my wall in my house but I also show everyone the cover. Usually through social media. I get good feedback and I usually put in the launch date as well. I also start putting it all over my website in blogs and on the landing page.

Step Two: Teasers. By this stage I have sent off the manuscript to the editor and this is when I put in a lot more time to my marketing. I take the first chapter or two and I put it up as a link on my website. I put it on a blog and share it on Facebook.

Step Three: Blurb writing time. I might have done the front cover but I haven't done the back and the blurb can be tricky. I find the best way to develop a blurb is to write it a lot. There are two ways you can do this that can kill two birds with one stone. I'll talk about that in a moment.

Step Four: ARC's. I have a list of bloggers and reviewers that I email first and I write a blurb. Original and unique for each email. First off this is a good way to develop a blurb and to make the reviewer feel like they are important. I also give ARC's to friends and I always google to see if I can find new bloggers. I've tried the top reviewers on Amazon but I find that time consuming and get very few replies. I think they get too many requests. I get a better hit with goodreads groups. Even when I do this I don't get many.

Step Five: Interviews. This I do when I launch a new series and go looking for sites specific to my genre. This time with my second book in the series I just discovered promotion sites. I don't like to spend a heck of a lot of promotion. Mostly because it doesn't work. But this time I thought I would try some of the free ones and see how that goes.

Step Six: Free stuff. I give away my books and that is what I advertise on those promotion sites. If I could get a bookbub ad I would definitely shell out the money but in the mean time I give away books. These sites often ask for an original blurb. This is the second place to practice your blurb writing skills.

Step Seven: Marketing material. This is also new and I'll see how it goes. I got post cards printed up and I must say they really are pretty. Then I was looking at another authors site where they had little tiny mini book charms and so I made key rings with my little books. These I am particularly proud of. I'll be giving out both of these at Armageddon.

Step Eight: Be visible. This is my favourite. My series is steampunk so I got a steampunk outfit and I am going to Armageddon with my spiel. What some call an elevator pitch. Glad handing and talking to people. This is what scares me and excites me that I can't sleep. Because you see this is only the second time I've been in public as Nix Whittaker author extraordinaire.

I'll give some feedback on how everything goes but even the process is fun.