Marketing in the Internet Age is a whole new arena. Keeping up to date with trends is a means of survival. You will also need to make social media your friend. Here are some points I've learned along the way.
Marketing for Live to Tell wasn't incredibly difficult for me. I have studied media and advertising, but this was years ago in university. I came up with a full brief for a Diet Coke commercial based on some print ads, and received good marks for it. Writing press releases and making small banners, and even editing a book trailer, weren't grueling tasks as they may have been for some. I'm capable of working in advertising, however, I hate commercials and don't expose myself to a lot of television anymore.
Online marketing is infinitely harder than running a simple TV or print campaign. And there are plenty of services out there for authors to use to market their book, you're not just going to use social media platforms. So it can be tricky to know which service to use. I've used services like Books and The Bear and Huge Orange, who offer small packages for social media “blasts”, but it obviously costs more for newsletter features and online book tours. They promise huge hit rates with their large averages, but you may find your particular tweet or post didn't receive more than twenty likes and even fewer shares. Also, getting the attention of reviewers in this market is difficult, and all the information says reviews are integral to generating sales, even though buyers are becoming wary of solicited and fake reviews bought by the seller to make the item appear popular. I've had books listed on websites that were given fake five star reviews, but when I requested they be removed, the company recommended I keep them since they made the book more marketable. This has never sat well with me.
If you're willing to invest in professional promotional material, online print services like Vistaprint can provide affordable print material like business cards and flyers. I organised customised notebooks and magnets for the giveaway for my new book, Into the Other, but I've yet to see if any of these endeavors have paid off in terms of sales. My biggest hurdle is my own self-consciousness, as I struggle to really promote myself as an author, never mind the book I'm trying to get you to buy. Selling a book or any piece of art is selling a piece of yourself, and you have to have a decent amount of self-worth to convince someone to part with their money for your art. Running a giveaway helped in the initial stages of promo, but I found drumming up interest later down the track was difficult.
If you are confident, and I hope you are, you'll have no hesitations selling yourself and your books. I admire people who are able to really stand by their writing, or any art they create, and show it off proudly.
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