“Sir Newton’s Color Me Hawai’i,” the second book in my line of children’s travel books, has its first mention on a blog. Check it out here.
With print publications having limited space and lots of news to fill it, websites and blogs are becoming a great way to promote your books.
J.A. Konrath lamanted the lack of print space in a recent blog post on his A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing blog, which I’ve read for a little while. (Lots of fun and interesting. Check it out.)
But online, there’s plenty of space, and plenty of people writing blogs and putting up websites. Our only hope is that people are reading those blogs. At a publishing seminar last year, a speaker predicted that the web will one day be saturated with all the online publishing, and at that time, the cream of the crop will rise up and take all the readers. Probably true.
But while there are plenty out there, the sampling is good. And from a promotional stand point, that means more opportunities to get your book in front of eyeballs.
Promotion is key whether you’re publishing with a big company, a small company or on your own. People won’t be able to buy your books if they don’t know they’re there. You can’t leave it to chance that readers will stumble on your book on the shelf at a bookstore. That will happen, sure. But will it happen enough to get another book published? Probably not, unless you’re a well-known author. But even they advertise and get reviews.
And even if you don’t have a book to promote, if you have an article or short story, do the same. Tell your friends, post links to it on message boards, blogs, organization forums. Getting your work into the hands of readers is important to help show the industry that you are someone who is dedicated and a writer to keep an eye on.
Oh, and if you liked what you saw on the “Sir Newton’s Color Me Hawai’i” blog post, you can buy it here. See? promotion. 🙂
Write On!
One Response
On our Hawaii vacation blog, we write about anything which might help to make the visit to the Hawaiian Islands people’s best vacation. There is no place like Hawaii!
When I came across your new Hawaii coloring book, I thought this is a great opportunity for parents on a Hawaii family vacation to get the kids out of the sun, have some fun and at the same time awaken their curiosity about the Hawaiian Islands.
Hope many parents visiting Hawaii, will find this wonderful book. Aloha, Pua