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MARKETING TIPS FOR ASPIRING AUTHORS At last year’s Edgar Symposium, a successful mystery author made a comment about marketing and promotion that grabbed my attention. If memory serves, she said (and I paraphrase here): When I am approaching the release date for a new book, I send out a postcard to everyone on my mailing list. The postage to do that costs me $50,000 but that’s what it takes to be number one on the best seller list.

Most authors do not have her budget for marketing and promotion (or her mailing list), so we need an approach which relies less on traditional (costly) promotion and more on creativity and networking to build a book’s momentum. We need a guerilla marketing campaign. The elements of that campaign will vary from book to book, from author to author, depending on the unique opportunities that each of us can create.

I write traditional mysteries featuring tabloid reporter and amateur sleuth Cassie O’Malley. My first book, Who is Killing Doah’s Deer? was released in 2004 as a print-on-demand paper back. My second book, A Minor Case of Murder, traditionally published by Five Star Mysteries, was released in a hard cover edition in November 2006.

For both books, a central element of my guerilla campaign has been my blog (www.xanga.com/doahsdeer). Every author should have a website (their “official” home on the internet as it were), but for aspiring authors, a blog may be more useful because a blog affords more opportunities to build a network of involved readers. My website (www.publishedauthors.net/jeffmarkowitz) offers useful book and author information (and some wonderful reader photos), but it rarely changes, so there is not a lot of reason for repeat traffic. My blog changes several times a week, building a network of regular subscribers. And most blogs are free, or nearly free, so they fit the guerilla marketing budget. In fact, not only do I have a blog, but my amateur sleuth, Cassie O’Malley has a blog of her own (www.xanga.com/cassieom).

I often note that we all blog for different reasons, and therefore choose to write, or not write about certain subjects. But that’s not entirely true. Authors blog to promote their books. I went back through old posts, curious when I first mentioned A Minor Case of Murder on my blog. It was January 2005, nearly two years before the book was published. At that time, it was a manuscript with the catchy working title of Book 2. I invited my readers to help me come up with a book title.

If I feel a strong need to blog about things that are unrelated to reading and writing, I can always create another blog (and have, from time to time). Which does not mean that my writer’s blog is simply blatant self-promotion. But it is promotion, some of it blatant, some subtle, sprinkled liberally with tips for aspiring writers and an array of activities, discussions, photographs and links which I hope are of interest to my subscribers. There is a fine line that needs to be drawn here. On the one hand, anyone who visits my blog is a potential reader of my books. But they are not coming to my blog for the purpose of buying my book. My subscribers are colleagues, virtual friends, test readers, my online support group.

My current publisher, Five Star Publishing, is an imprint of Thomson Gale, a publisher who is well respected in the library community. So I decided to focus some time and attention on a campaign to get my book onto the shelves of our public libraries. Hoping to get my book into libraries that do not routinely purchase from Five Star, I launched a library campaign on my blog. I asked my readers to request that their local public library order a copy of the book. The campaign gives my readers an opportunity to become part of the campaign, to actively participate in the book’s success.

Hard cover books are expensive. Not all of my readers can afford that expense. But it costs the reader nothing to ask their local library to purchase a copy. Most libraries like receiving book requests from their patrons. Many libraries have made the process as simple as filling out an online form on the library’s website. Although the total number of library sales is still modest, the book can now be found in libraries in some thirty states. And I estimate that perhaps 10% of those library sales were the result of my library campaign.

A library campaign will not work for everyone. Hard cover books will be easier than paper backs. Traditionally published books will be easier than self-published print-on-demand. Books that have been reviewed will be easier than unreviewed books. But in the course of the library campaign, I discovered that my first book, my self-published, unreviewed, print-on-demand paperback can be found on the shelves at a handful of public libraries.

Some of you will read this discussion and say Yeah, but that will only work for his book. And, in a sense, you’re right. You see, my books are the only books I’m promoting, so I’m looking for opportunities that are a good fit for what I can actually do. I am not suggesting that you launch a library campaign (although you might). What I am suggesting is that you think more creatively about what you can do. Because the opportunities are out there.

And although I began this discussion by suggesting that a guerilla campaign does not cost a lot of money, I do believe that effective promotion has a cost (a cost in both time and money). When I decide to incur an expense (one that may not result in book sales sufficient to cover my costs) I remind myself that I am not only promoting my current book. I am promoting my next book. And the one after that. I am investing in my future. We each have to decide what we can afford. We have to make smart decisions about where and how we spend those limited dollars. But at the same time, I ask you to remember that you are making a long-term investment in your career as a writer. That’s worth spending some money on, don’t you think? Good luck. And keep writing.

And, if you would be so kind, ask your public library to order a copy of A Minor Case of Murder (ISBN 1594144877). Thank you.

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Jeff Markowitz is the author of the Cassie O’Malley Mysteries, quirky stories set deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. For more than thirty years, Jeff has worked in the non-profit sector developing programs that enhance quality of life. Recently, Jeff discovered that he also has something of a flair for killing people.

In 2004, he introduced tabloid reporter and amateur sleuth Cassie O’Malley in Who is Killing Doah’s Deer?

Now Cassie is back in A Minor Case of Murder.

Jeff loves to write early in the morning. “You can usually find me at my computer at 5:30 in the morning,” he says, “plotting someone’s murder.”

And when Jeff is not writing, you can find him at his blog (www.xanga.com/doahsdeer) or on his new page at crimespace (http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/JeffMa).