Book marketing tip: Hold on to your contacts

While I have a traditional book deal now, I began my career as a self-published author. As you indie authors out there know all too well, that meant that in addition to everything else, I had to do all the marketing on my own.

As part of my strategy, I reached out to both book clubs and bloggers early on. For clubs near me, I offered to come to their meetings if they chose my novel. For book bloggers, I offered to send them a copy in hopes that they would enjoy it and write favorably about it. (They also could have hated it, but that’s the risk you take as an author.)

The first book club organizer to say yes to me was Jennifer van der Kleut. I attended her club, had a great time, and kept in touch. One of the early bloggers to agree to review my book was a woman named Tonya Plank. After that, I stayed in touch with her as well. I kept both women updated on the progress I was making with my book, including the eventual exciting news that I’d landed a contract.

It’s a good thing I did.

Jennifer started freelancing for Patch, and Tonya began writing for The Huffington Post. Both were impressed by the success I’d had with my self-published book, and the following articles resulted:

Jennifer’s Patch.com article

Tonya’s Huffington Post article

Jennifer has become such a fan that she also attended the Silicon Valley launch party for my fourth novel last April. This time she recorded a video and posted it to social media sites.

As the above examples demonstrate, things rarely happen overnight in marketing. It’s a process that builds on itself, so hold on to the contacts you make along the way.

-Maria

Palo Alto native Maria Murnane is the best-selling author of Perfect on Paper, It's a Waverly Life, Honey on Your Mind, Chocolate for Two, and Cassidy Lane. She also provides consulting services on book publishing and marketing. Learn more at www.mariamurnane.com.

This blog post originally appeared on CreateSpace.com. Reprinted with permission. © 2014 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.