Wild Pines Press

Mary Elizabeth Thompson

Writer, Artist, Web Designer

You're Published...Now What?

Even if you've written the Great American Novel, your book will only collect virtual dust on an electronic bookshelf if no one knows it exists. The meaning of the word 'publish' is 'to make public.' In order to make your book public, you should consider the following marketing strategies:

Create and maintain a website

Free online websites:

Xanga

Author's Den

Bravenet

Give away bookmarks and business cards bearing your cover art

Wild Pines Press can create bookmarks and business card bearing your book's cover art along with your contact information. These are great to hand out to everyone you meet. You receive all the PDF files for the bookmarks and business cards, which allows you to have more printed locals (such as at Kinko's) at your convenience.

Bookmark or business card design costs $25 if I create original cover art for you as part of your book design package.

Create other promotional materials bearing your cover art

You can get your logo or artwork printed on 6500 different types of promotional items at GoPromos.

Give book signings and readings

For more advice on organizing book readings and signings, visit:

BookCoaching (scroll down on that page for the book reading info)

If you hope to give your reading/signing at a bookstore, they may or may not require that they stock your book on their shelves. Be forewarned that many larger bookstores will only stock your book if it has an ISBN.

Handling orders and distribution

Most of the eBook or POD publishers you work with will take the orders for your book and ensure that it gets into the hands of customers. However, if you choose simply to have your book printed and handle all of your own sales, you can set up a merchant account fairly easily at Paypal.

You should set up a website and use the detailed instructions on Paypal to guide you through setting up your online storefront and shopping cart for your customers. The biggest advantage to using Paypal is that they can easily handle credit card orders on your behalf.

For More Information...

The following books are good resources for more information.