Since I released
my first multi award winning Middle Grade adventure, The Secret of the Sacred Scarab in 2009, I have tried many and varied forms of
marketing. I have wasted some money, gained some success, and learned lots of
lessons in this journey. Just recently I have had great results with ‘teams.’ You
may wonder how an author can use a team. Well, doing all your own marketing is
impossible, since it takes up so much time that the author finds they are doing
more marketing than writing the next book. I tumbled to the idea of teams quite
by accident, but patience, persistence, and using teams is paying off. Here are
the five team marketing methods that work for me:
1.
Team
Twitter: Although Twitter blasts are good and do have an effect, having a
consistent Twitter presence thanks to someone who does it for you, and has
their followers tweet your news, is really very useful. I use @bookboost,
although there are many around, and was surprised to find the price so
reasonable and the Twitter reach so far. I also use AskDavid if I have special
book news to announce.
2.
Team
Authors: A while ago I noticed two authors writing in Middle Grade with similar
themes (Egyptian, Arthurian, Ancient World), but oddly enough, we did not
overlap and therefore were not competition for each other. Besides, we figured
that young readers who love Egyptian or Arthurian themes were going to read all
the books they could find, so why not team up and offer lots of books under one
roof. Wendy Leighton-Porter, Cheryl Carpinello and I formed The Quest Books,
where we have grouped all our similarly themed books for young readers to
enjoy. We have a newsletter and offer free downloads, so the site works for all
of us.
3.
Team
Blog Hosts: Initially I went on loads of book tours, with definitely chequered
results. Some tours were wildly successful, catering specifically to the
parents of Middle Grade readers, while others were a mix masala and I found my
book shoved in between other books, such as thrillers/detectives, fantasy and
romances, that I felt did not give me a target market audience. Through trial
and error I have now fine tuned my blog tours to very specific hosts who only
deal with the children’s/juvenile fiction genre. Getting to a specific market
offers better results because you are approaching an audience eager to find out
more about your particular books.
4.
Team
Facebook: As in joining up with my fellow Quest authors, I also found myself
part of a shared Facebook page based on a group of authors who produced an
anthology of kids’ stories for fundraising purposes, Book Elves Anthology Volume 1. From the anthology, came the Facebook page and Book Elves has become
a great way for the burden of marketing to be shared among other authors, who
also post their news. It is just a click a day to share news with page
followers and since other authors are doing the same, the marketing results
benefit everyone.
5.
Street
Team: I had never heard of a street team
in relation to book marketing, but have now engaged with a wonderful team where
the news is shared on the various team members’ Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and
other social sites. It is a reasonable fee and my only hard work is to keep the
team leader up to date with anything I am doing, such as blog posts, book
tours, award wins, anything newsworthy that the team members can share to their
friends and followers.
There is no get rich and famous quick scheme, but rather a consistent
presence reaps the right kind of results. Teaming up with the right people for
the right fee spreads the burden of marketing and gives the author a chance to
get back to what they are supposed to be doing … writing their next book!
If you’re
looking for more adventures, then please visit The Quest Books, where Middle
Grade authors Cheryl Carpinello, Wendy Leighton-Porter and I have teamed
up to offer readers an array of exciting quests. Sign up for our monthly
newsletter with exciting exclusive material and get a fantastic e-book, Passport
to Adventure, FREE!
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