Standing out in the crowded marketplace

When the topic of self-promotion comes up among writers, there seem to be two different camps of thought. There are those who say you should just write a good book and that you really can’t do much to impact your sales numbers with self-promotion, particularly if you write for Harlequin/Silhouette and your books are only on the shelf for about a month. Others are big fans and proponents of self-promotion, of doing whatever we can to make ourselves stand out in a crowded marketplace and to build our name recognition. The argument is that book buyers will buy a book by an author with a familiar name rather than one by an unknown author.

I have to admit I fall more into the camp of self-promotion opponents. I know there are plenty of authors out there who do just fine without doing more than having a Web site. Still, I figure what can it hurt? And if it makes me feel like I’m being proactive in my career, yay for me. Of course, I have to actually sell a book first.

I’m always having ideas of fun ways to promote my books. Once I sell one and know which title it’s going to be, I’m sure I’ll immediately start brainstorming some ways to get my book and name noticed when it hits shelves.

One newer way authors are self promoting is by having trailers for their books made, much like movie trailers. For an example, check out the one for buddy Stephanie Rowe’s newest release, Date Me Baby, One More Time, which is getting fabulous reviews.

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10,000 Steps progress from yesterday = 12,087 steps. I think I’ll only post the progress for about a week, just to see how it’s going and hopefully to inspire a few others to tackle the same challenge.

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