The Writing Process

Part five: Promoting Your book

Back in November I wrote four blogs about the writing process – and here’s one more: about what you can do to promote your book.

If you are traditionally published, your publishing house will have its own publicist who will probably want to talk to you about his or her ideas for promoting your book. Some publishing houses assign equal amounts of money to marketing all their authors, others give the lion’s share to the most famous. You’ll soon find out which you are with!

That said, there are many things you can do for yourself, depending on how much time and confidence you have. Local libraries are often prepared to host talks (and hopefully these will resume post covid). You can also audition as a speaker at women’s institute events. If you are happier writing than talking, there are websites which are sometimes looking for articles. If your book is set in an interesting place, try Trip Fiction . If you are female, then Books by Women might be interested in your story. Finally, if you write historical novels, then try Historia magazine.

 If there is an interesting story attached to your novel, and preferably a local angle, try contacting your local paper. If you are happy to be interviewed, your local radio might feature you, particularly if they run a book club.

Now that many festivals have gone virtual, you might also be able to get a slot taking part in an author’s panel. These tend to be highly sought after so my advice would be to start small and go local.

Your publisher will normally send you a number of complimentary copies of your book, and you can use these as prizes for any competitions you choose to run on Twitter or Facebook, although you will still need to pay postage.

I belong to a writers’ Facebook group and find other authors can be incredibly generous in recommending your book (if they like it) to their followers, provided you are humble and grateful, and happy to support them when the time comes.

I hope one or two, or even several, of these ideas are useful.