Three grassroots book marketing tips

For many authors, both traditional and self-published, marketing a book is harder than writing one. If you don’t have a background in marketing, you may feel confused, overwhelmed, and even a little freaked out by the idea of it. Plus you may equate marketing with advertising and immediately think, Marketing is expensive, there’s no way I can do it! But the truth is you can. You just need to be clever about how you go about it.

Here are three things you can do today – for free – to generate some buzz for your book:

1. Put the entire first chapter of your book on your website and include a link to it in your email signature. If you don’t have a website yet, build one tonight! GoDaddy.com has free templates with very inexpensive hosting packages. (Appropriately, it’s called Website Tonight.)

2. Add your book to your own “reading list” on LinkedIn so it will show up anytime someone views your profile. (You can do this under the “more” tab along the top.) If you’re not on LinkedIn, setting up an account is free and super easy.

3. Sign up for a free Square account so you can take credit card payments with your phone. Then start bringing a book with you everywhere you go. You never know who your next customer-and future fan-might be! I’ve sold books in some pretty random places, including on a plane, because I was able to accept payment via credit card.

Grassroots marketing is about being creative, not about spending a lot of money. If you’re willing to put in the effort, you can do it!

-Maria

Palo Alto native Maria Murnane is the best-selling author of the romantic comedies Perfect on Paper, It's a Waverly Life, and Honey on Your Mind. 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. © 2012 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.