Book marketing expert John Kremer says that if he had his choice between buying an ad to promote a book or going after free publicity, he’d choose free publicity almost every time.
That’s because generating interviews, giving your expert opinion, writing articles and having journalists include excerpts of your book are powerful. So are many of the other things I recommend in “Special Report #40: 42 Publicity Tips for Authors and Small Publishers” most as though the media outlet is giving you its stamp of approval.
John says in today’s issue of his ezine that “advertising in the right place might sell more books, but few authors or publishers know how to advertise effectively, so I don’t recommend it.”
If you do advertise, choose publications that are a perfect fit with your topic. Advertise a holistic title in a publication like New Age Retailer, for example.
Direct mail advertising, done well with things like split-testing, is effective, he says, but only if authors know how to analyze the statistics—something many right-brain authors have difficulty understanding. (I’m right-brain and anything more high school math makes me bonkers.)
I’m with John. I’ll take the free publicity any day.