This article was originally posted at Anaiahpress.com
If you are an author, you’ve probably heard of cross promotion. You might even love the idea and want to participate in more cross promotion activities, but you might not know what it is or where to even begin.
Below, I’ve got five steps you can take toward cross promotion.
But first…
What is cross promotion and why is it important?
Cross promotion is not unique to writers and authors. Every company utilizes cross promotion. It is the process of expanding the marketing reach of your product (you, your brand and books) by broadening the audience exposure. More on how to do that below. Cross promotion is a win-win for everyone. You may end up with more sales, you may not. However, you will end up with more exposure. The more your face, name and books are seen, the more likely people will follow you (via newsletter or social media). Your name will be more recognizable across cyberspace. Most importantly, the more you help promote other authors’ services and books, the more they’re likely to help you. Generosity breeds generosity.
Now, how do you do that exactly? Here are five simple steps you can implement to help cross promote.
Participate in, and offer to do author interviews and guest posts:
Participating in author interviews on another author’s blog will help expand your name to another audience. Now that author’s audience is able to find out more about you. When you in return share that author’s interview post, you’re also exposing that author and heir blog to your audience. That’s cross promotion.
Newsletter swaps
When you gain a decent newsletter following, you can then offer to post a spotlight, blog post or interview post from another author or book in your newsletter. This exposes that author and book to your audience. The term ‘newsletter swap’ is just that. When you do a spotlight in your newsletter, then that author you’re spotlighting should post in their own newsletter, and therefore expose your book to their audience. Win-win.
Participate in multi-author book giveaways – or run your own!
Recently, I have seen many authors creating their own multi-author book giveaways. Contemporary Christian romance author Melony Teague, for example, did a multi-author Mother’s Day giveaway. This is great cross promotion. You are working together as a team of authors to promote each other’s books to each of your own audiences, therefore expanding exposure exponentially.
You can also join some that are run by companies like Booksweeps, Bookfunnel, The Collaborative Press and Celebrate Lit. The goal is to share the giveaway with as many people as possible so that you are helping both yourself and the other authors.
Participate in other authors’ street teams and launch teams
Authors should not be your competition. In fact, the opposite is true. You should always view authors in your genre as companions. You’re all on the same team. Everyone wants to both make money and build an audience. As much as you can, find those authors who you love, and those authors whose books are comparable to yours in genre, and share, share, share. Share cover reveals, interviews, giveaways, sales, release day blasts, teaser images and book reviews. If you share enough, then when the time comes for you to release a book and you need a favor, other authors will respond to your previous generosity of time and will be more likely to share yours.
In fact, that’s one way I was able to obtain an endorsement from a popular author for my second book, A Worthy Heart. The author’s initial response was that she doesn’t usually read for endorsements, but because I’ve shared so much of her books, reviewed many of them, and helped advertise for her during sales etc, she chose to read my book and write an endorsement.
Another quite popular author, when I asked her if she could endorse my book, apologized and said she didn’t have time, but she offered me a guest spot on her very popular and active multi-author blog. A blog I follow, and a blog in which I rarely see guest posts from. So that was fun and encouraging!
Invite other authors to join you during a launch party.
Throwing a launch party online can be fun and rewarding. You get to converse with your audience, and give away prizes, and of course, talk about your new book. What’s even more fun, is when you bring in special guests, who also give away prizes. You’re both offering them exposure to your audience and drawing in people to your launch party who know the other authors’ name but now your name. If advertised well ahead of time by all parties, doing something like this can help expand everyone’s audiences.
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In short cross promotion is a win-win for both you, and the other authors involved. Authors should not be your competition. In fact, the opposite is true. You should always view authors in your genre as companions. You’re all on the same team. Everyone wants to both sell books and grow their audience. If you take time to implement these tips, you’ll be well on your way!
Do you have any other awesome cross promotion tips? What has worked for you in the past? Let us know in the comments!
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