Book Promotion Ideas

During my chat stint in the EONS Book Gallery Meet The Authors event, a fellow author asked for book promotion suggestions other than signings. I realized that my reply might help other authors, so I decided to copy it here:

There are lots of ways to use the Internet to promote books, as evidenced by this EONS Meet the Authors event! You can choose a few social networks that are likely to contain your reader population and join them and join the relevant groups in them, start making comments in those groups, and start inviting people to be your friends. I joined Eons, because people who read cozy mysteries also tend, by and large, to be older and to be female. I also joined the ning group "Crimespace" since I write mysteries, and Facebook (tends to have older members than MySpace) and Goodreads (a book discussion network).

You can also search for topics related to your book in yahoogroups and join groups containing folks you think might be interested in your book. I'm a member of three or four mystery-reading yahoogroups and try to contribute to the discussions every now and then, so when I have an announcement to make about a book release or some such, the members already know who I am. Also, find online ezines in your genre and contribute stories or articles and ask to be interviewed. And, if they have book reviewers, ask if you can send a copy of your book to them to be reviewed. You can also ask to be a guest on blogs written by authors in your genre.

For in-person event possibilities, I suggest contacting local libraries to arrange talks with their book clubs or writer groups or to participate in their local author days, if they have them. And, find nearby fan conferences for your genre and talk to the program chair about getting on one of their author panels. For instance, in the mystery genre, there's Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic, and the Mayhem in the Midlands conferences, to name a few. The science fiction/fantasy genre has World-Con, Mile-Hi Con, and lots of others, the romance genre has the Romantic Times convention, etc. You can often save costs by finding a conference within driving distance then carpool with another attendee, and share a hotel room with another attendee.