Promotion During Your Debut Year
Promotion During Your Debut Year
By Julie Tollefson
In 2022, as a first-time author with a small publisher, Mary Monnin had to rely on her own creativity and ingenuity to design a plan to promote her debut novel, Death in the Aegean. Here, Mary shares what worked, what didn’t, and the changes she made this year in promoting her sophomore novel.
1) Embrace the virtual — Mary employed a service, Love Books Tours, that arranges virtual book tours for authors.
“I highly recommend it,” Mary says. “I didn’t do that with my second book, and I kind of wish I had.”
Authors select from a menu of options, including the number of days they want the tour to last. The service then reaches out to book reviewers and arranges for reviews to be posted on social media sites. Authors provide ebook or physical copies of their books for the reviewers.
“I think that was well worth the money,” Mary says. “They all did a graphic with my book and posted their review. It garnered a lot of book reviewers on Instagram. Several of them, at least three, had hundreds and hundreds of comments.”
Mary responded to every person who commented on the reviews, even when the comments were directed to the reviewer. “I feel like that really helped to build an audience,” she says.
When Mary’s second book, Death on the Grand Canal, came out this year, she attempted to arrange a virtual book tour herself but only heard back from two reviewers. When book three drops in May, she plans to return to a paid service.
2) Form a band — Mary and several other authors who write books around art crime themes have joined forces as the Curators of Crime to promote themselves to libraries and other venues.
The group gave virtual presentations to a number of libraries and appeared together on panels during a couple of conventions. Not only were they able to jointly promote their work, they were able to learn from each other and reach larger audiences because the experience level of group members ranges from debut to author of multiple series.
“Everybody brings their own experiences and personalities to this group. It’s wonderful,” Mary says. “When you’re a debut author, it’s really all about getting your name out there, getting readers familiar with you. That was really important.”
The members have created a Curators of Crime Facebook page and website to continue their promotion efforts.
3) Take advantage of free and unconventional opportunities — Mary’s main goal throughout her debut year was to put her name and her book on the radar of as many potential readers as possible. One of her greatest successes — and among the most fun — was arranging for an author “takeover” of the Cozy Mystery Party Facebook group.
“It’s a huge group, thousands of members,” Mary says. “You get an hour, and you can post every 10 minutes. I got a huge amount of engagement with that.”
Mary also signed on to write guest blogs for many outlets, and she uses Canva to create ads that promote her books and her Intrepid Traveler brand on social media using the hashtag #TravelTuesday.
“On most Tuesdays, I post a picture of someplace I’ve been or places my characters have been,” Mary says. “That’s a way to get my brand out there. I can’t say I get a whole lot of interaction with it, but I enjoy them.”
Among the more unconventional opportunities Mary has participated in, she set up a table at a pop-up shopping event held at a local brewery. “That was fun. It was well attended, and my book sold well,” she says.
She also agreed to be a guest speaker for a class exploring mysteries as armchair travel, taught by a fellow author. “I had a slide show of all the places in Crete and Santorini,” Mary says. “I talked about the places and how I used them in the book.”
Professional organizations like Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and of course Mystery Writers of America offer a wealth of information, from chapter meetings to webinar archives, to help you navigate the murky waters of promotion. Authors also can purchase advertising in ITW’s Big Thrill publication.
(Check out all the great information available in the MWA Midwest video archives in the members-only section of our website!)
4) Invest in yourself and your career — Some promotion opportunities will require an investment on your part. Mary paid for Kirkus reviews of both of her books, a move she considers money well spent.
“I’ve been lucky. I’ve been really pleased with my Kirkus reviews, and that leads to other opportunities,” Mary says.
During her debut year, Mary attended Malice Domestic, Thrillerfest, and Bouchercon. For her second book, she added a smaller festival in Louisiana and SleuthFest in Florida. Her goal was to determine where she would meet the most readers.
“I always asked to be put on a panel. Always. That’s part of marketing,” she says. “People who wouldn’t go to see you individually will see you on a panel and learn about you and what your book has to offer.”
This year, she’s added Goodreads giveaways, Amazon ads, and NetGalley to her promotion repertoire.
She gave away three ebooks on Goodreads and reached 4,400 people who added her book to their to-be-read list. NetGalley puts her book in front of booksellers and librarians, an audience every writer wants to reach.
For Amazon ads, she researched a low-price strategy. “I’m very, very pleased with it,” she says. “I haven’t sold a whole lot of books, but I’ve had 459,000 impressions. That is exposure to people I would never, ever reach otherwise, and I only pay if they click on it. I’m a big believer in the maxim that a customer has to see a product seven times before they buy.”
5) Organize and adjust — Juggling your own promotion requires organization. Mary uses a paper desk calendar to keep track of deadlines and obligations.
“As soon as I have a pub date, I reach out to people with blogs,” she says. “I line up guest blogs first thing.”
Though big publishers push the importance of preorders, first-week sales, and bestseller lists, Mary spreads her promotion events throughout the year so her name stays in front of readers longer.
“I’m not too concerned with getting everything right during release week,” she says. “That’s not my mindset when I start setting things up.”
In addition to nailing down blog spots, Mary and the Curators of Crime email libraries and book groups to schedule joint appearances.
Keep in mind, too, that you don’t have to do everything. “If some part of social media or reaching out is not right for you, then don’t do it,” Mary says.
She doesn’t release a regular author newsletter, for example. “With my Travel Tuesday posts hitting Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, I felt like I had done all I could with the same kind of information I would be putting out in a newsletter,” she says. “I like other author newsletters. I get them. I look at them. But it’s not quite right for me, and that’s okay.”