The Great Promo Brainstorm

Bring in your pets and put away your lawn furniture, the great Brainstorm cometh! But first, a bit of sketch spam of custom ink drawings I’ve been doing on the inside of people’s books ordered direct from me.

 Keywords (Left to Right): “Angel Warrior”, “North Star”, “Angel Tribe”, “Fairy Child”

After the success of the first book signing, I’m scheming on ways to keep pushing promotional efforts before I’m old news. At this step I’d actually prefer to hire a publicist, but for now that’s just not in my budget. The company is handling getting the book into stores and now it’s my turn to set up the rest of the grassroots efforts that will start here in my own little town and corner of the interwebs!

Here are just a few of the things I’m pondering on doing (I’m wide open to suggestions if you have any):

– A Blog Tour – I’m still trying to grasp the what, where, and how of this. Basically I would approach various blogs and see if they would mind featuring me or my book on their blog and post a schedule of each ‘stop’ that’s planning a feature within a certain date range. Anyone know of any good fantasy or art blogs I could approach? (Or who host one themselves that would be relevant to my themes?)

– A Book Giveaway – Soon to be on this blog! As soon as I’ve got my paws on the next shipment of books, I’d like to giveaway a whole bundle (Sketch+Book+Prints+Other Cool Goodies) to a lucky commenter! I will have to think of a good comment prompt for this one. *plots*

– Book Signings -Where to start? After a little MOAR RESEARCH, I’ve written up a Press Release for any prospective bookstore owners just so I know what to say when I’m on the phone (or pitching in person) with them and also so I have something to email them for reference. (Don’t quote my formatting on that write-up. It’s probably all backwards!)  So far, it seems like the best way to schedule one is to approach their community relations departments at a corporate level so they can recommend the store that’s best set up for such an event.

– Book Sketches – I’ve been publicizing these in my online sketchbooks to help remind folks that YES I do offer custom ink sketches in the inside-cover of any book ordered directly from me for an extra cost! The rules of advertising state that repetition of your product or brand helps breed familiarity and credibility. Trying to keep true to this tenant, which means I’ll soon be doing more video trailers very soon! Proliferate throughout the web, my pretties!

And the Brainstorm continues.  Any promo strategies you’d like to share? Any of the particulars listed here get you excited for more?  Share and share alike!

4 comments

  1. Coty, that would be wonderful! I think the way it works is I have to have a list of folks and dates already decided on any one tour.

    I don’t want to delay you if you’re wanting to post now, however. I would love to plug any reviews along the way, whether they’re part of a tour or not.:)

  2. GuiseMaker says:

    Those strategies look promising…but I can’t think of any area of advertising you haven’t touched. Perhaps liberal entertainment press papers in surrounding towns and cities to you? Free Press Houston in my city promotes local businesses and entertainment. While it does have ads for “Thai Massages” and other services, there is some decent stuff in there too. Or maybe see if locally-owned shops will advertise for you, or let you put up flyers. Comic/Game shops, Pagan shops, locally owned bookstores, etc.

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