Support for Indie Authors discussion

Hey everyone, hopefully this is the right folder!

I'm an author in the UK and hoping to do a book launch. I'm 15 so my budget is pretty tight but I was wondering if any of you guys have advice on how to go about it and what to do etc etc. I've kinda been putting it off for weeks...I've just hit a rut!

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Maymunah

An online only book launch might would probably be your best bet.

- You could find other authors that have similar genres and see if they will have you for an interview.
- You could promote on social media leading up to the release.
- There are various promotional book blogs and sites that will sometimes put up your book for free if you get lucky, but it might be hard without another book out there. I only know of promotional free book ones right now though, but perhaps someone else knows others or you could find some!

- You could think locally as well. Contact the local paper or some local book stores, a 15 year old getting published could get some news.
- My local bookstore allows any author to do signings for free if you sign up. You need physical books though to do such a thing.

I would reach out to book reviewers that review your genre. I did a six week tour. Some of them may not be open for reviews, but if you contact and ask them to do an interview or allow you to do a guest post about your topic.

I did a six week tour for my release and had the book set up for pre-order which was promoted on most of the sites. You can check out some of the guest posts and character spotlights I did as part of my tour by looking at my tour list http://www.heidiangell.com/

Thanks Heidi and C.B! That might have been an idea, except hardly anyone replies to social media these days...or maybe it's just my year group as a whole?? Is there anything else I could do, like low-cost activities and such?
Maymunah

Maymunah,

You certainly need to take your audience into account when planning your marketing. But no matter who your audience is, reviews are important to get you seen on the online book stores. Book reviewers are easy to find in blogs. Those bloggers typically will share their review not only on their blog, but on Amazon as well. If you ask, a lot of them will also share on other sites like Goodreads and Shelfari.

I know that there are a lot of YA groups here on Goodreads and they have a lot of teens on those groups. I have also heard that Tumblr is still popular among teens, as well as instagram.

Facebook and twitter, not so much.

You can also look at local scenes where your book might do well. Where do your peers go? A lot of times you can get your local coffee shop to hand out bookmarks, or a local club to hand out stickers that promote your book. Those all cost money, but you can get stickers and bookmarks for really cheap. Designing them can sometimes cost more. You just need to go where your readers are and market in a way that you know they will notice.

Maymunah wrote: "Hey everyone, hopefully this is the right folder!"

Moved to the Author Help folder. Each folder has an explanation with it so you don't have to wonder if you're posting in the right place. Please be sure to read them.