Ready for some new ideas for promoting your books? Book promotion is the Monthly Theme for January and February and we will have lots of terrific information for you.

As I was gathering articles and links, I had trouble defining the limits of promotion. From my point of view as a marketing person, every activity, from book design to how you answer the phone, has value in selling books.

I looked through publishing books by Poynter, Jud, Ross, and Kremer and none of them have a concise definition of "book promotion". 

Is "promotion" the entire marketing plan? Is it just media and PR? Does it include advertising, social media, and newsletters?

The books had lots of great information on promotion, but somehow they just assumed I knew the definition and boundaries of the subject.

For better or for worse, I am taking matters into my own hands and creating SPAN's definition of book promotion as applied to the Monthly Theme resources.

Book Promotion projects build awareness of yourself, your publishing company, and your books to your target market. I include projects such as book awards, media campaigns, public speaking, reviews, and building your platform .

Although promotional, I will leave activities like these out of the definition: social media, direct sales, book distribution, advertising, online marketing (including web sites), newsletters, and copywriting.

Not so coincidentally, this month's  SPANpro Webinar is on "Creative Book Promotion".  As always, Brian Jud will give us tons of content and dozens of new ideas for our promotional activities. Information on the January 27th Webinar here.

The world is not going to beat a path to our titles. We have to get out and promote ourselves and our books. Book Promotion Month at SPAN will get you charged up to broadcast the news about your books.
 

Thanks,
 

Scott

Scott Flora

SPAN Executive Director

PS.  I will be updating the Monthly Theme page regularly. Click here.