Promoting the Promotion

Really? I have to promote the fact that I’m doing a promotion to promote my books?

When I realized this unwelcome fact of being an author, I wasn’t at all pleased. I want to write books. I don’t want to be a salesperson. But much to my chagrin, this is as much a part of authoring as the writing part. 

So there I was – seated at a table at an outdoor event with twenty or so other vendors selling everything from food to jewelry to 50/50 raffle tickets – and no one was coming by anyone’s table! What the heck?! 

Did I fail to mention this event was an outdoor concert? Oh right, there is that little detail. I looked around and there were hundreds of people seated in their folding chairs waiting for the music to start. 

Time to take the bull by the horns. I grabbed two handfuls of my promotional bookmarks and off I went. If the mountain top won’t come to me, I’ll just go climb that mountain.

I gave out close to 300 bookmarks and spoke to several people that were pleased to know that I was a local author and said they would look at my books. 

Another lesson learned: marketing books is a lot of work. So I’m currently looking for an agent that I will happily pay to represent my work and tell me what more I have to do to promote my books in an electronic world of millions of books. 

Then I’m going to have a glass of wine and write more books. 

Happy Days to all of you!

Dee Morgan