Brad Meltzer is one lucky guy. His first published novel, The Tenth Justice, made the New York Times Bestseller List. So did his next four.
He doesn’t have to do anything extra to market his books. Still, his next novel, The Book of Fate, due out on September 5th, uses a marketing trick every author should think about.
The hero’s best friend, Rogo, is a lawyer who helps people fight speeding tickets. His web site, www.downwithtickets.com, is mentioned frequently in the book.
And guess what? You can actually go to the downwithtickets web site. There are links to info about the book and the real lawyers who have a speeding ticket practice.
This concept got me to thinking: if Meltzer were a new author, he could put postcards with the down with tickets site under the windshield wipers of cars all over his home town. The site could feature information on him as a local author, and free downloads of the first chapter. And if he was really aggressive, he could even put the postcards under the wipers of all the cars parked at his local TV and radio stations, and his local paper. It’s such an unusual promotion, it could easily get media coverage– especially locally.
Frankly, you could do the same thing– whether your book is a novel or non-fiction. Let’s say you have a character whose hobby is gardening.
You could have her get tips from www.planttelepathy.com. And you could have a web page for plant telepathy, with your bio, and a free first chapter of the book. And you could do a windshield wiper campaign at gardening stores, and perhaps also put out postcards at your local new age bookstore as well. (And you might as well go for the media, too.)
The name of the game is to help as many people as possible find out about your book in as many ways as possible.
“Big Name” seems to be the name of the game. Subject matter seems to be immaterial. Frivolous subjects sell well so long as there is a Big Name author. Ironically, a “Save the Republic” subject by an unknown author (even if the author is in Who’s Who in America) gets nowhere.
Example: Domestic oil production has been declining sharply for over 20 years because the media has convinced the public that foreign oil is cheap. I seem to be the only person in America who can prove that foreign oil is more expensive than domestic oil. But, that is contrary to conventional wisdom, so no attention is paid to my book, WHY YOUR GASOLINE PRICES ARE HIGH. Does the public really want its gasoline made from $64 per barrel foreign oil rather than $38 per barrel domestic oil? Apparently, so.