How do you publicize a self-published book?  You’re already blogging and Tweeting and taking part in any online scene you can, hoping to attract the attention of people who might like your book.  But this isn’t enough.  You still want to make the jump from online to off, getting people who don’t live online interested, too.  I know I forget sometimes that not everyone spends as much time in front of a computer as I do  No matter how many people read my blog or follow me on Twitter, lots of potential customers still won’t have any idea who I am.

It’s a hard road – marketing may be the hardest part of selling a book to do on your own.  It’s easy to find a professional editor to work with, and there are plenty of print-on-demand publishers.  But marketing, getting your book out where people can see it, is still tough to do outside of traditional publishing.

Last night I had a dream.  In my dream, an author, who had signed up to publish with Manfred Macx, and I were setting up a booth on the Mall in downtown Washington, DC.  We had paper copies of his book, information about Manfred Macx, and some free stuff to give away.

I woke up thinking to myself, “That’s not a bad idea”.  I’d still have to work out some details – I’m not even sure it’s legal to do that on the Mall.  But that’s not the point.

The point is that it could be a great way to get the author’s name out there, and get some nice publicity for Manfred Macx, as well.  So, I need a local DC author in need of a self-publishing platform.  A local works best – because there aren’t travel expenses, and, more importantly, there’s a connection to the city.

I want to make this happen.  Not now, because no one wants to sit outside in a booth all day when the weather stinks.  But this spring, when the tourism season really picks up again, I’m going to be out there with someone, promoting a book on a soapbox.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.