As a writer, I am comfortable sitting behind my desk, scribbling away on my writing pad, or staring for hours at my computer screen engaged with my characters. When my novel is finally finished and edited, I breathe a sigh of relief and have the thing published. Then comes the nightmare to market and promote the book. We all have to do this for ourselves, as for sure, it won’t get done by itself. Marketing, of course, requires a Jekyll and Hyde transformation—and I am generalizing here—a makeover from an introverted writer to extroverted publicist. For most, it simply doesn’t work. If marketing is a breeze for you, than I am envious. So, what to do?

I have the usual social media pages: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Goodreads, and a personal website. I am also connected to several writer and promotion groups where I make posts and initiate discussions. Sometimes they generate a lot of response, and sometimes not. Oh yes. I also ‘link’, ‘friend’, ‘follow’ people and ‘like’ pages. The theory is, the more numbers I have, the better I should feel, knowing I am reaching to an expanding audience. That’s the theory. Okay, sounds good, but what about hard promoting and marketing of my books? Simply having them sit on Amazon, Draft2Digital, or IngramSpark is fine, but how do I get more sales and more hits on my website and blog? You might be asking yourself the same question.

Having researched the Internet for some ‘practical’ advice, I discovered a wealth of individuals and organizations waiting to help me, promising a glorious future, my brand name in lights, and expanded sales. I got a warm fuzzy and thought I’m onto something—until I read the fine print…and the price for this glorious help. Still, I won’t get anything for free, and perhaps an investment now will pay off in the long run. The bottom line is, I must do something, right? What are those marketing options?

One of them is a virtual book tour. Depending on the amount of money you are willing to part with, for one book only, you will get:

· 10 to 30 interviews, which will be posted on various blog sites.
· A personal tour page on the host’s website.
· A book banner of your book posted with each interview.
· Press releases to magazines and newspapers.
· Organized book giveaways.
· A number of book reviews.

Sounds great, but there is also a caveat to what might sound like a good deal. After you have filled out your interview questionnaires and you are now waiting for them to be released over the tour period, usually 30 days, your are asked to participate in the tour process—nothing wrong with that.

· Tweet your tour, your interviews, and reviews.
· Announce your tour stops on Facebook, Linkedin, your website and everywhere else.
· Chat about your stops on social networks, e-groups, your blog, everyone in your email folder.

What is happening here really? Sure, I am getting my interviews released, and I got one book review, not five or six as promised. The fine print will say ‘up to’! And where are all those press releases? I am paying hundreds of dollars just to have my interviews posted and I still have to do all the publicity and marketing myself! What is my virtual tour organizer doing for me, apart from giving me a page on their website? In reality, they don’t do much for you. Having gone through one of these tour things, I am not sure I got the better of the deal. Well, I learning something about the process…

I must say one thing. Giving away your books will generally do nothing to boost your sales. With Amazon, books given away for free will not enhance your rating at all. You need to remember that there are people out there who do nothing but trawl self-publishing platforms looking for free giveaways. I have worked for months producing a book, and I am not prepared to give it away for nothing. If it has merit, an interested reader must be prepared to pay for it. You don’t get freebies at a supermarket! I feel the same way about setting a price for my book to almost nothing in the mistaken, and it is mistaken, belief that this will generate sales. Use it as a prompt to generate interest in my other books? Yes … if I also give them away for free, Research has clearly shown readers appreciate quality and are prepared to pay for it.

Your other marketing option? Well, you can engage a professional publicist or marketing company to push you and your books. It works, if you have thousands of dollars to spare or you won a lottery. What do these marketing gurus tell you to do? If you want to do all the hard work yourself, have a marketing plan, everyone says! It goes something like this:

· Identify your target audience—I like that no brainer!
· Engage your social media outlets.
· Have a comprehensive personal website and blog.
· Run book signings.
· Give your books to libraries.
· Give away bookmarks and flyers.
· Run book giveaway contests.
· Have business cards made up.
· Mobilize your friends, family and fans.
· Advertise in magazines and newspapers.
· Issue press releases.
· Get radio interviews.
· Run webinars and teleseminars.
· Regularly guest post to ‘influential’ blogs.
· Attend conventions and book fairs.

There is lots more free ‘advice’ like that, but I think you get the idea. I am not saying those tips are not useful or effective, and I do apply some of them, but if that’s all there is, why would I want to pay a publicist or some company to do these things for me? I recently had a quote for a radio tour of twenty interviews for $2,400, accompanied by a promotional consultancy to publicize me for $4,600. Such help is way beyond my means, and probably beyond the means of most writers. The bottom line is, engaging a publicist costs a fortune, and there is absolutely no way to evaluate the effectiveness of any offered program beforehand. No one will promise that your book sales will go up by taking up any of these promotion programs. The hard fact is, to mass sell your books, you have to be with one of the major traditional publishers who can spend tens of thousands of dollars on you and your book. Even then, your publisher will dump you if they see poor sales.

These days, Facebook, Fiverr, and other social media platforms are full of scammers eager to sign you on, promising sales and glory. I’m not saying there aren’t genuine publicists out there, but my experience suggests that most who contact you directly are scammers. How to tell a good one? Check their marketing record and ask for references.Most of the time, you won’t hear from them again, or they’ll come back to you with ‘You don’t trust me?’ The ones I like best are ‘Facebook ‘friend’ requests fr4om someone who claims to be an author. They engage you in a brief conversation, then start pushing the line how someone they know helped them sell thousands of books, and they would be glad to share the contact with you.

The rocky reality for all of us? I try to follow my marketing plan and do as much as I can through social media outlets, blog, tweet, and engage other writers. Does that help my sales? Let me put it this way. If I expected to live off my writing, I would have starved a long time ago. As with all things, buyer beware. Remember, shady publicists and scammers are in the business of taking your money and doing as little as possible in return while getting you to do most of the work anyway.