Ideas on Marketing your Book on a Budget

Before you start marketing your book to the public it should be available for them to acquire. Make sure that if a customer follows your marketing efforts and goes to buy your book it is actually available for them to purchase at that time.

Below are some ideas on how to market your book without spending a fortune.

Business Cards

Have some business cards made up with your books information on them. Your book's business card should have at least your book's title, author and information on how to purchase it. If your book has an ISBN number include that as well.

There are cheap and cheaper ways to do this depending on the method of getting the cards made. Some options include:

A good place to get business cards professionally printed cheaply is VistaPrint.com.

Here is an example of one method that I have used in the past:

I created a business card size image of the book cover for the front of a business card. I then created another image with the information about the book for the back of the business card. I saved a copy of the two images onto my computer and went to VistaPrint's website. I choose their "Upload your own business card" option. This allowed me to upload the two images I had created and have the business card look exactly how I wanted it to. I ended up getting 500 two sided business cards with my own design for about 50 dollars. Click here to see an image of the business card I ended up with.

You can get them cheaper from VistaPrint if you go with a smaller amount or only print on one side of the card, etc. If you don't want to spend that much you can get cards for free (must pay a small shipping and handling charge) if you choose one of their predesigned templates. You enter in your information and that information is placed within their template. It is set up for a standard company layout but you can enter in any text into any area they designate. Instead of entering in "Company name" for example you could enter in your book title there.

Where to hand them out:

Once you have your business cards you need to get them into the hands of potential customers. Here are some ideas on what to do with them:

If you have a book signing event set up bring them with you and hand them out to those that seem interested in your book. They can also be used as bookmarks so hand them out as such.

Do you live in an apartment complex? If you do you likely have a mail center where you go to pick up your mail and there is usually a bulletin board there. See if you can place some of your cards there.

Is there a community center in your area? See about having your business cards displayed there for people to pick up.

If you attend a church do they have a community center or bulletin board where you may be able to place your business cards?

Keep a few of them at your desk at work.

Ask friends and family that live in other areas to do some of the above for you as well.

You can buy magnetic card stock at an office supply store. If your card is one sided you can turn your business cards into magnets and either hand them out to people to use or place your card in places that have a metal surface.

Website

You should have some sort of webpage to promote your book. While registering your own domain for your book is the most effective you can get a free web page using some of the free hosting services out there. To find places that offer Free hosting do a search for "Free Web Hosting" at Google.com. Often these hosting services will display their own banner on your site and often contain pop up ads. You can also sign up for a Book Listing on Self-Pub.net. When you do this you will receive a web page URL for your book page. You can also check with your Internet Service provider to see if you are given some web space to use with your internet access account.

Use your book's webpage when marketing your book. Include the URL in flyers, business cards, links etc. Find other authors who may also have a website for their book and see if you can do a link exchange with them.

Message Board Forum Signature

If you participate in online message board forums you can usually create a signature that is displayed in every post you make. Place information about your book in your signature. If you have a website and/or an ISBN number for your book be sure to put that in the signature as well.

T-Shirts, Hats. Mugs and other Merchandise

Have some merchandise made up with your book cover artwork and information. Wear one of the shirts when you go out in public or make any appearances to promote your book. Give some of the t-shirts out to friends and family for them to wear. Give them a coffee mug to bring to work where others may see it and ask about the book. Have a bumper sticker or a car magnet made to place on your car. A good place to have some of these items made is CafePress. You can open up a free shop and upload the graphics you want on the merchandise. You can then either buy the end result for yourself or make the store available for others to purchase from. There is no minimum order to place, if you desire you can design and order a single t-shirt from them and only pay the cost of the single t-shirt. If you wish to order additional merchandise at a later time you simply go back to your store and place another order. For an example of some of the merchandise available view the store for one of the books I self published here. Besides T-Shirts, hats and mugs you can also have posters, stickers, postcards, greeting cards and more made.

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