by Ashley Lister

 When we release a title into the world, the world should give out a celebratory cheer and the streets should be swathed in a cavalcade of confetti. Our hard work, imagination and effort deserves to be justly rewarded. Reviewers from all the mainstream media should be singing our praises and urging the buying public to rush to local bookstores to demand a copy of our most recent opus magnus. It wouldn’t be too much to ask for a segment on that day’s news.

Sadly, this is seldom what happens. Book releases come and go and all that happens is another book is added to the ever-growing list of titles that people know they should read but seldom do.

That said, there are things we can do, as writers, to make sure that book releases have maximum impact. Whether you write for a large publishing house or you self-publish, making sure people talk about your book release is an important step toward achieving success.

Flagging the book release as an event on social media is an important first step. Your friends want your book title to be successful just as much as you do. Letting them share posts, retweet links or like statuses etc is a powerful way of letting a large audience know about the existence of your new title.

Of course, one of the problems with an erotic book is that some authors can’t (or don’t want to) rely on family to help promote a title with sexually explicit content. Fortunately, this is one way that the erotic writing community is able to help because we’re all happy to share links, retweet posts etc. All you need to do is ask your other writer friends in the genre and they invariably help out.

Blogging about the title is very helpful. I love to experience new authors but there are times when it’s good to understand what sort of writing I’m going to encounter. If the grammar or spelling are unorthodox I need to be in a particular mindset to enjoy such writing. Seeing how someone presents a blog post will give me a strong indication as to whether or not I’m going to enjoy what they’ve written. Blog posts are the perfect advertising medium for the content of the story you’re trying to promote.

Merchandise, giveaways, and competitions are excellent ways to inspire more interest. For writers the idea of a bookmark is an essential sales tool but mugs with your latest cover on the side, pencils engraved with your book title or T-shirts bearing a soundbite from your work, are equally valid. Gifs, photos, short videos and any other electronic promotional information is very useful for potential readers to be captivated by the idea of your story to the point where they will invest in the product.

There are other things that can be done, which I’ll probably discuss at length here in future posts, but the most important one: the one that should never be forgotten, is to always include a link to a place where your latest release can either be bought or pre-ordered: Cursed is currently available for pre-order.