Speaking of Social Media…

Social Media Giveaways, Contests and Other Book Promotions

By Columnist Marcia Meier
December 2012

Finding a way to promote your book in a creative way that is imaginative, compelling and successful is the challenge on social media. As you’ll see below, the old bookstore appearance/signing is quickly becoming antiquated, not to mention expensive for a new author.

Writers are giving away e-book downloads for limited times on Amazon. Some authors are doing virtual book tours with book clubs and bloggers. Others offer free books in varying kinds of contests. Next month I’ll tell you about how author Catherine Ryan Hyde’s e-book giveaways have boosted sales and her Amazon rankings.

This month, a sweet success story.

Candace Walsh has a brand-new book out called Licking the Spoon, A Memoir of Food, Family and Identity. It’s getting great reviews, but what is most interesting is Candace’s unusual promotion from Black Friday after Thanksgiving through the following Monday. She offered to send a dozen homemade cookies to everyone who bought a copy.

Here is her first Facebook post, which came to me through a mutual author friend:

“This Black Friday through Monday, support my soul-connected cottage industry! Buy Licking the Spoon either online, in your local bookstore, or directly from me, and I will send you (or your gift recipient) a dozen homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. All you have to do is email me the receipt – and bada bing, bada boom, baked goods. I gift wrap, too. NOTE: I have sold out of the books I have on hand, so if you buy directly from me, I won’t be able to ship ‘em until I get the next batch on 12/4. But you can definitely reserve one of those today.”

As of Monday, she had orders for more than 30 dozen cookies, which doesn’t count the people who bought her book and didn’t bother to ask for the cookies. But her Amazon ranking soared from a measly 300,000 to 8,000 at one point during the weekend, and remained at 10,000 Monday. Which means lots of sales. Not too shabby.

When she first posted her plan on Facebook, I responded with a tongue-in-cheek post: “Great idea, but she may be baking for a long time…”

And Candace said: “I am definitely going to be baking a lot this weekend. But I see it this way: I’d rather bake for 6 hours than spend 6 hours round trip on a bookstore event that may only have 4 people in the audience (this happened last week in Albuquerque, even though the event was in all of the local newspapers and I flogged it on Facebook). This way, I get to stay in my pajamas and keep the bookstore mojo intact for hometown or solid readings in Santa Fe, New York, LA...”

So true! So, over the next 48 hours, she kept her FB friends posted on book sales – and cookie baking – progress.

Early Saturday: “I woke up to LTS being at 8K! So sweet. The [buy my book on Amazon/receive a dozen homemade cookies] deal is good through Monday, so make sure you get yours! I am thinking about offering adorable holiday themed sugar cookies, though. Just to mix it up.”

She interspersed these posts with links to great reviews of the book, to drive interest. Candace told me it was an especially good way to get distant family, friends and acquaintances to buy the book. I think it was brilliant. And it appears to have worked.