Marketing Time.

I've been thinking about self-promotion and marketing, trying to figure out what works best. What I've come up with is that, whatever it is, it's time-consuming.

There's the Twitter thing. I haven't built up the number of followers on Twitter that I'd like, but honestly, I don't think it's difficult to do, just time consuming. I know of someone who, in addition to random Twittery things (My dog looks so cute in her Easter outfit) just posts random motivational sayings directly out of a book of random motivational sayings - and has over 1000 followers - but she posts a few times a day. I hardly ever remember to even go to Twitter... but if I did, if I posted every single day, even just random bits of stuff, I might be able to get a bit of a following, and then I could post things to promote myself... could work.

Also, the repeatedly-googling-my-book-title-thing. At one time, Aigai-- autocompleted into Aigaion Girl because I spent a lot of time repeatedly googling my book title. Now, even if you type in all of Aigaion the software comes up before my book - because I just don't have the time to type my book title into a Google search bar 200 times a day. But it would be nice. I could definitely do with my book being at the top of the results page.

Reviews would be great. A lot of reviews. But I'm still not sure how to get them. A huge part of me is tempted to mail random copies of my book to completely random people - just pick names out of a phone book or something like that - because people who blog are likely to post something about it anyway. "I got this random book in the mail today, WTF?" would probably generate a fair bit of googling, if nothing else... but then that's kind of creepy, isn't it? Just mailing things to random people.

Also, contests. I think contests that are free to enter do well. They're certainly my favourite kind.

I'm mostly just thinking out loud and I really should get back to work. This is my last night at my day(night) job, and I want to make sure everything is done properly.

A Quick Thought About Marketing and Day Jobs

I'm amazed that day job wasn't already a tag, given the nature of DevCo and the nature of writing today (as in, skill and perseverance pretty much have to be combined with unbelievable luck in order to get far ahead enough to no longer require a day job), but there you have it. I'm at mine right now.

I came up with a great marketing idea, or at least an OK marketing idea, involving Twitter (I know :p). I thought I would post something every day (maybe first thing in the morning) telling people the best rate for Aigaion Girl and where they can find it. Eventually, the constant posts have to get someone's attention, right?

So that's my thought. How it pertains to my day job: I don't have a computer of my own, so I have to use the one at work - and that one won't let me use Twitter; it has some antiquated net nanny thing on it which I could probably disable really easily, but am not going to because I like my day job bosses.

OK, I think that's it for me. I'd put up a picture of Marco, but the only one I have is at home.

Introducing...

Marco, the marketing gorilla! I kinda felt like DevCo could use a mascot (not that I don't love the fish!). What do you guys think?

Also, on a total aside, I'm trying to find a way to a) put our profile pictures with our names at the bottom of each post and b) rotate the scribes list, so my name isn't always at the top. If anyone has any ideas on how to do either of these things, please let me know.

And now for the actual reason for the post, which wasn't really going to be about Marco, but was going to be about marketing. I want to know what you think of this idea for marketing on less than a shoestring:

My thought is this: I want to do a book tour, but without the author, the signings or the book stores. Not a blog tour (although I do plan on having one in the mid-to-late summer), but an actual physical tour. What I want to do is send a single copy of my book to someone who has agreed to read it, review it (this may be optional, not 100% decided) and pass it on to someone else who has agreed to read it (possibly review it) and pass it on to someone else, etc., etc.) Each person who receives it will write their name (full, first or last), approximate location (as long as they give province/state and country, they don't have to give a city if they don't want to) on the inside cover, along with, if they want, the date they received it. They'll also be encouraged to include small stickers/business cards/lightweight, flat tokens of their location (ie small canadian flag stickers, or whatever) next to their names or on the inside back cover of the book. For my specific purpose, I plan to include a little paper doll of Moloch which will fold flat and make the journey with the book, so that participants can post pictures on the Facebook fan page/blog that I'm going to create for the purpose of Moloch in their town/ wherever he ends up. I kind of want to make it an interactive sort of deal, where the page (wherever it is) would track the book's progress (and Moloch's adventure) as it travels around to various places.

So, that's my plan. Thoughts?