Free Ways to Market Books

Photo by Balázs Kétyi on Unsplash

I sold four Kindle copies of my poetry book for $0.99 this last time, and one other person downloaded and read a KU (Kindle Unlimited) copy. It's not much, but it is still encouraging. The first couple times I tried to give "Un-Clenched Emotion" away for free, there were no takers. Then I gave away 1, then 6, then 70! I tried some Amazon Advertising this time and wasn't very successful, but that's okay, marketing is a learning process!

Photo by Robin Pierre on Unsplash

Of course, I use this blog to market. I'm not sure how successful it is. I do get a lot of traffic that you can see by looking at my counter. I'm not sure how I did it! Just showing up helps. I don't have much interaction, only 4 comments and no subscribers' through blogger, but people are looking and that makes me happy. Then I do have some subscribers on Goodreads that I just found out about. When I post my new blog posts on Facebook, I usually get a consistent 7 or 8 people who look. (My blog has a reports section, that's how I know). I want to thank all of you who do look at my writings! I have over 1000 X (formerly twitter) followers, but I don't get many looks from there. I'm working on being more active on X, there are a lot of authors helping authors on that platform. I'm not sure how many followers that aren't family or people I know on Instagram. It's a big sized number I think, but not so much as X. I don't get that much interaction with Instagram yet either. The Goodreads author program is also free and there are many groups you can participate in. I belong to some and have gotten a few reviews from there. There are a few people who also marked "Un-Clenched Emotion" as want to read. So Goodreads is also a good marketing platform. The cool thing is I don't have to pay anything for these platforms.

Photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash

There's a couple of other of things that aren't costly that I could do to market my book. I could create a separate Facebook page and invite those interested. It seems like so much work though, added to this. And then I could attempt to create a newsletter, but that seems like A Lot of work. You may have noticed, I'm not extremely consistent in simply writing this blog.  It takes awhile for me to come up with a subject to talk about and sometimes I just don't feel like doing it. If I make a newsletter, it's got to be consistent. And then, of course, I have no idea how to get subscribers. So there are a lot of things I do to market my book, and somethings I could be doing but don't.

Catching Up: Finalist in Poetry Contest, New Book with Images, And Reviews

Finalist in Poetry Contest

Greetings!  It’s been awhile since I did a blog post.  Funny, since the last blog post I did I got a lot of hits.  I just needed a break I guess.  So, let’s get too it.  First, I wanted to brag that I was a finalist in the June 2018 poetry contest on Goodreads Poetry! Group, with my poem “Talking Walls.” I didn’t win, or get many votes, but a couple people posted they liked it, and I’m glad that my poetry was able to reach somebody.  To see it along with the other 6 finalists (out of over 200, Wow) you can go to https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/19356279-please-vote-for-the-june-2018-poetry-contest  If you don’t want to click on anything here it is for you:

Talking Walls

We are painted on the walls.

A stale empty white expounds character,

like full chaotic colors.

Memories encased in drywall.

Bleeding out to eyes searching the

multitudes of expression.

The memory of a friend passed on,

hangs a dragon by the door.

A blue Angel flies above the television

pondering the traveling friend who painted her.

The deer by the church are uncertain

of their wintering creator,

wondering if it is a dead relative.

The flutist gazing at the caged Nightingale remembers

the living family that gifted her.

A photograph of a daughter much younger

stares at passerby’s with her name in ceramics

next to the TV.

She has spoken to the walls in handprints

intentionally placed, and accidently.

A mother experiments with her creative process,

hanging pieces of her soul for various eyes seeing…

Strangers, Lovers, Her Own.

Her walls are an exhibition of her life,

they speak of her pronouncements in confidence.

What do other walls among other dwelling speak?

Curious minds must stare and extract.

Minds meld personalities.

Walls for examiners to notice insights of soul and life.

Using My Own Poetry Exercise

On a somewhat related note, I haven’t entered any poetry contests since then and I haven’t really written any more poetry.  I am proud, that this poem was written in one of the exercises I wrote about previously in this blog: looking at your surroundings and writing about them.  This is written about the things I have on my living room walls.  I didn’t really do any edits to this.  I have started editing and rewriting my other poetry though.  I discovered this cool thing in Word, where you can go into the review section and click “Read Aloud Speech” and it will read your work back to you.  No fancy editing programs needed! 

Public Domain Images and Poetry Reviews

I’d like to say that breaks are good for the soul!  I didn’t take a complete break, I did find a lot of poetry I have written and started making a new book about the cycle of the year and seasons.  I’m not sure if I’m going to self-publish it or not, but I was kind of hoping I could find a publisher who could do all the marketing work for me.  I’m just not good at doing that kind of thing.  My published poetry book “Un-Clenched Emotion” doesn’t have any pictures except for the cover, and I regret that, so I’m going to try to add pictures to my new one.  I was always afraid that if I used something from the internet, people would consider it stealing.  Well, I found out that there’s this thing called “Public Domain Images” where you can use the pictures in anyway you want for sale or for fun.  There are a couple of websites you can go to, to find these kind of images.  I’ve started doing this with my blog to make it look better too.  I also did reviews of 5 poetry chapbooks so far, and got my book reviewed too.  Only one person was able to post the review on Amazon so far, but I do have 3 four-star reviews on Goodreads at  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32320363-un-clenched-emotion.  I hope you have learned something from this post, or just found a little enjoyment from it.  Until next time! 

Celebrating the Little Things

Reflecting on happiness is good for the soul.  It’s hard to do when you are sad, but there are many stories and poems reflecting the emotion of happiness.  Some of my poems do just that.

Happiness in Un-Clenched Emotion

In my book, Un-Clenched Emotion I have organized my poems into three sections.  Because enjoying the little things in life is so important, I labeled the first section of my poems, (you guessed it,): Enjoying.  When down in the dumps, look to read uplifting things.  You may have trouble finding joy being celebrated, but you will see by my book that it is possible to find authors shining light instead of darkness in the world of literature.

Selling My Book

I am happy to announce that I have recently found things to celebrate in my world of writing.  I felt really good when I randomly received money in my bank account from KDP, which meant I sold a copy of Un-Clenched Emotion.  Who I sold it to, I don’t know.  I do know that I recently convinced my boyfriend to buy a copy of my book.  Like he usually does, he found a way to bring me pleasure by asking if I would sign his copy.  Blushing under his praise, I did just that.  Perhaps I only sold one random stranger and my boyfriend my book, but I will always look for the little things to bring me good spirits.  Little things like selling one copy of my book.

Love That I Shared

It’s not just my boyfriend and a random stranger that has received and read Un-Clenched Emotion.  When my best friend was in jail she requested a copy of it to pass the time.  I gladly gave it to her.  She has told me that once she got out of jail she left the book behind, or “donated” it.  I don’t mind that my book went to the occupants of a jail, it actually makes me very happy.  My friend told me that she felt my poetry was very good and deserved to be shared.  I have shared my writing in the world at large as well with the creation of this blog.  After leaving it for months, I was ecstatic to come back to it and find that I had 102 page views.  I have no idea how I got those views.  Was it because I figured out that I needed to click a box on BlogSpot in order to make it searchable?  Was it because I put labels and descriptions on my blog?  Was it because I shared on Facebook that I published a poetry book and a friend shared my post?  Because another friend shared my post on Twitter?  I may never know, but sharing my blog with 102 people is something to celebrate.

Happiness can be in the little things.  In my case I found happiness by being proud that I put a section on “Enjoying” in Un-Clenched Emotion, by selling my book, and by sharing my book and blog with others.  I hope that you can find ways to reflect on happiness too.

The Title of Un-Clenched Emotion or Unclenched Emotion

When I wrote my poetry book I thought of the perfect title: "Unclenched Emotion."  Something funny happened when I went into Word.  It said unclenched was a misspelled word.  Because of this I thought unclenched wasn't a word, much to my dismay.  So I changed it to un-clenched emotion.  I wasn't giving up on my title even though I thought the word didn't exist.  It's a sad thing I changed it with the dash, because that makes it harder to find.

To my humiliation, when I posted on boards on Create Space, where I published my book, that unclenched wasn't a word, I faced some correction.  It is a word.  I had to have other authors telling me so.  That's really embarrassing for someone who studied English, but we all have our faults.  What does unclenched mean?  In the most basic sense it means to open from a clenched position.  Like unclenching your teeth.  Or it can mean to relax.  It just goes to show you that you should not rely on spell check.  It's not just Word that has unclenched as misspelled, it's doing it here on blogspot too.  (Funny note, blogspot is also underlined in red).  I have all kinds of red underling a word that has a definition and is spelled correctly.  Confusing!

So why did I choose "Un-Clenched Emotion" for my title?  I wanted something that described emotion uninhibited.  I wanted to describe hidden emotions opening up.  I wanted to describe emotion as a positive state, and relaxed is that.  My poetry is full of emotion and I was (and will be in the future) writing about my feeling.  Sometimes writing about feelings that I'm guessing others feel.  I think in great writer should put their feelings into their words, unabashed.  They should be "open" about it instead of "clenched"  I was in my book so  ultimately, I think I have a great title.  I just wish I published without the dash!