10 Tips to Promote, Promote, Promote

Occasionally, I get asked by another Greek American author about promoting books, and I thought I'd compile the steps I took in promoting my books to the Greek American market. If you're not catering to the Greek Market, you might consider organizations that revolve around your market:

1) Make sure you have a website (or wordpress, or blog) that includes your bio, your books, and where to buy the books. An online presence is critical in this time of social media. Update it regularly. Check out my site as an example: http://www.pattyapostolides.com

2) Join Social Media like Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Make a Facebook Fan Page. If you want to attract likes on your page, go to http://www.worldlitcafe.com  to sign up for more likes. Become active. Get a following.


3) Sell your books through a Greek American organization like AHEPA or Daughters of Penelope (DOP). It would help if you're  a member, too! You can start by sending a book to the AHEPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., like I did, and ask if they'd like to read/review for their AHEPA magazine. Also, the DOP have a book club, and you might want to contact them, too.

4) Contact all the Greek churches in the states with a flyer describing your book. Include ordering information. You can go on the archdiocese website (http://www.goarch.org/parishes/) to find parishes. Ask them to post the flyer on their bulletin, or give to their Philoptochos society.

If your book does not have offending material in it, your chances are better, you can even ask if they'd be interested in buying books for their library. I have sold many books through these outlets. I have also spoken through several church and Philoptochos events this way (NJ, PA,NY).


5) Contact your churches in your local area to see when they'll have their church festival. Sign up for the festival and be there to sell your books! Expect to pay a small fee for your table. You'll need a white table cloth, books, flyers, and a willingness to talk for hours at an end. Also, your local church might have a book club, or over fifties club, or even a cultural group you can talk to. I did book signings at all these groups at my church.

 6) Contact your local community newspaper. Send them a book and ask for a book review. Do the same for local magazine. They're always looking for new material.

7). Contact the Orthodox Observor, a newspaper of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese (http://www.goarch.org/news/observer.) They do post community events, and when you publish your book that is a community event! Also, you can place an ad in there, I did a few times and got sales that way, too!

8) Mail order : This one's a tough one, but if you can get a mailing list, and send flyers to individuals, your rate of sales goes up dramatically. I still get Christmas cards from readers who I've maintained contact all these years. A reader just sent me a Christmas card asking me "when is your next book coming out?" Isn't that wonderful?

9) Contact your local library -  they typically have rooms where your can sign up to do a talk and booksigning. You can list this event in the newspaper and community news.

10) Contact your local bookstore - I left this one for last because they've given me the least book sales, but they do give sales.

Did you notice that the word "contact" has shown up several times here? This is a proactive situation. You need to be very active in promoting your books, and if you don't make that "contact" then your books will just sit there in your closet, collecting dust.

I made a lot of book sales over time using the above methods, and if you are a Greek American author, or even an author interested in different avenues of promoting, I hope you do well, too!