Now that the print version of Documenting America is available, I’m moving into the promotion phase of being an author. It has been available as an e-book since May 2011, and as a print book since mid-November 2011. My short story, “Mom’s Letter”, has been available as an e-book since February. During that time, on Kindle, Smashwords, and the several other sites to which Smashwords distributes, I’ve sold a total 23 copies of the two.

Sometimes I note a sale the day after I’ve spoken to someone about it. When I went to the state ASCE conference in Little Rock in October, I had dinner with an old friend, told him about it, and the next day had an e-sale. In November I mentioned something about it to someone (the circumstances escape me right now), and the next day I had an e-sale. It seems that, at this point at least, I have to sell each individual copy. I have not succeeded in creating a buzz for either work. 

But, I’ve been doing mainly passive promotion. By that I mean: notices on my Facebook page; posts on this blog; posts at the Ozark Writers League Facebook page; a notice to my alumni magazine; posts at Conservative Arkansas Facebook page; posting notices on a couple of writing forums; adding links to my signature for e-mail and forum posting. All things I can do without interacting with a person. It’s out there, waiting for someone to see it. The Facebook posts on other pages took a little chutzpah, but still I would consider that passive marketing. And, I’ll make sure I have a mention of the book and a link to where to find them in our Christmas letter. After all, it’s big news for the year. 

I believe I can safely assume that passive marketing won’t result in many book sales. If I really want to create a buzz for either of these works (though I’m clearly more interested in promoting the book than the short story) I’m going to have to move into active marketing. That will require me to contact real human beings, either in real life or on-line, and either ask them to buy a copy of my book or to help me promote it through an interview or a speaking engagement. I have three or four ideas on how to accomplish this active marketing. One is to research blogs that might want to promote the book. This would be political blogs (more conservative than liberal) and USA history blogs. Another is to contact local civic clubs—Kiwanis, Lions, Civitians, Rotarians, etc—and see if I could speak at them. That requires research, however, to find out who does the speaker scheduling and contact them. 

Today I did some of the research needed for active promotion. I did a search for history blogs and American history blogs. This provided a lot of links, many of which were to abandoned sites or blogs that really wouldn’t apply. In 20 minutes of searching I found one US history blog where the owner encouraged publishers to submit books for review on the blog. I don’t know how he feels about author published books, but I went ahead and e-mailed him, and am now waiting. I suppose next week I’ll begin the process of the civic clubs. 

All this is not comfortable to me. I was raised to not toot my own horn, to let others praise when justified. Now, I have to go out and shout, “Hey! My book is worth reading, worth $10.00 in dead-tree format and $1.25 in pixel format. Buy it, buy it, buy it. How well I do this, and for how long, will likely turn out to be the biggest test of my writing career. 

Stay tuned.