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Okay, but it takes big cajones. One method of "promotion" I tried was putting MY book marks into all of the 'best selling' titles on Walmart's shelf. Of course, there's no way to gauge the effectiveness. I fully expected to be arrested or at least barred from the store, but no one contacted me, so the next time I took a copy of my own book, placed it among those same books and snapped a picture. Now I can tell everyone that my book was on the best selling shelf at my local Walmart and not lie. I was tempted to leave the book there, but I didn't. *lol* But, I do have the photo.

Hi Morgan,
I am promoting three novels at once and am pushing with Twitter fairly hard, with an occasional nod to Facebook.

Well, I certainly can't beat Ginger's manner of promotion! Good for you, Ginger!

Me--for my 99cent dime novels, I began posting more on FB and Twitter, and sometimes on loops. But I did somethiing different. Instead of an excerpt--which are always too long, in my opinion--I used Mini-excerpts, no longer than three lines--and all dialogue.

I also did Friday First Lines for a while..not exactly a first line everytime, but just one line:

"Addie turned on her heel, slapped her hat on her thigh, kicked a rock with the toe of her boot, and marched into the house, slamming the screen door back on its hinges."

I wait inbetween doing these..maybe do two or three on a Friday...then nothing for a week or longer. I'm making more money on these 99cent things than I am on any full-length novel. And they're a lot more fun.

I think Ginger did something that many would not have even thought of! What a great way to say something about Walmart having your book on their shelves! You are very innovative and I give kudos to you for trying that! Hmmmmm......:-)

Wear a T shirt with the book cover or a pin with the cover. Hopefully someone asks about it, or if you see them staring, you can give them a card or bookmark.

I wore a "promotional" Haloween costume to a Haloween party this past fall! It included a giant replica of my novelist business card and since my pen name s Stephanie Queen, I wore a crown.

I handed out lots of cards that night!

I am really loving these suggestions. Keep them coming. I'll have to try a few!

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

Ginger, you're amazing. I'm going to try it.LOL.

Celia, where do you post your Friday First Lines?

My promo is to concentrate on Twitter, and post a promo tweet 4 or 5 times a day. I also put a free book for 3 days and another for 2 days. It helped a lot. Now my books are $0.99. This is a promotion in itself.

Oh, I forgot another thing I did once...I went into a clothing outlet and placed business cards in the pockets of anything that had one. Again, there isn't an efficient way to gauge the success of my attempt, but maybe it did get my name in someone's mind. I like thinking outside the box. Can you tell? *lol*

Ginger, you really have me thinking. I have a bunch of postcards with cover art, snippets, short excerpts, and QR codes linking to Kindle. Now I wonder where I should leave them? Maybe at the train station?

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

I'm doing a big blog party on the release day for my next book. Well over a hundred have signed up so far.

Wow there are some really great suggestions. I don't think I have the gumption to do what Ginger did, but I've done lots of tweeting and just started my first book tour. Plus I'm giving lectures related to my books twice in the next two months.

What I did only took nerve if someone was watching. I made sure no one was...although I'm not sure of the security cameras. *lol*

I've tried lots of other things, but these outlandish ones are what jumped out at me. I highly recommend leaving printed material where ever you can. I have postcards on my stylists counter, at the dentist, and I've given every clerk at Walmart and local restaurants a pen with my logo on it. :) My husband passes out my business cards to any women he sees reading wherever he happens to be. He's my best PR person.

I've been carrying fliers everywhere and sharing them with everyone I ran into who I haven't seen in awhile or people who look like they read and might be interested.

I like the little descriptive cards that Chester Campbell's wife gave out.

Sometimes I wear t-shirts.

Guess! Oh,and there's always chocolate.

I use Twitter but I ensure at least half (preferably more) of my tweets are NOT direct promotion. It annoys me when I see only promotion from some Twitter accounts. It's a bit like those people one never hears from until they want to sell you a raffle ticket. I have built a Twitter profile which includes the hashtags #authorsneedexercise and #dogoftheday and I also quite often tweet about books by other people. I use sigfiles in email and carry cards to promote my book website. I give these to anyone who looks interested. I know this must seem very laid-back, but I find pushy promoting turns me right off, which is why I never respond well to cold callers who try to sell me insurance.

I was at an ALA (American Library Assoc.) luncheon a few years back. Since my character is a gambler, I put a playing card by each plate - it took 3 decks of cards.) I had the MC announce that whoever had the queen of hearts was a winner of one of my books. It brought several more buyers to my table.
DL Larson

I'm partial to blog tours too, Morgan. I don't do book marks, but I always get business cards and hand them out everywhere. Even did it on a cruise, giving a card to anyone reading a book, a Kindle or Nook.

Marilyn

Marilyn,
I like the idea of giving out business cards on a cruise-I'll try that in March. Celia,
i liked the couple intro lines too, I'll have to try that with Hearts & Daggers.
Margot
www.mjustes.com