Blogging from A to Z: Group Marketing

Blogging from A to Z is a month long challenge to post every day of the month (excluding Sunday) using a different letter of alphabet. This month I'm sharing unusual book marketing tips as part of my Marketing From The Edge Series.

Group Marketing

Marketing on your own can be time consuming and potentially expensive. But there's no rule that says you have to do it all on your own. Before giving up on marketing, consider joining up with other writers to market together.

There are lots of options when it comes to deciding who else to work with. You can get together with other writers based on:

• Location
• Genre
• Theme
• Age Group
• Release month
• Publisher
• Anything you want

Really, you can work with anyone you want, but it's a good idea to have something that ties you all together. Once you've figured out who you want to work with, you need to decide what you'll work on together, how to keep it organized so you avoid duplication of efforts and what your goals are as a group.

Again, the options are really limitless. It can be as simply as featuring each other on your social media platforms and blog or reading and reviewing each others novels. You can also create group promotional items such as book marks, postcards, social media buttons or other SWAG. 

Another way to help each other out is to include previews and buy links for each others' books in the back matter of your own book.

The ultimate in group marketing is a book package. If several of you have short stories or novellas in the same genre or with similar themes, you can package them together and sell the bundle at a very low entry price. While you won't make any money of these sales ($.30 split between 6 authors isn't going to add up very fast) you can find new readers who will, hopefully, enjoy the read and purchase your other books.

Group marketing can take a bit of effort to set up, but sometimes having others share in the work load can be the perfect way to stay relevant without burning out.