Cross Promotion

Earlier this year I was part of a Facebook party. It was awesome. Then I joined a cross promotion sale for Valentines. They were great for my sales. Here is a run down of how cross promotion works and why every one wins.

Advertising can be expensive. With Facebook Ads and Amazon Ads probably the cheapest but there are some authors spending tens of thousands on advertising. When you start, that kind of money is just not feasible. So what can you do? Wallow in obscurity? Well, there is an alternative. That is to work with other authors.

Each author has their fans, even if that group is only small. What cross promotion allows is for you to share your fans with other authors who have similar books. They in turn share their fans with you. Readers in genre fiction are veracious. They can consume hundreds of books a year. I'd love to be able to write that many books but it is just not going to happen. Even as a reader I have several authors that I follow and I still have space for more favourite authors.

The different types of Cross Promotions can be:

Facebook party: Several authors get together to entertain a group of people on Facebook with funny and engaging posts. They have giveaways and behind the scenes of books. Think of Tupperware party but all on line.

News Letter swap: This only works if you already have a large following yourself. When you have a new book out or a sale on a book you swap with another author a space on your news letter for a space on theirs.

Sale events joint giveaway: Several authors put their books on sale and then put those books in one place to share. They share with their fans the event and they go to the site and get free books or discounted books. You can do joint giveaways through sites like Bookbub and Instafreebie.

Multi-author anthology: Everyone writes a short story and puts it together in one book and everyone shares it with their fans. Fans will buy it to get to the exclusive short story and get a chance to read other authors and maybe become a fan of them.

Multi-author book bundles/box set: Same as the anthology but with whole books. Often this is the first book in a series and people pick it up as they can often get dozens of books for 99c.

Interviews: It is best to have a new blog regularly but sometimes you don't have the time to write something. So many authors with a blog will also do interviews. They get a blog they didn't have to write. The author shares it and their site gets more traffic. You get another page for Google to give you some love. I had someone who wrote a blog and asked people to share it on their blog. It was a behind the scenes thing on their new series. So it doesn't always have to be interviews.

Multi-author series: Mills and boon/Harlequin used to do this. They have one universe and then get several authors to write an installment each in the universe. Can't argue with their success. If you do it right and don't have a first in series and have cameos from the other books you can do very well this way.

Co-author a book: There are two ways this is done. One, you work equally with another author and you write the book together or you can see if a more established author will take you on like a ghost writer but get credit for writing the book with them.

Amazon Worlds: Amazon allows you to write in the same worlds of other authors. They vet any books and a part of the royalties go to the author but it is a great way to ride on someone's coat tails.

Instead of thinking of other authors as your competitors, this instead creates an alliance where everyone wins.