Open Season on Wombats

It's great to see the promotional efforts the authors with upcoming releases are making. I have to chuckle over all the questions I've had to field about the references to Australian marsupials on my website and blog lately. Curiosity has been rampant about my mysterious "password protected" pages.

As of Monday, my WOMBAT RECRUITING site went public and the news is out. I'm not talking about cute little mammals from down under; I'm talking about marketing my book. WOMBAT, you see, stands for Word of Mouth Buy And Tell, the natural, organic way that we have been creating exposure for our books in this market for years. Blog tours, reviews, interviews, Facebook and email blasts, launch parties, posters and bookmarks have long been staples in getting the word out, and I'm sticking with those standbys for my campaign for The Rogue Shop's December 8th release. The difference is, I'm trying to stimulate even greater enthusiasm by offering some attractive incentives.

I've seen authors give away a book or two, and one recently offered up a Kindle to the person who generated the most buzz for her book. I'm trying to build a small army of WOMBAT warriors who really like or are anticipating my book, so I'm throwing out up to $255 in amazon.com gift cards to those who really take this show on the road.

Most of us know we're not going to get rich anytime soon writing fiction for our little market and publisher. We do, however, want as many people as possible to read our books. In order to maximize that potential, we need to make ourselves visible on this vast sphere of noise called the internet and make it clear that we have something worth buying. The investment in these prizes is well-worth it to me if a select group of individuals will take a few minutes and help create this visibility with me.

How well will this work? I have no idea. It's an experiment, and I'm willing to share the nuts-and-bolts and results with my fellow Cedar Fort authors so we can all learn something. If it does have a positive impact, I'll be happy to reciprocate and participate in similar programs for you when your time comes. If all goes well, I'll put more books in readers' hands and you get more blog traffic and followers - setting you up for more book sales down the line. Oh, and you may very well walk away with a gift card worth up to $50, too. This is not a random drawing -- it's purely based on the number of points accumulated with your activities.

Go to http://michaelknudsenauthor.com/676-2/ to find out exactly what kind of WOMBATical activities I'm talking about, and how to earn the rewards. Meanwhile, in the comments let's invite some of the established authors to tell about the things they've done that resulted in more sold books, or in positive buzz. Have online advertising, blog tours, or video trailers worked for you? There are no trade secrets here; we're all in this together!

By the way, if you haven't seen Don Carey's utterly charming video teaser for Bumpy Landings (even if you have, like Inception it gets better with repeat viewings), go directly to Monday's post on this blog!

psst, Don -- do I get another point for that?