Smorgasbord Cafe and Bookstore – #FREE Book Marketing Opportunities 2021 – Making the most of your promotion Sally Cronin

There are a few things going on in the Cafe and Bookstore and I thought this was a good time to have a recap of existing promotions and some new or revised ones coming up in the next few weeks.

I am always delighted to welcome new authors to the shelves of the cafe and if you are new to the blog then here is the link that tells you what I need from you to create your first promotion.  It also shares some tips on how to get the best from your promotion.

Smorgasbord Cafe and Bookstore – New Book on the Shelves 2021 – #Free book promotion

For existing authors in the Cafe and you can check Cafe and Bookstore for your entry and if you have changed covers or have a new book recently released that I have missed please email me with the Amazon link to sally.cronin@moyhill.com.

Authors in the cafe have reviews that are recent within the last six months or have released a new book... this enable me to keep up with the 130 to 150 who are in the cafe at any particular time. I do move authors into another annex and check regularly for reviews or releases after this six month and return them to the main cafe with new events.

If you have a new book being released and have a date for it to be on pre-order or available then please email as soon as possible so I can schedule a new book promotion… sally.cronin@moyhill.com

There will be a weekly news post once a week which will feature five or six authors with recent reviews. Slightly shorter entry but will all the usual links. The reason behind this increased number of authors is to expand the exposure for all those featured.

If you are featured it would be very helpful if you could visit the post and share on your own social media. Not just to spread the news of your own review but to support the other authors in the post. If all of the featured authors share on twitter for example it will promote your books to a much larger potential readership and that makes a huge difference.

For example: If all the authors in the feature share to their followers on Twitter, combined with mine… the post has the potential to reach thousands more potential readers.

On Saturday I posted the new series of share an excerpt which this time around is for previous books. The focus is usually on our latest releases but particularly in the case of a series it is useful to showcase the first book to encourage new readers to start at the beginning. As you can see from this link D. Wallace Peach received 211 views of her post featuring an excerpt from Soul Swallowers (The Shattered Sea Book 1).. which incidentally I am currently reading…

Smorgasbord Cafe and Bookstore – Share an Extract from a Previous Book- #Fantasy – Soul Swallowers (The Shattered Sea Book 1) by D.Wallace Peach

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Also a good book deserves to have time in the spotlight and with new readers comes more recent reviews which is excellent.  You can find the details of how to participate in the post Here

This recently added annex to the Cafe and Bookstore is thriving with new children’s books being added regularly. I know how difficult it is to market any book, but even more so children’s books where you are marketing to adults rather than the intended readership. I am looking forward to adding more books in the coming weeks and if you have children’s books as well as adult books, you can be in both bookshops. There is no time limit on reviews so happy to share as long as they are available on Amazon.. here are the details for adding your books to the reading room..Smorgasbord Children’s Reading Room

On March 22nd a new series of Meet the Authors kicks off. Since the last series in June last year another 25 authors have joined the Cafe and Bookstore. This is an opportunity to get to know them and their books a little better. I will also include their blog social media links and it would be great if you could follow them there too.

Once I have featured the new authors I will move onto feature the other authors in the Cafe again with updated bios and books etc so it will be a full bookstore promotion that will take us up to the summer.

As I am in author’s Amazon pages and social media frequently I do see some areas that might benefit from being updated. I know that I often nag you about these points but it does make a difference.

Getting reviews: I know what it is like to get your book out there and reviewed, but sometimes you need to give the process a helping hand.

I buy the books that I review unless it is an author that I have previously read and reviewed who asks me to read an advance copy.

I wish I could read a book of every author in the Cafe and Bookstore and the majority of books that I buy and review are for authors on the shelves and apart from the pleasure of reading their books, it also offers me another opportunity to provide additional support. You can find all my reviews for the last two years at this link: Smorgasbord Book Reviews 2018 2021

Here are a few suggestions on how to obtain reviews within the blogging and social media community.

• Offer the ebook to beta readers before publication so that there are some reviews as soon as it is available.
• Check book review sites (many are free) and check the submission information and send the book off to them. For example Rosie Amber Review Team has been established for several years and had an amazing team of authors and readers who review books that are submitted.. Getting a great review from one of the team members is a fantastic boost to your book.
• Offer your book to members of a group that you are part of – limit it to 3 or 5 free ebooks that you can email to them… if you are not already a member of The Literary Diva’s Library on Facebook do check it out…
• Approach bloggers who interview authors and share an excerpt from your new book plus offer potential readers the chance to get to know you better.
• If you are a blogger keep a book page up to date but also at the bottom of appropriate posts you can add a cover of your latest book with the blurb and links to buy.

Author Pages on Amazon and Goodreads

The three key Amazon sites for English language books is your country of origin and then US and UK sites. You can set up your Author pages through Author Central on those three sites so that they are identical.

Not all authors that I check out for recent reviews have an author page at all. When you have multiple books that makes it tougher for readers to find all of them in one place and makes it harder for me to promote them.

This also applies to Goodreads – particularly as readers can post there from any country in the world and also if they have not bought the book (Amazon’s review policy) having received as a beta reader, as a gift or borrowed from a library.  There are quite a few authors in the Cafe who don’t have an author page and again this means it makes it harder to promote the books.

Having a Book Page on your Blog

I have all my books on a page on my blog with links to Amazon and to Goodreads.. I am always surprised when I go to a book page and there is not buy link. I know that many of you like me do not have a monetized blog but I have always shared that link and because I am not actually selling through the blog it has never been questioned. Not having a link to find out more about the book is wasting an excellent marketing opportunity.

At the very least put the Goodreads author page with all the reviews and readers can link to  Amazon to buy the books from there. Here is mine by the way.. wouldn’t want to miss a marketing opportunity!! My books and reviews 2021 

Using a pinned Tweet to promote your books.

I bang this drum repeatedly because it is a free and very useful way to promote your books.

Apart from being the first thing that a new follower to your Twitter will see, it expands your profile and enables you to share your books. They sometimes block external sales links such as Amazon so I have a page on my blog with recent reviews for each book and a link to my UK and US Amazon page. As you can see since I put this up on January 11th it has been shared 320 times. That will be then seen on someone else’s timeline and if they have a few thousand followers it is great exposure.

When I don’t have a new book of my own in the offing I will change the tweet every couple of weeks to showcase the Cafe and Bookstore or a new promotion.

Also when someone retweets a post on the blog or follows me for the first time I will go in and retweet their pinned tweet. If there is not one available it is a wasted opportunity for them to be shared to my followers.

Sharing someone’s pinned tweet is a quick and easy way to say thank you.

Posts from your archives is also a good way to promote your books. Open to all bloggers with some variations to each series, those who are authors have an opportunity to showcase their books and their buy links.. The current series is for posts from the last six months of 2020.. and I am currently scheduling for May with posts but you are more than welcome to participate: : Posts from Your Archives 2021

I am usually posting two weeks ahead to keep up to date and this means that I sometimes cannot promote books for authors in the Cafe and Bookstore that are on special offer. To remedy this I am starting a new section to the Blogger Daily that goes out four to five times a week and is therefore more time sensitive for book offers that might only be for a weekend or a week. If you are an author in the cafe.. and you can check your entry here Cafe and Bookstore – email me (sally.cronin@moyhill.com) with the book link on Amazon and the dates that it will be reduced with the price and I will include in the nearest Blogger Daily.

Smorgasbord Cafe and Bookstore has been offering authors FREE book promotion for the last five years. With the various promotions each week and average of 25 authors are featured with their new releases, recent reviews, extracts and special promotions such as the Christmas Book Fair. Additionally there is an opportunity to participate in the Meet the Author and Posts from Your Archives…In the last twelve months there have been over 500 promotions shared on the blog and across my social media network of just over 46,000 connections.

It is very much a collaborative effort and I am so grateful to the amazing authors who go out of their way not just to share the promotions they are featured in but others that they visit each week. It does go a long way to make book marketing more effective .

Smorgasbord Cafe and Bookstore – Author Updates -#Reviews – #Poetry Frank Prem, #Thriller Toni Pike, #Writers Harmony Kent

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It is two years since I posted the Book Marketing series and around 100 authors have requested the pdf copy that I made available.  In the next couple of months I will be updating and reposting the series so expect some more nagging soon!!

Thanks for dropping by and look forward to sharing your books in one of the promotions soon.  Sally.