How to Effectively Use Online Groups to Market Your Book

If you are a published author you know how important marketing your book is. If you are a beginning or as yet unknown author, then you know even more how important it is to find free and or low-cost marketing avenues. Without such avenues it is very easy to go broke in a short amount of time.

One of my favorite free marketing avenues is online groups. The most popular place to find online groups appears to be Yahoo, however, Google and other places have them as well. If you are a self-published author you may even find them at your publisher.

Online groups are a great way to meet new people who are interested in the same things you are, whether that be reading, writing, golf, or creating 3d artwork to name a few. You'll notice I didn't just mention ones related to reading and writing. However, they can also be a great way to effectively market your book(s). But how do you do this? I'm about to tell you!

One thing to keep in mind when using online groups to promote your books is that not all groups allow authors or anyone else for that matter to promote their products within their groups. Since you don't want your post to be labeled SPAM by the owner of the group, you have to tread very carefully about when and where you post promotional e-mails within a group.

The first step to finding online groups where you can promote your books is to do a search for groups for readers and writers. Depending on the genre you write in, you can narrow this down even further. Now, at first you may be discouraged because you can't find quite what you're looking for, but don't give up, keep searching by widening your search terms.

Once you have found a group that looks promising go to the group's website and see if it says whether or not promotional posts are okay. If there is no information about this listed on the group's homepage, then you have two options. You can send the group owner an e-mail and ask, or you can go ahead and sign up for the group and then see if any promotional e-mails for books have been posted. Now, contrary to what you might think, just because you've found some promotional posts, which by the way are usually labeled Promo in the subject line, does not mean that you can just blindly start posting promotional e-mails about your book.

Your next step is to see if those posts are only on a certain day of the week. That's right, some groups only allow promotional posts on one day of the week. Again if after finding such e-mails they appear to be on only one day of the week then query the group owner to be certain if it is not spelled out. The last thing you want to do is alienate someone whom you want to be on your side when it comes to promoting your book(s). Also, you definitely do not want to be labeled a spammer. Many times both authors and readers are members of many of the same groups, so if you get eighty-sixed by one group, or labeled a spammer you can bet the other group owners and members are going to be on notice. This can be the kiss of death for an author, so don't let it happen to you.

Once you know what the rules are for any given group, make sure you follow them. Only post promotional posts on the day(s) they are allowed, and keep them short.

But what constitutes a promotional post, you might ask? This can mean many things to many people. Generally speaking, any post that contains an exerpt from your book, a release date for a new book, or any post where you are trying to get people to buy your book(s) counts as a promotional post. Some groups consider a post where you invite group members to look at your book trailer, or to check out a new review of your book to be a promotional post as well. Make sure you know what the group's owner feels a promotional post is before posting to the group.

Another nifty way to promote your books using groups is the author day or week. Some group owners will actually schedule a day or week for you to "chat" with the group. So, you can post exerpts during this day or week, book trailers, talk about your writing, and answer questions members of the group might have. It's a great way to get the word out about your book(s), and to make some new friends besides. Since often other authors are also members of these groups, you can also use them to network as well.

I have been using online groups to market my books and expand my member list for my newsletter for the last year and a half, and it has been one of my most successful book marketing tools. Using online groups to market your books is one of the best ways to get the word out about your books. Just don't forget to follow the rules!