I get really interesting emails here at LDS Publisher. Most of the time they are spam and I just delete them—but every so often, I just have to share. Like this one:
Hi there!
I stopped by ldspublisher.com earlier today and noticed you tend to write about zombies from time to time. Because of that, I thought it might be worth it to share an article with you published by [redacted] with detailed information on how to prepare a barn or garage for the zombie apocalypse…
It goes on from there and includes a link to their website that features a company that builds barns and storage sheds. I did a search on my site for “zombie” and really, there’s not much there. And none of them are me writing about zombies.
But.
This is clever. They got me to click their link.
So what does this have to do with writing? When you’re brainstorming about marketing and promo material for your book, be clever. Tie your book into something that captures the interest of bloggers or other readers. Not necessarily zombies (although that always gets my attention) but anything that’s currently in the public eye.
What are some tie-ins that you seen or used that were a clever way to get some extra attention for a book? Tell us in the comments the title of the book and the tie-in.
Vampires, werewolves and zombies always get my attention, but there wasn’t a part for a supernatural character in my book. What I did have is a young woman, who has never owned a pet, who adopts a Great Dane in need of rescue. Life becomes interesting real fast as she takes on such a large dog. I started a facebook page about the book and have pledged a set amount per book sold to my favorite Great Dane rescue.
Great tie in! Local news stations are always looking for stories like this.
Eh, forgot my book title! It’s been a long week. A Little Hair of the Dog, by Jane McBride.
How long does it take for a book to get listed here? I don’t think I’m on yet.
Jane, it depends on my day job and how busy that schedule is. And believe me, lately, it’s been B.U.S.Y. I can post comments from my phone but I have to be at my computer with some free time to make the posts. I generally try to do a couple of weeks worth of posts at one time and set them to autopost. So even though you see posts appearing almost daily, that doesn’t mean I’m creating them daily. I have your info and will get to it as soon as I can–probably this weekend. I’ll send you an email with a link when it’s up.