Strictly Internet Marketing for Fiction

Publishing more books is just one tool you can and should use in ‘getting your name out there’ or in book marketing parlance, ‘creating and using a platform.’ Once you have some books, submit them to any legitimate contest you can find that offers an award, even if the award is not monetary. Writer’s Digest (April ’08 issue) just published the list of their contest winners and runners-up for self-published books. From that contest alone, ten writers now have the right to append “award winning author” to their name.

Be careful of contests, there are a lot of scam artists around. Good places to check the latest frauds, schemes and pitfalls are Writer Beware and Preditors & Editors. Some contests collect reading fees and often a large portion of these fees goes toward prizes. I recommend extreme caution when the reading fees are exorbitant, say more than ten or twenty bucks.

And don’t think just hardcopy books either when you go looking for contests to enter. E-books and podcast books have many contests you can enter as well.

Labels: book awards, contests

# posted by Gene Curtis @ 3:21 PM