Top Ten Things Not to Do With Book Promotion – Guest Post with Charles Yallowitz

~ John W. Howell

Normally I post my Top Ten Things during this time. Today I am so pleased to have a guest “Top Tenster.”  Charles has put together a laugh out loud list for you today. Charles is a gifted author, and his Amazon Author page will give more detail on his books. If you are unfamiliar with Charles Yallowitz and his fantasy series Legends of Windemere (I think maybe you have been in solitary confinement for the last three years), then I hope you will have the incentive to check out his first book. After all, the price is right and here is the cover.

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

So Charles, welcome, and the post is yours.

Thank you to John for letting me attempt a Top 10 list.  Recently, I made the first book of my series, Legends of Windemere: Beginning of a Hero, permanently free.  A tough choice to make after it being 99 cents for three years.  Though there are worse ideas and here are ten book promotion methods that I wouldn’t recommend:

  1. Do not offer free flu shots with every purchase of your book. You are not a trained physician, and I don’t think your friend Scruffy is a pharmacologist. He may own a white lab coat and know how to spell ‘influenza’, but I’m pretty sure his degree is in Sandwich Artistry.  Also, you’d lose money on traveling to all of your readers.
  2. Do not promote your book by skywriting an excerpt. Yes, it’s a unique idea that’s never been done.  Though the reason is because you would run out of smoke before you get through the first paragraph.  Not to mention the beginning will fade long before you get to the end.  Does that say ‘dork and scurry right’?
  3. Do not brand your readers with a booby-trapped book. It doesn’t matter if it puts the Amazon URL on their forehead.  Seriously, you need to be kept away from all of mankind until you get professional help.
  4. Do not tie a promotional kite to yourself and streak through a major sporting event. The cameras will all be on you getting tackled in your pixelated glory.  Your precious kite will end up in a tree or trampled by the entire NY Giants defensive line and part of the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line.
  5. Do not try to get a celebrity endorsement by harassing them on social media and begging for permission to put them in your book. More than likely, you’ll make a public spectacle of yourself and get no reaction.  Though there’s always the chance that they’ll respond with a restraining order.
  6. Do not make and maintain a Twitter account for every single character in your book. It might sound like a good idea for the main character, but nobody cares what Marcel the Blacksmith is doing after being mentioned in one sentence.  Not to mention you’ll never leave Twitter to write your book and give Marcel a second sentence.
  7. Do not hold a raffle for your firstborn child and enter every reader into it. For one thing, it’s rude, and not everybody wants a child.  More importantly, your spouse and their new friend in a white coat might have issues with this.  Let’s not forget that it’s illegal too.
  8. Do not print out multiple cover slips for your book, go to the local bookstore, and put them on all of the bestsellers. For one thing, you never put a barcode on your creations and the cashier can simply write it up with a discount for damages.  There’s also that security guard approaching to ask why your clothes are stuffed with cover clips.  Enjoy the collection of paper cuts in uncomfortable places.
  9. Do not promise to include a copy of your sex tape with every purchase. There are many reasons why this is a bad idea.  The biggest one is that it will result in your spouse saying, “What sex tape?”.
  10. Do not run for President of the United States to get attention as an author. Seriously, you could win and be put in charge of the red button.  We both know how that will end, and cockroaches only read graphic novels.

 

Links

Legends of Windemere

Twitter

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Grab Legends of Windemere: Beginning of a Hero for Free!

 

50 thoughts on “Top Ten Things Not to Do With Book Promotion – Guest Post with Charles Yallowitz”

      1. I think they are already miserable enough. I’m to the point that I think political seats should be awarded like jury duty. If you get picked, you serve the term. At least there wouldn’t be a bunch of cliques, and regular people would have to think through some things.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. “Do not make and maintain a Twitter account for every single character in your book”

    This is bad advice. Two of characters got into a flame war with each other and now have over 750,000 followers each. They are some of the most hated characters on Twitter… Hope no one finds out that they are both really me….

    Liked by 1 person

    2. That’s impressive and I have seen people pull it off with 2-3 characters. Though I was going more for the extreme of ‘every named character’ in the book. Can I ask who the characters are?

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  14. What a great list, but some of these are pretty close to what some authors have done, like #5 and #6. Yikes. As for #10, I’d vote for you in a heartbeat, Charles 😉

    Liked by 1 person

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