Promoting historical fiction

7 replies
Just curious what some of your thoughts are on this. How would you go about promoting a historical fiction novel? Specifically it is Anglo-Saxon era (think 1066, Edward the Confessor, etc.)

A friend has written it and I am about 60 pages in and it's very good, I am thoroughly drawn into the story and it is structured very well etc. etc. but trying to market/ promote something like this is outside of my area of knowledge.

All I can think of is to find historical fiction forums and find tactful ways to get people to go read some of it on wattpad but that seems like a slooooooooow boat to China. Maybe see if there are any facebook groups etc. all seems like tons of work for maybe one or two sales, if any.
#fiction #historical #promoting
  • Profile picture of the author marketingva
    Hi,

    Along with what Ken suggested go after forums, blogs and websites geared towards history buffs. Those people tend to read a lot of historical fiction.

    Bonnie
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    • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
      60 pages is not much of a novel. It could be a short story, those are pretty popular.

      Assuming this is published on Amazon, first you fill in your author central area, then set up a website for either your friend as author or for the book in particular. Link to the amazon page in your website and start writing posts about the period, about the characters, about the writing process.

      you need to get to the point where your friend is an authority and that is going to take some work and some time. It isn't IM and those approaches are not going to work for this project.
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      • Profile picture of the author djtrillian
        Originally Posted by JMichaelZ View Post

        60 pages is not much of a novel. It could be a short story, those are pretty popular.
        I didn't say it is 60 pages, what I said was that I have read 60 pages :-) The total page count is 285. (not on Amazon at present and not in Ebook form. It is currently a printed paperback)
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        • Profile picture of the author Nightengale
          Alicia Dunams is creator of the Best Seller in a Weekend program (BestsellerInAWeekend.com), which is aimed primarily at non-fiction writers (and more specifically, entrepreneurs looking to promote their businesses).

          However, she's recently been promoting a new program for fiction writers. Apparently, she brought in a colleague to help her. You can see the on-demand webinar over at How to Write a Bestseller in a Weekend

          I'd seriously take a look at it if this is what you want to do Alicia knows how to get books out there and how to promote them. It's what she teaches others to do.

          Hope that helps!

          Michelle
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  • If you really like the book, you could also try writing a review and sharing it on social media. Or you could also share quotes that you like from the book and link it to wattpad.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris-
    Yes, relevant forums can be good. One approach is to join relevant forums, get involved, post relevant and interesting comments, with a signature link which points to what you are trying to sell, that can work.

    Another approach would be to create your own relevant content, such as a free blog on the subject, put up lots of relevant content, reviews of related material, comparisons etc.

    Or the writer could offer 1 chapter for free, and a monthly subscription for another chapter a month.

    Or create an affiliate program, and get affiliates to do the work of promoting it for you, in return for commission . . . this is what Amazon and a LOT of other successful businesses do online. There are plenty of free affiliate-systems, or it's not that difficult to spend a few dollars outsourcing a few simple tasks (Form, cookie, data-base etc.) (I did all this myself for free, just learning a few simple bits of PHP from free online resources), then you can contact anyone with relevant content and tell them about the affiliate program.

    Or sell it as a Kindle book on Amazon. Formatting is very easy, or outsource that for a few dollars.

    Or paid-traffic . . . pay for advertising, such as banners on relevant forums (you'd need eye-catching graphics, again easy to outsource), AdWords etc.

    Or all of the above By the way, I outsource on oDesk, using fixed-price jobs, so I only pay for work after it's finished correctly.

    Chris
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