Ep 117: Unconventional Ways to Promote Your Book (Without Breaking the Bank)

Ever walked past one of those cute Little Free Libraries and thought, Wonder if I could sneak my book in there? Spoiler alert: you totally can. And that’s just one of the brilliantly simple, low-cost book marketing strategies I dish out in this episode—ideas so simple many authors never even think about them!

Here’s the thing: no matter how you publish—traditionally, hybrid, or self—marketing is your job. And I know, that realization hits like a rogue wave. But before you panic-Google “best book publicist on an extremely limited budget,” take a breath. You don’t need deep pockets or an extrovert’s energy to get your book in front of readers.

In this episode, I break down ridiculously doable, budget-friendly ways to keep your book casually showing up in the world. Think: leaving copies in waiting rooms, slipping them onto airport lounge tables, or—one of my personal favorites—perching them on a pumpkin display at Trader Joe’s (because...why not?). 

And for my fellow introverts who would rather not chat up strangers about their book? I've got you covered with my (ethical) “discreet book drop" ideas. No awkward small talk required.

Bottom line? You don’t need to go viral—you just need to stay visible. So grab one or two of these ideas, and give 'em a try! Oh, and let me know how it goes and what other creative ideas you've tried! 

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Do You See Me Now by A. Morini

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Author Perspective
• 5:28 What Authors Wish They Knew Before Publishing
• 8:31 Book Recommendation: "Do You See Me Now?"
• 12:08 Truth About Publicists and Podcast Pitches
• 17:48 Free Little Libraries and Book Drops
• 21:27 Creative Placement and Scavenger Hunts
• 24:23 Leaving Books in Waiting Areas
• 27:25 Unconventional Places for Book Marketing
• 29:20 Episode Wrap-up and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:30

Elizabeth Lyons than absolutely necessary Because, let's face it, some overthinking, second-guessing and overwhelm is going to come with the territory, if you're anything like me. In short, I love books and I believe that story and shared perspective are two of the most impactful ways we connect with one another. A few things I don't believe in Gimmicks, magic bullets and swoon-worthy results without context, as in be sure to reveal that a result took eight years or required a $30,000 investment in ads, because those details are just as important. What I believe in most as an author, the long game, is the shortcut For more book writing and publishing. Tips and solutions. Visit publishaprofitablebookcom or visit me over on Instagram at ElizabethLionsAuthor. Hi everybody, all right.

Speaker 1: 2:27

So a few days ago, on my stories, I put out a question and I asked published authors what was one thing, just one thing, that they wish they had known prior to publishing their book. I'm not entirely sure what I expected the result to be, or if I even had an expectation. I was just curious. I got nine or ten responses, which is frankly a lot of responses for me to get on a story. Every single one of them said in some way, shape or form I had no idea I was going to have to be doing so much marketing. Or I had no idea that launching the book was just the beginning, meaning now comes the marketing, or I had no idea I was going to have to become a one-person PR show, something like that. None of that surprised me and it got me thinking about how much we don't think about how much work we're going to have to do. Because, honestly, if so many of us knew how much work we were going to have to do, no matter how we're published, whether we have a publishing house or we're with a hybrid house or we're self-published I don't know how many authors would actually go through with the book writing process. I think a lot would to be clear because, at the end of the day, as many authors will tell you, I just need to tell the story or I need to write the story. I need to share the message, whatever it is. It's not about the money. But let's be honest. I don't think too many people would be unhappy if they got to do what they loved for a living full time or more than part time, or at least I mean, if you don't need the money, receive the money and donate it somewhere or something. I don't think people would actively just be like no, I don't keep your money, I like eggs or it's fine, I'm fine with the price of eggs.

Speaker 1: 4:09

And one of the things that I really like to do is have creative conversations around ways that authors can promote their book without having to spend a fortune, make themselves wildly uncomfortable, do things that are just completely outside the norm of what is typical or comfortable for them, and or feel like they have to get this thing to a certain level in 7.2 days. So today I'm going to give you a bunch of ideas that I've either tried or that author friends of mine have tried, or people I've worked with have tried, that are a little bit different from the normal stuff that you'll read about, like post three times on social media or organize a book tour, like things that just feel like a lot, and also you can get those suggestions anywhere. So I wanted to come up with some things that felt a little bit more. A unique, b, simple Like, truly Like, does not take a lot of brain power. And three are extremely low cost, if not completely free, because, look, if we blow through the whole budget in the first I don't know three weeks of a book launch and then we flatline. Now what do we do? I do want to give a shout out to a new book that is on the market that I absolutely loved. And full disclosure I edited it. It's titled Do you See Me Now? By A Marini, and I will put the link to the book in the notes.

Speaker 1: 5:33

If you are a woman who is kind of trying to figure out in your life what comes next, it is a novel, it's not memoir, it's not Amerini's story. But if you are a woman who's trying to figure out what comes next in your life, you're maybe at a bit of a crossroads or a plateau or a pivoting point. You're in what I guess we could call midlife. I'm quite confident you will really, really enjoy this book. It follows the journey of a young woman who kind of wonders if one weekend away just one weekend away, I mean, are you relating already? Could help her figure out what comes next, after thinking and thinking and thinking for months, if not years. What am I doing? Where am I going? What comes next? Can just one weekend away change all that? And then it of course follows the journey of that weekend away and what transpires therein.

Speaker 1: 6:22

I found the writing to be quite beautiful, really compelling, and it gave me a lot of things to think about. So if you're looking for a fun, easy read meaning it's not heavy, it's not going to make you question all your life choices, anything of that nature I encourage you to grab a copy Do you See Me Now? By A Marini. Again, it is in the episode notes and it's available everywhere. Books are sold, all right, so let's dive into this thing.

Speaker 1: 6:47

First of all, I want to mention that a lot of people ask myself and I hear it a lot in author I don't want to say forums, but when authors are having conversations, a lot of conversation, do? I hear it a lot in author I don't want to say forums, but when authors are having conversations, a lot of conversation do I need to hire a publicist? Or I want to get on podcasts because that feels fun and I don't necessarily have to be visible. Some podcasts, or a lot of podcasts, actually are audio only. So how do I get on those podcasts? And I do actually have a walkthrough for this.

Speaker 1: 7:15

My email templates for reaching out to podcast hosts and how to make those connections is all included. All of that is included. As a podcast host receive no fewer than five emails each week that I don't even get through the first paragraph of, because it says something like. I got one the other day and I shared it to my stories that said dear and then it had brackets first name. I've gotten emails before that say dear, brackets, insert first name here, end bracket.

Speaker 1: 8:03

I've gotten a number of emails where it's clear that the person who's been hired to you know submit their client to podcasts, has absolutely no idea what the podcast is about. So when they send me this very lengthy which is the first red flag email proposing their client with, first is a laundry list of who the client is and why their expertise is valuable, but then oftentimes it'll include options for things we can talk about on the podcast, which on the one hand I appreciate but on the other hand, clues me in right away that the person hasn't listened to my podcast because my podcasts we just go with conversation, so I don't I don't need proposed talking points, but when your proposed talking point is, you know how this individual made 95 figures in three months by teaching people how to use some completely secretive software like that is not the type of thing that I don't even care about, let alone talk about, on my podcast, and yet I get those all the time and the thing that makes me most sad about it is that I'm not finishing them, I'm certainly not responding, and I know that a lot of these individuals are charging a lot of money to their clients for supposedly reaching out and getting them booked on podcasts, and I'm not sure how much success they're having. But it's not that difficult to get yourself. I mean, if you want to get on some of the you know the top 10 podcasts on Apple podcast, that's probably going to be a bit of a challenge, but that's not even necessarily where your audience is. So the first thing I want to say is don't feel like you have to hire someone who claims to have a bunch of connections with big podcast hosts, because, frankly, the podcast guests I book the most quickly are the ones who just continue to come from publicists with whom I've already built relationships. So I know that they know whether or not my podcast is a good fit for their author and they send me really brief emails and I'm just like here's the link book them. So that's how simple some of this can be.

Speaker 1: 11:01

But I wanted to let's jump into some budget-friendly kind of simple, fun ideas that both traditional and indie authors can utilize to help get the word out, to help keep their motivation up, to help keep word spreading. The first one this is something I really love doing. You know those free little libraries. So there are services that you can hire to and I'm not proposing that you do that, by the way but there are services that you can hire to distribute your book to little libraries all over certain cities or states or regions or whatever. You can also do it yourself.

Speaker 1: 11:39

I was on a walk the other day and it just so happens that there's a free little library on the block next to me where I live and I saw it and I walked over and I looked at the books in it and I grabbed a novel that I was excited about. I'd never heard of the author. It was a best-selling novel. I felt real excited about it and then I thought you know what I could put my books in here? So I came home and I got a couple of copies of my books like books two, three and four or whatever and I went over and I put them in. And I get really excited when I walk by and my books aren't there anymore because it makes me feel like I'm assuming someone took one and hopefully read it.

Speaker 1: 12:11

I also have in my neighborhood that we have like a gym, like a health club, health care, whatever you want to call it like a fitness facility, thank you. And there's a huge take one give one library right when you walk in the door of the facility, and so I've stuck copies of my books there and this led me and several other authors with whom I speak frequently to think about well, how else could we do this? So several of us, whenever we travel, we leave books with little index cards or a little note paperclip to the front that say you know, if you found this, you're meant to have it. Take it, it's free type thing. I leave those at empty gates at the airport. I've left them at my hair salon. There is a pretty well-known author in the self-help space who lives in Phoenix, who's known to do huge drops like that at big parks in downtown Phoenix. She'll go and leave like 30 books and then she'll in all different places in the park and then she'll post out on social media book drop happening today at such and such park. You know, good luck to you and you know people go over there and they find a book and they're super happy. You can leave them in doctor's offices.

Speaker 1: 13:19

My first book, which was for new parents of newborn twins, I was known for leaving in my obstetrician's office. They gave me permission to do that. I just put them out on the you know, the main table. They kept disappearing, which wasn't great. My obstetrician didn't think that was great, I thought it was fantastic. I mean, even though we put a sign on the front of it that actually said, like office copy, people were taking it. I just kept putting them back there. It's fine, because we have to think a little bit longer term with it. Yes, they were getting the book for free, but then they're sitting somewhere reading it and someone else sees it or they tell a friend, oh, I'm reading this book, it's great, go buy it. And then somebody goes and buys it. So sometimes we just have to seed S-E-E-D the pipeline a little bit and it's easy. It's far less expensive to do that with a book that costs you approximately $4 to print than it is to hire a publicist who charges, you know, $4,000 a month on a three-month minimum retainer. Another fun thing to do with that if you want, is when you say on your little card like share it, this book is free.

Speaker 1: 14:20

If you found it, you can say you know, let me know. If you're the one who found it, share it to your stories. And when hashtags were big, it's my understanding, they're kind of not, as I don't know, helpful anymore, but like drop, you know, tag me. And then it starts circulating via social media. And by circulating I don't mean it goes viral, but we're not necessarily looking for anything to go viral. It's just is it reaching the audience? And if someone picked up your book, in all likelihood some of the people that they're friends with or who follow them on social media are into the same thing. So it would stand to reason that if they post, oh, I found this today and someone you know, and they put a link to the book on whatever platform they want to put a link to, and then you know, maybe you sell some books or at least you drive some awareness and you have an opportunity to talk about it more than just saying hi, it's me again. Has anyone bought my book?

Speaker 1: 15:08

Now the next thing and I've seen people do this too, but this does take a little more effort, I'll be honest, is like a book, like a scavenger hunt, right? So you leave clues in different places or by different places I mean social media so you might put on your stories. You know, scavenger hunt, book drop, happening today, it's at I don't know and you leave a clue. I'm not creative enough right now to think about something, but this works really well when you leave more than just the book. Like, maybe you leave a book and something that goes with the book, like, for example, with new parents, maybe you're leaving a Starbucks gift card or a bag of coffee or I don't even know. But the point is you can partner up with other people, like other people locally who have a similar market to you, and you guys can all kind of do this together. There's some, there's some weird thing that goes on on TikTok and I only know this about this from my kids but where there's a guy and he drops like $500 somewhere every day and he leaves clues on TikTok and then literally within seven seconds of him dropping the clue, somebody's there and they find the $500 and that's just it. They get $500. So it's kind of that, but with less frantic chaos.

Speaker 1: 16:23

Okay, another idea is bookmarks. I've seen so many people do this smartly. So you can print bookmarks fairly inexpensively and you can have your book cover on there. You can have a compelling tagline, you can have a QR code that links to a free sample, like the beginning of the book, or to a purchase page, whether it's on Amazon or bookshoporg or barnesandnoblecom or wherever you want to send them. And sometimes what people will do and I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, by the way but they'll slip them into other similar books. Now, I wouldn't necessarily do that because, as an author, if another author did that to me, I wouldn't feel great about it. But what you could do is slip it into the section of certain other books, so you could leave it at the fantasy section in Target or in Barnes Noble or wherever, or you can just give them away with your books, or you can give them to people at places who are reading Like, hey, do you need a bookmark? My book just came out. Here's a free bookmark and they can do with it what they want. But as someone who uses scrap pieces of paper sometimes as bookmarks, I am always thrilled to receive a cool bookmark.

Speaker 1: 17:31

Another great idea is to leave your books, places where people are spending time waiting. So I've already talked about empty gates at airports, I've talked about hair salons. But think about other places where people have to wait a while Again doctor's offices, labs, and just you could put a cute note on them that says need something to read while you wait? Like, here you go, it's free, hope you enjoy it and maybe have a bookmark in there. Okay, now this next one requires being a little bit more comfortable, but that's like. Some of you are already there and some of you are willing to get there.

Speaker 1: 18:07

Go into, for example, a local coffee shop and I'm not talking about Starbucks, nothing corporate, necessarily, they won't necessarily be able to give you this kind of permission but like a local coffee shop, a tea shop, a store, something like that and develop a relationship like introduce yourself to the store owner probably not a bookshop, by the way, not a bookstore but ask them if they'd be okay if you left your book, even one copy, on a table or on a bookshelf for a week. A lot of independent bookstores, believe it or not not bookstores, sorry, a lot of independent coffee shops, believe it or not have little, almost like mini free libraries. So you're not asking them if they'd sell it for you? You're, literally, this is what I did at my hair salon. I just asked them can I leave this with all the hair products? You guys, I was so afraid that no one would take it, but someone did and she actually emailed me and she was so excited to have found it. Charlotte, I am talking about you and I'm waiting for you to reply to my last email. So if you're listening, where are you? But they were like that's totally fine, like just leave it there for a week and if nobody takes it, we'll let you know and you can come pick it up or whatever, but just leave it there. I wasn't asking them to sell it for me. I wasn't asking them for anything in return, it was just you know, can I leave this here as reading material? People have been bringing in their own magazines, magazines and scratching their names off on the address label into hair salons since forever. This is no different. You're just saying can I supply your customers with something fun to read whilst they get their highlights?

Speaker 1: 19:33

Another place you could and this may be a little risky, but I don't know, but I've heard of people doing this is leaving your book in the bathrooms at the airport, like, just leave it right on the counter or get a sticker like that has a QR code and a fun tagline and maybe a fun image, like let people know what the heck it is and I might get in trouble for saying this but put it on the mirror in the bathroom at the airport. Or at a restaurant, like if you go into the restaurant's bathroom and they have a really nice bathroom, you could put a sticker on the mirror. Are they going to take it off? Possibly you could leave a sticker on the mirror. Are they going to take it off? Possibly you could leave a book in the stall. This sounds gross, but you could leave a book on the counter where people would wash their hands again with just a fun note, and the thing that makes that easy is that no one's seeing you do it. So if you're low on the comfort scale with this sort of thing, it's a great place to start. You can even have your friend go in and leave it in there for you if you don't want to be the one actually leaving it. Or leave it on a bench if you have an outdoor shopping center or an indoor like a mall and there are empty benches. You could just leave it there. Just leave it with a note attached to the front so that someone doesn't just think, oh, somebody accidentally left their book here and they're coming back for it. Leave it in the back seat of an Uber. If you take Uber or Lyft or something like that with any level of frequency, leave a copy in the back. Hey, this is for you to read on your way to the airport, or at the airport, or on your way to the club or I don't know wherever people go these days. Leave them in your hotel room.

Speaker 1: 21:00

I have done this many times. There's a very high-end resort that I went to with my girlfriend, erin Thorburn, who runs Best of the Southwest, which is a travel content creation company. I'm probably not saying that, right, she is not an influencer people, she is a content creator and she features all kinds of amazing destinations, restaurants and experiences in the Southwest. And she was invited, and I was so grateful that she took me with her to this incredible resort on the Arizona-Utah border that I don't think we could possibly figure out how to afford if we put all of our pennies and all the pennies on the street together that we could ever find. And there was a bookcase in the middle of the restaurant and I just very quietly stuck two copies of my latest book because that's all I had with me in that bookcase.

Speaker 1: 21:56

Like travel with your books, you don't have to travel with a suitcase full of books, but I always have maybe I don't know between one and five copies with me, no matter where I go. And I find somewhere to leave them. Leave them in the locker room, at your gym, on the bench, on a counter, by the mirror. Put a sticker on the mirror, leave booked. There are so many different things you can do if you don't want to be seen. That cost so much less than hiring a publicist Joes.

Speaker 1: 22:31

So I put a note on the front of it and this was not comfortable for me, by the way, because I'm pretty sure it was a Saturday and Trader Joe's was absolutely packed. But I remember it was right before fall. It was during fall, it was kind of leading up to Halloween, so they had all their pumpkins and their gourds and things outside and when someone wasn't looking, I stuck a copy of the book right on top of a pumpkin and it just there was the note right there. To this day. I don't know if anyone took it. I don't know if someone from Trader Joe's saw it and thought what the hell? And threw it away. I have absolutely no idea, but I tried it, why not? I didn't leave it in the store. I'm a little bit lower on the end of the spectrum of that. I'm getting better. But I just kind of think about hey, if this were my store because I know Trader Joe's is corporate, but still, if this were my store would I be a little bit miffed if someone were just leaving their stuff in here without asking? I mean, I might be, but public benches, public spaces, locker rooms, you know all those sorts of things are. It's just like your own kind of billboard, but you're not paying for a billboard.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Now, when it comes to social media, people are often extremely confused or overwhelmed, because it's like well, what else can I post? I'm telling you, while I don't believe in chat GPT for writing books and I don't for coming up with creative ideas that you can then tweak to be more like you, it is brilliant. So if you just go out into chat GPT and say I am a romance author, I have written a book about such and such, the setting is such and such, can you give me 10 creative ideas for three reels, three carousel posts and four static posts that I could post to my social media? That would help build my follower account or my follower count. My ideal reader is this type of person. You know what kind of ideas do you have, and it's going to spit out 10 ideas and you're probably going to like three of them, maybe four, and you might want to hone. You will want to hone those, by the way. You want everything to sound like you, but it at least gets your creativity flowing, so you're not just sitting there staring at a blank page, even though it's not literally a blank page. It's a blank page when it comes to social media.

Speaker 1: 24:47

Now, another one when it comes to coffee shop. Okay, I've done this. One too is if you go through the drive-through of a coffee shop, leave your book with the barista and ask them now this is where you got to have some trust right To give it to either the next person in line or give it to whoever they think would best enjoy it Like, hey, can I give you this? And when someone drives through who you think might like this, would you be willing to give it to them. Four out of 10 baristas are going to be like hell, no, three are going to look at you sideways, but three are going to be like yes, it's like when you drive through and you say I'd like to pay for the person behind me. Not everyone thinks that's fun, like some baristas are like oh my God, now I have to tally your order and the person behind you and blah, blah, blah. But some people think it's the nicest thing ever. So I have absolutely given my book with a little note in a drive-thru. It doesn't have to be Starbucks, it can be In-N-Out, it can be Chick-fil-A, it doesn't even matter. Like, if your book, if it makes sense. I mean, if you've written a book about cryptocurrency, maybe that doesn't make sense because your author or your audience is a little bit more specific. But if you've written fiction, if you've written self-help, if you've written more general nonfiction, it can work really, really well.

Speaker 1: 25:56

One option that one of the authors I work with, mary Bell, has done multiple times and it works brilliantly is she partners with themed restaurants in the area. So her book is a romance set in Italy. So she will partner with Italian restaurants in the area, typically privately owned Italian restaurants or family owned, and they'll have a little event and she'll have all the catering you know. She'll buy their food and have it all available. And then she sets up shop like in the corner or outside or whatever, and has little Aperol spritzes and finger foods and things like that that the restaurant has created for her and she's also selling books and apparel and bags and all the other things that she has that are co-branded with her books. So this is just a smattering and I hope at least one of them kind of made you think oh, I could do that, because again, we can always have books with us and we don't have to have boxes or pallets of books with us.

Speaker 1: 26:59

This doesn't require a mass outflux I think that's a word of books at one time. It doesn't require a massive upfront investment either. It's just kind of like where can I leave a book today that might intrigue someone who has no idea who I am and will be glad to have found me in this book? And with that I'm going to put more books over in the free little library down the street because frankly, that's just fun. Let me know what kind of creative book marketing strategies you've employed.

Speaker 1: 27:35

Email me please at elizabeth at elizabethlyonscom. I will absolutely give you credit for them on another episode, or you can DM me on Instagram at elizabethlyonsauthor. This is how we all get out of a creative rut is just sharing new ideas and then receiving the ones that feel like they'll work for us, implementing them, seeing how it goes, seeing how it feels and moving on to the next. With that, I'll talk with you again in another episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, this is your friendly reminder to follow or subscribe, leave a quick review and share it with someone you know has a great story or message but isn't sure what to do next. Also, remember to check out publishaprofitablebookcom for book writing resources and tips and to see all the ways we can work together to get your book out into the world. Again, thanks so much for listening and I'll talk with you again soon.