When creating a book, whether it is in the graphic novel, humor, fiction, memoir, professional development, social science or cultural studies genres, one thing that you must consider is the demographics. While your book can be of interest to anyone, knowing and understanding your market is important. In my previous article, What Makes a Great Story? you learned how to create and develop quality characters.

Here is an overview of the four steps to make that happen:

1.     Make the characters realistic. You can start out by modeling your characters after someone that you know or by using a hybrid of several different people.

2.     Get the reader’s attention. Make your characters so compelling that the reader wants to tell others about it.

3.     Develop characters of quality. Your characters set the stage.

4.     Make your characters relatable. Do your characters make the reader stop and think? Feel a connection? Or develop a negative reaction against the villain?

Remember, as you begin to develop your story, the characters help to carry and stimulate the story. Now let’s walk through the steps on the best practices in marketing your story. While there are so many great ways to market your work from radio and TV spots, social media and advertisements to word-of-mouth, one inexpensive way to consider is to create a press release.

If you perform a thorough research, you will see that there are several authors that use press releases to provide exposure for their latest work. The press releases are usually created by the publishing house, whether the work is self-published or through a major publishing house to provide book exposure. To gain the maximum exposure for your latest release, let’s explore some of the best practices for creating a press release:

Begin with an engaging press release title. If you were in the shoes of the media, what type of title would grab your attention? Tell it in less than 120 characters.

Create a compelling summary about the book. What do you want the media or the reader to know about the book? This is when you sell it in less than 400 characters.

When choosing a date and time for the release to be distributed, chose mid-week and not hourly, for example, Wednesday, September 15 at 10:20.

Now in the body of the press release, tell us what we need to know about your book. Just like a resume, provide some great content, but do not reveal too much.  The information that you provide should make us want to know more. Depending upon the company, there may be a word limitation so choose your words.

Then, lastly, tell the location of the event, contact person, industry and the book category or distribution channel. This is your last ditch selling effort.

There are several press release companies to choose, from those charging a fee to free. It all depends upon your budget and the desired results. You can still gain great momentum by utilizing a free service company. If you are interested in learning about how to maximize the various social media platforms to gain exposure for your book, read Getting High on Social Media. In this article, you will learn how social media can benefit you as an author.