How creative are you? Obviously, you are a little creative since you wrote a book, but do you have any other creative outlets? Like photography, Photoshop, painting, sewing, etc. If you are creative you can find so many more ways to get the word out there about your book, besides using the basic social media sites.

The camera is a great tool to use, and you don’t need anything fancy, even the camera on your tablet or phone would work. You can take a lot of photos of your book then post it on the sites. Not just the basic ones like Instagram, but you can use Flickr, Tumblr, Snapchat and Weheartit (similar to Pinterest). I thinking using the #bookstagram works for those.

You can use those photos to make products, such as mugs, t-shirts, journals, bookmarks, to name a few of the popular items. The more creative products you can make the better. Fans love to buy personalized items that their favorite author made. Better yet, you can have a contest on your website for a free product to generate a lot of views for your product and to see what they’d be interested in.

If you know how to sew or paint, that is even better. You can make quilts or paint pictures that deal with your book. Etsy would be the best place to sell those, but even your website, Shopify or Amazon would work too. Make sure to read the rules first. Again, there are lots of things you can make with a thread and needle or paint.

Since you are good at writing, maybe you can make a journal or cookbook. Make recipes that fit with your book. For instance, in Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, Stephanie’s nickname is Cupcakes so a cupcake cookbook would be perfect. You can sell it on Etsy, Amazon and many other bookstores. You can make an ebook as well as printed ones.

You can also use Photoshop and Word to make newsletters and magazines to sell your products and books. It would be another incentive for people to join your website.

Also, make sure to save the products; you can give or sell them when you do your book signings. Your fans would love gift bags with small items like bookmarks, they would tell all their friends what they got at the book signing.

So, as you can see, there are so many more ways to get the word out about your book. Selling items on the websites is great, especially if you are an introvert or have social anxiety. I’m sure there are many other places you can sell your products, like a bookstore or a booth in a book fair. The more you can think outside the box the better. You want to be unique; that will make you stand out and it will make it easier for your fans to remember you and help you promote your book. They will be awed by your creativity and talk about it with their friends or book clubs. The main thing is to have fun; promoting can be hard work, but sometimes it can be fun too.