Your friends will learn to hate you for
this, but it is essential. Once the book is available, write a short press
release of your own and include a link to your website plus a link to your
book’s page on amazon etc.
Go through your address book and any old
address books you still have and create a list of email addresses of anyone
and everyone you have ever met. You won’t make any friends by doing this,
but the chances are people will be interested to learn that you have
published a book.
You can find people you have lost contact
with. Remember that old boss you always hated? Well the chances are the
person is still in the same job. Go to the institution’s website and search
for a staff list. What about that person you remember from such and such a
place? What about the people you have lost contact with? They can all be
found. I used to work with someone called “Ethel Smythe”, for instance.
Google the name with the quotation marks around it and check out the links
one by one. If you can’t find the person’s email address at work you can
often work it out. I used to work in City and Islington college in London.
Email addresses there are all @candi.ac.uk. find any address for an employee
on the site. If you an address such as
john.smith@candi.ac.uk, then the person I want is
ethel.smythe@candi.ac.uk.
When you have your list, use cut and paste
techniques to send an individually addressed email to each person to promote
your book. If they reply, take the time to reply again, but this time with a
short personal message. Ask them in your original message to disseminate the
email about the book to anyone they think might be interested.
