Kindle Advertising...

If anyone knows how to do this, please leave me a message... I have my own plans, but I'm not sure they amount to much and I honestly can't say that I've noticed the efforts by other authors, perhaps because I don't have a Kindle myself (those things cost $139!!!) I know, I know, I'm getting one. Just waiting for my bank account to catch a break.

Here's what I've seen so far from other authors:

1 - Hit and run visits to everyone's blog to say something like "That's so interesting! It's what happens in chapter seven of my new ebook "Mr. Perriwinkle's Twinkle and Whirligig He Drove In On" available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iBook..."

2 - Blog tours. Okay, I haven't actually seen this since the announcement of a blog tour leaves me a bit cold. It's one thing to flog your book on your own blog. That's (part of) what blogs are for. but to give essentially the same message at a variety of different spots seems somehow strange to me. Maybe I simply don't have the marketing mind...

3 - Postcard advertising (and other advertising) through CRIMESPREE. I can't claim to have taken close look at the insert ads, but I know they're there.

4 - Being befriended by Joe Konrath.

Here's what I have planned for myself this year:

1 - The postcard thing since I intend to go to a couple of conferences and I figure I might drop a hundred cards at those conferences.

2 - Maybe an ad at CRIMESPREE.

3 - Some sampling - either print up a sample page of each book or maybe do a youtube video of myself reading the first page. I really can't think of anything more electrifying that Steven Torres reading, but if I can inject some humor into it, that might get some interest, no?

4 - Well, I don't really have a fourth idea. Anyone have Joe Konrath's number?