A to Z Challenge - Day 16: P is for Patrol!

I'm participating the this crazy challenge on 2 of my blogs. This one and Paranormal Lounge. The A to Z Challenge is a blogging event that takes place every April. The challenge is to write a post for each letter of the alphabet and post nearly every day during April, omitting Sundays.

My theme for this challenge is: Marketing is like war. I'm going to try to stick to that theme as much as possible, but I may have to deviate. P is for Patrol!

When preparing to market your book, you need to first gather information and patrol sites that might help you out.

When you're on patrol, you're on the lookout. You need to watch for trends, lists, things that might hurt your business and things that might help your business. Build a report of sorts to help you identify different websites or marketing tools.

You also need to watch out for scams. If someone wants you to pay for a review of your book. Don't do it. Just think about if a potential reader found out that you are paying for reviews. How will that look on you?

Before signing up for a paid service you need to ask yourself this question: Will this service pay for itself by selling enough books to cover it AND make a profit for me? If the answer is no, then don't do it. I've gotten away without using a paid service so far. That's with the exception of a few paid ads.

If there is a paid service you are thinking about, ask yourself this other question: Is this something I can do myself? If so, ask yourself this: Do I have the time to do this myself? I thin you know where I'm going here.

As for scams, there are plenty out there. There are website who claim to be able to get reviews on a book, yet when I look up one of their clients on Amazon they have no more reviews than I do. Don't pay for a service like that when there are huge lists of reviewers and contact info to be found easily on the internet. I believe there is even a book on kindle that is just a huge list of reviewers and it's only $.99. Can't think of the name though.

So, stay on the lookout for anything beneficial or suspicious and if you are unsure which category a service falls into, ask a friend, or ask me. I'm pretty good at sorting through all the . . . you know.