Authors Need to Advertise !

In addition to all the other work authors do, such as maintain writer  blogs/pages, tweet on twitter, interact on Goodreads, and keep an eye on trends and what’s selling, we also need to advertise ourselves; especially Indie authors!  If you’re working with a publisher who is putting out the word for you, that’s great. Here’s another possible advertising idea for all authors, though some of you are likely using this already.

I needed to advertise some kittens we have available to new homes, and I thought I should put up an ad for my short story, The Everlasting Spell while I was at it.

I’ve started with Kijiji in my local area here in Ontario, Canada.  I really like Kijiji because they’re a simple-to-use platform, and it only takes minutes to post. Best of all, they’re Free!  You can post an image of your book cover, and any other visuals you’d like to put alongside.  For an additional fee ($5.00/month where I am), you can place a link to your website.  Kijiji is available in Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, and Taiwan according to Wikipedia as of Oct 2014.  You can only post in your local home town area, but it could be worth it to find new readers.

Then I wondered about other free internet classifieds sites, and found another good one, Locanto. They are also free, and are available in more than 50 countries. You can pay for upgrades of course to increase visibility for your ad.  One online classifieds I wouldn’t recommend is adpost.com.  They are riddled with continuous ads of their own and I find the site quite junky.  You can also try Craigslist. I’ve heard good things about them, but lately a lot of complaints that people steal your emails, etc.

If you have more info or success stories, I'd love to hear about them in comments.