Promote Your Book with LibraryThing.com

Been discussing self-promotion on the blog and realized that I hadn't mentioned anything about LibraryThing, a social network for book lovers (much like Goodreads) which has around 1.2 million subscribers vs. around 5 million subscribers at Goodreads.com (love the customizable author profiles there). I've played around with LibraryThing (i.e. "LT") in the past but only recently signed up for an actual J.J. Hebert member profile, followed by my author page. Simply visit http://www.librarything.com and sign up for an account. Then, if you're an author, search the site for your book(s) and click on your name. That click should bring you to your unclaimed author page. Look at the right sidebar--click "Is this you?" to claim your author page. Once you've done all of that, take advantage of LT's amazing giveaway feature...one of the reasons I finally decided to register as J.J. Hebert...

LT, unlike Goodreads, allows authors to post eBook member giveaways. In other words, as an author you can offer your eBook to readers in exchange for reviews! You can provide as many free copies (i.e. "downloads") to the LT community as you want. You'll just be responsible for contacting the winners with a way to download the eBook for free. You could email each winner with the eBook attached (e.g. PDF) or point the winners to a download link or supply them with a coupon for 100% off...

Why give away your book for free? Like any new product, it's important to get your book into as many hands as possible early on. You're probably not a brand-name author at this point, so giving away free copies gets your name out there and helps with word of mouth. I've done three separate giveaways at Goodreads for my book Unconventional, but I was forced to give away paperbacks, which cost money to print and ship to the winners. I believe I only provided six copies total during those three giveaways at Goodreads because of the costs. That means only six winners read my book for free and then posted reviews. At LT, I've seen authors offer two hundred free eBook downloads in exchange for reviews, and the authors didn't have to pay a dime to print or ship those books! (You can also submit physical copies of your book(s) in the giveaways at LT)

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