Like many (often introverted) Inde authors I know, I loathe even the thought of self-promotion. Asking for bookstore time? Arrgh! My worst nightmare. A book tour? Laughable. Approaching a book club? No, I cannot afford to give you all free copies to read.

I spent an hour recently researching all the women’s independent bookstores who might be willing to take a few of my books on consignment. Those bookstores are a dying breed—sold out, turned over to new and different management, gone bankrupt, owners died, store closed, etc.

Several years ago, I pushed myself way past my comfort zone and did an interview with a local radio show host. I sounded inarticulate and “slow.”

After I exhausted my email contact list and a slew of Facebook “friends,” I had pretty well played my promotional hand.

Hometown Promotion

With desperation as the mother of invention, I stumbled upon a grass-roots option for being seen without being seen . . . or at least getting my books out there in the world without a personal appearance.

In my town, Santa Rosa, CA, we have these delightful little boxes with latched front windows that lift open to display up to ten books. The boxes are called Little Free Libraries, and they’re all over town. Their appearance is funded by some segment of the City government, connected with marketing and tourism. I’ve not been able to track down the person responsible for the assemblage or location choices.

Again, with book promotion not the highest thing on my mind, I’d been stopping by different “Libraries” to see what appears in various neighborhoods. I’ll take a book, read it, return it to a different location, enjoying the idea of circulating free books.

Then the light went on. Ha! (slap on forehead) I could use this to promote my books. If you’re an Inde author, you have a small collection of your books sitting boxed away in the closet or somewhere in case a book reading or signing opportunity hunts you down.

When you give away a promotional copy of your book, my tax lady reminded me, it can be written off as a business expense. Now, each book I write, I stick a copy, along with a bookmark of other books I’ve written, in any of the Little Free Libraries. I return in a day or two to check on them. They’re gone. Someone is reading them. Someone will return them and someone else will read them. Word may spread. They may order other books under my name.

Okay, so it’s not revolutionary and I’ll never get rich this way, but that’s not the point. It’s being a “hometown” girl they can read and identify with. It’s developing a reader base, one reader at a time. It’s getting my work out there without anxiety.