On the advice of Candace Salima (see comments on this post; thanks, Candace), I checked out Chip MacGregor’s blog. Hadn’t seen him before. Interesting guy. Has lots of good tips.
I read a few posts, and found this one talking about marketing. That’s been a frequent question around here, so I suggest you go read it. I agree with pretty much everything, except the cost of review copies. In a small market like ours, with small print runs, most books cost more than $1.00 per copy. Other than that, I liked what he had to say–especially encouragement toward internet marketing.
[If the link to that post doesn’t work, go here and look for the Sept 13, 2007 post titled “How to Market Your Book and Lose Lots of Money.”
So what is your take on review copies? It seemes to me that even if they cost $5, that is pretty cheap for a review that sells even ten or twenty books.
I think review copies are a great form of marketing–as long as they’re placed efficiently. For example, I’m not sending a review copy to a blogger who only gets three hits a day.
Also, I limit review copies to 5-10% of the initial print run.