I thought that libraries would be the slam dunk for selling Ecofrugal Baby and getting it out to all the budget-minded new parents who need to know how to save 70% off baby’s first year. But when I started emailing libraries and telling them about my book, I commonly was told that the library I had emailed only buys books recommended by Book List or the [fill in the blank] Library Association, which in turn only recommend books submitted to them 15 weeks before publication. This means I need to set up a third edition of the book to go out 15 weeks after I get some high-profile trade reviews, but the prospect of doing all that work just to get libraries to buy one or two copies each left me drained of energy. Maybe libraries will be a big part of this book’s success after all, but to keep my momentum going and meet my sales goals this month, I decided to change tacks.

I also just received a letter from Barnes & Noble saying that they never order copies of self-published books for their stores unless the books are already a sales success–unless I contract with their own print-on-demand publishing company. Blah. I may look into that option, too, but it just reinforced the idea that I need to invest in my own loyal blog fans and the people already supporting me to get this books out to new parents across the U.S. and Canada.

And so, I decided to start my own grass roots word of mouth marketing campaign, offering a free copy of the book to several dozen of my most loyal followers on 29Diapers.com and asking them to take part in this WOM campaign to help me get the word out. I know better than most that ordinary people, moms in particular, have tremendous power as brand ambassadors: otherwise, none of the companies who sponsor giveaways on my blog would want to give away free product for PR. And really, all I’m doing is trying to get information out to other parents like me who need it, so I think it is other parents who need to carry the message for me. Fingers crossed! This is new for me (like everything I’m doing lately!) so I just hope that if there is some tipping point of getting the book into the hands of a certain number of people in order to start a fire that won’t fizzle out, I have reached that invisible point. I’ll be back later with updates on how this works. Stay tuned!

Learning something new every day,

Laura