When promoting your book, you always should have a website, send out press releases to bloggers and mainstream media, and arrange book readings/signings to ensure the title is properly promoted. But those aren’t the only things you can do. In fact, they may not be enough. One marketing effort you might want to consider is creating a book club guide.

Often avid readers who enjoy discussing books form or join book clubs. You could create a guide to your book and distribute it for free to book clubs in hopes that they opt to read your title (which means their members then will buy your book). This works especially well for novels. Your guide largely will be sets of open-ended questions intended to generate conversations about the book. You’ll likely want to ask questions about characters, the writing style, the message, and possibly the setting. Read other book club guides and emulate the aspects you find most relevant.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.