Guest post: *Half* the people who see this DIY promo go on to preorder my book

Bestselling author Jo Piazza on guerrilla marketing her splashy #tradwife thriller (+ a giveaway!)

That’s right, it’s a guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m introducing into the mix brilliant, from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. Enjoy! –Andi

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I walk up to strangers reading thrillers in the airport and ask them if they’re looking for their next great read. If they say yes, with a look of confusion or perhaps irritation on their face, I tell them I’m an author and I have a juicy murder mystery coming out in July that they will LOVE. Then I hand them a flyer with a QR code. Friends, at least half of those people order my book.

When I was launching my last book The Sicilian Inheritance out into the world, I realized that I needed to go about marketing differently than I had in the past. Fewer and fewer outlets cover books and frankly there are just too many books to choose from in addition to TikToks to watch and Instagram reels to scroll and nineteen new reality television shows about naked people finding love in a vat of slime in the woods. If I wanted my book to compete with all those things I had to make it happen.

I’ve been covering influencers for the past five years and I decided to take some pages from their playbooks and market myself without guilt or shame. Because the truth is that I’m selling a product that I love. And more importantly - If I didn’t do this myself, no one else will hustle as hard.

With my book Everyone is Lying to You that comes out this week, I have gone full guerrilla. To kick it off, my husband bought and installed a decal for our Subaru with a QR code for $60 from Signs.com. It’s as ridiculous as it is magnificent and I’ve already spotted people scanning it while it sits parked on the street.

Because you know what, I have hired a plumber after reading their number off the side of a truck when I was in traffic on 95. Imagine being told about your next great read while you’re just hanging in the passenger seat fiddling with the air conditioner.

And guess what. It also works. We track the code and every time I take that car out people buy books. I print flyers too and hang them up wherever people hang flyers: coffee shops, grocery stores, my husband even figured out they slip nicely into the ad racks on the bus. I also tape them to the back of the stall in porta potties at beer gardens and rock concerts.

This is our local grocery store.

These days I pretty much go where the eyeballs are.

All of this is about finding readers (and potentially people who want to be readers) where they are, and trying to do so efficiently and without spending a fortune (blimp ads were next on my list but too pricey). Still considering one of those airplane banners down the Jersey Shore though.

It sucks that there is less book coverage than ever. But where are people seeing things they want to buy? Mostly social media. So I spend a lot of time posting there and making relationships with awesome content creators. And because my book is a twisty turny tradwife mystery I spend a lot of time on social media wearing nap dresses and holding chickens.

The catch to all of this is you have to put in the time. Walking around the neighborhood posting flyers, convincing your friends to post flyers in their windows, making sure you’re not doing anything too un-kosher can take ages, but if you believe in your book and you want to find the readers who want to find you (but might not know how) it is absolutely worth it.

Giveaway!

Jo will send a signed copy of Everyone Is Lying to You to one lucky paid subscriber! (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states.)

The #tradwife murder mystery we’ve all been waiting for. From the bestselling author of The Sicilian Inheritance and the creator of the Under the Influence podcast comes an explosive thriller about two estranged friends, a grisly murder, a sudden disappearance, and the truly shocking revelation that everyone is lying to you about something . . .

To enter, comment with the marketing gimmick (book-related or not) you’ve encountered that lives rent-free in your head. A jingle you’re still singing decades later? A marketing stunt that sucked you in before you realized it was fake? Let’s hear it!